Tax on MP3 players

[MacBytes]

Category: News and Press Releases
Link: Tax on MP3 players

Posted on MacBytes.com

Approved by Mudbug

[Bunzi2k4]

0_0 psh figures... this odly reminds of the tea act that happened a long time ago...

[punter]

what do canadians think of this?

Our government looked at putting this tax on cdrs and there were a lot of legitimate cd burners (backup etc) kicking up a fuss.

I think it's little lame, but then the tax is relatively small, so I'm not sure.

[Analog Kid]

Great. Guilty without a trial. And here I thought business having a strangle-hold on the legislature was a uniquely American idea...

So is there a clause that allows buyers to pirate music without penalty? Fair is fair, right? If you're paying for pirated music by buying an mp3 player, you should be able to get what you're paying for!

Orlowski at The Register is going to have a field day with this...

[nsb3000]

I would pay $19 if it meant I could pirate all the music I wanted, legally...

After all the over priced CDs I have bought in years past, $19 sounds like a fair deal for a couple years worth of downloading.

Although it is kind of a strange solution, it seems far more civil than the nightmare we have in the States right now, with the RIAA going around suing people that don't even have computers !

My 2 cents...

-NSB

[Sabenth]

Of all the down right insight full things a tax on players sod this for a game of what evers.. I aint canadian and i find this an insult

[SilvorX]

I dont really mind it, sure I dont want to pay $454CDN +14% sales tax (depends on province to province), but thats how it is
I guess apple already changed their prices to apply with the tax legislation

I remember hearing over a year ago that there's already levies on MP3 players, I guess not. I dont mind levies on CD-Rs, at first I really noticed it, but now the most popular cd-rs are the really cheap brands or ones that are on sale

[maka]

Here in Spain, the goverment allows a private organisation (similar to the RIAA) collect a tax on all the cd-r or dvd-r discs sold (in all their formats) and they want to put a tax on hard drives and internet conections...

It's supposed to cover the loss of money that results from people making a backup copy (as is our right) but they use it as a way to get more money with the excuse of piracy. It's sick...

And they also are starting to sue people that use kazaa to download music...

so...

[florio]

You know what...we are one of the highest taxed countries in the world...we already pay up to 50% income tax and we have 14.5% sales tax (in BC) and we pay $9.00 for cigarettes (not a smoker), 90 cents for a litre of gas ($3.60 a gallon).... we pay $17 for a 12pack of beer...and now an extra $20 on a $700 40GB ipod...

I hate paying it....

But you know what... when I broke my leg in September and went to emergency at the hospital...I didn't pay a dime. We have almost free health care. We have clean air...our country is beautiful (coast to coast)....we have low crime...very few guns...

It is hard to suck up all these taxes...but at the end of the day...the quality of life up here is priceless.

I guess that it isn't fair that they will be charging the surcharge to even those who abide by the law, but then again....not everything is fair....I think that until peoples habits change, the truth is that most peoples music libraries are pirated. I own a nightclub and 90% of the music on my computer is legitimate, but I still download the odd song....I am a pretty honest person, and I still download songs...I believe that I am in the minority when it comes to legal music libraries. Most peoples libraries are 10% legitimate and 90% downloaded.

Whatever... I hate taxes and surcharges or whatever they are calling it just as much as the next guy, but sometimes it makes sense....

I will however have a problem 10 years from now...when most people are paying for legitimate copies of music and movies and all consumers are still being charged the surcharge because of a small percentage of pirates.

Thanks for listening....am I way off base? Tell me is I am...

Thanks,
Florio

[daRAT]

Is not a computer also a mp3 player?

What would be the tax on a 120gig harddrive in a computer? I have a feeling this is Pandora's Box, once this is passed into law, you will have computers taxed also.

For us Americans, you all know as well as I that the Goverment here is watching with glee to see this pass in Canada ...

[Swift]

I'd gladly pay this tax, and an ISP tax as well, if nobody hassles about free downloads and P2P. That's the deal. Otherwise, the tea goes overboard.

[redAPPLE]

Originally posted by florio



I guess that it isn't fair that they will be charging the surcharge to even those who abide by the law, but then again....not everything is fair....I think that until peoples habits change, the truth is that most peoples music libraries are pirated. I own a nightclub and 90% of the music on my computer is legitimate, but I still download the odd song....I am a pretty honest person, and I still download songs...I believe that I am in the minority when it comes to legal music libraries. Most peoples libraries are 10% legitimate and 90% downloaded.



