Canada has a scheme for permitted private copying of music. There is a levy paid on blank media that goes to the artists in proportion to sales (so if sales for your CD are 0.0083% of all Canadian sales, you get 0.0083% of the money in this pot). It's annoying for consumers in that they have to pay extra for CD blanks and blank tapes, but private copying is permitted (private copying does not include napster; no distribution or selling, see the law for the details) but you can take your audio CDs and convert them to MP3s. Private means that you can't copy for a third party as well.

There is an interesting quote in a law textbook I have. "using a stolen prerecorded CD to make a private copy on a stolen CD-R involves two instances of theft but no copyright infringement." (pp 524, Internet Law in Canada, Mihael Geist, 2002, ISBN: 1-55322-021-8).

- Doug

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