There were few fireworks on the Copyright Board of Canada’s first day of hearings into a steep new proposed tariff on ringtones. On June 21, the board began hearing factual evidence around Tariff 24, a 10% tariff proposed by the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) on ringtones. A coalition made up of the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association, the major record labels, as well as Telus Mobility and Bell Mobility will attack the tariff proposal on at least two fronts over the next week or so. They are expected to argue that there is no communication to the public by telecommunications that would entitle SOCAN to a tariff, and that even if such a communications exists, that SOCAN’s members are a small part of the value chain, and that the tariff should be much lower.

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