Thanks,
Florio

sorry, to hijack this thread, but a thought came up and i would just like to know...

isn't it so, that somewhere in the cd itself (or cd booklet) says, that playing the songs from a said cd in public is prohibited etc. etc.

a nightclub would be a public place, right? do you have to pay direct or indirect to play music from a cd?

[jethroted]

I think it's a small price to pay in order to have the ability to get my music from Kazaa LEGALLY! I love living in Canada. Kazaa is totally legal, and health care is free, it's like living in bizarro world!

[ncbill]

and get it off ebay, instruct the seller to mark it "gift" with a value of $10 for custom purposes.

OR

get a private mailbox in the U.S. just across the border from where you are, ship all tech goodies for you and your friends there, and pick them up periodocally.

Originally posted by SilvorX
I dont really mind it, sure I dont want to pay $454CDN +14% sales tax (depends on province to province)

[geerlingguy]

If tariffs get any higher, there might be a black market for iPods in Canada...

Seriously, that is kind of stupid -- just a way to take advantage of any legitimate music purchaser and get some tax money...

[jayscheuerle]

It's like the charge built into CD-Rs labeled "For Audio" instead of the cheaper "Data" ones. There's no difference at all in the quality. It's just the charge that makes the Audio ones more expensive.

[artooro]

When I read the news I said "I'm moving to a different country"
And if that ISP tax is passed, I will.
That tax they get is already more than enough for what they need. Tax on MP3 players, hardrives, ISPs, and who knows what else they'll target. I'm thinking of moving.

[SlowX]

Originally posted by nsb3000
I would pay $19 if it meant I could pirate all the music I wanted, legally...

HA!
If only if were that easy...

OR if the government at least created a legitimate fund to help support the actual musicians who were hurt by illegal downloads. But, in the US at least, when such taxes or fees are imposed it usually either just goes to support itself, or it ends up in some vapor fund...

Oh well. Good luck, my northern friends.

[florio]

"sorry, to hijack this thread, but a thought came up and i would just like to know...

isn't it so, that somewhere in the cd itself (or cd booklet) says, that playing the songs from a said cd in public is prohibited etc. etc.

a nightclub would be a public place, right? do you have to pay direct or indirect to play music from a cd?"



We actually "lease the right to play music" ...

the CD's/Vinyl we get through the music pools are licensed and are subject to recall. Any store bought CD's that we get, we actually own... the reason we are allowed to play them in public is because we have to pay fees to SOCAN...which is the group that collects for the artists.

Flo

[adamberti]

Well, this is great!... if you consider the old recommendations were considering a per Gigabyte Tax, which I recall was more than $0.50 (and an increase in per CD tax). This was before Apple released its 30 Gig iPod, and possibly before the 20 Gigger. I remember thinking wow, at least an extra $150 when the 30 Gig iPod comes out. Luckily those laws never passed and I only had to pay close to $800 for my iPod and $4500 for my PowerBook. But those were before Apple got around to adjusting prices to the strong Canadian dollar. Now I'm just ranting.

I do agree with those saying that it really conflicts with legal downloads and it would be nice to fight on that front - but look at CD's. They're used for data and legal backups/mixes of music, and they got away with taxing those.

But then Downloading music is legal....so I'm not sure I want to complain.

EDIT:
Well, I was just looking to confirm what the old tax per gigabyte would be, and this page suggests $21 a Gigabyte! Holy Crap! Now that I think about it, that was the old levy, and that page lists the taxes for a couple of popular devices retailing at the time - the 5 Gig iPod was the only available one, and that would have been an extra $105

There was also discusssion by a lot of Canadian folk when these levy's were first proposed that if implemented, Apple and other manufacturers could ship the devices with a single song already on the player - making it blank, and therefore not subject to levies.

Interesting to note" The Board denied the Canadian Private Copying Collective's (CPCC) request to establish a levy on blank DVDs, removable memory cards and removable micro hard drives. It finds that the evidence available at this time does not clearly demonstrate that these recording media are ordinarily used by individuals for the purpose of copying music." So I guess that means wait a year or two for more devices that use these mediums, and then we will tax it?

