Bad news for the Canadian people. looser used our newssubmit to tell us that the Canadian government wants to tack on an extra $0.60 to every blank CD that you buy:
The Canadian government collects a certain percentage of tax on blank CD's, audio tapes as well as some other forms of digital storage that the RIAA think is capable of producing perfect copies of the music that you and I legally purchase. These taxes have been raised a few times in the past, but the rate at which these devices / recording media are being produced has reduced their costs more than 10x from when they were first produced. |
The suggested rates are as follows:
- $0.60 for each blank audiocassette (1/8th inch) that is over 40 minutes
- $0.59 per blank CD/CDRW or any other blank CD consisting of more than 100MB of storage.
- $1.23 for each CDR-Audio, CDRW-Audio or Minidisc.
- $0.008 per MB of removable storage, be it CompactFlash, SmartMedia, SSC, IBM MicroDrives.
- $2.27 per DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM or any other type of recordable DVD.
- $0.021 per MB of non-removable storage in any hardware MP3 player or similar device
- $21 per GB of non-removable Hard Drive storage in an MP3 or device primarily intended for music.
These taxes will be collected when the devices / blanks are imported into Canada. What's that mean to you? Next time you go out and buy a spindle of blank CDR's (which I do, for work, for legit purposes -- it's better than tape backups) you should be prepared to cough up an additional 29.50, plus provincial and federal taxes for the product. Say you buy a 20Gig Creative Nomad MP3 player? Tack on a whopping $420 + tax. It is going to damn near double the price! All of it going to the recording industry.
Very bad news for the Canadian people... Even audio tapes aren't 'safe' anymore! You can read the original article here. There's also a PDF-document on this link with ways to protest against these actions.
Source: tinfoil.music
