CRTC Ruling - 2003 - December 12 - Media Levy

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.

	http://www.cb-cda.gc.ca/decisions/c12122003-b.pdf is the full text of the ruling
	http://canadagazette.gc.ca/partI/2003/20031213/html/suppl-e.html is the Gazette version of the ruling
	http://www.cb-cda.gc.ca/news/c20032004nr-e.html is the press release
	http://www.cb-cda.gc.ca/news/c20032004fs-e.html is the Board's "Fact Sheet"
	http://www.cb-cda.gc.ca/news/c20032004list-e.html is the list of participants (including yours truly)

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.