George_Washington
DP Veteran
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- Oct 2, 2005
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What do you guys think?
George_Washington said:What do you guys think?
Napoleon's Nightingale said:Our prisons are already overcrowded as it is. Pilfering music isn't worth setting a murder or a rapist free so the person who pilfered the music can have a cell.
independent_thinker2002 said:No they shouldn't go to jail. They should have a tax on blank CD's and MP3 players just like the blank tape tax that was instituted when people recorded songs off of the radio.
Scarecrow Akhbar said:That is a thought. How do they get the tax money to the artist, and how do they figure out how much each is owed?
independent_thinker2002 said:Please don't think that the record companies care about the artists. They only care about their money. Of course the artists wont see the money. It's the record companies that are suing people for their money, not the artists. If people want to feel sorry for the artists, then we need to talk about who is really screwing the artists, the record companies!
Scarecrow Akhbar said:Oh, I don't. Believe me, I know a crock when I smell one. However, it's the copyright holder that's robbed when a song or movie is copied without permission. And that's who the law is supposed to protect.
I figure that given time, the newer artists, and the less popular ones, will benefit from internet technology and develop ways to advertise and distribute their work without the record companies. This will clearly apply more to music than movies, of course. But we're talking the here and now.
UtahBill said:And jail time should be reserved for felons. Downloading should be a petty crime unless the music is being packaged and sold to others.
Scarecrow Akhbar said:I think the demise of the big recording companies is inevitable.
George_Washington said:Naw. People will still buy CD's. People that are really serious about sound will still always invest in CD players. Some people have also got into Super Audio and DVD Audio. I myself have a Super Audio CD Player. Because I've invested in a high quality CD player, I still buy CD's because I want the best sound possible.
Scarecrow Akhbar said:Theft is theft. If a person can go to jail for stealing some junky car worth a thousand bucks, why shouldn't another person go to jail for stealing a thousand dollars worth of copyrighted material?
That's pretty much what's happening in Canada.independent_thinker2002 said:No they shouldn't go to jail. They should have a tax on blank CD's and MP3 players just like the blank tape tax that was instituted when people recorded songs off of the radio.
The current levy on CD-Rs is 21¢ each.
The new levy for non-removable memory permanently embedded in digital audio recorders is $25 for each recorder with memory capacity of more than 10 gigabytes.
I have heard that the Canadian Government is taxing blank CD-Rs - is this true?
No, there is no tax, but yes, there is a levy (see the difference below).
What is a levy?
On March 19, 1998, new federal copyright legislation came into force. Among other things, the legislation provides for a levy to be collected on blank audio recording media.
It is called a levy (and not a tax) because it is not collected by any level of government, it is collected by a group representing the recording industry. In a letter to the Copyright Board of Canada released Monday, January 18, 1999, the five collectives that filed tariffs for a proposed levy on blank audio recording media announced the creation of the Canadian Private Copying Collective (CPCC).
The Copyright Board decides on the amount of the levy and what media it applies to. The CPCC submits its proposed levies and the Copyright Board holds hearings to hear any objections to the proposed levy amounts. Note that the Copyright Board CANNOT change the law, they can only determine the levy value and the media to which it will apply. The levy can be set for a 1- or 2-year period. So far, all of the periods set and requested have been 2 years.
The first time the Copyright Board set the levy was December 17, 1999.
Napoleon's Nightingale said:Only violent crimes should be punished by jailtime. The reason we have prisons is to keep individuals who pose a threat to society away from society. Downloading music is not a violent crime and people who download music are not a threat to society.
Scarecrow Akhbar said:That's perfectly true. When Ken Lay defrauded Enron he did no violence and threatened no violence to anyone, so by your logic he should go free.
Scarecrow Akhbar said:When Winona Rider was caught shoplifting, she offered no violence, and therefore she should have never spent a minute in jail.
Napoleon's Nightingale said:As I said, only violent criminals should go to prison because the point of having prisons is to keep people who pose a threat to society away from society. In crimes like that I'd say slap the guy with a hefty fine and take his buisiness lisence away. Our prisons are already overcrowded and letting rapists and murderers go so you can have an open cell for pinheads like Ken Lay is not acceptable.
Isn't Winona Rider a repeat offender?
Dezaad said:Consider for a moment, that if you saw a nice car, studied how it worked and specs on its construction and built yourself one, few would agree that you ought to face charges for grand theft. Why? Because the only thing you have 'stolen' is the intellectual 'property' portion of the car you now have. Significantly, you've also impinged on no one for the use of any car already produced.
Scarecrow Akhbar said:Baloney. You violated any applicable patents, and didn't pay those inventors their royalties.