If you can’t beat ‘em, sue ‘em

What’s a CDR drive good for? According to German music licensing company Gema, nothing. Actually, almost nothing – it does have its uses in stealing music and depriving revenue from starving multinational music companies. The situation has now

What's a CDR drive good for? According to German music licensing company Gema, nothing. Actually, almost nothing – it does have its uses in stealing music and depriving revenue from starving multinational music companies. The situation has now become so bad for the impoverished Gema that the company has prepared lawsuits against 30-something CDRW manufacturers and importers to recoup revenue lost from illegal CD copying.

According to The Inq, Gema estimates that sales of CDR and CDRW drives will cost it up to €50 million in lost sales.

Meanwhile on the opposite side of the globe, Canada has plans to introduce a new tax on blank CDR and CDRW discs in 2003. The proceeds of said tax are to be given to copyright holders (the Canadian Private Copyright Collective: Canada's equivalent of the US RIAA and MPAA) in order to compensate for sales lost due to piracy. The new tax will also be imposed on any form of media capable of storing music in electronic form – mp3 players, hard drives, memory sticks and DVDR discs.

Despite the abject stupidity of the new tax (not everyone uses their blanks for music piracy), it does give rise to an interesting question: if the Canadians are paying a tax for the right to reproduce copyrighted works, does this mean they can now do so legally?