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$27.6 Million CDN Distributed to Canadian Musicians Due to Tax


Christopher

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In 1999, an amendment to the Copyright Act allowing Canadian citizens to copy music onto blank media for personal use without breaking copyright laws brought forth taxes on blank media. 65,000 Musicians benefit from this collectively, and this year 27.6 million was distributed accordingly. The levies are 21 cents on each blank CD, 29 cents per audio tape and 77 cents per Minidisc. Ouch..

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Maybe its because minidiscs are rewritable so many times. Or because back then there was no HIMD's for data storage so minidiscs were for audio only, whereas CD-R's could be used for data aswell. Still ridiculous though, your paying a tax for a service you might not be using. Then again isnt that like most taxes lol

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Another thing is interesting here - that while collecting more copyright taxes than on any other media (which in theory supposed to allow a user to legally copy anything) it's the most copy-protected technology that makes impossible to create 2nd digital copy of your own work...

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just wondering...how on earth do they come up with those levies? I mean why would a standard 80 min MD need +3x more tax than a CD??

Yes that's ridiculous, considering a standard MD can only hold a fraction of the data of a CD-R/RW, when you're talking MB for MB.

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Yes that's ridiculous, considering a standard MD can only hold a fraction of the data of a CD-R/RW, when you're talking MB for MB.

I guess this is why Minidiscs are so friggin' expensive in Canada. A two-pack of standard 80 minute disc is STILL $9.99 (Sonys) in Canada at most stores.

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The sad part is that cdr's are not more expensive per disc when compared to dvds. Kind of crazy. Although I have moved away from minidisc since last november, I still buy cdr and dvdr, but less so now.

I actually have nothing against this levy, sure it sucks and that is why I boguht most of my minidiscs while over in europe, but this does compensate the artists, which we know are getting ripped off.

I am sure they will add the levy to dvds as well, I picked up a 100 pack fro around 25 bucks or so.

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The sad part is that cdr's are not more expensive per disc when compared to dvds. Kind of crazy. Although I have moved away from minidisc since last november, I still buy cdr and dvdr, but less so now.

I actually have nothing against this levy, sure it sucks and that is why I boguht most of my minidiscs while over in europe, but this does compensate the artists, which we know are getting ripped off.

I am sure they will add the levy to dvds as well, I picked up a 100 pack fro around 25 bucks or so.

Speaking of DVDR, I'd so love a car stereo that played mp3's burned onto a DVDR, I would buy that in a flash

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just wondering...how on earth do they come up with those levies? I mean why would a standard 80 min MD need +3x more tax than a CD??

May be that's because of portability differences.

I've seen on some blog an opinion that ipods are recording-disabled or limited to 8kHz just to make sure users won't record concerts and such... Sorta "gun control"

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Yet another example of a noble but flawed concept hijacked by vested interests like the government and record industry who end up benefiting more than the artists.

I suspect that the higher tax applied to MDs is due to them being perceived as a type of elitist luxury item. eg If you can afford to buy one of the MD recorders then you can afford to pay a bit more tax.

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Mind you Apple just won a major court case saying that ipods don't have to pay the same tax. Which makes it really strange. I support anything that sends money directly to musicians, as most of the musicians I know are monumentally underpaid. But it seems to me that if ipod is the major distribution channel, they should be paying this tax as well. I don't know the details of the case. Maybe they said that the majority of content was coming from itunes, a service that already pays for content, and won it on that basis....

Ian Ferrier

Montreal, Canada

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  • 2 weeks later...

WOW! So Canadians now pay more in TAX on a CD-R than we pay for the whole product here in Australia - What a scream! They talked about doing this here in Aus a couple of years ago but it was found to be impossible to enforce as CD-Rs are mainly used for data in business, and it punishes everyone who uses CD-Rs regardless of whether their use is music-related piracy or not.

So the Australian user failed to be shafted by the government that one token time.

Sorry to see that Canadians are getting rammed for nothing.

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  • 1 month later...

if they are the canadians!!!

you can see in this link from the spanish RIAA, the SGAE (the general society of artist and industry)it's spanish but it's easy

www.internautas.org/documentos/CANON-Julio_2003.pdf

we pay for hour in 2003 and 2004 0,30€, in 2005 0,35€.

we pay for minidisc of 80" in 2003 and 2004 0,40€, in 2005 0,47€.

in CD is

we pay for an hour in CD-RW audio in 2003 and 2004 0,30€, in 2005 0,35€.

we pay for a CD-RW in 2003 and 2004 0,40€, in 2005 0,47€.

and in another european contrys for minidisc

austria 0,18

Belguim 0,23

Denmark 0,4547

Finland 0,30

France 0,4573

Germany 0,0614

Itany 0,23

Netherland 0,32

Sweden 0,1329

Switzeland 0,23

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