New Blank Audio Media Tariffs Proposed
The blank audio media tariffs proposed for 2014 were published in today’s Canada Gazette and are as follows :
- 29 cents per recordable compact disc (CD-R, CD-RW, CD-R Audio, CD-RW Audio)
- 50 cents per microSD memory card with 1 gigabyte of memory or less
- 1 dollar per microSD memory card with more that 1 gigabyte of memory but less than 8 gigabyte of memory
- 3 dollars per microSD memory card with more than 8 gigabytes of memory
Of course the question remains on whether microSD memory cards are “ordinarily used by individual consumers” as an “audio recording medium“, as defined by Part VIII, Section 79 of our Copyright Act.
Personally I have yet to use these cards or any other non-embedded memory card for anything but photography and video. And I also know several individuals who use these cards in their netbooks as a storage medium for their documents. So I have serious doubts in regards to the claim that these memory cards qualify as “blank audio recording media“, especially those of a higher class.
I use class 10 SDHC memory cards for my high definition photography and videos, which are considerably more expensive than class 2 SD memory cards. And the latter is quite adequate for the recording and playback of 254 kbps music files.
According to the SD Association, MicroSD memory cards were manufactured for the mobile phone market. And though most mobile phones now record video in HD, a higher class of memory card is unnecessary for the playback of music on those devices.
Furthermore, mobile phones that include these memory cards at the time of purchase may contain ring tones, software and/or other data, which disqualify these cards as “blank“.
I suspect many memory card manufacturers and retailers will file their objections to these proposed tariffs, as they did in the past. But I also believe Canadian consumers who use these memory cards for photography, video and data storage should also voice their opinions on the matter.
Written objections to these proposed tariffs will of course be accepted by the Copyright Board until April 11th, 2012 at the following address :
GILLES MCDOUGALL
Secretary General
56 Sparks Street, Suite 800
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0C9
Objections will be a matter of public record, so please be polite.
Thank you.
February 11th, 2012 Comments Off on New Blank Audio Media Tariffs Proposed Canadian Law, Consumer Information, Music Industry, Music Technology Rob McIntyre