The levy fee scheme is well-known in various countries, such as Canada and Finland, where consumers are allowed to make personal copies of CDs (in most countries, even without owning the CD) and to download tracks from P2P networks legally. Obviously distribution copyrighted material to large audiences without a permission, such as sharing files via P2P networks, would be still illegal.
Not surprisingly, the only large organization opposing the proposed amendment to the legilation is the Australian equivalent of the RIAA, the Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA).
Also, it should be noted that however nice the "copy freely as you pay it in blank media prices" system sounds, at least in Europe the basis of it has been destroyed already -- the levy remains on blank media, but circumventing technical copy protection mechanisms found on many current audio CDs is nowadays illegal (or will be soon, as the last remaining EU countries implement the EUCD to their own legislation), even for personal use. So, recording industry basically doubles the profits -- they collect levy on blank media, but also make it illegal to copy CDs..
Source: mi2n
Written by: Petteri Pyyny @ 14 Jun 2004 13:45
