If you're an organisation set up to collect funds from blank media and give it back to the music industry to make up for any illegal copying, MP3 players must seem incredibly annoying. And the Canadian Private Copyright Collective (CPCC) isn't giving up its fight to tax MP3 players, despite losing a legal battle back in 2004.
The non-profit organisation originally added a tax hit to MP3 players back in 2003, but Justice Marc Noël ruled in 2004 that the memory in digital music players and hard drives was not the same as other blank media.
However, with the tax laws governing recordable media expiring on 31 December 2007, the Copyright Board of Canada will set the tariffs for 2008-2009 later this year.
CPCC plans to add MP3 players to that list by claiming that the players themselves count as recording media.
And the charges it plans aren't small, even if they are in Canadian dollars.
The CPCC wants a $5 tax on 1GB players, $25 added to 10GB players, $50 for between 10GB and 30GB and a whopping $75 for devices holding more than 30GB.
The body also hopes to sneak through a ruling covering memory cards, although this move has previously been blocked as well.
Adding them to the Canadian Copyright Act would allow the CPCC to charge from $2 up to $10 tax on them.
