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If one thinks that it?s excessive for Access Copyright (?AC?) to get $5.16 per K-12 student for a total of about $20 million a year not counting Quebec, get ready for this.

For 2010-2012, AC wants to increase this to $15 per K-12 student. There are about 4 million of these ?FTEs?. So that?s about $60 million a year.

AC will throw in rights to make copies of lost sheet music and choir parts. That?s sweet of them, considering that AC probably has little if any music in its repertoire. It will be really interesting to see what, if anything, the Canadian Music Publishers Association does about this. Turf is at stake, not to mention money.

And as if that?s not enough, AC wants $24 per year for every FTE employee of provincial and territorial governments. I have no idea how many such FTEs there are, but I?d be surprised if it were less than a million. And I?d surprised if most or all of the photocopying that goes on insider government is for anything other than internal housekeeping (i.e. copying of government documents) or ?research? purposes. Let?s see if anyone steps up to plate to defend Canadian taxpayers here. At least $24 million a year at stake here.

Access Copyright is getting really excessive in its reach. Here?s the proposed tariff. The deadline to file an objection is July 8, 2009.

HK

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