Canadian shoppers are being spared a tax on the iPod and other media players, at least for now, after the Canadian Copyright Board's move to get one imposed was struck down. Similar laws in Canada levy fines on burnable media such as blank CDs, in an attempt to “compensate” the recording industry for losses due to piracy. That bogus argument aside, the fee was pretty substantial and some might say outright obscene. For players with less than 1GB of memory, the fee was $5. For larger capacity units, such as a Zen, Zune, iPod or other unit with 30GB or more, the fee would be $75.

This is the second time such a move has been blocked. Hopefully, trends like this will continue – not just in Canada, but worldwide.