ACTRA is in Ottawa this week for a two-day lobby campaign on issues such as cultural funding and copyright. The group will undoubtedly focus on extending the private copying levy to iPods, an issue it has raised in the past. While there is seemingly no prospect of extending the levy to iPods, the question now is whether the government is prepared to take action against the plan to extend it to memory cards.

The Copyright Board of Canada recently established the timing for the hearing on extending the private copying levy to electronic memory storage devices such as SD cards. The hearing will not start until October 2012, but the time for the government to act is now. Given its opposition to the “iPod tax”, it is hard to see how it can possibly support extending the levy to SD cards and other storage devices. In fact, last year Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore specifically referenced memory cards in a debate on extending the levy:

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During the most recent election campaign, there was no shortage of debate over the so-called iPod Tax, a proposed levy on iPods and similar devices to compensate for copies of sound recordings. While the prospect of an iPod tax in Canada died with the Conservative majority, the existing private copying […]

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