Canadians who bought an MP3 player last year could be eligible for a refund of up to $25.
Apple, Sony, and Hewlett-Packard announced this week that they would refund the "piracy" levy customers paid on their MP3 players, including the iPod, between December, 2003 and December, 2004, after the Supreme Court of Canada refused last month to overturn a Federal Court of Appeal decision that rendered the levy invalid.
"Apple is pleased that the Supreme Court of Canada let stand a lower court ruling that blank media levies on iPods are invalid, and will shortly announce a claims process so consumers can request a refund for the levies they paid," the company said in a press release late Monday.
The company is offering no timeline or information at this time on how users can get their refunds, but a company spokesman said that information would be made available soon.
Likewise, HP does not have a timeline for when it will refund the levies from the 1,800 MP3 players it sold at Future Shops, Best Buys, and from its own website. But Angela Rea, spokeswoman for HP, said on Tuesday information on how customers could be able to get their refund would be made available on the company's website in the coming weeks.
Sony of Canada Ltd. followed suit on Tuesday, saying it would give a refund to anyone who mailed in proof purchase for any of its MP3 players during 2004.
Sony spokesman John Challinor said the company would post information on its website on how customers could get their refund Wednesday.
The levy, which was collected by a third party, the Canadian Private Copying Collective, has long been applied to blank, recordable products like CDs, tapes, and mini-discs. But in December 2003, the Copyright Board of Canada said it would begin applying the levy to MP3 players, such as the iPod and other MP3 players.
The MP3 player levy was set at $2 for each recorder with a capacity of 1 gigabyte, $15 for each device over 1GB but below 10GB and $25 for each recorder with more than 10GB of storage space. The money was intended to compensate artists whose works were pirated onto the devices. The CPCC collected more than $4-million from iPod and other MP3 player sales.
Apple Computer Inc.'s products are the low-end iPod shuffle, with a maximum capacity of 1GB, the iPod mini, which ranges between 4 and 6 GB, and the full-sized iPod, which has a storage capacity of 20 GB.
When the Federal Court of Appeal rendered the levy invalid on Dec. 17, 2004, the CPCC stopped collecting the fee. Apple dropped the price of iPods correspondingly.
Anyone who bought an MP3 player in 2004, however, could be eligible for the refund.
A CPCC spokeswoman said the levies would be returned to manufacturers and importers by the end of August.
Sony of Canada Ltd., Wal-Mart Canada Corp.; Dell Canada and iRiver America were among the major companies that applied to the CPCC for reimbursement, under the Canadian Coalition for Fair Digital Access.
The president of the Canadian Recording Industry Association, Graham Henderson, welcomed the court's decision to remove the levy. He said the surcharge lent legitimacy to file sharing, something that his organization has long fought.
"We have never thought that the levy should apply to portable devices or to the hard-drive of computer," Mr. Henderson said. "We don't not want file-sharing to have that legitimacy."
The CRIA represents Canada's four major record labels — Sony BMG, Universal Music, EMI Music, and Warner Music. Mr. Henderson said advocates for file-sharing would use that levy as a cover to say file sharing was legal, because people could say the artists were being paid through the surcharge.
"I don't want to be paid 2 cents on a copy, nor do any of the other copyright industries," Mr. Henderson said, adding that or every "legal" sale was worth 33 times an "illegal" one.
Mr. Henderson added that the CRIA is not after the people who copy music for their own use, people he refers to as the "good guys."
Instead, he said, his association wants the people who are profiting from massive file sharing and music piracy.
