Thank you for visiting my Media Levy Objection page

The first page about this I wrote is the March, 2002 Digital Rag page. It outlines the reasons for the rest of this section quite nicely.

As Time Goes By

December 12, 2003 - Finally! The ruling - and I have to say it is better than I expected. The old levy is continued unchanged for this 2 years (ending Dec. 31, 2004) but adds a levy on "digital audio recorders" (aka MP3 players) of from $2 to $25 per unit depending on how much storage they have when sold.

Discussion on the objectors' list and http://www.digital-copyright.ca (another list I subscribe to) currently revolves around the fact that in this ruling the Board has specifically singled out DVD-R/RWs as not being eligible for use for private copying since it is a blank audio medium but the Board has not imposed a levy on it. This ruling brings up all sorts of potential "gotchas" for the future, including things like the Board ruling (it hasn't yet) that standard hard drives (like the ones in your PC) are blank audio media but not leviable and therefore not eligible for use for private copying - i.e. copying music to them would be against the law.

This will take a bit of time to digest the ramifications of. In the mean time we're also wondering when the next round (for the 2005-2006 timeframe) is going to get going since this one is almost a year late and there is only a year left to get the next levy in place.

November 28, 2003 an excellent interview regarding copyright and creator's compensation with some points relevant to the item below. It appears that maybe Canada has the right idea with the Media Levy and the potential to "levy" ISPs in some manner. I'll explore this and get back to you. Jim Griffin was interviewed by Mikael Pawlo

November 27, 2003 Music group (in Canada) aims to charge Internet users

"Canada's songwriters will ask the Supreme Court of Canada next week to force Internet service providers to pay them royalties for the millions of digital music files downloaded each year by Canadians."

The discussion continues. Yesterday (July 7, 2003) two of the talk-show hosts on my favourite talk radio (CKNW.COM) spent time discussing both the RIAA's going after individuals with large shared music directories and the Blank Media Levy. I spoke to Bill Good and followed up by e-mail. Some of the people who phoned in had completely wrong information about the levy.

From comments by others in the hearing, there are points that I made that are both new and "interesting" and at least one (the comparison of levy amounts with other Act mandated tariffs such as the $100/year for a community broadcast license) that raised the chair's eyebrows and elicited a "that's interesting" comment.

My formal objection is here in PDF form and here in web form (which loses some formatting)
A Press Release is also available. Get the PDF reader if you need it: Adobe Acrobat Reader 

A preliminary version is in my April page and you should also take a look at the links on the Levy Links page for more information and opinions.

I have also created an outline for those who don't want to wade through the formal document. It contains a timeline and pointers to various documents I and other objectors (and CPCC) have had to create during this process.

I've asked you here to help me, yourself, and other Canadians deal with what has become a major threat to the technology industries in Canada. It originated with what originally to many seemed a good idea, or at least not a bad idea; the blank audio recording media levy as enshrined in the Copyright Act.

This seems to be an excellent example of the "law of unintended consequences" where changes in a law in response to one problem cause more problems down the road. In this case, the law was created in one technological environment, and is now being applied in what has turned out to be a completely different environment due to the rapid changes in the use of E-commerce via the Internet and other things such as the Free Trade Act with the U.S. and other countries.

In my opinion another factor is the interjection into the process of the free market of a self-serving entity (CPCC) with no other stake in the process than to increase the amount of money flowing via their particular conduit to the copyright holders at the expense of any other conduit and not necessarily in the best interests of the copyright holders themselves.

In studying this matter (after getting madder than hell over the concepts proposed by CPCC and their consequences to businesses I work with and have knowledge about) I believe I have uncovered not only a fatal flaw in CPCC's calculations on which they base their proposals, but also what may turn out to be a reasonable answer (or set of answers) so that all sides can live with what probably is in the long run a "not bad" idea; that of some sort of levy in general, and one on blank audio media in particular.

Please read my formal objection and form your own opinions. There are notes and musings in my Digital Rag issues for March and April as well.

Others have created web sites and objection documents:

As a note about the fact that music publishers force the purchasing public to take unwanted songs along with the ones they want:

It is my opinion that if CPCC treats each track on a record as a separate "product" then the public should be able to purchase each separately - and at this time they cannot.