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Blame Canada By 19 Michelle Delio | 20 Also by this reporter Page 1 of 1 08:50 AM Mar. The tax, called the Private Copying Tariff and backed by the 21 Copyright Board of Canada, is intended to compensate musicians for income lost when consumers copy music onto digital storage media. Servicemen in Iraq * 37 Western Firm Pulls Staff from Yanbu; Cautions * 38 Gunmen Kill Settler, Four Daughters Amid Gaza Vote * 39 American Trucker Free After 3 Weeks as Iraq Hostage * 40 More Breaking News * 41 Wire Service Photo Gallery Tech Jobs Partner 42 Today's the Day. The proposed tax would be collected from the products' manufacturers, but industry groups said they believe the costs would be passed to consumers and would result in higher prices for all digital storage media and devices. Legal experts doubted the 43 proposal would pass due to the "devastating impact" it could have on Canada's growing technology-based industry. The CPCC would then distribute the funds collected (minus administration fees) to musicians who hold copyrights on music in Canada. If approved, the new tax would levy an additional fee of 59 cents (Canadian) on blank CDs. Makers of MP3 players would pay $21 in fees for each gigabyte of memory available on their devices, raising the cost of devices like Apple's iPod by more than $100. Cassette tapes, for example, are currently taxed at 29 cents per tape. The new tax proposal would also raise existing fees, raising the tax collected for blank cassettes to 60 cents. The CPCC estimated that it collected and distributed about $22 million in fees to musicians last year. The Copyright Board has requested public comment on the proposal and will hold hearings starting May 23. The tax, if approved, would go into effect next year and be in effect until the end of 2004, when it would be reviewed. The Canadian Storage Media Alliance plans to 45 fight the tariff. Independent Canadian musicians also plan to fight the proposal, saying the new tax would result in their paying a fee to the recording industry in order to distribute their music. Your use of this website constitutes acceptance of the Lycos 67 Privacy Policy and 68 Terms & Conditions Note: You are reading this message either because you can not see our css files (served from Akamai for performance reasons), or because you do not have a standards-compliant browser.
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