Canada To Tax Legal Music Downloads

Oh Canada, what the hell? If a new measure goes through, it means that those who purchase legal music online (iTunes, Puretracks, etc) will be taxed. The requested charges would be $0.021 per individual song or $0.015 per song if a full album is purchased. Users of streaming music services would be charged 5.7% – 6.8% of their total monthly fee.

These prices might not seem like much, but the fact is, Canadians would be charged extra on their legal music to compensate for piracy. How does this make any sense? The surcharge on blank media was ridiculous enough, but this is something I will never be able to wrap my head around. The only thing this will accomplish is making piracy look that much more attractive.

The tax may have a significant impact for online stores such as iTunes and Canada-based Puretracks, which will have to factor the amount both into future and past sales. The new tax would be retroactive to January 1st, 1996 and would effectively cover all sales and subscriptions from such services since their beginnings, which typically followed shortly after those in the US. Free services are not currently subject to the added cost.

Source: MacNN