Mobile/PDA About Us Advertise here


		User name	Password

		Not registered yet? Register here. Lost your password? Click here.

Browse by topic

News

Canadian Judge rules mp3 player tax illegal

17 December 2004 9:46 by James "Dela" Delahunty | 5 comments

A Canadian judge today ruled that a levy imposed on MP3 players that would be distributed to record labels and other copyright holders to compensate for revenue lost due to P2P use was illegal. The case was brought before the Canadian Federal Court of Appeal after the Copyright Board of Canada began demanding that player manufacturers cough up $2 for each player with a capacity of less than 1GB, $15 for 1-10GB players and $25 for devices with storage of more than 10GB in December 2003. "While the Copyright Board of Canada is indeed permitted by Canada's Copyright Act to tax sales of blank media, the terms of the Act do not allow it to levy a similar fee from MP3 player makers," Mr Justice Marc No�l said.

Judge No�l said he understood the Boards need to compensate artists and Copyright holders for potential lost revenue by distributing the levies it receives from sales of blank media, but the authority to impose a levy on an MP3 player still has to be found in the Act. The ruling will lead to the prices for mp3 players dropping dramatically. However it seems likely that organizations such as the Canadian Private Copying Collective, which distributes the proceeds of the levies to artists and recording companies, are pondering whether to take the case to Canada's Supreme Court in a bid to have Judge No�l's ruling overturned. At least, they will attempt to lobby the Canadian Government to amend the Copyright Act to take MP3 players and other such devices into account.

Source:
The Register

Permalink to this article

Using Internet tax to compensate artists for file sharing? (7 September 2009)

No iPod tax in Japan (1 December 2005)

Canadian law enforcement seizes $800,000 worth of counterfeit products (5 May 2005)

Manufacturers angry over proposed surcharges on MP3 players (22 April 2005)

iTunes has now sold 200m songs (16 December 2004)

Apple Introduces iPod Photo (26 October 2004)

60GB iPod coming soon (9 October 2004)

Microsoft apologizes for iPod comments (9 October 2004)

Playstation Portable will support MP3 (26 September 2004)

« Previous news article
P2P services under widescale legal attack?

Next news article »
RIAA sues 754 more people

Post your comment

Discuss this article!
Vular (Member) 17 December 2004 10:03
Almost the same as putting a tax on your computer because it contains a small harddrive and can play music on it. [ + quote]
SoufSide (Inactive) 17 December 2004 12:35
This makes me sick. Reminds me of that movie with Tom Cruise, Minority Report where they go around and charge people with a crime they have yet to commit but could possibly do so in the future. Just goes to show how greedy these people actually are. [ + quote]
exhibit (Newbie) 17 December 2004 13:34
Well if they are taxing you for stealing music before you even do it, should that not give you the right to go ahead and do it? You've already payed them compensation... [ + quote]
daemonzx6 (Senior Member) 17 December 2004 14:46
with this law, they could tax people on memory cards, flash drives, hard drives and anything to that sort, calling "blank media" recording industry bastards... [ + quote]
WarForOil (Junior Member) 22 December 2004 14:18
Its a joke really, but its not the time that idea has been thrown around and it wont be the last, couple of years ago they tried to force the issue of cd media manufacturers to pay a levy to the big corps because they said the blank disks sold amounted to loss of earnings, meaning every blank cd sold was ending up a music cd..If they had brains they would be even more dangerous. What happened to the democratic society we used to have, would that be the same democracy that Bush n Blair have created in Iraq..Fight Back its not to late. People power will prevail. [ + quote]