iPod Fee Proposed For Canada 414
innocent_white_lamb writes "The Canadian Private Copying Collective is pushing for the implementation of an iPod fee in Canada to compensate them for 'losses' when people copy music to their digital music players. They have collected a fee from every CDR sold in Canada since 1997 and now want to extend that to digital music players. From the article: 'Some have argued that once they buy a CD they shouldn't have to pay again and again to listen to those songs — which they already purchased — on a personal compilation CD or on their MP3 player. But for people like Milman and Basskin, it's about recognizing the value of those works. "There has to be some sort of way to compensate the artist for the hours and the sweat and the blood and the tears and the extreme, extreme expense that goes into making music," Milman said.'"
Compensation isn't the point of music. (Score:2, Interesting)
Canada...ahh those socialists...! (Score:3, Interesting)
"There has to be some sort of way to compensate the artist for the hours and the sweat and the blood and the tears and the extreme, extreme expense that goes into making music," Milman said."
How about saving the artists all their toil by educating them on the fact that their works might be enjoyed free of charge? It's Canada we are talking about, where a health-care bill is guaranteed never to force you into bankruptcy.
I subscribe to the thought that "when you you make your bed, you must sleep in it."
Reverse logic (Score:5, Interesting)
There has to be some sort of way to safeguard the buyer from undue taxation by private companies given the hours and the sweat and the blood and the tears and the extreme, extreme expense (in terms of time) that goes into making a decent salary.
Isn't that so Mr. Milman?
Plan for profit (Score:4, Interesting)
2) Have the EULA of the site say the uploader releases his revenue via the iPod Fee to the site.
3) Make said songs available for ipod download.
4) Go to the Canadian Private Copying Collectivem and demand the percentage of the fee your users represent.. if there are 10.000 artists and you have 10.000 users, you should get half.
5) Profit.
Re:Aren't you paying for the song on iTunes alread (Score:5, Interesting)
You paid to listen to their music, you can listen to it on whatever device you want.
In an ideal world, yes. You pay for something, you use it. But not these guys. They want you to pay for every format shift. In the case of televised programs, they want to you pay for every time shift. But what if you need to time or format shift it to properly use it? Tough luck, bucko, then you just bought a very nice coaster, good luck returning opened merchandise to the store. They've already pushed the idea that you're only borrowing their music, that putting down money for a disk doesn't grant you the right to use it in any legal way you please.
Their ultimate goal appears to be pay PER USE. Did your daughter put the latest bubblegum pop princess single on repeat ALL this afternoon? Fifty cents a play autocharged to your credit card. Good thing you pay $50 a month for the discount plan, or that would have been a buck fifty a play! We can also sell you the ultra-discount plan that's only $100 a month and ten cents a play! This week only, get TEN FREE PLAYS of any Flava Flav song already in your collection with a three year contract!
Banning or restricting time shifting and format shifting is of no use to the busker on the street, but allows a company to profit by re-selling the same product to the same customer in different wrappers should technology or even a person's work schedule change. Many of the 'little people' (or people who claim to represent the 'little people' or the 'starving artists') who insist that Canada needs copyright reform so they can better feed their families strangely don't explain why their neighbor, whose family won't see paychecks in the fifty years after he dies, should have to enjoy the things he has bought and paid for only on their terms, even if it means he never gets to enjoy them at all.
To my fellow Canadians: The more of this shit we put up with, the more that they'll shovel on us.
http://copyright.econsultation.ca/ [econsultation.ca] - Let them know what you think of the copyright reforms - like this one - being discussed right now.
http://www.pirateparty.ca/sign-up [pirateparty.ca] - Let's see if we can get an actual political party off the ground, one that actually fights for the rights of the people!
(Do I sound like an activist? I was completely politically apathetic, voted twice in my entire life, until they started pulling this garbage. We can't put up with this anymore.)
Re:And the best thing is... (Score:4, Interesting)
In Canada, if you're running a business, there is a specific field for "accounts receivable that you do not expect to receive." You are not taxed on that income.
