IpodTax
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Portuguese opposition party wants 'terabyte tax,' voters want a new opposition party
Portugal's opposition party, Partido Socialista, is pondering a tax on storage media under the flag of copyright protection. Under the proposal, consumers would pay €0.02 for every gigabyte of storage purchased, so a 1TB HDD would cost around €21 ($28) extra, plus an additional levy on devices over that size means a 2TB drive could cost an additional €103.2 ($135). It doesn't just stop at desktop platters: USB sticks, memory cards and even smartphones would also be charged, with any device packing 64GB of storage facing a surcharge of €32 ($42). A party member defended the idea, saying that the tax is aimed at professionals who use larger capacity drives -- but since most consumer HDDs come with a minimum size of 160GB and the legislation is also supposedly meant to tackle piracy, we're not entirely sure it adds up -- except maybe in government coffers.Update: We're hearing that the bill titled PL118 has been withdrawn in the face of overwhelming common sense.[Thanks, Ricardo]
Is Canada's iPod tax back? And if so, will BJ Snowden get her cut?
We know, BJ Snowden is an American artist -- but since her song "In Canada" is probably on every iPod and computer up north, we have to wonder whether a proposed amendment to the Canadian Copyright act will help her finally get what's coming to her. The brainchild of the New Democratic Party's Charlie Angus, the bill would extend 1997's Private Copying Levy "to the next generation of devices that consumers are using for copying sound recordings for personal use." Proponents of the plan says that it ensures that artists get paid for their work -- essentially, the government wants you to pay upfront for the music you're likely to steal anyways by taxing your next digital audio player purchase. Of course, much about the plan doesn't make sense (it doesn't address digital video, for instance, or the computers that people use to download and store their music in the first place) but we guess we'll let the Canadian government hash that one out. This is obviously not a new idea, and it is one the courts have rejected already, but who knows? Maybe this time it will "take." Lets hope not, eh? Update: No surprise, but the levy is already being shouted down by Industry Minister Tony Clement calling it "totally nonsensical" and "180 degrees in the wrong direction" with regard to the government's strategy to embrace the internet, not stifle it.
French courts require foreign vendors to remind customers about 'iPod tax'
A French court has ruled that online retailers shipping music players to addresses in France must warn the customer that they will have to pay the "iPod tax" once the device arrives in the country. France enacted a levy designed to compensate copyright holders to the tune of €40 per device for illegal file copying. French retailers roll the levy into their price, making vendors outside France more attractive, price-wise. The levy applies to music players, USB storage, and blank media. While the warning is now necessary, it's no guarantee that the tax will be paid. The UK, Canada and Japan have all considered or tried a similar fee, but all have failed for one reason or another. [Via The Register.]
So-called iPod tax overturned by Canadian court
Splendid news on the Canadian front -- it seems as if that proposed tax on digital recorders and storage devices (you know, like Apple's iPod for instance) will actually not come to pass. According to Judge Karen Sharlow, the board "had no legal authority to certify a tariff on digital audio recorders or on the memory permanently embedded in digital audio recorders." The ruling enables all music lovin' Canucks to breath a sigh of relief, as it makes tacking on fees ranging from C$5 ($4.95) to C$75 ($74) in order to "compensate the recording industry for music that was copied" illegal . From here, a decision still needs to be made to clarify the legality (or illegality) of copying music from discs to DAPs, but at least we're seeing a touch of levelheadedness in the music biz, regardless.[Via ArsTechnica]
