The Canadian Copyright Board has announced it will raise the tax on CDRs to 29 cents, up from 21 cents. The tax on audio cassettes, which it's apparently still possible to buy, will remain at 24 cents.
Canada, of course, charges a levy on blank cassettes and CDRs in recognition that many people use these devices to make private copies of albums. Canadian copyright law allows such private copies to be made, but in return for the levy, which is passed on to songwriters and musicians via the Canadian Private Copying Collective.
The Board explained the reasons for the increase in this not at all confusing statement: "First, increased mechanical licence royalties, coupled with the elimination of container deductions and free goods allowances in the calculation of the performers' and makers' remuneration, greatly add to our estimation of the total remuneration per prerecorded CD. Second, the use of compression technology raises from 15 to 18.4 the average number of tracks copied on a blank CD used to copy music".
So, there you have it. Of course people increasingly transfer private copies of albums to digital music players rather than cassettes or CDRs. Attempts to apply a similar levy to such devices - the so called iPod tax - have not been without controversy.