Canadian Music Industry Seeks Copy Tax On Memory Cards 265
An anonymous reader writes "The Canadian music industry's copyright collective is demanding
the creation of a new copying tax on all memory cards sold in
Canada. The Canadian Private Copying Collective has filed for a tax of
up to $3 per memory card to compensate for music copying on SD
cards. If approved, the tax could cost consumers millions of
dollars." Makes no less sense than the current levy exacted on blank CDs and audiotapes in Canada — and no more sense, either.
great idea (Score:5, Insightful)
so once you have paid the copy tax you are free to copy as much music as you like?
Greedy ****'s (Score:5, Insightful)
Just gotta get this out of my system... what a greedy bunch of ****suckers!
Ok, maybe some folks use SD cards to copy music, but the assumption that everyone's going to use them for that purpose is beyond stupid.
I own several SD cards and several CF cards and I've never ever put a single song or other piece of copyrighted work on any of them... well, ok, actually I have... I use them in my cameras to take pictures, so I put MY OWN copyrighted work on them.
I know obvious post is obvious, but these Canadian MPAA-Wannabees already get a tax on every blank CD and DVD sold in that country... I can't believe they were allowed to do that, and now they want more... Why don't they just tax brain cells since I might REMEMBER what one of their songs sounded like.
GARRHRRHHHH!!!!
In consumers and political minds, SD = Cameras (Score:2, Insightful)
The difference between approving a tax on CDs and a tax on memory cards will be the perception in the minds of those voting on it and in the minds of those who vote for the politicians.
CDs are perceived as music storage mediums, but SDs are perceived more as picture storage mediums.
Already it was a bad idea for a tax on CDs, but if the tax is applied to SD cards then it's an easy road to hard drives, cell phones with flash memory, thumbdrives and probably even Web hosting in general.
Google and Amazon won't have to get licenses for music storage, they'll be paying the tax anyways.
Makes even less sense (Score:5, Insightful)
The CD tax is senseless, but if grading on a curve, the memory cards makes even less sense.
At *least* burning music to CD represents a larger share of what is done with blank media, so that people can pop portions of their collection into their car cd player (and nowadays to a less extent in other cd players). Of course they penalize everyone 'just in case' and even in the case of burning music to CD there are plenty of fair-use sorts of applications ('mix tapes', burning legally purchased music, etc), which makes it absurd.
In the memory card situation, mostly I see them purchased for cameras, game consoles, and general sneakernet of data. There isn't a huge ecosystem of music players that take memory cards as the primary medium. Must music lives on an iPod or cellphone and arrives on other stereo systems by way of bluetooth, aux jacks, or iPod dock connection. Sure, there are things that take usb hard drives as sources and primarily play music, but I think that's such a vanishingly small use of even those specific units as to render any sense of entitlement beyond absurd.
if you can no longer compete (Score:5, Insightful)
Get legislation enacted to guarantee your revenue stream.
Re:The price we pay for sanity (Score:5, Insightful)
No, in Canada this is the price we pay for "culture" industries being protected and coddled from reality.
There is no connection between this and music copying, at all. It's a cash grab. SD cards have as much to do with pirating music as video cards do.
RIAA is stealing from independent artists... (Score:5, Insightful)
The same people who claim we are stealing from bands by downloading music, are getting paid by bands who didn't sign any agreement with the RIAA or any record labels. Now WHO is stealing from bands...?
What's next, bailouts for record labels...?
Re:great idea (Score:2, Insightful)
so once you have paid the copy tax you are free to copy as much music as you like?
No - there position is that this is to compensate for undetected copying - if they catch you, I'm sure they'll be willing to deduct the $3 from the $BAZZILLON_BUX_FOR_COCAINE_AND_HOOKERS that they'll try to get from you - and you can be sure that the artist will still end up getting the sharp end of the stick when it comes to apportioning that money.
Two advantages of this: (Score:4, Insightful)
So, presumably, by paying the tax, I can pirate as much music as I like! Excellent.
Second:
I've written and recorded a song. Where do I sign to get my share of the cash?
Re:great idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, that's how the MafiAA works.
They want a "tax" levied by the government, paid to them.
On top of it, they want it to be illegal to exercise the right that the tax is supposedly being paid for.
Not so different from the USA, where the DMCA and constant copyright "extensions" paid for by Disney bribing Congress have pretty much destroyed the idea of the public domain.