Frankly I did not know anything about the copying levy fee for blank recordable media. However, when I recently visited London Drugs to purchase some blank CD-Rs for my studio, the levy fees added up in a significant way. Each spindle of 50 CDs was about $18, but I was charged an additional $14.50 per spindle. Since I bought 4 spindles, my bill added up to more than $100! If there wasn't any levy fee, my bill would have only been a little over $70. It may seem like a small difference, but it adds up pretty fast when you're purchasing multiple spindles.
As owner of a studio, I took some exception to this levy and had some lingering questions in my mind:
- I'm not going to be burning CDs with copyrighted material. The CD-Rs are going to be used for burning my own demos, or for the sake of artists who come to record at my studio.
- Where does the levy fee go to? Does it go back to the artist? The record labels? The government? If it is being used merely for the purpose of stopping piracy, then is it actually helping?
- Is recordable media really the problem here? Most people store their data on hard drives, not CD-Rs. Maybe DVD-Rs, but rarely CD-Rs.
However, as I started to learn more about this fee, I started to see its benefits. For one thing, it is being collected by the Canadian Private Copying Collective. The primary purpose of the CPCC is to collect and distribute levies to artists and labels. Therefore, these levy fees can be of benefit to artists across the country.
Naturally, I still have some questions about how this all works, but perhaps I can get an interview with an expert on this subject and explore it in more detail.
For more information, make sure to visit the CPCC website.
