Beginning in 1999, the Canadian government mandated a levy on blank audio recording media, including recordable CDs and DVDs. The Canadian Private Copying Collective (CPCC) was thus formed, charged with both collecting the revenues generated by the levies and disbursing them accordingly. The arrangement was justified as a way to keep royalties when users make use of recorded audio material.

Now Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) President Graham Henderson has told Billboard Magazine (subscription) that his industry wants no part of the media levy, saying that "we don't want a private copying levy that, in effect, sanctions online theft." Henderson here is referring to increasingly common arguments promoting the use of the media levy as a means of permitting P2P downloads for personal use. Henderson and others fear that the CAN$0.21 levy per CD could transmute into carte blanche for "unauthorized" downloads, but that's not the only issue on the table.