War On Levys For Pc/media Components!

[dmegametal#1]

Richmond-based London Drugs is teaming up with Burnaby-based Best Buy Canada to wage war on a proposed new levy they warn could result in Canadian consumers paying a hefty tax on iPods, MP3 players and, eventually, even cell phones and computers.

"They like to call it a levy because it has a nicer ring to it," London Drugs president Wynne Powell told the News. "But if it walks like a tax and acts like a tax, it's a tax."

The company does not begrudge musicians being paid for their work. What it opposes is the method being proposed to collect royalties.

"They deserve to be paid, they deserved to be paid fairly, but they don't deserve to be paid twice," Powell said.

The company has posted notices in its 68 stores asking customers to take action to oppose the levy, which is intended to address the growing problem of people downloading music for free.

Songwriters and recording artists receive royalties whenever their music was played on the radio or TV.

The advent of the Internet, digital recording devices, like iPods, and peer-to-peer file sharing platforms like Limewire mean that people can now download music for free. The songwriter receives nothing.

According to the Canadian Recording Industry Association, for every song or video that is legally downloaded, 14 are swapped, with the creator and his or her record label getting nothing.

The Canadian Private Copying Collective has applied to the Canadian Copyright Board to have the new tariff -- which is already on blank CDs, cassette tapes and minidiscs -- applied to digital recording devices.

The new levy, which would be based on memory, would add up to $75 for a 30-gigabyte iPod. The money collected would then go back to the artists.

The Retail Council of Canada is opposing the plan and is getting support from an unexpected quarter -- Canadian recording artists.

A number of notable Canadian songwriters -- Avril Lavigne and Steve Page of Barenaked Ladies among them -- agree the levy is wrongheaded.

"Rather than making downloading difficult and illegal, the CMCC (Canadian Music Creators Coalition) believes that fans should be able to enjoy and share music any way they choose," writes Andrew Cash of the CMCC.

Conservative MP John Cummins (Delta-Richmond East) also thinks the new levy is ill-conceived.

"Musicians and songwriters should be getting a fair return for their efforts," he said. "Whether this is the way to do it or not is another question."

"It's almost a tax, in a sense, and I'm concerned about how that administration is going to happen, how the people who should be receiving the benefit of that are actually going to receive it."

Retailers like London Drugs warn that, if the Copyright Board approves the new levy for MP3 players and iPods, computers and cell phones will be next.

The CMCC is calling on Ottawa to consider other ways of collecting and distributing royalties.

One suggestion is that file sharing networks, like Napster and LimeWire, could be licensed by record companies, much in the same way radio stations are licensed, with the money going to pay recording artists' royalties

[Elmoz]

There is a similiar thing on Spain with mp3, cd's, dvd's etc, whatever helps you record music, they basically charge you extra money, because they believe that you will use that to listen the musicyou just downloaded for free.

so even if you buy a DVD-R to record your home videos, you just paid a "tax" that will go out to the "artist" even if you didnt use it to burn a movie you downloaded for "free" .

to me thats stupid because at their eyes, you are already a thief, who does not pay anything to the artist, and by doing that they think they will get back the money that "we dont pay for the music".

there is a bunch of parodies about it going on span, about it. the other day i saw this funny video where the "people" who made this tax for this

[M4ST3R M1K3]

Here everything is already taxed: usb drive, blank media, up to 20€ for a hard disk. Actually I think it's the same thing in most european countries

[Judge B]

Here everything is already taxed: usb drive, blank media, up to 20€ for a hard disk. Actually I think it's the same thing in most european countries

Yeah, but somehow when I order my DVD-Rs and CD-R (Verbatim high quality media) from Estonia, I don't have to pay that (=cheaper).