Blank Audio Recording Media Levy

The other thing that's been going on while I've been stupidly busy is that I briefly was an official objector to the proposed increased copyright levy on blank audio recording media up here in Canada. You can read about it here if it interests you, but the bottom line from that page is: The current levy on CD-Rs is 21¢ each. The proposed CD-R levy is 59¢.

The proposed levy for MP3 players with non-removable hard drives is $21 per gigabyte.

The first one would affect me far more than the second, though they're equally pretty awful. The money collected from this levy would apparently be distributed among Canadian artists most damaged by the rapid rise of music sharing/copying/piracy.

My arguments were a) that this proposed levy would hurt my ability to produce and sell CD-R's of my music by raising my costs both in duplication and in backups. Neither of which have anything to do with taking money from any Canadian artists (except maybe me). And b) that 21$ per gigabyte is a hilarious amount of money, especially taking into consideration how huge, large, fast and compact storage is quickly becoming.

I was gung-ho about going the distance and attending meetings and maybe yelling "YOU'RE OUT OF ORDER!" once or twice, but I couldn't get anyone to fill me in on how much time I was going to have to commit to Fighting the Man. So I've withdrawn as an objector and instead re-submitted my long-winded rant as a comment which is in the records and will hopefully persuade everyone to give in to reason and do exactly what I say.