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recordable media tariffs


Harpua

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Joel Ironstone writes: "A new Canadian levy will be introduced in 2003 on all recordable media (pdf). The magnitude of these tariffs is staggering: $1.23 for all CD-RW's, $2.27 on all DVD-R's, and get this: $21 for each gigabyte of storage on portable MP3 players. That's an extra 160 dollars for a Nomad." Like in the U.S., this tax is collected and given directly to the record industry, a governmental subsidy for no apparent societal benefit.

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Is the tax given to the record industry (meaning the labels) or to the performers rights societies, such as SOCAN and ASCAP? these are the governing bodies that distribute performance royalties directly to the artists, from such things as radio play, live public performance, use on T.V....etc. Im not saying I necessarily agree with the idea of a blank media levy, (or disagree for that matter) but it is interesting, and could potentially be a solution- or at least an alleviation of some of the problems caused by the Napster/Kazaa/Morpheus etc. method of music file sharing- at least in as far as privately owned intellectual property goes (as opposed to live show downloads)....

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ohhh the poor record industry... fuck em!!! They have been fucking us since Elvis!!!!

They have created their own black market by over pricing their product... reap it you greedy bastards!

Why can't we get the NHL a similar subsidy off of proline or something.... what a load of bull shit!

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Are the artists gonna see any of this money? probably not - fucking record companies will continue to give em' a pittance in return for distribution. Aren't they already doing something like this? I know when I go to buy minidiscs, there's always an outrageous tax on them in the name of compensating the music industry. How can they place tarrifs on portable mp3 players and not peoples's PC's - which is where most people store mp3's? This is all because this is the first year in the last 10 that CD sales have dropped - record companies are panicking and scrambling to salvage the great scam they've had for the past 20 years or so. fuck em' I say...

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On the note of solving music burning issues and peer-to-peer file sharing...

creating a levy doesn't solve any problems.

The main problem is using fake statistics to say that there is a loss in revenue.

A roughed out number of 10 million discs that were burned in a year, lead to 200 million in loss of sales is whats being used to create these levies on media and to block software developers.

The numbers are made up and entirely misleading. You cannot say that because 1 music disc was burned that it is a loss of 1 sale. That is exactly the math used to build up the loss of revenue numbers.

Anyway, here's a relevant article on Wired.com

There is a petition that you can sign here for the hell of it...

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