Blank CD tax unfair, says seller
Karen Dearne
04Feb03

DAVID Beaumont has a small sideline, selling blank, recordable CDs to other small to medium businesses in downtown Adelaide.

By his estimate, 98 per cent of the CDs he sells are used in the workplace for computer back-ups and other legitimate purposes.

Mr Beaumont also belongs to a church group that writes, records and sells its own material -meticulously duplicated on to recordable CDs by members because they lack funds for professional production.

So a proposal to impose a levy on blank CDs and DVDs to compensate copyright owners for illegal copying strikes him as unwarranted and unjust.

"It's like labelling everyone who buys recordable media as a criminal," he said.

"We write our own music, we're the copyright owner and we have complete rights to copy that."

Mr Beaumont was pleased an open letter to Screenrights, leader of a music and film industry alliance canvassing Federal Government support for its proposed royalty scheme, brought an immediate response from its chief executive Simon Lake.

He was, however, not persuaded by an assurance that buyers would be able to claim a refund for any blank discs used for purposes that did not infringe copyright.

"The suggested opt-out system is highly unfair," Mr Beaumont said.

"To get a refund, you'll need to provide a statutory declaration saying the CD you've purchased is not being used to copy licensed material.

"That means every time I use a CD that I don't want to pay the levy on, I have to fill in a form, find a Justice of the Peace to witness it - then I'll have to wait four-to-six months for the refund to be processed.

"Most people would find that more trouble than it's worth."

Mr Beaumont said he was not convinced illegal copying was rampant.

This report appears on news.com.au.

i doubt the proposal would ever pass, i mean, they must have some system of government down there, right?!?!?!

That's stupid...why don't you tax everyone who buys ziplock bags because they might put their weed in there! Same concept, stupid reasoning.

Don't be too surprised if this does pass. There is a levy on blank CDs in Europe and here in the USA as well. I believe there's also a levy on recordable hardware such as CD-RW drives.

IMHO, I think that the RIAA shouldn't be able to sue anyone for sharing files or burning CD's because they are already being compensated for these costs through this levy. They shouldn't be allowed to have it both ways. If they want to be able to sue for damages, they shouldn't get the levy also. It's like they are being paid twice for the same thing.

Protect Fair Use!

Plastic ruins the flavor.

I am sure it will pass. And if CD-Rs are sometime made illegal (hopefully and probably not) here, I'll just keep on listening to music without CDs. My Walkman won't be as fun but I still have the Internet. Unless the Internet is made illegal. Doubtful, but it seems that's where they want to take this.

They can't make CD-R's illegal, it's your right to make copies of your music!

This maybe irrelevant all too soon anyways because of this;

http://www.againsttcpa.com/what-is-tcpa.html

Big Brother's name is Fritz.

Ras913, they aren't making them illegal, they're just making you pay extra for the privilge to use them. And of course a little rxtra profit in their pockets as well.

Maybe its time Governments realised that you can't un-invent things...

hehehe , don't we all like paying taxes ??