Canadians May Face 25% Download Tariff 615
C-Yo writes "While Canadians have battled against an iPod tariff for more than a
year, now comes news that Canada's copyright collectives are seeking a
tariff on iTunes as well. Professor
Michael Geist (who last
week dismantled music industry claims about peer-to-peer) reports
that one collective is demanding an incredible 25% of the gross revenue
of music download services as well as 15% of webcasters' gross revenue
and 10% of gamers gross revenue (free
version of report or Toronto
Star reg. version). When combined with other tariff
proposals, it would appear that Canada's collectives want to the kill
the download industry, demanding at least 40% of everything iTunes,
Napster, and other new services earn."
It isn't just downloads.... (Score:5, Informative)
industry" as much as they are still upset about the United States
failure to comply with the WTO ruling on the Byrd Amendment. In fact,
on March 31st of this year Canada put this out:
"The Government of Canada announced today that it will retaliate
against the United States in light of its failure to comply with the
World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling on the Byrd Amendment. Following
extensive consultations with domestic stakeholders, Canada will impose
a 15 percent surtax on U.S. live swine, cigarettes, oysters and
certain specialty fish, starting May 1, 2005"
Seems to me this download tariff is just another retaliation like the
above. It isn't just Canada either, several countries are upset that
the US has not complied.
For those that don't know, The Byrd amendment, passed by Congress four
years ago, provides that when foreign manufacturers are found to be
dumping goods in the U.S. market -- that is, selling at unfairly low
prices -- any anti-dumping duties that are imposed can be handed over
to the U.S. companies that brought the dumping case, rather than to
the Treasury. It has benefited U.S. firms in industries including
steel and pasta, with one of the largest beneficiaries being Timken
Co., an Ohio maker of bearings, which collected about $40 million last
year.
Canadian Petition for Users' Rights (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/ [digital-copyright.ca]
France has something similar... (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think this applies to me. (Score:5, Informative)
There's no incentive for us. We already pay a tax on our blank media, and downloading and uploading music are perfectly legal in Canada. Somehow I don't think that the online music companies are going to be shaking in their boots at all.
Re:That doesn't make any sense... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Oh Canada! (Score:3, Informative)
SOCAN doesn't think anything is fair unless they say it is.
SOCAN - these people would have the government tax air if they could, since it is capable of carrying copyrighted material - is proposing a totally unreasonable tariff in order to ensure that they still control the channels of distribution. Make no mistake, this is not about getting money - it's about making sure some garage band in Sarnia doesn't produce a CD quality track, release it via p2p and suddenly everyone realises they don't need the big content companies anymore.
That's what al the bluster is about.
Soko
Re:That doesn't make any sense... (Score:2, Informative)
The government is getting its cream out from this, at the very least charging the collectives for doing the work for them.
Re:Maybe NOT a 40% price increase? (Score:5, Informative)
Out of the $.99 they want $.40.
It is even more ridiculous in that at least in the US, $.70 on average already goes to the various copyright holders.
Re:Drinkin' the koolaid (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, there is a tariff on photocopiers and toner in Canada, with the proceeds going to rightsholders. And libraries have to keep complete logs send in part of their copy machine income to CanCopy [uwinnipeg.ca] as well.
I don't think the tariffs are high enough. There's no "punishment", and you don't help your argument by using such loaded language.
Re:France has something similar... (Score:5, Informative)
Yes! Re:So does this make downloading files legal? (Score:2, Informative)
Actually... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Anonymous Coward (Score:3, Informative)
Not by much these days! :(
I saw someone confuse the Canadian price of a video game recently as being just a slightly-high price of an American video game.
I miss the days of, "$100 Canadian? Izzn'at like t'ree-fi'ty US?"
Not going to happen (Score:5, Informative)
The government's already decided that the blank media tax more than pays for lost revenue from the artists, and I doubt very much that SOCAN et al. will ever be willing to give that up.
Re:Anonymous Coward (Score:3, Informative)
(As a note for Americans, a weak US dollar is actually GOOD for US exporters and may help to balance the US's trade deficits by making foreign goods more expensive and domestic goods cheaper).
Too easy to circumvent and go around this tariff (Score:2, Informative)
Nothing will stop this baby.
If you got Gentoo, simply do "emerge tor"
Enjoy all your P2P, bittorrent, and everything with perfect forward-secrecy.
Tarriff's compensate for non-purchase (Score:3, Informative)
So why should online be treated differently from regular purchases in this case? This money then gets sent off to the music industry.
