Word came down from the Canadian government this week that it has decided to exempt microSD cards — very small, removable memory cards used in countless electronic devices — from the Copyright Act.
“Our government is committed to building a strong and vibrant Canadian digital economy, the cornerstone of which must be the widespread adoption of cutting-edge digital technologies,” said Minister of Industry, Christian Paradis. “Placing a new fee on devices with removable memory cards, such as BlackBerrys and smart phones, would increase costs for Canadian families and impact the adoption of the latest technologies.”
Industry Minister Christian Paradis announced that the federal government intends to introduce targeted regulations that will explicitly exclude microSD memory cards from the definition of an “audio recording medium” in the Copyright Act.
Back in 2011, the Canadian Private Copying Collective (CPCC) asked the Copyright Board to impose a tariff in the form of a “levy” on electronic memory cards.
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