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Petition against Canadian CD-R Tax 57

Posted by Hemos from the bad-government-in-action dept.
Darren Morofke wrote to ask the Canadians in our audience to head over and sign a petition against the proposed CD-R tax. We had covered this tax when it was first coming around-let's see if we can help put a stop to this.
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Petition against Canadian CD-R Tax More

Petition against Canadian CD-R Tax

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  • I agree, the government telling you what you should listen to is bad, very bad.

    But just remember: Would you rather hear Third Eye Blind on the radio or The Tragically Hip?

    (Hum. I'm sure many fellow Americans are going 'tragically what?' Well, here's a link [thehip.com]for you.

  • Oh, it's not that the GST got 'rammed through' Parliament. That's what you get with a majority government. It's the fact that the Senate rejected the bill, and so Mulroney (sp?) appointed his friends to the Senate.
  • What you're saying is that because our taxes go towards the police for fighting crime, crime is now legal.

    I don't think this is the best way of doing things either, but until people stop making illegal recordings of copyrighted music, the artists should be compensated somehow.

    BTW, does anybody know if the US musicians/record companies get any of the money raised from the tax?

    <tim><
  • In terms of mp3 encoded music this translates to $1.00 for every 30 megs of mp3s. So, by their logic, a cd of mp3s should have $22 of tax on in, and my 18.22 GB hard drives should have $607 worth of tax on them..
  • Now all ~30 million Canadians will be spending an extra $2.50 to line the pokets of a few executives.
    Do taxes in canada go to executives? I just assumed it would go to the government...

  • This is to get Canada in line with international copyright law. This has something to do with a ruling made in the 1950's in Rome. The U.S. already pays this levy, and it is nowhere near the levy proposed in Canada. As I understand, this bill must exist in some form or another. Hopefully Canada will impose a levy similar or lesser to that of the US.

    In the meantime, let us just hope that the CDR companies don't take advantage of this situation and try to mark up their products to match the maximum levy. It is true, the levy has not been set, and the levy will be retroactive to the 1st of January 1999.

    I wrote a letter to the MPs who are supporting this bill, and asked them if sheet music would qualify as a digital recording media, and if so, what will be the value of the levy imposed upon it?

    If there is to be no levy on paper, what is the difference between the rights of musician's sheet music, and live recordings? Is one protected by the law more than another? If not, why? They still have not given me a reply.

    I forgot the precise wording, but the bill is explicit in the fact that it must be a media which is commonly used for the purposes of musical recordings. I'm pretty sure sheet music could technically qualify, at least enough to make a point. Scribing musical notes on your chair however, would not.

    The levy applies on all imported media, whether you are given it as a gift or not. If you choose not to declare that you have recieved the gift and subsequently not pay the levy, then you are breaking the law.

    The one way around it is to have a group of sensory-impaired people purchase and burn CDs for you. They are the only excemption to the levy, and when they sell the burned CDs they will not be selling blank recording media.

    I don't think VHS tapes or DVDs fall under this bill. People don't carry portable DVD audio players, or install them in their cars. But the Bill's definitions are a bit fuzzy on definitions... Where CDs, sheet music and audio cassettes are commonly used to store and share music, DVDs are not. There is even some question as to whether the bill will apply to normal-bias (voice grade) audio cassettes.

  • How can "the government" choose how much of a recording company gets their products pirated and thus know how much of the cut they should receive?

    Once again our elected officials are voting themseleves bread & circuses.

    F 'em!
  • They came up with this "tax" just between Christmas and New Year, so there wasn't much time to buy your CDRs against the old price...

    (Perhaps the Wassenaar guys had an exchange of ideas beyond the ordinary stupid crypto export laws...?)

    Fortunately, the net is there to voice your protest [www.guts.nl]...

  • We all know that the tax isn't to compensate musicians or dicourage pirating. Musicians make $1-2 per $20 CD. People will still pirate. The big music corps will just absorb the money, the musicians will never see it. Now all ~30 million Canadians will be spending an extra $2.50 to line the pokets of a few executives. I wonder if this law applies to DVDs?
  • Eventually it may be pennies for disk, but currently that 2 dollar charge is being charged.

  • Seems to me there ought to be a way to make some money out there. If canadian artists were to create small mp3's and make them available for download then using the ftp download logs bill the govenment for the downloads. Since the music is not being distributed by the music industry, theoretically it could be argued that the artist should be the sole beneficiary of the tax amount less a government administration fee.

    Any thoughts? Perhaps individual artists should ban together and hire an attorney to protect their rights in this matter.

