After issuing the first media “tweet-visory” I've ever seen to meet them outside a music store in a downtown Ottawa mall, ministers Tony Clement (Industry) and James Moore (Heritage) announced that there is no way and under no circumstances in which they're going to let Canadian consumers pay a $75 “iPod tax”:
We are here to confirm that the Harper Government will not bring in an iPod tax as part of its copyright legislation. The iPod Tax has been proposed and supported by all opposition parties. …
Our government is committed to ensuring fairness and balance for consumers and creators as we update Canada's copyright laws. The opposition's iPod Tax is not fair to anyone. It would just make it more expensive for Canadians to listen to Canadian music and hurt our music industry.
“We would also like to emphasize that the Government has introduced the Copyright Modernization Act, Bill C-32, to modernize Canada's copyright legislation and bring it into the digital age. We drafted this Bill to best balance legalizing many of the everyday activities that Canadians are already engaging in online and ensuring that creators and rights holders have the protections they need to earn a living from their work in the digital age.
“Bill C-32 includes new rights and protections to enable creators to prosper in a digital environment and tough tools to help rights holders combat piracy. An iPod Tax would send the wrong message on piracy, drive up the price of the latest products for Canadian consumers, and tax a device that is much more than simply a music player.
“Canadians can rest assured that the Harper Government will stand with them against introducing this tax.
“Our government's top priority remains the economy. During this fragile economic recovery, the last thing Canadian families and consumers need is a massive new tax on iPods.”
Both men also couldn't resist trying to make a little political hay out of this. They point to a report that came out of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. Part of that report considered the idea of extending the levy Canadian consumers now pay on blank digital media like CDs to MP3 players. Indeed, the Heritage Committee voted on March 16 in favour of extending that levy with all Conservative members of that committee voting against and the two Liberals, two Bloc Quebecois, and one NDP MP voting in favour. Notably, as an NDP staffer pointed out to me today, the chairman of the committee, Conservative Gary Schellenberger did not vote with his Conservative colleagues, choosing to break a 5-5 tie at the committee by voting with the opposition.
Though the exact mechanism of extending such a levy and the amount of such a levy was not specified in the motion, ministers Moore and Clement take that Heritage Committee and extrapolate some stillborn ideas put forward by Canada's copyright board to come up with the idea that an iPod with 30 GB capacity would face a levy of $75 and an iPod of less than 10 GB would be hit with a $25 levy. The money collected by the levy would go into the collective organized by musicians to compensate creators. But, so far as I can tell, though opposition members want to extend the levy to the iPod and other MP3 players, there is no agreement on how big that tax ought to be. Doesn't matter to Moore and Clement, though:
“We simply cannot support the opposition's massive new iPod Tax on Canadian music lovers. The iPod Tax would add up to $75 to the price of every mp3 player and smart phone on the market. It would hurt the economy, punish consumers and families, and send the wrong message during this fragile economic recovery.” Someone tell Schellenberger.
Hours later, NDP MP Charlie Angus — he's on the aforementioned Heritage Committee — caught up with reporters after Question Period and, after calling Moore a “mall rat”, proceeded to kick the Conservatives around a bit, saying he's advocating a levy on MP3 players, like iPods, that would max out at about $5, money that would go to artists: “James Moore knows that the $75 is a fiction. They’ve been making this up. He either doesn’t understand his role as minister or he’s lying to the public. The minister has the power to set the price of a levy if he doesn’t like the levy. … He’s looking ridiculous. So my message to James Moore is stop playing for the peanut gallery. Copyright’s a serious issue. The fact that $25 million is being lost to artists because of the loss of the levy is serious business, so let’s sit down and get back to work.”
