Re: [Cdn-DMCA] "Collection Societies"

From: "Chris Palmer" <cpalmer _-at-_ accesscable.net>
To: "No DMCA in Canada" <canada-dmca-opponents (at) flora.org>
Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 10:39:20 -0300
References: <Pine.LNX.4.10.10108061955180.2302-100000@calcutta.flora.ca>

>    Outside Europe, Canada has imposed levies on recordable CDs. Geist,
>    the Ottawa law professor, says that while there has been some
>    discussion of extending these levies to PCs and MP3 players, no formal
>    proposal has been developed.

Michael Geist was interviewed on the CPAC channel some months back, and he
proposed that Napster woul be legal in Canada, because:


1. There is no vicarious copyright liabiity in Canada, that is liability for
aiding someone else to commit copyright infractions. This is what really got
Napster

2.  Private home copying is legal, and paid for by the tax on recordable
CD's.

I can't remember if he said this, but Napster records would be a perfect way
to allocate the recording levy as we would have a reasonable record of the
songs people actually traded as opposed to industry records that are biased
on favour of Celine Dion and Brittany. I am not opposed to a recordable CD
levy, but I think the  pot should be shared a bit more equitably among the
smaller artists too.

But Napster was killed and any possible copying records have been scattered
to the winds. The ones that took over don't keep any records.

Another problem, recordable DVD's are coming, what would the recording tax
be when you could put thousands of songs on a single DVD? Or every single
Harlequin Romance novel ever printed?

Chris

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