DISCLAIMER These are related links for ease of reference only. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCFDA or its members.

Canadians lag in on-line music sales: Report “Canadians are lagging behind the rest of the world in buying music on-line, a new report says, and the Canadian music industry knows why: file-sharing is legal here.” Jack Kapica (Globe and Mail, January 19, 2005) Visit Link

Legal downloading of music jumps tenfold in 2004, global study says “The report from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), a record industry lobby group, says consumers downloaded 200 million music tracks from "legitimate" Internet sites in 2004, 10 times as many as in 2003. The number of on-line sites where music can be purchased has grown to 230 from 50 a year ago. Worldwide digital music sales are estimated to have reached $330-million (U.S.) in 2004, and are projected to double in 2005.” Richard Blackwell (Globe and Mail, January 20, 2005) Visit Link

Canadian Coalition for Fair Digital Access “The Canadian Coalition for Fair Digital Access (CCFDA) welcomed the Federal Court of Appeal ruling eliminating private copying levies on MP3 players. The court's decision provides further evidence of the need to replace the levy regime with a system that responds to the realities of the digital era.” (Canadian Coalition for Fair Digital Access, December 17, 2004) Visit Link

British album sales hit record high “Last week, the world's third-largest music group, EMI, said the industry was rebounding as the firm's digital-music revenue more than quadrupled in the six months to Sept. 30 and as it tackled illegal on-line file exchanging. A BPI spokesman said the industry was not out of the woods yet, but that the iPod and on-line music stores had helped. The number of tracks illegally traded worldwide fell to 700 million from one billion in the year to June. "The level of legitimate downloading in the U.K. clearly demonstrates that consumer demand for music on a track-by-track basis remains strong," said Chris Green, the BPI's research director.” Reuters (Globe and Mail, November 27, 2004) Visit Link

Fight music levies, not downloaders “Today, every Canadian who buys a blank CD, MiniDisc, MP3 player or cassette tape pays a hidden tax or "levy" to compensate rights holders for authorized private copies of their music. It doesn't matter that (as some studies suggest) close to half of those who buy blank CDs, for instance, don't use them to record music -- everyone still has to pay. It will only get worse if WIPO is ratified with this unfair system still in place because levies would need to increase dramatically -- some experts believe they will double -- in order to satisfy the treaty's national treatment obligations.” Barbra Caplan and Kevin Evans (Financial Post, November 29, 2004) Visit Link

Internet-age aid for Canadian culture “Canadian culture policy leaders such as Canadian Heritage Minister Liza Frulla and Industry Minister David Emerson must face the reality that many of the tools that have formed the core of Canadian cultural policy do not work. The Canadian culture toolkit must therefore be recast for the 21st century by adapting it to emerging technologies and to legal frameworks that render obsolete longstanding policy mechanisms.” Michael Geist (Globe and Mail, November 15, 2004) Visit Link

Why Canada should follow U.K., not U.S., on copyright “As rights holders lobby for Canadian ratification of the World Intellectual Property Organization's Internet treaties, many experts, reportedly including some Canadian government officials, believe that ratification would force Canada to amend its private copying regime to conform to the treaties' "national treatment" requirements. National treatment obliges countries to treat foreign and national artists on an equal footing, a requirement that could lead to an additional $100 million in Canadian private copying royalties flowing south of the border.” Michael Geist (Toronto Star, October 4, 2004) Visit Link

CD levies could double, group warns “The levies imposed on blank digital media to compensate recording artists for acts of piracy could double if Canada ratifies an international copyright treaty, a coalition of interested industries warned today. "Ratifying WIPO without repealing the levy would not only create an extra financial burden on consumers and businesses, but ... it would provide little or no additional assistance to Canadian artists," the CCFDA said in a statement.” Jack Kapica (Globe and Mail, April 21, 2004) Visit Link

Are we surfers or serfs? “Here's one way I feel I am being taxed like a medieval peasant by the corporate lords of the digital age. Every time I buy a blank computer disc, I pay a levy called the Private Copying Tariff. A blank CD costs me about 35 cents, and exactly 21 cents -- 60 per cent! -- goes to an obscure but rich lobby group. It's called the Canadian Private Copying Collective, which appears to be a bunch of people in the music industry . . . somehow, in 1997, the CPCC quietly convinced Parliament of the chaos that would befall rock stars and their managers by the advent of, first, cassette tapes, and then recordable CDs, and now portable devices, and next goodness knows what new-fangled invention. Not only are we paying a tariff that we didn't vote for, it's a measure that distorts the intent of copyright, which is merely a commercial statute and nowhere as important as a common-law right, like privacy, nor is it even a tort. It also presumes that all of us are guilty of something, even though that something is, again, not illegal.” George Emerson (Globe and Mail, April 2, 2004) Visit Link

