Canada May Tax Legal Music Downloads 246
FuriousBalancing writes "MacNN is reporting that Canadians may soon pay a small tax on every legal music store download. This fee is the work of a measure proposed by the Copyright Board of Canada. About two cents would be added to every song downloaded, with 1.5 cents being added to album downloads. Streaming services and subscriptions would also be taxed, to the tune of about 6% of the monthly fee. Most interesting - the tax would be retroactively applied to every transaction processed since 1996. 'The surcharge would help compensate artists for piracy, according to SOCAN's reasoning. The publishing group draws similarities between this and a 21-cent fee already applied to blank CDs in the country; the right to copy a song from an online store demands the same sort of levy applied to copying a retail CD, SOCAN argues. The tax may have a significant impact for online stores such as iTunes and Canada-based Puretracks, which will have to factor the amount both into future and past sales.' The full text of the measure is available in PDF format."
Theoretically Speaking (Score:5, Interesting)
Can we just churn out some simple recordings, demonstrate it's theoretical pirating rates and call up somewhere to get some dough?
Re:A tax on not committing piracy (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually, that could make sense. Smokers die much sooner; as a result, they are much less likely to receive the same benefits from their pension plan that a non-smoker would receive. Every smoker who dies at 60 or 65 saves the government and their employer a lot in pensions.
It is often said that smokers cost the health care system more - I'm not sure that is true. Since everyone dies, are smokers just running up their health care costs sooner than non-smokers?
Ex Post Facto Laws (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Pitchforks and torches (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:That would suck (Score:2, Interesting)
It's the law of unintended consequences. Due to the Levy on blank media, I can copy/download as much as I please, all completely legal in Canada
Add another Levy and I'll have even more protection from the lawsuit insanity going on in the US.
And I wonder how this works to the CRIA's advantage as that they are attempting to get rid of the levy on blank media for the afore mentioned reason.
I don't pay to download music now, Why would I start?
Re:That would suck (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It is NOT piracy in Canada! (Score:5, Interesting)
More and more ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Pure corruption. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:That would suck (Score:3, Interesting)
There's one detail that can potentially be argued, and that's whether SHARING (or uploading) music is the other guy making a copy for himself (legal), or you making a copy for him (which is illegal). The precedent is that this too is the other guy making a copy for himself, and therefore legal.