CCB Taxing Music Downloads??

Anyone see this article at engadget yet? It's about the Canadian Copyright Board taxing downloaded songs, and RETROACTIVE to back 1996 at the rate of 3.1 cents for each individual track and 1.5 cents per track for entire albums.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/19/canadas-copyright-board-slaps-tax-on-music-downloads/#comments

I'm glad I've only been downloading from the Apple store for 2 months. I am immediately going back to sharing my music online.

This totally blows.

smallvillefan said:

I am immediately going back to sharing my music online.

This totally blows.

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Its not worth it to buy songs legally. Once the companies like that stop price gouging and suing left and right then it MIGHT be worth it to download a few songs legally, but until then, I know I wont, and im glad others aren't.

Wow... but I'm not concerned, If someone has to foot the bill for this, it wont be me... I was given a price, and I paid it... they can sue me for the rest...


sorry about the cursing -_-

Here is the actual Tarriff (22.A) link:

http://www.cb-cda.gc.ca/new-e.html

Here I was trying to teach my son about the importance of supporting the music industry, and then this happens!

Taxation is one thing, but making it retroactive is complete BS.

What if you no longer have the said downloaded tracks?? I'll refuse to pay such a bull law! This is total nonsense, they want us to download legally,so they fine us for doing so. Where is the sense in that????!! I mean if they can do this retroactive tax whas next? A retroactive gas tax??? There should be a new tax called an idiot tax! But then all the government official would be poor and taxed to death....oooppps sorry!

I agrea... Taxation is a part of life, Taxation of capitalism (to an extent) is what makes a perfect democracy run correctly, but its things like this... where taxation is over the top... I don't know... its upsetting, like i said though, if someone has to foot the bill for this... how many songs do you think any given service has allowed people to purchase? I see this tax causing a lot of problems, because lets be honest, the individuals will not get this bill... its to hard to collect on this from millions of users...

Look over the actual document, it also aplies to live-streams over the internet... any guess at how many canadian radio stations have webcasts on there sites?

An Internet transmission can be a download
or a stream.
A download is a file containing data (in our
case, one or more sound recordings of part or all
of a musical work) the user is meant to keep as
his own.

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Second, the tariff as proposed treats
podcasts as downloads of musical files

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(it also specifically says that a terrif has not been set (as far as values go) yet...

[61] CRIA and Apple adopt and rely on the
evidence of Mr. Stephen Stohn in CSI – Online
Music, who concluded that the adjusted MLA
rate for permanent downloads should be 5.3 per
cent of retail for singles and 6.7 per cent for
albums. They propose using an average of 6 per
cent.

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Thats all the exerts for now, read through it if your interested in legal affairs its fairly interesting, and not at all legal jargon... the more you read the more ridiculous it gets, it says that video game sound tracks and movies were considered, but that proper compensation is paid in production... its just stupid read through it...

This provides an incentive to not do business in Canada. Does socan realize that by screwing people and corporations like this that they loose more money than they stand to gain by taxing it? I'd think it'd make a whole lot more sense to make a steady stream of income over a flood of income from a levy or tax like this and then have a severe drought afterwards. But ey we voted these idiots in didn't we???

I'm thinking of moving to the US (note-sarcasm).

I didn't vote for these morons. My guys seem to be losing lately.

I read the CBC's document, and felt like banging my head against the wall several times over. Obviously, the Canadian government doesn't like the internet. What's next? Taxing personal home movies on your own personal website?

Important note, SOCAN is a registry of Canadian music. This won't apply to downloads of Metalica (ha ha) but will affect Brian Adams. Funny thing is if I buy Young Galaxy they might get a few pennies, but Brian will get a lot more. SOCAN does little but collect fees to drive its self.

Note, they also want to apply this to podcasters. Some will get permission from the artist to play their music, but if that artist is registered with SOCAN they can hit the podcaster for retroactive fees. Tip, if you are a Canadian artist and want to self promote, don't register with SOCAN

NATO, North American Free Trade Agreement... I didn't think about this at first, but we shouldn't need (Americans) to pay any tax on this at all... And it should be noted that this is still a government initiated tax, An association cannot levy a tax on something of this magnitude without government approval... I know this may offend,
any southpark fans?
*Link*

What i meant about we voted for these idiots is that we being the canadian voting public voted the Harper PC conservatives in. But still, my point is this doesn't scream buy music legally. Rather it screams, "Buy legal music and pay our tax, retroactively!!"

Oh I agree the validity of the argument doesn't change, it just no longer affects me...