January 15, 2004
Canadian RIAA gets its way
Posted by bopuc at January 15, 2004 05:56 PM
For no good reason, I visited the canadian apple online store today. I like to go in there sometime, poke around and drool. Go figure...
Anyways, so I click through to the iPod section and - what da heck, eh?! - find this, in bright orange letters:
Price includes CPCC's Blank Media Levy - $25
Google search CPCC.
The Canadian Private Copying Collective is the non-profit agency charged with collecting and distributing private copying royalties. Established in 1999, CPCC is an umbrella organization that represents songwriters, recording artists, music publishers and record companies. These are the groups on whose behalf the royalties are collected. CPCC is not an arm of government. Enforcement of the private copying tariff and advocacy, including representing copyright holders before the Copyright Board, which decides the tariff, are other important functions of CPCC. This site provides in-depth background on each of CPCC's key functions. To locate the information of interest to you, please see the site menu.
I must have been sleeping:
Under the decision, the following tariffs will hold in 2003-2004: 29 cents on audio cassette tapes of 40 minutes or longer; 21 cents on CD-Rs and CD-RWs; and 77 cents on CD-R Audio, CD-RW Audio and MiniDiscs.
The Board also set for the first time charges on non-removable memory permanently embedded in digital audio recorders: $2 for recorders with a memory capacity of more than 1GB; $15 for recorders with memory capacity of more than 1GB and up to 10GB; and $25 for each recorder with memory capacity of more than 10GB.
COPYRIGHT BOARD
FILE: Private Copying 2003-2004
Tariff of Levies to Be Collected by CPCC in 2003 and 2004 on the Sale, in Canada, of Blank Audio Recording Media
In accordance with subsection 83(10) of the Copyright Act, the Copyright Board has certified and hereby publishes the statement of levies to be collected by the Canadian Private Copying Collective (CPCC) effective on January 1, 2003, on the sale, in Canada, of blank audio recording media for the years 2003 and 2004.
Ottawa, December 13, 2003
Miserable bastards.
Comments
At least we got our iPods long before this bullshit.
(What percentage of that tariff actually goes to the artists? Probably less than they get from the sale of their CD's).
Posted by: anders at January 15, 2004 11:38 PM
I seem to remember a news item last year that said that exactly *none* of the monies gathered by the Blank Media Levy had ever been disbursed to artists. Seems like someone's get-rich-quick scheme worked!
Posted by: aj at January 16, 2004 09:56 AM
That does not surprise me in the least.
Worse, how does one qualify to get this money? Be an "artist" with a record deal? How ridiculous!!
No worse... outrageous.
Posted by: Boris Anthony at January 16, 2004 01:51 PM
I'm not sure this is correct. I think you just need to be a SOCAN artist; I don't think a record deal is needed. I know Canadian record companies get somewhere around 10% (?) of the cash, but I think the lion's share gets distributed to SOCAN artists. I could be wrong.
In any case, other than the prior restraint angle, this seems like a pretty darn reasonable way of dealing with artist royalties. Certainly far better than the RIAA approach (now being mirrored in Canada) of starting litigation against individual users.
Posted by: optimus crime at January 16, 2004 04:28 PM