Yes, when you see CDs advertised for $24.99, you'll pay $24.99 plus taxes. The levy is already embedded in the price of the product.
It wasn't always that way. When the levy was first instituted, some stores calculated the levy when you got to the checkout. So, you were in for a case of sticker shock when you took a spindle of 100 CDs to the cashier, assuming that you'd pay $50 + taxes. Instead, you paid (($50 + (100 x 0.21)) * 0.14), which came to ~$81 (yes, this has happened to me
). Not really a surprise that consumers were absolutely outraged by this. They complained bitterly to the retailers, who in turn complained to the manufacturers. And, from this growing sense of outrage, the
Canadian Coalition For Fair Digital Access (CCFDA) was born. It's a group of manufacturers and retailers that are opposing the
Canadian Private Copyright Collective (the rat bastards who instituted the levies).
Anyway, as Music Fanatic noted, the current levy is $0.21 per CD-R. Other media are affected, of course. For instance, CD-RWs and Minidiscs are hit with a $0.77 levy per disc, and MP3 players are levied between $2-25 depending on the size of their internal storage.
The CPCC had been preparing to institute much higher levies (up to three times higher, in some cases) at the end of the year, but the Canadian Copyright Board
ordered a freeze, holding them at current levels through the rest of 2004. They also denied the CPCC's request to levy other storage devices and media (e.g. hard drives, removable memory cards, blank DVDs, etc.). If the levies hadn't been frozen, on January 1st, the CPCC would have raised levies on CD-Rs to $0.58 per piece, and on CD-RWs and Minidiscs to $1.15 per piece (
), for example. Also, the newly introduced levies on hard drives would have been devastating to the MP3 player market. For instance, if the CPCC had gotten its way, an MP3 player with a 20 GB HD would have been hit with a $125 levy.
We're safe for this year, but the CPCC is asking for even higher increases for 2005 to make up for not getting any increases this year. Hard drives are expected to be hit with a per GB levy that could conceivably double their prices, and blank DVDs will cost markedly more since they'll be hit with a pro rata levy based on how much music they can hold (i.e. 6.5x as much as a CD-R... or 13x if using the new DVD-9 standard).
So, what can we do about it? You could send a complaint to the Federal Minister in charge of the Copyright Act (see the
Copyright Policy Branch). Also, get educated about the issue and spread the word. If we don't raise this issue now, then we have no right to complain when it's too late to do anything about it.
D.
