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On January 1, 1999, a new levy on blank recording material comes into effect in Canada. The new levy, which will have to be paid by manufacturers and importers of recording material, supports a new law that Parliament passed in spring 1997 under Bill C-32. The Act to Amend the Copyright Law is designed to compensate musicians and recording artists for lost royalities from illegal recordings. The amendment makes copying a recording legal.
The Canadian Copyright Board will examine proposals for the levy. Five collective societies, who represent copyright holders such as SOCAN (Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers), are asking the CCB for a tariff that would raise the price of a 92 minute audio cassette from 52 cents to $2.28, and a 62 minute cassette from 51 cents to $1.76.
Brian Dawkins, business manager of Peoples Church in Toronto, said the tax would effectively double the production costs of their cassette duplication ministry. Peoples Church purchases about 7,000 blank cassettes per year to record sermons to distribute to missionaries, shut-ins and others. Some cassettes are given away, such as in the church's welcome package to first-time visitors; others are sold for $5, which covers the cost of in-house reproduction. Dawkins is concerned the church may need to limit free distribution or modify the cassette ministry by outsourcing the duplication process.
"It is not a tax," explained Mario Bouchard, general counsel for the CCB. "The government won't see any of the money." The CCB will examine the proposal after it has heard the objections from individuals, manufacturers and churches and will decide a fair and reasonable tariff. The CCB will then appoint a body that will collect the money. Once the money is collected, it will be distributed to the collective societies for distribution to the artists.
Burton Buller, executive director of MB Communications, Winnipeg, is unsure about how this levy will affect his agency. He admits there is a problem of piracy. He wonders how many administrative problems this new levy will create. "I expect that this is the least costly and most reasonable solution to a complex problem." He estimates MB Communications uses between 200 to 400 cassettes a month, and produces four programs per one hour cassette. Buller said that MBC may even benefit from this levy because it produces its own shows and holds copyrights for these programs.
"It would be devastating to our ministry," said Allan McGuirl, director of GALCOM International, a Hamilton-based non-profit organization that records and distributes teaching cassettes for radio broadcasts in third world countries. McGuirl fears the price hike will make cassettes unaffordable to reproduce and said his plan to distribute about 2,000 cassettes a year may have to be shelved.
To date, close to 3000 letters have been sent to the CCB protesting the levy. Some individuals have asked the board to allow for exemptions. The CCB has the power to lower the levy amount, but not to issue exemptions to certain groups, such as churches. But Bouchard stressed that there cannot not be a tariff. Parliament has acted and now the board has to comply, he said.
The problem for the board will be to interpret the meaning or the definition of what is to be included in the recording media, and what purpose the medium has been designed for. Theoretically, this could refer to every form of recording media--from voice recording cassettes use in phone message equipment to digital audio tapes.
The board's decision is expected to be made in late spring or early summer.--with reports from ChristianWeek
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