More Tarriffs for Canucks???

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inactionmaninactionman
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
It looks like Canadians may be facing some added cost due to the perceived affect piracy has had on the music business. SOCAN wants a 10% ISP tax to make up for piracy. This is on top of the levy we already pay on storage devices. No need for iTMS in Canada if this goes through, I'll be downloading every damn song on gnutella. And it is safe to assume that all industries that think they are affected by piracy will want a piece as well.



Yippee! Canada makes piracy legal!!



Link to google news



EDIT: Fixed link and other stupidity. No more posting from work for me!

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 3
    yevgenyyevgeny Posts: 1,148member
    Canada may make piracy legal, but if it does, you will be paying 75% sales tax on your shampoo to finance the latest Michael Jackson music videos. To be honest, if it came down to no music or being heavily taxed to support all the music that I think is crap (a false dichotomoy I know), I would choose to have no music.



    I mean, these taxes are a real disincentive to law abiding people like myself who really dislike kazaa junkies. Why would I want to subsidise your illegal downloading habits???



    What happens when the MPAA wants to add a 200% tax increase to your ISP because people are downloading movies (remember, movies cost alot more to make than music!)? Sure you can download whatever you want, but you are paying $150a month for the ability. Kind of pricey.



    They should just charge for bandwidth consumed on an nlog(n) curve. The more you download, the more you pay. I hope Canada's high court strikes down this tax, not because I like pirates, but because it is just plain stupid, wrong, and punishes everyone for the actions of a few.



    Odd too that it is a tax on the ISP's for their total revenue, not just a tax being passed along to the end user. I hope those ISP's don't have any businesses on the side that are adding to their bottom line. Wow this is bad legislation. And the Canucks think us Yanks are stupid...
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  • Reply 2 of 3
    inactionmaninactionman Posts: 618member
    One Canadian ISP (Sympatico) tried to go the route of charging customers based on bandwidth but it didn't go over well and they have since gone back to the limitless bandwidth.



    My first post was a bit facetious. I do agree that this a bad idea for many reasons. SOCAN is just one body in Canada. This doesn't include the record labels, film industry or software developers who would all want a cut of the bandwidth tax.



    And ISPs have no control-nor should they-over what people do online. If this went through, then ISPs would also be at fault if someone downloaded kiddie-porn-or did anything unsavory whilst online.



    It is interesting to see the different tactics being used in Canada and the US to thwart piracy though.
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  • Reply 3 of 3
    yevgenyyevgeny Posts: 1,148member
    I think that I am just not a fan of paying for things that don't benefit me, and aren't necessary for other people. Paying tax and subsidising someone elses medical expenses is cool with me (within certain ethical limits). Paying for roads that I don't use is cool with me because there are some roads that I do use, and other people help to pay for them (plus, roads help the flow of goods and services and make most of modern society possible, unlike Britney's latest trash which in no way helps society).



    Some people cite society paying for medical bills and building roads as models for how we should deal with information which can be duplicated for free. Just as we pay tax for roads we don't use, we should pay a tax for music to be made (The Register is notorious for this idiotic viewpoint). However, the analogy isn't correct. If ISP taxes were like road taxes, then we would be taxed so that we could all have better bandwidth. The proposed ISP tax would be like me being taxed more for gas because some SUV owners are stealing gas from gas stations.



    Overall, I think that it is both wrong and bad to tax people for something that they don't do, especially when it is wrong. I don't download illegal music, movies, or software so why should I subsidize someone who does?



    Besides, if they set the precedent, then I can't wait to see how long it takes for MS to show up and to demand a 100% tax on ISP revenue because of all the copies of MS Word and Win XP the Canadians are illegally downloading. On what legal basis could you refuse them if this precedent is in place????



    What a stupid idea this is. I guess it is to be expected form a nation whose prime minister wants to smoke a joint
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