AfterDawn: News

Canadian Judge rules mp3 player tax illegal

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 Noël said.

Judge Noël 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 Noël'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

Written by: James Delahunty @ 17 Dec 2004 9:46

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• 5 comments

• Vular

  Almost the same as putting a tax on your computer because it contains a small harddrive and can play music on it.

  17.12.2004 10:03 #1

• SoufSide

  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.

  17.12.2004 12:35 #2

• exhibit

  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...

  17.12.2004 13:34 #3

• daemonzx6

  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...

  17.12.2004 14:46 #4

• WarForOil

  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.

  22.12.2004 14:18 #5