Petteri Pyyny
13 Jan 2004 14:42
Consumer electronic manufacturers are challenging the recent legislation introduced in Canada that would add as much as US $25 per player on top of the MP3 player price.
Canada, much like many European countries, has a "levy" system in use that makes it perfectly legal to download music and movies from Net, copy music from friends, libraries, etc, but on the other hand, copyright owners are being compensated by charging extra for blank recordable media (such as blank CDRs and DVDRs) and now for MP3 players. However, in Canada -- again, just like in many European countries as well -- uploading and sharing music via P2P networks is illegal.
Now the legislation is threatened from both sides. MP3 player and consumer electronic manufacturers, including Apple, HP and Dell argue that introducing a levy charge to MP3 players is illegal and plan to appeal the decision.
But also, the Canadian Recording Industry Association is planning to challenge the legislation -- of course not the levy part, but the downloads-are-legal part (one would assume that they would be more than happy to charge consumers the levy, but not to allow fair use rights to the music). CRIA's opinion is that downloading music is and should always be illegal. They also have hinted their plans to launch similar manhunt that CRIA's American counterpart, RIAA, has had going on during the last year or so.
Source: News.com