-M
Re:It isn't just downloads.... (Score:2, Informative)
Except for the minor part about food shortages when the market stops working. The farmers will suffer as appropriate for their poor choices, but so will the rest of the populace who depends on these non-economically-smart farmers to get their food.
This is kinda like how government lowest-bid-only contracts are a bad idea. Sure, the system will reach equilibrium eventually, but the community can't afford to allow the natural process to occur.
Re:Drinkin' the koolaid (Score:3, Informative)
I've grown up in Germany, lived in the US, Netherlands and Switzerland and currently in Canada, and guess what: I have had the same experiences in all the countries. Only difference? In the US the first thing they did was take my Credit Card.
Wait times? Not that much worse in Canada than in other places. Granted, in the US I could have just gone and paid, but when I needed an MRI I would have to pay $700 in the US, I got it "free" in Canada. Wait time? 1 month.
Re:As a Canadian (Score:4, Informative)
Re:It isn't just downloads.... (Score:3, Informative)
Ohio still has large remnants of old labor-intensive commodity-based industries, such as steel and rubber, in the large cities like Cleveland and Akron, and so it's not surprising that Ohio would benefit from such a law.
Re:That doesn't make any sense... (Score:2, Informative)
And no, the government doesn't administer the program. Collection and enforcement is directly administered by the private collectives (e.g. http://cpcc.ca/english/collPayment.htm [cpcc.ca]).
This isn't to say the whole thing isn't completely ill-conceived and unjust. But Ottawa isn't getting rich off this.
Re:As if. (Score:4, Informative)
The Canadian Government does not make rulings. It passes laws.
Courts or tribunals make ruling.
The government on the other hand, merely votes and passes a law. The government is essentially free to completely ignore reality if it chooses to, and put anything a majority of MP's would support into law.
What the government puts into law has nothing to do with any kind of "ruling". It is just politics.
It is illegal to lobby the courts in Canada. (at least in any way the court would notice your lobbying).
This makes sense, because to lobby the court, suggests that the court's ruling would be based on external factors beyond the "law" and the "facts" of the case at hand. It is insulting to the Court to suggest that sign waving and yelling has any relevence to the case. If you have anything RELEVENT to say, you would be permitted to testify under oath just like all the other witnesses.
So, unless you want to get slapped with a contempt of court charge, I would restrict your act of "let the Canadian government know" to the actual Government. Which does not make rulings.
Re:For the clueless (Score:3, Informative)
What is Indymedia? Never heard of it.
Seriously, can you point to any large-scale flight to safety from US treasuries to other currencies or assets? It just isn't realistically happening.
No it's not. The logical chain of events that would precede that goes as follows:
1) Countries start accepting an alternative currency for oil, such as the euro. 2) Other countries start purchasing oil in those currencies where it's appropriate 3) Those countries no longer need to keep a reserve of USD, so they maintain it less as they become more comfortable in the new business relationship 4) As time progresses, more countries become a party to the new trading relationship and thus also become less motivated to trade for USD 5) As the number hoarding USD becomes less and less, there are fewer places to spend that currency. 6) The US dollars start coming home like so many bad cheques.
The last country that tried to accept non US currency for oil got bombed and invaded, so no, we're not seeing that happening.
Do you really think that some scheme cooked up by Chirac and Hussein to sell Iraqs meager oil output in Euros would have been likely?
Yes. If the US hadn't invaded, I would say it's pretty much a certainty that Iraq would take Euros instead of food, and that many european nations would take oil for Euros. Are you seriously suggesting that this wouldn't have occurred?
Are you actually suggesting that Saddam Hussein had a great beneficient financial program for the world?
No, I didn't attribute any altruistic motives to him at all.. I believe I referred to him as a brutal dictator. His motives aren't relevant.
Some sort of Baran-Wallerstein type theory of global immiserization is not "an accepted fact" as you claim, but actually widely discredited. Because post-war Germany and Japan, South Korea, Canada, all the greatest trading partners of the US are not 'exploited'. I'm sorry, you lose, move away from the table.
