Lawyer Knopf expresses surprise at CPCC news release
Lawyer Howard Knopf, who acts for a coalition of retailers opposing the blank media levy, says he’s surprised by a press release issued by the Canadian Private Copying Collective announcing it had won a stay of a Federal Court of Appeal ruling that it could not collect levies on digital music players such as Apple Corp.’s iPod (CNM, April 6/05). The CPCC said in a media release that, as a result of the stay, it will keep approximately $4.1 million in levies collected on the devices since December 2003, when the Copyright Board of Canada first decided that devices fell under the blank media levy scheme (CNM, Dec. 19/03). The ultimate decision on what types of memory are or aren’t captured by the private copying regime will be up to the Supreme Court of Canada, which has yet to rule on whether it will hear appeals of the December 2004 lower court ruling. "Retaining the collected monies is the only workable solution. When a decision is issued, the collected levies, including the interest on the amount held by the CPCC, will either be distributed to rights holders or reimbursed to those manufacturers and importers who remitted the levies to the CPCC," said CPCC chair Claudette Fortier in a news release.

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