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It's a question that's more suited to a graduate philosophy course than a courtroom. But for the past six months, Canadian lawmakers have been wrestling over a vexing problem that has big implications for music lovers and the record industry: What is an iPod?

Is it a modern day music box that captures songs, or a mindless computer that simply plays them?

The answer might seem frivolous, but it determines whether digital music players such as iPods can be slapped with copyright levies in Canada, which would range between $5 and $75 per device, depending on how many songs it can hold.

There are no easy solutions either. The latest effort to settle the debate is a 41-page document in which the Canadian Copyright Board has determined that, yes, iPods and other digital music recorders are subject to levies, just as blank CDs and DVDs are, to cover artists whose work is potentially copied.

But rather than settle the debate, it has opened the door to a much more protracted philosophical battle between retailers who sell the devices and the music industry which wants a piece of their profits.

“We'll keep fighting,” vowed Kim Furlong, vice-president of government relations with the Retail Council of Canada. “Our legal counsels are looking at the different avenues that will be available.”

The music industry won the right to charge small levies on blank CDs and DVDs in the 1990s, arguing that those products were used primarily to copy music and therefore artists deserved a slice of the sales. But the debate over iPods and digital music players is messier, and Canadian laws are partly to blame for muddying things.

Federal laws state that the Copyright Board of Canada can only apply levies to “recording mediums” but not to the devices that play them. But those laws were contemplated mostly in the era of cassettes and CDs.

The question that now plagues the iPod debate in Canada – in the eyes of lawmakers at least – is, What does the a digital audio player most resemble? Is it like a Walkman, the cassette and CD players that Sony Corp. made millions selling in the eighties and nineties? Or is an iPod more like the cassettes and compact discs themselves, which make recording and duplicating the songs possible?

The Canadian Private Copying Collective (CPCC) argues the latter. The group, which represents the music industry, signalled in January that it wants to start collecting fees on digital music players.

“When you take a look at the world of digital audio recorders, the iPod and similar devices, it's pretty obvious those are ordinarily used to copy music,” argued David Basskin, who sits on the board of CPCC.

“Everybody else in the value chain gets paid: Apple gets paid, people who supply the chips in the devices get paid, the retailer gets paid, the wholesaler gets paid.

“The only people who couldn't get paid in this whole mix are the people who create the [music] for which you bought the thing in the first place.”

That idea was immediately rejected by the Retail Council of Canada, and the Canadian Storage Media Alliance, which represents the tech industry. Both have argued that such fees are merely a cash grab by the music industry and would hurt sales of digital music players.

They argue that the devices aren't necessarily used for copying music – that many people listen to music that is purchased or downloaded legally – therefore a levy would be an unfair tax.

Since the hard drives cannot be removed from iPods, the music industry argues the devices are music recorders, not just players. But Canadian law has always separated the CD player from the disc itself, meaning the debate is far from over. The retail council has already said the Copyright Board of Canada had no jurisdiction to make its latest ruling.

The ruling could set Canada apart from the United States, which does not apply such levies. The matter can be challenged, and most likely will be, before levies are put in place.

It could have implications for other gadgets such as cellphones that play digital music files.

“We see no inherent problem with this scenario,” the copyright board said. “A thing that is ordinarily used by individual consumers to make private copies [of songs] should not be excluded … for the sole reason that it has other uses.”