Don't let file-swappers swamp copyright law “Parliament should also revisit Section 80 of the act, which lets anyone copy a musical work for "private use" and in exchange imposes a surcharge on cassettes, discs and other audio recording media, with proceeds to be distributed to the creators. The intention was noble -- to exempt those who copied a CD for the car or traded tapes with friends -- but it has been rapidly overtaken by the indiscriminate distribution made possible by the Internet. The definition should be qualified.” Globe Editorial (Globe and Mail, April 2, 2004) Visit Link

What's next: A tax for singing in shower? “Already, you pay $1 for that tune from Puretracks.com, which presumably gives you the right to own and listen to that song. For every recordable CD you buy you pay a 21 cent tariff, which represents between 20 per cent and 33 per cent of the blank CD's current price tag. You also pay a $25 tariff on that iPod. These extra charges go to the music industry to compensate artists. There's no question artists have a right to be compensated, but is it really fair to charge somebody four times for what should be covered in the original cost?” Tyler Hamilton ( Toronto Star, January 19, 2004 ) Visit Link

Vendors fear media levy could extend to hard drives “The recent Copyright Board of Canada decision to extend levies to non-removable memory in devices like MP3 players has the industry worried that hard drives may be next. ” Neil Sutton (IT Business.ca, January 16, 2004 ) Visit Link

The On-Line Battle Over Copyright “On-line piracy has ravaged the recording industry's bottom line and forever altered the way music lovers acquire their tunes. In 2004, convincing consumers to pay is at the top of every record executive's list of New Year's resolutions. After nearly four years of failing, new strategies to combat file-sharing -- a little carrot, a little stick -- seem to be slowing the download craze.” Michael Snider (Macleans, January 12, 2004) Visit Link

Time for file-sharing's day in court “The notion that downloading is probably okay is specially well recognized here because the Copyright Board of Canada has placed a levy on the sale of blank CDs, tapes and, most recently, MP3 players, that is intended to compensate artists and record companies for copying . . . The levy has many critics -- including a coalition of groups that includes the retailers who sell the targeted technology, telecommunications companies and academics favouring more liberal copyright -- who don't like the way it indiscriminately makes all customers pay no matter what their intended usage, but this fall did see the start of some discussion in the U.S. about a Canadian-style levy as a solution to the problem.” Kate Taylor ( Globe and Mail, January 3, 2004) Visit Link

Copyright Board increases levies on digital recorders “Canadian music lovers will be paying more for new MP3 players arriving in stores before Christmas -- and after -- because of a controversial decision yesterday on copyright compensation . . . Opponents of the levies, most notably the Canadian Storage Media Alliance and the Canadian Coalition for Fair Digital Access, which includes major retailers and manufacturers such as Costco, Wal-Mart, Hewlett-Packard, Apple, London Drugs and others, have hotly argued that the tariffs are too broad, inefficient and "a cross-subsidy of the music industry" by consumers using recordable media for non-musical purposes. James Adams (Globe and Mail, December 15, 2003) Visit Link

MP3 players hit with new tax “The Copyright Board approved a new levy on MP3 players and other fixed-memory devices yesterday but refused to raise tariffs on blank recording media for fear of creating a cross-border grey market that would punish Canadian retailers.” Tyler Hamilton (Toronto Star, December 13, 2003) Visit Link

Retail giants seek repeal of tariffs on blank media "Canadian retailers are battling against the Canadian recording industry to have tariffs applied to blank CDs and audio cassettes repealed" Vito Pilieci (Ottawa Citizen, December 9, 2003) Visit Link

Will Copyright Treaty Benefit Canadians? “In a report issued last year, the Canadian government acknowledged that the private copying system may not be compliant with the WIPO Internet treaties. In order to ensure that it is compliant, Canada would have to extend the benefits of the levy to sound recordings and performers from all countries that have ratified the treaty. The cost of doing so would dramatically increase the levy, thereby resulting in even higher prices for blank CDs for Canadians.Michael Geist (Toronto Star, November 3, 2003) Visit Link

