Digital Copyrights in Canada

[swestrup]

Canadians pay a surcharge on all blank media we buy, whether it be cassette tapes, CD/DVD-RWs, or VCR tapes. This money is supposed to be paid to an organization which manages national songwriters and musicians rights and which will redistribute the money pro-rated by popularity, in order to offset losses from 'illegal' copying. (Once you are compensating the artitsts, the illegality of it becomes open to question, but thats a rant for another day.) I have no idea if the money is actually being redistributed -- but this was the announced plan when the tax was put in place.

Up until recently IPods and other MP3 players with flash-memory also had a surcharge on them, but this has just been struck down by the Federal Court of Appeal, saying that the units don't fall under the category of 'blank media'. If this get taken to the supreme court it could open a big can of worms about the entire idea of the tax. If it is let stand, it calls into question whether flash memory counts as blank media. Either way, I think this is going to lead to interesting times in Canadian IP law.

Comments

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What I really dislike with this tax, we have the same in France (and will be talknig about that case), for a very long time on blank tapes and video tapes, and more recently on blank CD, DVD and even portable music player, is that I myself, use CD to store my own artistic creations and that I don't get any penny.