the tax man cometh - Canadians to pay tax on downloaded tunes

this is going to be interesting . . . i think many of us have been dreading the tax man's intrusion into the mp3 business, and kind of hoping that he wouldn't show up. however, here he is, and we'll see what folks in canada do, both on the business and consumer side. I just hope that the SOCAN in Canada is better than the ASCAP/BMI/RIAA cartel down on the south of that border.

OTTAWA -- The Copyright Board of Canada has approved new taxes on digital MP3 music files - at least for files that are downloaded legally.

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Meant to compensate artists for the reproduction of their songs, the charges follow similar levies that add 21 cents to the price of every blank CD sold in Canada. And they are retroactive to 1996, when Canada's music industry first began pushing for tariffs on transmitted music files.

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The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN), which collects money on behalf of musicians and redistributes those funds to songwriters and bands, had called for the levies.