A series of long-awaited and controversial payouts to musicians, composers, and music publishers has begun in Canada, using money generated by a tax on blank, recordable CDs. The tax was designed to provide a method for compensating music industry professionals for the effects of illegal music piracy. The payout began “right around the time the [industry] was appearing before the Canadian Copyright Board in Ottawa to ask for both significant increases in the levies it’s already been charging and an extension of the levy to computer hard drives, MP3 players, mobile phones and other media.”