Canadians to get iPod refund
p2pnet.net News:- It won’t be long before Canadians who’d forked out more than they needed to because of a record label cartel-inspired tax on their portable digital music players will get refunds.
Some $4 million will be returned to importers and manufacturers, but it wasn’t known if users, too, would get their money back.
In a statement that wrongly implies it had something to do with this, “Apple is pleased that the Supreme Court of Canada let stand a lower court ruling that blank media levies on iPods are invalid, and will shortly announce a claims process so consumers can request a refund for the levies they paid,” the CBC has it saying.
The tax had been passed on to consumers by companies like Apple and was collected by the Canadian Private Copying Collective, a non-profit agency that works on behalf of musicians and record companies, says the story.
The CPCC has been demanding that a tax be imposed on portable music players and asked Canada`s Supreme Court high court to overturn last year’s Federal Court of Appeal decision which had quashed it.
It was $2 for non-removable memory capacity of up to one gig, $15 for one to 10 gigs and $25 for more than 10 gigs, but the Supreme Court of Canada has now refused to allow the appeal
The CPCC got the levy instituted in the first place because it successfully argued that iPod users were making illegal copies of songs, so money should be collected on behalf of the copyright holders, says the CBC.
Canadian law professor Michael Geist says Big Music`s CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association of America) response to the decision represents an even higher risk strategy. CRIA is now going to war not only with its customers, but now also with its artists.
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See:-
CBC – Apple to give levy back to iPod owners, August 8, 2005
tax be imposed – Canada rejects iPod levy, p2pnet, July 29, 2005
higher risk strategy -Big Music fumbles in Canada, p2pnet, July 29, 2005
August 9th, 2005 at 4:35 pm
Didn’t that already happen? I got one for Christmas, but my parents bought it right after the levy was banned, and Future Shop announced a levy-refund program.
August 10th, 2005 at 5:03 pm
damn, you must be one spoiled-ass kid. Get a job, and allow your parents to enjoy their money, instead of spoiling you.