Canadian Feds ponder MP3 tax

[dj SPINZ]

OTTAWA -- Rockin' on with your MP3 or burning music CDs on your computer will cost a lot more if the federal government has its way. Canadians have until May 8 to file written objections to the Copyright Board. It's proposed that the charges would take effect Jan. 1, 2003.

http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSTechNews0203/15_mp3-sun.html

You know all of this "tax for the artists" crap is going straight into the pockets of the already wealthy record labels...not the pockets of the artists! Definately underground or independent artists will see none of this money.

In fact independent artists such as myself will now have to pay more just to buy CDs to burn music that I already own the copyright to!!

Please read the article and please write in if you love underground music.
dj Spinz
http://www.blaydrunner.com

 

[Tyler]

Iwas talking to some friends of mine that runs small independant record labels and they claim that they are more affected by the loss of revenue from MP3 than the major record labels.

 

[Brandon]

I think it's interesting that they are going after the hardware side of the technology with this proposed royalty. I've always thought that it made more sense to tax the devices used to make copies (CD decks, mp3 players, etc.) than to directly tax the media itself (CDs, tapes, etc.) because people use CDs and tapes for other things than making pirate copies of copyrighted material...don't they?

And Spinz makes a good point, independent artists are getting shafted by paying a copyright royalty to copy something they already own the copyright to...

long live mixtapes!

 

[Subsonic Chronic]

I would assume that the widespread availability of mp3's would benefit the smaller labels more than it would hurt them. With limited contacts and limited abilities to get their music in stores, it would allow more people worldwide to access their music, wouldn't it?

And generally fans of smaller artists are more willing to dish out $10-$15 for a cd because they know that the money is going directly to support them as opposed to popular artisist who's labels are keeping most of the profits anyway.

Pete