Our Canadian friends can go back to gloating about the recent currency surge, now that a federal court there has defeated a proposal that would gave slapped sizable fees on every media player and piece of flash media sold there. The Copyright Board of Canada, which tacks a small fee onto sales of blank media to allegedly compensate recording artists, had sought to expand application of the fee at usurious rates. Memory cards of 1GB to 4GB would have been hit with a C$5 fee, while a 30GB media player would have been penalized C$75.
The Federal Court of Appeal ruled that the Copyright Board had exceeded its authority in trying collect such fees.
"iPod Tax" smacked down in Canada [Ars Technica]
