Public Documents Surcharge [Was: E-MAIL SURCHARGE]

[psema4]

On 10/18/05, Stewart Sinclair <stewsinc-MwcKTmeKVNQ at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Does anyone know anything about this?

Just received this from Digital-Copyright Canada, entitled "The
Canadian email tax bill 602P is a hoax, but proposals to tax publicly
accessible Internet documents are not a hoax."...

-- Original Message --

(Please circulate as widely as possible. Let see if real information can
circulate as fast as a hoax!)

  In April of 1999 a bulletin was circulating the Internet claiming that
Canada Post had convinced the federal government to add a 5 cent surcharge
on every email delivered. The claim was that since Canada Post was losing
money as people switched from them to email, that they should be
compensated. The advise of the bulletin was to write your member of
parliament.

  While this was a hoax that is well documented on the Internet (just
search for "602P Canada" on any search engine), it bears a striking
resemblance to a real proposal that the government will soon be debating.
In this case it is not Canada Post that is claiming they are losing money
competing with the Internet, but traditional book publishers.

  You may have heard about this proposal to levy educational use of the
public part of the Internet. If successful, this levy will be extended to
all uses. The Council of Ministers of Education have been strongly opposed
to this proposal, and have asked educators and parents to write to the
government.

  The proposal originates from an organization called Access Copyright,
previously called CANCOPY. They represent many traditional paper authors
and book publishers, including a majority of educational publishers. They
already offer what they call "licenses" where institutions like schools
and libraries pay a levy on photocopying. The intention is to compensate
the authors and publishers which they represent (their repertoire).

  They are targeting their levy proposal on the part of the Internet that
has no passwords, and not trying to levy the various subscription services
that exist on the Internet.

  Access Copyright believes that since they represent a majority of
material in print (paper), that they will also represent a majority of
material on the Internet. It turns out that most of the material on the
public Internet has been made available by competitors to their members,
or by members who are exploring alternative business models than
collecting royalties on every possible use.

  Most people believe that the material made available on the Internet
outside of a subscription service is intended to be free. Access Copyright
claims that they should not have to use technology to create a
subscription service in order to charge a fee. Obviously there is a
conflict that the government must resolve.

  Access Copyright membership represents a small number of people relative
to the existing people publishing and accessing royalty-free material on
the public part of the Internet. When Access Copyright members wish to
charge additional fees they must learn to use simple and inexpensive
techniques to verify that people who access their materials are
subscribers.

  Unfortunately the government has not yet understood this simple logic,
and has not yet rejected the Access Copyright proposal. A parliamentary
committee released a report on May 12, 2004 which fully supported
amendments to the Copyright Act to impliment the proposal to levy the
Internet.

  Please write your member of parliament about this issue, and let your
friends know about it. This issue is not a hoax, and is one that should be
circulating around the Internet.

Russell McOrmond
Webmaster for Digital-Copyright.ca

Linked version of this article is at
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/1127

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