The Canadian Copyright Board has increased the levies on blank CDs which are used to compensate the music industry for potential duplication of copyrighted material.
The levies has been increased by 38%.
It was originally implemented in 1999. The idea behind these levies is that customers used blank CDs to duplicate music CDs which causes loss for the music industry.
It does not however consider those users who do not use the CD media for copying their own work or free media.
Things have also changed a lot in the last decade. Few people use CDs for copying music these days. They have mobile phones and portable media players and flash drives which can do the same more effectively.
Secretary General of the Copyright Board of Canada, Claude Majeau spoke about the changes: “Two main factors led the Board to raise the CD levy rate to 29¢. First, the mechanical royalties that record labels pay to record a song onto a prerecorded CD have increased. Second, because consumers now use compression technology when they record music, the average number of music tracks copied onto a CD went from 15 to more than 18.”
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