Bill C-499 and the Private Copying Tariff

I have a confession to make. I support Bill C-499, the private member's bill introduced by Charlie Angus to extend Canada's private copying tariff to include iPods and other music-playing devices. But not for the reasons that you may think.


According to the Copyright Act, private copying of music to an audio recording medium does not violate copyright.  In return, the government established a tariff on blank media that is included in the price we pay at the store. The tariff is currently $0.29 per blank CD-R, and does not currently apply to DVDs or iPods. The last time this tariff applied to iPods (before it was invalidated), it was set to $25 per device (over 20GB, which they all are by now). The last proposed tariff for iPods was up to $75 per device.


The whole premise of the levy is flawed.  It doesn't cover the dominant form of copying, downloading, while at the same time considering piracy rates in its deliberations over levy rates. It only covers music, while video and e-books are rising in popularity. It is payable by both consumers and businesses, regardless of the purpose.


Most importantly, its sole purpose is to compensate artists for an activity that most people believe should not require compensation in the first place. I'm sorry, CPCC, but if I want to rip my CD to my iPod or backup my music to my hard drive, artists don't deserve another penny, and you won't find many people who would believe they do.


So why do I support the bill? If it were to pass, and consumers faced the increased prices and reduced choices in consumer devices (MP3 players, smartphones, home entertainment, ...) resulting from the tariff distorting the market, there can be only one result. The government will face irresistible pressure from consumers, electronics retailers, and content providers to repeal the tariff, which is the only outcome that makes any sense.


EDIT: Russell has a good post on the topic, well worth reading