Canadian firm launchs digital music service "Just days after the return of a repackaged Napster, the first Canadian digital music download service launched Tuesday" Darren Yourk (Globe and Mail, October 14, 2003) Visit Link

Canadian file sharers' risk low "Canadians who download music for free from the Internet should be cautious but not overly worried about the U.S. recording industry's recent legal crackdown on individual file traders, legal experts say." Tyler Hamilton (Toronto Star, September 11, 2003) Visit Link

Murky laws make piracy suits less likely in Canada than U.S. "When the U.S. record industry spread fear and loathing south of the border on Monday by filing lawsuits against music "pirates," Canadian file sharers were left looking over their shoulders wondering if the same thing could happen to them. Tyler Hamilton (Tornto Star, September 11, 2003) Visit Link

Lawsuits hit Net music downloaders "The U.S. recording industry has opened a new front in its legal war against pirated music by slapping copyright infringement lawsuits against hundreds of "egregious offenders" it says have swapped at least 1,000 files on-line." Barry McKenna & Paul Waldie (Globe & Mail, September 9, 2003) Visit Link

Apple's iTunes Music Store sells ten millionth song; averaging over 500,000 songs per week "Apple today announced that music fans have purchased and downloaded over ten million songs from the iTunes Music Store since its launch just over four months ago, averaging over 500,000 songs per week. The ten millionth song,"Complicated" by Avril Lavigne, was purchased and downloaded at 11:34 p.m. (PDT) on September 3." (MacDailyNews, September 8, 2003) Visit Link

Music industry is singing a new tune "Music and movie downloads will explode in popularity over the next five years, a new report suggests, making a huge dent in sales of physical media such as compact discs and digital video discs." Richard Blackwell (Globe and Mail, September 3, 2003) Visit Link

The Upside To Downloading "With battle lines drawn and lawsuits pending, music conglomerates and Internet distributors have a solution they, artists and consumers can live with" Glenn Gamboa (Florida Sun-Sentinel, August 17, 2003) Visit Link

Moontaxi gets major music labels on board: On-line service set to open this fall "Toronto-based Moontaxi Media Inc. says it has signed up Canada's five major record labels for its on-line music service set to start operating this fall." Richard Blackwell (Globe and Mail, August 12, 2003) Visit Link

Fees for a song "When Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes online service sold more than one million songs during its first week of operation, it became clear to many in the music business that the industry was poised at the dawn of a new era of legal downloading." Robert Thomson (National Post, May 29, 2003) Visit Link

The rebirth of Napster? "In a surprise move, CD-burning software company Roxio has said that it is buying Pressplay -- one of two digital music services backed by the major record labels, the other being MusicNet -- and plans to relaunch it under the name Napster, which Roxio bought the rights to when the pioneering music-swapping network went bankrupt last year." Matthew Ingram (Globe and Mail, May 20, 2003) Visit Link

Feeling Groovy "When Apple Computer Corp. started its on-line iTunes Music Store a little more than two weeks ago, selling individual songs and albums by download, sales in the first week ran to one million songs." Jack Kapica, (Globe & Mail, May 16, 2003) Visit Link

Has Steve Jobs gone insane? "...there are those who feel buying Universal Music is just the kind of crazy thing Steve Jobs and Apple might be able to pull off. " Mathew Ingram, (Globe and Mail Monday, April 14, 2003) Visit Link

Audio Levies Threaten  Retail Sales Sean O'Connor, Canadian Retailer (September/October 2002) Visit Link

Letter to Mr. Claude Majeau Secretary General of the Copyright Board of Canada from Ms. Andrea Kopplhuber, President, ASAP-CD Solutions Visit Link

Letter to Mr. Claude Majeau Secretary General of the Copyright Board of Canada Re: Private Copying Tariff 2003-2004 by J. David Farnes, Vice-President Industry and Regulatory Affairs, the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA) Visit Link

Letter to Claude Majeau Secretary General Copyright Board Re: Comments on the Proposed Levies to be collected for the Sale, in Canada, of Blank Audio Recording Media During the Years 2003-2004 from L. Oliver, I.S.P. President, Canadian Information Processing Society Visit Link

Canadian copyright levy on blank audio recording media Neil Herber Visit Link

“Higher music levy picks consumer pockets” Richard Morochove (March 18, 2002) Visit Link

Copyright Board Interim Tariff Rates - December 19th, 2002 Visit Link

Bill C-32  Visit Link