The Canadian Private Copying Collective have surprised some by saying they will not appeal the most recent court ruling on proposals to introduce an iPod tax in Canada.
As previously reported, the CPCC, had called for a private copying levy to be applied to the sale of MP3 players in the same way it is in Canada (and other countries, though not the UK) on blank cassettes and CDRs. The levy compensates artists for the private copies of their music most people use the blank cassettes and CDRs for. Proposals to extend the levy to MP3 players are based on the theory that digital music players have replaced cassettes and CDRs as tools for private copying. But the so called iPod tax is not supported by everyone - including some in the music industry, in Canada the Canadian Recording Industry Association has not supported expanding the levy to digital music players. They point out some consumers will fill their MP3 players with music from legit download platforms, ie music that is licensed for use on those players, and is not therefore a 'private copy'. It would be unfair to charge those consumers the levy.
The Canadian Copyright Board initially passed proposals for the new levy, but the Canadian courts subsequently overturned the ruling, claiming it could not be justified under the country's current copyright laws. Many expected the CPCC to appeal that second ruling, but they announced last week they would not.
CPCC chair Annie Morin told reporters her organisation could not justify the cost of taking their case to the next level of appeal, but stressed they still believed there should be an MP3 player levy. She said: "This is a great loss for rights holders. No one disputes that a large percentage of Canadians make copies of recorded music onto their digital audio recorders. The private copying levy is the only compensation available to rights holders for the hundreds of millions of tracks that are copied without authorization onto digital audio recorders each year by Canadians".