Michael Geist

The Copyright Board of Canada this afternoon issued its much-anticipated decision involving online music services.  The decision sets a tariff for the online music services to be paid for the reproduction of music.  I blogged about the hearings in the fall, which pitted the CMRRA against CRIA and the online music services. 

The Copyright Board was asked to choose between two benchmarks in establishing the tariff.  CMRRA wanted to use the recent ringtone decision as the starting point, while CRIA argued that traditional CDs served as the more appropriate starting point.  The Board sided with CRIA, ultimately arriving at a tariff of 7.9 percent of the retail price per "permanent" download (ie. a download from Apple iTunes) with a minimum payment of 5.3 cents per download. Note that CRIA also sought to become a sub-licensee of the CMRRA repertiore, but the Board rejected that request.

The decision also includes some important language with respect to private copying and DRM. 

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