Friday, December 12, 2003
Canadian Copyright Board Freezes Private Copying Levies for 2003 and 2004
Posted by Jason Dunn in "OFF-TOPIC" @ 10:02 AM
Almost two years ago, I posted an impassionate plea to my fellow Canadians regarding a levy on recordable media. Well, it's finally come to pass, and like most things related to Canadian government, they half-listended to us.
Here's the good news: "Today's decision freezes all existing private copying levies at their current levels. As a result, the current levies of 29˘ on audio cassette tapes of 40 minutes or longer (no levy applies to tapes of shorter length), 21˘ on CD-Rs and CD-RWs and 77˘ on CD-R Audio, CD-RW Audio and MiniDiscs will remain in effect until the end of 2004...The Board denied the Canadian Private Copying Collective's (CPCC) request to establish a levy on blank DVDs, removable memory cards and removable micro hard drives. It finds that the evidence available at this time does not clearly demonstrate that these recording media are ordinarily used by individuals for the purpose of copying music."
Here's the bad news: "The Board also sets for the first time a levy on non-removable memory permanently embedded in digital audio recorders (such as MP3 players) at $2 for each recorder with a memory capacity of up to 1 Gigabyte (Gb), $15 for each recorder with memory capacity of more than 1 Gb and up to 10 Gbs, and $25 for each recorder with memory capacity of more than 10 GBs."
All in all, I guess it could have been worse. The good news is that memory cards for your Pocket PCs will not be taxed as part of this decision.
Here's the good news: "Today's decision freezes all existing private copying levies at their current levels. As a result, the current levies of 29˘ on audio cassette tapes of 40 minutes or longer (no levy applies to tapes of shorter length), 21˘ on CD-Rs and CD-RWs and 77˘ on CD-R Audio, CD-RW Audio and MiniDiscs will remain in effect until the end of 2004...The Board denied the Canadian Private Copying Collective's (CPCC) request to establish a levy on blank DVDs, removable memory cards and removable micro hard drives. It finds that the evidence available at this time does not clearly demonstrate that these recording media are ordinarily used by individuals for the purpose of copying music."
Here's the bad news: "The Board also sets for the first time a levy on non-removable memory permanently embedded in digital audio recorders (such as MP3 players) at $2 for each recorder with a memory capacity of up to 1 Gigabyte (Gb), $15 for each recorder with memory capacity of more than 1 Gb and up to 10 Gbs, and $25 for each recorder with memory capacity of more than 10 GBs."
All in all, I guess it could have been worse. The good news is that memory cards for your Pocket PCs will not be taxed as part of this decision.
