Comments on: Big Music fumbles in Canada

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 23:24:56 +0000

Your reaction is understandable, but not legally correct. To understand why, you have to read the Federal Court of Appeal’s decision from December 2004. The Court held that mp3 players are not an “audio recording medium”:

” A digital audio recorder is not a medium; the CPCC recognized so much when it asked that the levy be applied on the memory found therein but not on the recorder itself. The Board erred when it held that it could certify a levy on the memory integrated into a digital audio recorder.

. . .

“In my respectful view, it is for Parliament to decide whether digital audio recorders such as MP3 players are to be brought within the class of items that can be levied under Part VIII. As Part VIII now reads, there is no authority for certifying a levy on such devices or the memory embedded therein.”

Since mp3 players don’t fall under the exception created by s.80 of the Act, copying onto an mp3 player – even for personal use – is technically a violation of copyright.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 21:51:41 +0000

Why should we (and do we) pay taxes to make private inhuman corporations richer ? Damned ! There’re already taxes on blank CDs/DVDs in my country, they even try to put a new tax on HD, and the goverment that says they’ll lower taxes, just like daddy Bush and his famous “no new taxes”…
Let’s burn technology and go back to nature ah ah ah !

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 21:08:10 +0000

We all copy stuff every day. Next thing we know someone will take paste and copy from our keyboards. If you don’t want something copied then keep it to yourself. If musicians or the industry wants to make more money then go on tour more often and do better shows, charging more and do what they are supost to do ” perform”

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 20:35:32 +0000

Section of 80 of Canada’s Copyright Act states in no uncertain terms that copying for private use, such as from CD to iPod, is NOT an infringement.

See below.

80. (1) Subject to subsection (2), the act of reproducing all or any substantial part of

(a) a musical work embodied in a sound recording,

(b) a performer’s performance of a musical work embodied in a sound recording, or

onto an audio recording medium for the private use of the person who makes the copy does not constitute an infringement of the copyright in the musical work, the performer’s performance or the sound recording.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 19:29:20 +0000

I don’t quite understand this.

Are they saying that because the tax on digital music players has been removed (removed permenantly or indefinately), that people who copy music to those players have lost the protection (or right) to copy music to those players? (ie – that users of MP3 players were protected from copyright prosecution *because* of the tax on the players?)

Is the music industry (in Canada) acknowledging that the special tax (on items like CD-R’s) gives Canadian’s protection from copyright-based legal action by the music industry? If so, then how can they continue to go after Canadian up/downloaders of music on the internet?

Why wasn’t this issue settled when we were using Sony Walkmans and taping music off the air or from records onto casette tape?