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Canada to tax online music sales

Babrbarossa

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Joined
Dec 2, 2006
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3,776
Location
New Brunswick
I loath our federal government these days- In an bold move to ameliorate piracy the Canadian government in its wisdom has decided to tax people who download music legally to compensate artists for those who download illegally????????????????. Now online music stores will have to pay 3.1 cents for each individual track and 1.5 cents per track for entire albums sold directly to SOCAN, which will in turn distribute the funds to the artists. This expense will, of course be handed down to the consumer. Don't the artists already receive roylaties from the legal sale of online music?
 

enaberif

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Joined
Dec 9, 2006
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11,412
Location
Calgahree, AB
I loath our federal government these days- In an bold move to ameliorate piracy the Canadian government in its wisdom has decided to tax people who download music legally to compensate artists for those who download illegally????????????????. Now online music stores will have to pay 3.1 cents for each individual track and 1.5 cents per track for entire albums sold directly to SOCAN, which will in turn distribute the funds to the artists. This expense will, of course be handed down to the consumer. Don't the artists already receive roylaties from the legal sale of online music?


this is why bands like NiN and Radiohead are going indie!
 

MacJunky

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May 14, 2007
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1,849
Location
Grande Cache, AB
This will only make more people download illegally.
It is like pot, restrict it and it goes underground. Legalize and it stays (hopefully mostly) above ground where the government could actually partially monitor it if not get involved and make a few dollars.
Don't get me wrong, I don't smoke anything and don't plan on it but _really_, this is like telling a teenage son/daughter that they cannot go somewhere or do something. In the end if they want it enough they will most likely find a way and piss you off in the process.
 

sswilson

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Dec 9, 2006
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24,652
Location
Moncton NB
Yep, as a person who pays for on-line music through a subscription service I have to start asking myself if it's worth it any more.

I wouldn't complain if they could explain to me where the cost savings from on-line sales (no physical production, shipping, store frontage, etc....) is reflected, it certainly isn't in the price.

The biggest complaint to date about these kinds of taxes (aside from the fact that they are more than likely conter-productive) is that only a small percentage of them already collected has ever made it into the hands of artists.

IMO, the entire recording industry is long overdue for a major overhaul.
 

belgolas

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Joined
May 9, 2007
Messages
4,359
Location
St. Thomas, Ontario
For anyone who hasn't noticed, Offline has banned Canadian traffic. Will this tax apply to international labels?
you can get around that easily, besides like there isn't a hundred other sites. I think it is dumb. Raise the cost so more people pirate. I try not to but if it is a song I am not sure I might like I will download it then if I like it I will buy it. Same with games except for the really good ones.
 

Jmac

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Joined
Apr 25, 2007
Messages
550
Location
Van Isle, BC
Well, I think this tax is complete crap ... There is already little incentive to buy music online because of restrictive DRMs, minimal savings over buying the actual media, etc. etc. etc. and then to tax it further, and for a completely incomprehensible reason to boot, just makes it even less appealing.

Every other industry attempts to cater to the general public, offering better products for less year after year. Meanwhile, the entertainment industry is the complete opposite, pressing charges against the general public for downloading "illegal" content, bitching and complaining to various governments to stop the "evil" downloaders, etc. instead of adjusting to the market to give the general public what they want at a price they're willing to pay. I mean, if they offered me high-quality unrestricted MP3 downloads @ $0.50/song I would probably pay for it, but $0.99 for a mediocre-quality, copyright-protected, incredibly-restrictive song is bullshit, IMO.

As for demonoid, who cares ? There are like 5,000 other torrent sites to get stuff from, not to mention other methods of P2P as well as newsgroups and FTPs ...
 

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