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14 Comments

news

Mint Leaves City Not So Fresh

By Marc Lostracco

OneCent_Mint_5Oct07.jpg
The City of Toronto may have been calling for one cent of the GST, but we may end up spending a pretty penny in penalties for the image used in that ad campaign.
The marketing campaign, which appeared on bumper stickers, buttons and in bus shelters, uses a coin photo sourced from the Royal Canadian Mint. The problem? Any image of Canadian currency is the intellectual property of the federally-run Mint, and the City didn’t bother asking for permission.
To use renderings of Canadian currency in advertising, applicants must pay a minimum $350 fee, plus a 1–2.5% royalty based on the value of the campaign. Regulations also state that the campaign must be “compatible with the public policy objectives of the federal Government,” and considering the reaction Miller’s demand received from the Feds, we presume it’s not.
According to the Globe And Mail, City Hall and the Mint are currently in negotiations over what will likely be a resolution amounting to a few thousand bucks.

Comments

  • Amanda Buckiewicz

    Oh, Toronto… you’re so ridiculous!

  • dowlingm

    Another Miller Toonie…

  • Ben

    We should secede. This is total bullshit.

  • guest

    This campaign never made any sense (cents?). What they wanted was 1/7 of the GST, not a penny. I’m sure the federal government would be happy to provide one cent from the GST collections. And as a short form (one cent of the seven cents?), it still makes no sense as it assumes that everything that is purchased is $1, so that City should get 1 cent of the 7 cents collected.

  • Chris Taylor

    Probably a good time to review the GDP growth of Canadian cities, by region. Toronto (2.5%) is third in central Canada, but lags Albertan cities by about two points. Ontario’s economic growth has slowed considerably, down to 1.9% Remember that we’re talking about nominal ranges of 1.5 to 4 percent, so half a percent is a considerable cut.
    I’m sure the taxpayers of Toronto would love to assume sole responsibility for areas of provincial jurisdiction and spending, like education and child care, health care, provincial correctional institutions (got any room in the capital budget to build a few? No?), professional accreditation and licensing, environmental regulation and remediation, not to mention our share of the debt. All that wouldn’t take a significant chunk out of our revenues at all.

  • dowlingm

    According to the City’s asscovering news release on CNW, the Mint is looking for $27,000 (2.7 million cents) for the penny image. That’s a copyright design so I guess I can see where they are coming from but their demand for another $20,000 for the words “one cent” is just taking the michael.

  • guest

    if the mint wants to sue the city,its bullshit,we don’t have any other money,so you’d think it would be all Canadians money to do what they want with it? right?,but no they are a monopoly and are suing? this means they are a typical business like any other corporation,do we need another currency?,maybe, we can sue them for use of images of canadian landscape and animals that all people own,with animals on crown land!. stupid mint!

  • McKingford

    applicants must pay a minimum $350 fee, plus a 1–2.5% royalty based on the value of the campaign
    Since this campaign as produced exactly zero, 1-2.5% of 0 = 0. So I figure Toronto owes about $350.
    And then we can start using a picture of the US cent, which is now the same as the Canadian cent…

  • guest

    This seems like a big ‘Fuck you’ from the feds for the municipalities asking for money.

  • Marc Lostracco

    The Post is reporting that the RCM is demanding $47,680 (whaa?!) for using the penny image without permission, broken up as such:
    • $10,000 for the use of the words “one cent” in the URL(!)
    • $10,000 for the use of “one cent” in the phone number (416-ONE-CENT)
    • $27,680 for the use of the image in printed materials

  • guest

    How about the city give the mint in $47,680 in pennies. Give them a taste of their own medicine.

  • guest

    Intellectual property my foot. This strikes me as something cooked up by an intern in Jim Flaherty’s office, tasked with finding yet another way to screw over Toronto.

  • guest

    Toronto wants money, so it’s trying to scam everyone else to get it (remember Skydome). The mint is no different: it makes billions of useless little stainless steel pieces which nobody wants to count, so they set up “recycle” machines to get a cut. So now who’s scamming whom? Nothing to see here… let’s move along.

  • dowlingm

    This has apparently been going on since March – I guess the Mint has sent a collection agency and they are ringing Hizzoner’s home number 14 times a day.
    What infuriates me is Don Wanagas’ attempts at downplaying it “the penny is public domain, it’s non-profit”… you don’t work with Mike Smith at NOW any more, it’s time to realize you’re playing AA ball. Non-profits don’t get stuff for free and the $100 bill isn’t in the public domain so why assume the penny is.
    I can only assume that when they went to the Flash only mint.ca (bad Mint!) they didn’t have a plugin installed on their browser and couldn’t see the FAQ link which leads to a detailed Intellectual Property and Royalty section.