    Lando
  • As a French speaking Canadian, I'd like to know which word of "French socialism" is evil to you. Being french or being socialist? In case you care, I'm one of those French socialist. I'm also a separatist; I'd like my own country to get rid of the federal government that treats me like a criminal because I owns a CD-R burner, and also to keep at a distance anti-french orangists like you. You should be aware that French Canadians also read Slashdot,

    Marc
  • I love Canada but when I see stuff like this I have to shake my head. Sometimes Canadians are their own worst enemies.
  • No...bad example.

    Now if we had to pay rich people 5% of our salaries (because they are robbed more), that would be the same thing. It would then be ethical to steal from them (at least for 5% of our salaries), because we already paid for that right. (Please note I said ethical, not legal. Thank you.)

    Also...just because a product you make is easily copied, doesn't give you the right to, in essense, steal money from another industry (the media manufactors...taxes on your productsalways lower revenue).

    The whole concept is based on a fallacy...if someone drives up to my house in a pickup truck and steals my TV, can I levy a tax on pickup trucks until I can afford a new TV? The idea is crazy...but this is what the recording industry has managed to trick people into paying.

  • : I hate our government. The CRTC just bumped up the percentage of Canadian music that has to
    : be played on radios from 30% to 35%. That means more than 1/3 of the songs played HAVE
    : to be Canadian.

    Well, why don't you move down south and become an American? Then, you'll be able to listen to all the yankee music you want.

    It's a free country, here, nobody's holding you in.


    -- ----------------------------------------------
    Vive le logiciel... Libre!!!

  • : Why do people think that so many people (people who want to be succesfull and are not of
    : the union mentality) move the fuck out of Canada.
    : Undemocratic, too much govt, stupid laws, excessive taxes, french socialism in Quebec etc..

    Just move out, it's a free country. We democratically voted socialism in, so why are you complaining?


    -- ----------------------------------------------
    Vive le logiciel... Libre!!!

  • Do we have to set your capital on fire again ?
    Or did you mean that the Canadians should invade the states and pillage their supply of non-ludicrously-taxed CDR blanks and video tapes?
  • $15 @#%@%# tax on 'em according to the Gov't page on it. ($0.50 per 15 Min. 6 Hours a tape... you can record digital audio on them.) I can see blockbuster going out of buisness fast, between rising cost of videos, and pilferage of tapes ('losing' a tape from the video store costs less than buying a $17 blank...)
    I've also heard from a Chrysler employee that about 5 skids of video tapes (ie: 4-5 foot cubes) were seen being loaded into a storage room and locked up, so it seems that they had the same unpleasant feeling about it.
  • This tax is dubious on many counts. As a poster mentioned earlier 35% of radio air-play is Canadian music, therefore 65% is foreign. Album sales and associated piracy should reflect this (although I have no real idea of Canadians buying habits). Will the body in change analyze album sales, and forward the correct sum to their foreign counterparts?

    Apparently, only music is pirated. There is no contingency for Canadian software companies, who are no doubt robbed of millions though piracy as well. This shows the government has 100% capitulated to the recording industry lobbyists. The government isn't genuinely interested in fostering talent (regardless of discipline), just greasing palms.

    Where will the money go? Considering that a $17.00 album yields $1-2.00 for the artist, I would guess a $2.50 tax would equate to about $0.22. Sadly, this is logical. It would only show how shameful the recording industry is, if they started rewarding an artist more for the pirated copy then the original.

    The major radio stations don't give new artists much of a chance, so all we get is more Rush, Tragically Hip and BNL. In my area the radio plays new artists in a spot called "Red, White and New", it's runs weekly and 22:00 at night. This is pretty sad. Before running to taxation as a solution, maybe the industry show look at it's self first.

    This tax is going to be with us now in one form or another (taxes NEVER get revoked). I would like to ask other posters, how one may go about registering as a recording artist to start collecting a portion of the booty. Hey if we all scratched something together in Cakewalk/Cubase we get back what we put in (minus the $2.28 administration overhead.)
  • It's not a tax, it's a levy, imposed on behalf
    of SOCAN, the Canadian musician's union -- many
    members of which hate the levy.
  • Can't you just order from the US? Whenever I purchase any CD-R's it's always through bulk ordering. The price markups of CD-R's are already ridiculous, even in the US.
  • Agreed. Canadians, myself included, should buy
    our blank media elsewhere.

    Perhaps the companies that sell media will make
    lobby to drop this nonsense when their revenues
    dry up!

    -- Idan
  • We've been paying over inflated prices for CD audio here in Aus for far too long, so this idea of charging heaps of bucks for digital audio isn't new. That goes for software as well.
  • The 35% Canadian Content will backfire. Why would I buy a Tragically Hip CD when I can turn on the radio and hear it for free within the hour.

    The new tax is a joke but this is Canada. It's what we do best. (except Hockey!)

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