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Total entries in this category: Published On: May 18, 2008 10:34 PM |
Blank tape leviesThe Federal Court of Appeal in Canada has
upheld a "blank tape levy" as a validly enacted regulatory charge and not a tax
in Canadian Private Copying
Collective v Canadian Storage Media Inc and
others [2004] FCA 424 here.
The case concerned a number of other
issues here including the rates that could be set and whether particular
technologies were covered. However, the principal point of interest from an
Australian perspective is that our very own
Blank
Tapes case was of course considered and,
significantly,
distinguished.
Given the scale of infringing activity taking place in the digital world, one would hardly need to be Nostradamus to guess that the Australian collecting societies will be banging on the Attorney General's door brandishing copies of this judgment and calling for action. The first ground of distinction, however, does not seem to change matters. Apparently, under Canadian constitutional law there is a distinction between a tax and a regulatory charge, which the Court of Appeal in Canada considered was not a relevant consideration in Australia (see para. 48). Noel JA went on to consider that the four traditional criteria of a tax which the majority in the Blank Tapes case did apply were all present and correct. In other words, the levy was saved under Canadian law solely because it was a regulatory charge even though it would have been a tax under "traditional" criteria (see para. 53). Posted: Wednesday - 09 February, 2005 at 06:58 PM | |