Source: my own life, 2007 tax return.
Most of us live near the USA (Score:3, Interesting)
Bring it on (Score:3, Interesting)
trademark and all.
It won't affect me any my non-iPod Ogg Vorbis player.
Seriously, do Apple give out free tee-shirts every time someone uses their trademarks to describe everyday items?
Wait, go to go, there's a call coming in on my iPhone. The one with "Nokia" on the front.
Re:There has to be.. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm more along the lines of there must be a way to tell the musicians that I have no reason to buy the CD if I am not permitted to listen to it.
This is as bad as the Quebec referenda (Score:4, Interesting)
This has been raised before, many times. The same thing happened with the Quebec referenda...they said No, the other side waited a bit, then said "How about now?". Is this what we've been reduced to in Canada, asking the same questions every couple of years?
Re:Compensation isn't the point of music. (Score:3, Interesting)
Even that isn't always true. I was looking at the Wikipedia page for a band called Allister recently (checking whether a Fraggle Rock cover is actually them or whether it was like all of the "Reel Big Fish" ska punk covers that are by other bands) and apparently one of their albums cost a whole $700 to record! (source [wikipedia.org]) The main expense seems to be egos, the big labels, or the egos at the big labels!
Re:Sure - especially ipod with video (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:There should be (Score:3, Interesting)
Indeed, fair is fair. If you buy a CD-R with a "copyright tax" or whatever on it - a surcharge that goes to the copyright holders (or at least that is the official line, no way to check it really for us simple consumers) - then it should be no problem to copy copyrighted works onto them. After all, the copyright has been paid for already. You can't have your cake and eat it, too.
And I'm sure there are more countries outside of Spain that by now have such regulations, especially within Europe where most governments are strongly pro-consumer, not pro-business.
In The Netherlands we also (used to? I emigrated quite some time ago) have such a copyright tax on many media, this is from the cassette tape era already. As there was such a fee I have never felt sorry for copyright holders to copy their works on those tapes. I am just sorry for all those copyright holders that do not get a penny from the central copyright organisations (BUMA in The Netherlands). As that are most copyright holders. All those small artists that make cool music that is too off-beat to end in the top-40. Too experimental to get them recording contracts. Those that record and release their own music at their own expense, and work their ass off giving gigs twice a week all over the country while having a full-time job to pay the bills. Those are the guys that will never ever get a penny from those copyright levies. On the other hand having talked to quite a few of those guys over the years I know many don't care much about it. They do not expect to be in the hitlists ever. If it happens, great, but not likely. Many of them are happy with the file sharing as that gives them more exposure (club-goers may wish to check out a band by listening to some downloaded songs before going ahead and buy that concert ticket - a ticket they would probably not have bought if not for the "preview" of the downloaded songs), more exposure means more visitors to their concert, and that gives more income and more satisfaction for the band.
Re:Canada...ahh those socialists...! (Score:3, Interesting)
The levy doesn't only allow you to copy music you already paid for. It is the way you pay for music that you haven't purchased, you've just copied for your own use.
It's not as simple as that. If they legitimized music sharing fully, then maybe it would've been worth it. But as it is, the CD-R levy actually only covers copying music that you have somehow obtained; however, copying music that you own for others is illegal [neil.eton.ca]. This allows some low-volume sharing (you can legally give a CD to your friend, and then he can legally make a copy of it), but P2P or any other sort of hosting music for "public access" is still illegal.
Should we adopt an American system where unauthorized copying is illegal, and you can be fined huge amounts for doing it? I don't think so.
