Canadian High Court Lets Bar to iPod Levy Stand

[canadateck]

The fight over a levy on iPods and other digital music devices ended today when the Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear any further arguments on the matter.

That means there will be no levy applied to digital audio recorders such as Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) popular iPod and iPod shuffle as well as other MP3 players like iRiver.

"Obviously we're disappointed. We felt it was self-evident that those products are sold for the purpose of copying music," said David Basskin, of the Canadian Private Copying Collective (CPCC), the non-profit agency that collects tariffs on behalf of musicians and record companies.


Levy Halted
The group had wanted the high court to overturn last year's Federal Court of Appeal decision that quashed the levy on the popular gadgets.

The non-profit agency had been collecting the tariff -- $2 for non-removable memory capacity of up to 1 GB, $15 for one to 10 GB, $25 for more than 10 GB -- since December 2003 through a tax built into the price of the devices.

It stopped in December 2004 when the Federal Court overturned the policy at the urging of retailers and manufacturers such as Future Shop, Apple Canada and Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) Computer Corporation of Canada.

The CPCC argued that since the new technology opened yet another avenue to make illegal copies of songs, a levy should be collected on behalf of music creators.

Money to Be Returned
The group said today that approximately $4 million was collected between December 2003 and December 2004.

The money is sitting in an account and will be returned to the importers and manufacturers of the products, said Basskin.

The CPCC is a non-profit agency that collects and distributes tariffs on behalf of performers, songwriters, music producers and record companies. It also collects a levy on blank audio such as CDs and mini-discs

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/AgClT3HLPdvnY3/Canadian-High-Court-Lets-Bar-to-iPo...vy-Stand.xhtml

[ungamunga]

Those devices have drives and flash memory as short-term storage, not as a permanent way of storing information (i.e. unlike CDs, DVDs which are intended for long-term storage). You fill them and wipe them. That is their whole purpose.

Why should they be treated differently from memory cards or normal hard drives? The music had to come from somewhere else. These are just a necessary component of any digital music player. Putting music files on iPods' drive is no different from popping a tape in a walkman. It's fair use of copyrighted material. The drive levy was a blatant money grab.

The media levy is already pretty shakey in its justification since it penalizes non-pirating users when they buy media. On media, it can be deemed reasonable since a large percentage of that media is used in ways that violate copyright.