[Lanbrown]

Originally posted by florio
You know what...we are one of the highest taxed countries in the world...we already pay up to 50% income tax and we have 14.5% sales tax (in BC) and we pay $9.00 for cigarettes (not a smoker), 90 cents for a litre of gas ($3.60 a gallon).... we pay $17 for a 12pack of beer...and now an extra $20 on a $700 40GB ipod...

I hate paying it....

But you know what... when I broke my leg in September and went to emergency at the hospital...I didn't pay a dime. We have almost free health care. We have clean air...our country is beautiful (coast to coast)....we have low crime...very few guns...

It is hard to suck up all these taxes...but at the end of the day...the quality of life up here is priceless.

I guess that it isn't fair that they will be charging the surcharge to even those who abide by the law, but then again....not everything is fair....I think that until peoples habits change, the truth is that most peoples music libraries are pirated. I own a nightclub and 90% of the music on my computer is legitimate, but I still download the odd song....I am a pretty honest person, and I still download songs...I believe that I am in the minority when it comes to legal music libraries. Most peoples libraries are 10% legitimate and 90% downloaded.

Whatever... I hate taxes and surcharges or whatever they are calling it just as much as the next guy, but sometimes it makes sense....

I will however have a problem 10 years from now...when most people are paying for legitimate copies of music and movies and all consumers are still being charged the surcharge because of a small percentage of pirates.

Thanks for listening....am I way off base? Tell me is I am...

Thanks,
Florio

The great Canadian healthcare system, where Canadians come to the US for surgery because they don't want to wait in some cases months for the surgery, sounds like a great system to me. They are willing to pay out of their own pocket for the surgery in the US. In some cases, the doctors are better in the US because of it; they get paid more.

What does crime and guns have to do with anything? Little to no guns does not mean lower crime, you can ask Great Britain and Australia about that.

Surcharges do not make sense. Most of the time the surcharge rarely gets used for what it's supposed to. At first it might, but then other portions of the government see it as a cash cow. Just wait, in a few years they will increase it again and use the money for something else. I wonder want the administrative fee is for that tax.

[cubist]

Hey a good point there... Sure your taxes are high, but that's what you get for having a "liberal" (i.e. socialist) government. But since you're paying a tax, that makes the illegal downloads legal! Download and share all you want!

[adamberti]

To Lanbrown and SlowX, I believe the levy's are making it to the artists pockets. They complain about the copywright infringments going on, but you never hear them complain about the levy not making it to them. Same with SOCAN. If you're in a group setting (last one I can remember was an old high school class) and your teacher wants to rent a movie, then you just goto blockbuster, rent it, and call up SOCAN and tell them. They just ask you to pay the appropreate fee based on the size of the group. I think it works fairly well because any one of the people in the group who felt morally obliged could call up SOCAN and ask if the fee had been paid. If not you get a nasty fine.

[jxyama]

this is ridiculous.

not only are the consumers presumed guilty, but these taxes are collected in support of an organization with a dying business model. (i assumed that canadian equivalent of RIAA has close ties to the american one.)

i'm sure many critics of pirates (and i am one of them) will say that this is the price we pay for piracy. that's bull. piracy is only part of the reasons the music industry has been struggling. CDs sales have been down because of incredible markups, filler tracks and the end of "replace the tapes with CDs" cycle.

RIAA and equivalents will not back down until they make the same profit as before - when their market had changed already - and piracy is just an easy scapegoat.

by the way, this tax is not a license to download all you want. getting a parking ticket doesn't give you the right to keep your car in an illegal parking space - police can (and sometime do) give out more tickets if the car is kept illegally parked.

if piracy doesn't curve, i have ample reasons to believe they will ask for increase in taxes.

[gralem]

Originally posted by nsb3000
I would pay $19 if it meant I could pirate all the music I wanted, legally...

-NSB

I have to agree. This is THE best thing to possibly happen to the P2P crowd. I've spent nearly $100 at iTMS. But no more. I'm buying my next video ipod from either Apple Canada or Amazon Canada.

The cool thing about that is that with the VIDEO iPod and the cadadian tax, I can legally steal MOVIES. Truly the best news I've had all year!

---gralem