iPod Levy Approved by Canadian Copyright Board

The Copyright Board of Canada has released its decision on the application of a private copying levy to iPods and removable memory storage cards, including the popular SD format. Backing the levy is the Canadian Private Copyright Collective (CPCC), while the Canadian Storage Media Alliance and Retail Council of Canada are both against it, arguing that the Federal Court has struck down a previous levy on digital audio recorders as being outside the Copyright Act. Despite this earlier ruling, the Copyright Board has sided with the CPCC, and in fact stated that the levy might possibly expand to cover items such as cell phones and computers as well.

"CSMA expressed misgivings about the possibility that cellular phones and computers might end up being leviable," the decision states. "We see no inherent problem with this scenario. A thing that is ordinarily used by individual consumers to make private copies should not be excluded from the private copying regime for the sole reason that it has other uses. Indeed, all media that are currently subject to the levy can be used for purposes other than private copying." The entire 41-page decision is available online.