I disagree with that statement. And I don't see anything from you that backs it up. I know that up here in Canada we're contemplating how to effectively retaliate against the US for their crooked dealings across a multitude of industries ranging from lumber to cattle to power to water. This isn't something I pulled out of my ass, or Indymedia for that matter (whatever Indymedia is)
Look, I can tell that you're not going to be convinced by anything anyone says about this that doesn't fit your world-view, but I'm going to give a simple analogy for anyone who might stumble across this discussion. If you buy stuff from me, I prosper more than if you don't. If I am Germany, and I have stuff for sale then I am better off if people buy my stuff. If no one offers to buy it, then I have less money to spend on things I need. It would hurt me, as Germany a great deal if suddenly the US started trading with me less. OK, that's not too hard to understand.
Your analogy only holds true if the germans lack the capacity to repurpose their production. If you're making more cars than you have people to drive them, then yes, you need a trading partner or your screwed. But if you're an intelligent human being, you'll stop making more cars than you can sell and find something more useful to do. And considering that the US is operating at such a huge trade deficit, it follows that you're getting back much less from selling your cars than you're giving, so you're likely to see more returns by either finding another trading partner or keeping the fruit of your production within your own country. Given the choice between selling the fruits of my labour at a very low return and hopefully being able to buy the things I need or investing in my capacity to make those things myself, I know which I see greater value in.
Yes it would be good if Japan was also buying more Japanese goods and services and Germa
Re:I'd bet not (Score:2, Informative)
Are Quebecers FREE to publish something in a language other than french, without a french edition? Are they FREE to put non-french signs on their store fronts? Are they FREE to express themselves in a language other than french?
Quebec seems quite oppressive to me.
Re:For the clueless (Score:3, Informative)
I find that hard to believe, but I apologize for what some might consider an ad hominem attack. All attempts at humor aside.
No it's not. The logical chain of events that would precede that goes as follows:
1) Countries start accepting an alternative currency for oil, such as the euro. 2) Other countries start purchasing oil in those currencies where it's appropriate 3) Those countries no longer need to keep a reserve of USD, so they maintain it less as they become more comfortable in the new business relationship 4) As time progresses, more countries become a party to the new trading relationship and thus also become less motivated to trade for USD 5) As the number hoarding USD becomes less and less, there are fewer places to spend that currency. 6) The US dollars start coming home like so many bad cheques.
You're assuming that capital markets see the Euro as a safe currency to store capital in. I believe that many of the points I made earlier show why it's not, and why private capital markets and independent nations choose to purchase US treasuries at ridiculously low rates of return in preference to other sovereigns. It's one thing to focus on the currency that is used to purchase a certain commodity, but ignoring the massive preference for US treasuries is not good for your argument.
Basically your argument depends on a viable alternative currency. Not just among oil exporting nations (there isn't), but in global capital markets. The sad fact of the matter is that the euro area is not strong enough to offer an alternative currency. Save for Britain, northern Europe, and the nations that are liberalizing their economies in the east (the non-euro countries), Europe hasn't been doing so hot lately. The latest polls show France looks set to reject the EU constitution. The ECB has led Germany's economy to near ruin through it's inflexible policy of focussing on inflation targets and ignoring general economic growth and unemployment. The center-price economic policy of the euro-zone , the stability and growth pact, has all but been abandoned after several years of France and Germany completely violating it.
Hey, Europe is trying some interesting things, and no doubt, the whole continent has benefitted enormously from the EU's trade liberalization, harmonization of regulation, privatization, and anti-trust legislation. But you have to realize that we are in the very very early stages of this experiment. It hasn't proven its stability. Sovereign governments do not bet on a horizon of a few years when making investments in reserve currency, they bet on several decades. The euro has existed for 3 years. I really do hope that the world will develop more than one reliable currency some day, but there won't be any serious flight away from the dollar for a while. The plans of a brutal dictator notwithstanding.
The last country that tried to accept non US currency for oil got bombed and invaded, so no, we're not seeing that happening.
I'm not going to touch this other than to say that there are a lot of good, moral reasons, and legitimately humanitarian reasons for why the war was supported. You don't have to agree that those reasons were enough to cause a way, but it's disingenuous to pretend that there was a single point of causality in such a complex event.
Yes. If the US hadn't invaded, I would say it's pretty much a certainty that Iraq would take Euros instead of food, and that many european nations would take oil for Euros. Are you seriously suggesting that this wouldn't have occurred?
No, I didn't attribute any altruistic motives to him at all.. I believe I referred to him as a brutal dictator. His motives aren't relevant.
I wonder if you would have held your nose in disgust at the beneficiaries of this scheme if things had played out this way. You're suggesting that France (I'll single them out as the largest importer of Iraq oil, largest military s