Canadians Taxing Storage Media

from the that's-right,-make-things-worse dept

Canada is trying to pass a law that would put fairly large taxes on all sorts of recordable media. It would put a $0.59 tax on ever blank CD sold. However, even worse, would be the taxes on MP3 players and other devices that include a lot of storage. The pricing comes out to $21/gigabyte, so any Canadians should expect to pay an extra $100 for their iPod, or another $400(!) for one of those 20 gig portable jukebox players. Seems a bit extreme. The article predicts that if this passes, it won't be long before people start smuggling recordable media into Canada from the US.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 12 Mar 2002 @ 10:50am

    smuggling

    Yeah, until the same shit gets passed here. Don't think it can't/won't happen!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 12 Mar 2002 @ 12:36pm

    No Subject Given

    Agreed! The RIAA already has thought about this factor already. It is on their to-do list for 2002. Since they can't squelch the technology with lawsuits they might as well monopolize and tax it.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      msykes, 12 Mar 2002 @ 10:19pm

      Re: No Subject Given

      Fucking Canadians, bunch of lame ass hosers!

      :-) Seriously though... I'm not necessarily completely opposed to taxes - heck, I'll pay an extra Penny for every CDR, and maybe 10 cents for every Gigabyte of space, but these prices are insane!

      Didn't they already try to pass something like this in the US before? Maybe not, maybe I'm thinking of a previous time they tried to pass this in Canada (I am Canadian, so I'm allowed to make those earlier comments)

      msykes

      link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.