CPCC misguiding the public...

From: Russell McOrmond <russell _-at-_ flora.ca>
To: No DMCA in Canada <canada-dmca-opponents (at) flora.org>
Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 09:53:53 -0400 (EDT)

Copy to: DMCA forum, CPCC, my MP.

From:
http://www.cpcc.ca/English/News/0304_factsheet/body_0304_factsheet.html


   The levy is often wrongly referred to as a tax.  It is in fact a
   payment made for access to property.  The levy represents a payment to 
   authors, to music publishers, to performers, and to the makers of the 
   original master recording of the music for the private copying of their
   music. This is no more a tax than is the payment made to buy a
   newspaper, attend a concert or a movie, or to buy a CD burner or blank
   CD-R.


Put simply, this is wrong!


  It is a tax because it is an amount added by government to the price of
a relatively unrelated good or service.  This tax is paid regardless of
whether we receive the related service it is meant to pay for, and is in
fact a payment to pay for someone else's use of a service.


  If I was forced to buy movie tickets when someone else I didn't even
know was the one going to see the movie, I would be upset as well - which
is a much more comparable analogy to make than the one that CPCC tries to
make.


  I am sometime today burning a copy of Mandrake Linux onto a group of
CD's (Note: This is to let me get familiar with Mandrake as this is what
Heritage Canada, copyright policy branch, has for our future
demonstration).  I paid this tax on those CD's.  When I do copy music,
which is less than 10% of my blank CD's, I copy music from artists that
intended me to do so (IE: artists on MP3.com that have deliberately
enabled the 'download' feature), or a re-mix of music I otherwise already
paid for.


  In no situation is this tax able to be called a payment to musicians for
music I have recorded and/or enjoyed.


  I am a strong supporter of independent musicians and other independent
creators.  It is partly because of this, not despite this, that I find the
private copying levy to be an immoral tax.

---
 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
 See http://weblog.flora.ca/ for announcements, activities, and opinions
 Read the speech on copyright made in 1841 by Thomas Babbington Macaulay -
 a must-read for creators -even predicted the consumer reaction to Napster

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