Metric and Tragically Hip Among 350 Artists Challenging Canadian Copyright Bill

It's laughable that bands such as Metric and the Trews, who've received hundreds of thousands of dollars in benefits via FACTOR, see a need to gouge the public when it buys mp3 players.

Some of the older recording artists shilling for the CPCC are likely too out-of-touch to fully appreciate what they're asking. What's the excuse for the younger acts?

Greed is less attractive than ignorance.

Thankfully there are countless Canadian musicians who oppose the CPCC stance.

What is interesting about the above comments is everyone seems to be a purchaser of music already. Perhaps I'm misinterpreting the proposed levy, but what I read was they were interested in charging the tax on the players, not the song files. i.e. your new iPod would have an extra fee added to its price. Considering the hundreds of millions of people out there that do not ever pay for music, this would be the single tariff they'd ever pay. Not such a harsh concept really. And to anyone thinking the likes of Metric are rolling in money, I suggest you skew your concepts downwards to a far more humble income tax bracket. Most musicians in Canada can barely afford rent, never mind a mortgage on a yacht! Unfortunately the redistribution of money from such a levy would traditionally fall into the coffers of the most successful anyway, so it's a moot point whether it would be any any help at all.

Their is an old saying "don't bite the hand that feeds you" it would appear that the consumer which is the ones responsible for buying the artist music, hand is being bitten again. I feel that you should be looking at ways to have the music stop going thru so many hands and having the cost divided amongst so many people prior to it coming to the consumer. The consumer should not always be the one to be gouged all the time. If artist are not making enough money then change. look at trying to do something diffrent with out coming back to the consumer.

I already buy my music from I Tune now they want to tax MP3, all I can see is they are just forcing people into more illegal downloading or people stop buying MP3. It worked for me now that they tax blank cds I stopped buying them all together.Music will be next if thats the road they want to follow.

These 350 signatories do not represent the great majority of Canadian musicians.

Essentially they want to charge us twice, once for buying the CD and once for transferring the already paid for merchandise. Its ludacris! Artists earn more than enough money for songs that are poorly written and have the same beat. Does anyone remember back in the 90's when the Record Industry was forced to pay back customers because they over charged for CD's?

All I know is, I do not want to pay a tax on a product I have already paid taxes on. If I buy a CD I should be able to transfer the contents onto my MP3 player of choice with no extra taxes.

"We know that you do not want to see a Canada that is devoid of musicians.."

Really? You're not earning a sufficient living? Maybe you should do something else, then. The best thing that's come out of digital music is the potential of a middle class of artists, people who can make 50 or 60 grand a year doing what they love: creating music. Just because you're a musician doesn't mean you deserve millions of dollars.

Music and art existed LONG before it was ever a business, and will continue to do so whether this list of mediocre bands quits the gig or not.

Why have they not looked at a new way to sell music rather than trying to find a way to charge consumers more money? The distribution of monies for a CD is somewhat as follows:

•4% is retailer profit
•7% is label profit
•9% is manufacturing costs
•12% is artist and songwriting payments
•12% is record company distribution, sales & overhead costs
•13% is promotion and marketing costs
•19% is recording, video and production costs
•24% is retail store costs

With selling music online, you can eliminate at least 50% of these costs (retail, distribution). Also, with the internet making music available to millions with limited marketing and promotional costs, there is potentially another 32% savings.

I feel that it is up to the independent musicians / record companies to find a new way to distribute music. No matter what, music always has, and always will be traded freely. So it is up to the people creating the music to make consumers want to pay for the material. Get creative people, this isn't science, it's art.