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Music Groups Gearing Up As Part of Copyright Consultation

With only 24 days left in the copyright consultation, several Canadian music associations and groups are urging their members to become more active in the consultation.  The Canadian Private Copying Collective, which administers the private copying levy, is using a recently launched SaveTheLevy.ca site to urge rights holders to submit to the consultation a position paper that calls for protection of the levy and its expansion to MP3 players.

Meanwhile, Quebec-based associations such as SPACQ, SODRAC, ARTISTI, and ADISQ (along with SOCAN) sent out a message to their members this week noting the limited French-language participation in the consultation and claiming that most participants are calling for free access online.  The groups urge their members to speak out with a message that calls for a technology neutral law and a greater policing role for ISPs.

As these groups increase their efforts, all the more reason for all Canadians to speak out on copyright during these final 24 days.

9 Comments

  1. I hate the levy
    The levy is all about double-dipping though. Once I’ve paid for the music I’ve bought, that should be it. I don’t see why they should get paid again when they’ve done no more work to earn it. I copy the music onto my iPod or CD at my expense, not theirs, it costs me my time, money and effort to back up or transfer the music I’ve bought. I have no problem paying them for the work they did to create the music, but that’s where my moral obligation to them ends.

  2. I like the levy.
    It’s cheap and easy and while not entirely fair (c.f. I use about 99.9% of my blank media for backing up my own photography works – yes I know about the exemptions, but I hate the paperwork), I like the blanket coverage it gives. It’s by no means perfect, but it seems to be the best, most fair way to ensure rights holders get paid while remaining cognisant that once something can be digitized, you can’t possible hope to restrict it’s distribution from a technical standpoint. I would be happy to keep the levy in exchange for no DRM, open standards and a sort of greyish or even clear blanket copyright coverage. I think rights holders would actually make more money this way and vaguely recall a study a few years ago that confirmed this.

  3. I hate the levy
    I fully get your point James. But we all know that just looking a C61, DRM was to stop us copying, but we still had to pay the levy on the media. To me, that’s triple-dipping.

    I sell computer software that I write, and I have no expectation for further payment once that sale is made. I encourage my users to make backup copies or use on their laptop as well as their main computer (as long as they don’t use the software on both at the same time) – they find that fair and reasonable, and I do to. Should there be a levy on hard drives so that I could, theoretically, get compensated when someone makes a backup copy of my software? The the whole concept is ludicrous.

    Because of the levy, I don’t think any Canadian who knows about copyright and the levy feels at all morally obliged to actually pay for music. Why should they if the musicians are getting “compensated”. If there is a music copyright issue in Canada it’s of the musicians own doing through getting the levy, which is unfairly applied to non-audio media and works on the premise that a musician should get paid not for creating music, but for when I make a backup copy or media shift my music (or as they want, put it on an iPod). Again, utterly ludicrous. Do you think people would buy software from me if they had to pay a levy to software developers when they bought a computer. They’d feel pissed off at the computer tax and use it as a moral excuse not to buy software.

    The levy may be a “practical” solution, but it’s not a good one for the above reasons. Because I feel like an utter chump when I actually buy music rather than just download a pirate copy that I’ve already paid for through the levy.

  4. I hate the levy
    Never get between a interest group and their stream of OPM (OPM=Other People’s Money). Sure, they don’t earn it, but hey, they got a law passed to collect it so now it’s theirs to keep. And once a group becomes part of the Private tax collectors of Canada Inc. well, it’s going to take a lot to rip their lips off the teat of the public’s wallet. (Sorry for the mixed metaphors)

  5. I don’t mind the levy
    It gives me absolute moral and legal authority to download music to my little heart’s content. I’ve hardly bought a CD in the last five years and as long as all of the music I buy goes onto a CD, I’m covered. $0.99 a track? At $0.21 per 74 minutes of music, I’m way ahead. I understand the argument about fairness but the industry wanted a way to overcharge consumers and got exactly what they wanted. I’m taking some of it back using their own rules.

  6. I don’t mind the levy
    @ Gerrit

    Same here.

  7. I don’t mind the levy
    I can’t say that I mind the levy, considering how many times this one levy has saved consumer rights over and over.

    I do have a odd question to these people, I am not really thinking that applying the levy to the media player (or the CD for that matter) is rather constructive in a age where music is taken directly. It would be better felt at the time of purchase for a track, and given that… how would services like iTunes comply it that was to happen?

  8. Music Tax?
    I like the idea of the levy being applied directly on the purchase of music though – then photographers backing up their photos or using their iPods as digital photo albums don’t pay. In a digital age when any digital storage can be used for any media, it makes no sense to apply a levy on media, or that just leads directly to unfairness.

    Even better still put the tax on DVDs and remove the DRM.

  9. I don’t mind the levy because I like the middleman
    > It’s by no means perfect, but it seems to be the best, most fair way to ensure rights holders get paid while remaining cognisant that once something can be digitized, you can’t possible hope to restrict it’s distribution from a technical standpoint.

    Which rights holders should get paid? I want my favourite artists to get paid, not yours – and certainly not some middleman who produces nothing, artistically or otherwise, while collecting money “on behalf of real artists.”

    > I would be happy to keep the levy in exchange for no DRM, open standards and a sort of greyish or even clear blanket copyright coverage. I think rights holders would actually make more money this way and vaguely recall a study a few years ago that confirmed this.

    Since this levying theft began over a decade ago, DRM was there and DRM is still here. The market will determine DRM’s future, not some legislated levying theft. The true purpose of DRM is to herd sheople (“sheeple”) into buying the same content for every new format of the day. This way, your entertainment overlords will not have to produce more artistically, only new formats.

    > It gives me absolute moral and legal authority to download music to my little heart’s content.

    You may feel high morally, but downloading is legally in the gray area. Your entertainment overlords would love to send the police into your home to search for all of your infringing copies, but it’s impossible to do for every home. Thus, they have devised this levying theft scheme which makes you pay their tax, so they won’t come after you, kapiche? Moreover, this is why they sue UPloaders for illegal distribution. When all of the UPloaders are gone, your heart’s content will be little to nothing; and you’ll still be paying this levying theft.

    Copyright and DRM are nothing more than schemes in a market war for distribution. It has nothing to do with artists’ compensation or user rights, and everything to do with the middleman being obsolete. The middleman is your entertainment overlords, who have been ripping off artists and fans for decades. Funniest of all, you defend the middleman.

    hahahaha