Canadians Can't Tax iPods... For Now
from the short-term-thing dept
Almost exactly a year ago, Canada started taxing MP3 players. They had already been taxing things like blank CDs as a sort of "tax to cover unauthorized music copying" and the idea was to extend it to MP3 players... even for those who were using the players for completely legitimate purposes. Now, a Canadian Court has ruled that this tax is illegal. The reasoning is basically that the wording of Canada's Copyright Act clearly doesn't cover things like MP3 players. What this really means is that Canadian politicians are likely to change that law soon. If anything, certain Canadian politicians will probably use this as an opportunity to try to make the law much more entertainment industry friendly.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.
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CD Tax
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Re: CD Tax
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Re: CD Tax
If I lend you a CD and you make a copy of it for yourself, this is legal.
If I make you a copy of the CD and give it to you, this is not legal (viewed as distribution of a copywrited work).
The decision on whether music downloads were legal were seen in this light. Ie: If you download something...it is the same as borrowing it and making a copy for yourself.
I'm not sure if anything was stated about making your collection available to P2P networks...since you aren't "uploading"...rather you are letting people download from you.
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Re: CD Tax
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The real picture
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Re: The real picture
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Re: The real picture
Canada's provinces have their own "premiers", so they are run essentially like independent countries. Store shelves have quotas for what portion of products are supposed to come from what provinces, so the American products that sell better tend to empty out quick. If you missed the show, then you go on your big shopping trip south of the border to load up on light bulbs, toilet paper, toothpaste, clothes, and whatever else you need.
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Re: CD Tax
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Re: The real picture
Now where oh WHERE did your active imagination get THAT ridiculous idea?
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Re: The real picture
This isn't correct. In Canada all powers not listed in the Constitution go to the federal government, which is the opposite of the US. As a result the provinces have to go to the federal government to get enough money to run their programs. As for Southern politicians setting up Canada I never heard of that - several conferences took place prior to the 1860's on setting up Canada.
The digital media levy is a poorly designed payout to the Canadian music industry and nothing to due with government tax policy.
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