CTV.ca | New levies proposed for iPods and memory cards

CTV.ca | New levies proposed for iPods and memory cards 

New levies proposed for iPods and memory cards

Updated Sat. Dec. 22 2007 8:52 AM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

Consumers could potentially be hit by a new tax on electronic storage devices such as iPods and blank memory cards in 2008.

The federal Copyright Board has given its approval for a special levy on iPods and other digital players because they can be used to copy movies and music.

The Canadian Private Copying Collective, the non-profit agency that represents the music industry, wants to make sure that artists get compensated.

Small tariffs are currently in place for such items as rewritable CDs and cassettes. The CPCC first requested a levy on removable electronic memory in its 2003-2004 tariff proposal.

The Copyright Board initially concluded that there was insufficient evidence to warrant a new tax; however, the CPCC noted the growing popularity of digital memory devices is cause for concern. A hearing in April will reexamine the proposed levies.

"Our surveys show the vast majority of copies that people put on their iPods come from sources other than legitimatly purchased copies," said David Basskin, the Director of the CPCC.

According to a CPCC media release, "During the period from July 1, 2005 to June 30, 2006, 25 per cent of all the content copied onto electronic memory cards, including cards of all formats and capacities, was music, and 14 per cent of respondents copied only music."

The proposed levies range in price including:

• 85 cents for rewritable CDs and MiniDisc
• $2 for 1 GB removable electronic memory cards
• $25 for a digital audio recorder between 1 and 10 GBs
• $75 for digital audio recorder of more than 30 GBs

Don Butcher, the Canadian Library Association's executive director, says the CLA is concerned over the proposed levies because they assume illegal behaviour on the part of consumers.

"It's almost de facto criminalizing all Canadians. We just don't think that's right. The whole issue of those tariffs on blank media makes an assumption we think is a faulty assumption," he said.

"We don't think Canadians are out there deliberately infringing on people's copy right. We think that in fact Canadians are law-abiding."

John Williamson of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation says the measures may be counterproductive.

"Normally, you do the crime and then you do the time. In this case the government is going to hit us first so people will asume it's OK to download music without paying for it," Williamson said.

The surcharge won't come into effect immediately. Retailers are fighting the tax in court, saying the Copyright Board has no right to impose an extra fee on top of the price of iPods and other audio players.

Libraries concerned about new legislation

Meanwhile, the CLA says pending copyright legislation is unbalanced and does not reflect the concerns of some 21 million library users and registered librarians across Canada.

Butcher said that in recent weeks thousands of troubled Canadians have voiced their concerns over proposed legislative reforms to the Copyright Act.

"Whether it is through library blogs, Facebook groups, or at the library front desks, we are getting the message that Canadians want a fair and balanced copyright approach," he said.

"Just one simple Facebook group on copyright gained 30,000 members in a few short weeks with another Canadian joining the group every 30 seconds. There have been public rallies in Calgary and Toronto. The government needs to listen to average Canadians."

The new legislative reforms will likely meet the demands of the Canadian Recording Industry Association by making it illegal to download or share songs on the internet without paying a fee.

Amendments would also apply to the circumvention of technologies that protect against infringement and "persons who, for infringing purposes, enable or facilitate circumvention or who, without authorization, distribute copyright material."

The CLA says these amendments make the same mistakes as the American Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

"American law makes no differentiation in penalty between a counterfeiter circumventing technical protection measures for illegal profit and an individual circumventing technical protection measures to make a single copy," a release from CLA said Friday.

The reforms to the Canadian Copyright Act were promised by the Harper government in the Speech to the Throne.

The new legislation was to be tabled earlier this month; however, the government failed to do so before Parliament took a break for the holidays.

The CLA's main point of contention hinges on user rights to access information as outlined in the 2004 Supreme Court of Canada judgment in CCH Canada Ltd. v. The Law Society of Upper Canada.

The law society was sued for providing a request-based photocopy service for its members. The high court ruled that single copies made by the library did not infringe on copyrights.

"Our challenge is with the Hollywood lobbyists and the recording industry who are trying to take rights away from ordinary Canadians," Butcher told CTV.ca on Friday.

The CLA would like to see the government address illegal behaviour rather than trying to catch up with ever-evolving digital technologies.

"It comes back to intent. When you buy a music CD, copy it six times and give it or sell it to your friends, well that's wrong. That's infringing," Butcher said.

"Downloading a music CD onto your hard drive isn't illegal, it's what you do afterwards that may or may not be illegal."

However, the CRIA says the music industry is being hit hard by the ongoing problem of what they call music piracy, the illegal peer-to-peer sharing of music files.

CRIA's figures show sales of music CDs, DVDs and other formats fell 35 per cent in the first quarter of 2007 compared with the same period a year earlier.

According to digital media measurer, Big Champagne, more than 1 billion songs are swapped for free every month on file-swapping networks.

Aside from music, Butcher advocates that digital information is essential for people with physical, learning or perceptual disabilities.

"People can take this digital information and they can copy it and manipulate it into alternate forms that people with disabilities can access. It opens up a whole world of information for those three million Canadians who can't access traditional print," he said.

With a report from CTV's Robert Fife

CTV.ca | New levies proposed for iPods and memory cards