And why not? In the ideal version (not what U.S. has now in practice), it's a pretty straightforward system - you purchase content, and have rights to use it as you see fit. You can give your CD to a friend so he can listen, but he has to pay for his own copy. You can format-shift all you want without additional fees. And fines don't have to be so huge, either - it's not something inherent in the system, but rather the result of RIAA abusing it.
ipod tax = cassette tax = STUPID (Score:2, Interesting)
if the assumption is that you're guilty and need to be proven innocent, like in france, then canada should go ahead and charge a tax on all automobiles because they could be used as getaway cars. And may as well tax chainsaws because they could be used as murder weapons.
in the 1980's, president bush instituted a tax on blank cassettes in america because it was assumed that all blank tapes were used to duplicate copyrighted material. what a moronic idea. the cassettes i bought were for my 4 track so i could record MYSELF writing MY OWN FUCKING MUSIC. and for mixdowns to give to my bandmates to lose. i have read we also have a similar tax on blank cd's, although most of them I use to back up MY OWN FUCKING DATA not some stupid commercial recording. Whatever, I'm sick of paying taxes on the assumption I'm a thief, and having that money go to idiots like madonna, michael jackson, and the RIAA fuckers.
however, ipods are now used not just for playing music, but for playing back podcasts and as the hard disk for recording live audio. if i'm using my ipod to record my buddies playing D&D, why the fuck should a penny of my money go to the RIAA and MPAA? because _they're_ the evil fucking asspirates.
http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=277661 [belkin.com]
http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=460128 [belkin.com]
http://www.belkin.com/tunestudio/ [belkin.com]
Re:Bull (Score:3, Interesting)
You forgot the repeated payola scams. That's where the music companies pay programmers to play their stuff to shut out the competition.
Sony got busted for that too. Sorry if you're an independent musician but no one gets to hear you.
No company convicted of payola should get a fine any less than %100 of their profit for the year. Let the shareholders work out the rest with the board of directors.
Re:There should be some reality here.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, you'd have to be a 'name' artist for that to happen so you could afford to buy all the Sonny Bono clones you'd need to put said law into effect.
From where I sit, it's starting to look possible that somebody's gonna wanna put a license and a meter on my radio so that I pay a fee for each minute I spend listening to the radio, payable by credit card. And I gotta pay for the meter and the installation. God help us when they come up with ways to read people's thoughts and catch me remembering a song or 3, they'll want paid for that too.
Re:There should be some reality here.... (Score:1, Interesting)
The record industry are a bunch of scumbags..... Thats why they went to digital, it wasnt to improve sound quality or make a better product, it was to sell you a disk that is cheaper to produce than an audio tape because they thought they would be able to prevent you from making backups of your own purchased music, then if something happens to the fragile ass disk, you have to go buy another one... You can run a tape over with the truck and it will still work.... try that with a cd... cds are cheaper to manufacture than a cassette, and they charged more for them.... ok so thats why thy went digital, ya know there were court cases saying it was legal to copy stuff with magnetic tape but now they are trying to change that because its digital. And I will tell you musicians DO NOT DO NOT make that much on a CD, its more like 3 cents...
Ya know by this logic it is stealing when you tivo something.... this is totally rediculous, now what if you own the cassette record cd dvd and 8 track of a recording would it still be illegal to download it.... thats just greed... I own a couple hundred cds... im from back in the day when you had to waste your money on that shit, I checked into it, all the bands I listen to dont care if you download their album, they just want you to promote their live show..... shit thats how metallica got a career and those lame fucks get all pissed off about napster... hippocrits and crooks thats the record industry at large.... my god have mercy on your souls
Re:There should be (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, I argue that a few minutes of amusement do not constitute a profit. Really, I insist - let's limit the term profit to "financial gain".
If I play patty-cake with the grand daughter, she and I have benefited from our interaction, but we don't profit. Going swimming with a whole crowd of grandkids and their friends benefits all of us in a number of ways, but there is no profit. The picnic afterwards, ditto. If I take the kids to an amusement park for the swimming and picnic, it might cost me 30, 50, even 100 dollars. But, if I take the kids to the local swimming hole at the river, I don't "profit" from it.
Unless I am a professional music pirate, selling CD's on the street, and/or shipping those CD's to counterfeit music sales points, downloading music is for private amusement and entertainment. I refuse to use the term "profit".
And, I am quite sure that even the politicians and the judges agree.