People who bought IPods when levies were being imposed on digital music players will soon be able to get their money back, Apple Canada said Monday.

“Apple is pleased that the Supreme Court of Canada let stand a lower court ruling that blank media levies on IPods are invalid, and will shortly announce a claims process so consumers can request a refund for the levies they paid,” the statement from Apple said.

Late last month, the Supreme Court of Canada backed the Federal Court of Canada decision quashing the levy on IPods and other digital music players.

The Canadian Private Copying Collective (CPCC) has collected a tax built into the price of the devices since December 2003. The group is a non-profit agency that collects such tariffs on behalf of musicians and record companies.

The CPCC stopped charging the levy in December 2004 when the Federal Court overturned the policy at the urging of the Canadian Coalition for Fair Digital Access, a group representing retailers and manufacturers such as Future Shop, Wal-Mart Canada, Apple Canada, Sony Canada and Dell Computer Corporation of Canada.

The tariff, while it was in effect, was $2 for non-removable memory capacity of up to one gigabyte, $15 for one to 10 GBs and $25 for more than 10 GB.

The CPCC had argued that since the new technology opened yet another avenue to make illegal copies of songs, a levy should be collected on behalf of music creators.

Approximately $4 million was collected from sales of digital audio recorders in the one-year period.

ctv.ca