From: philg@zurich.ai.mit.edu (Philip Greenspun)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: new tax on blind audiophiles and computer users
Date: 27 Aug 92 14:44:10 GMT
Reply-To: philg@zurich.ai.mit.edu (Philip Greenspun)
Organization: M.I.T. Artificial Intelligence Lab.
X-Fidonet: Blink Talk Conference

Index Number: 23979

In the decades to come, every American computer user who purchases
floppy disks will pay a tax.  Every blind American who makes an audio
recording will pay a tax.  Most of the money collected will go to
record companies owned by foreigners, notably Sony, Philips and
Matsushita.  Congress, after receiving substantial campaign
contributions from the recording industry, has decided that Americans
are criminals who don't want to pay for CDs.  Therefore digital audio
media such as DAT tapes and writable optical disks will be taxed and
the money handed over to record companies and artists.  Just as
consumer DAT and 8mm video tape have become the standard high-capacity
backup media for workstations/minis, it is likely that writable
optical digital audio disks will replace today's magnetic floppy
disks.  Sony and Matsushita own two of the largest record companies in
the US and would get the most money from this bill.  Two years from
now, every time American users of IBM computers make a backup, they'll
be paying a tax to help out IBM's Japanese competitors.

Additional reasons to dislike this bill are varied.  It will be
illegal to sell consumer digital audio recorders in the US that can
make digital-to-digital copies after one generation.  You'll pay a tax
on your shiny new Japanese machine, you'll pay a tax on the tape and
when you try to assemble a recording of your own music, all you'll get
is a big flashing "you are a criminal sign."  You'll have to spend
$5,000 on a "professional" machine in order to gain any real benefit
from the new products.  Technology that should make audio recording
easier for the blind by eliminating the need to set recording levels
will actually make audio recording more difficult by mandating
recorders that only work sometimes and that indicate whether they are
working or not solely by a flashing light.

You can stop this bill from passing.  Congress is sticking it to us
because the recording industry paid them and they don't think anyone
will notice.  CSPAN and most newspapers haven't covered this issue at
all because the bill has dozens of co-sponsors and is therefore
considered non-controversial.  If a Congressman gets even a few
letters regarding this bill, which he's probably hardly thought about
at all, it might be enough to make him think that subsidizing Japanese
computer vendors isn't such a great idea.  Our Senate has already
passed this bill by "unanimous consent" (a procedure whereby a bill
can be approved at midnight when only two Senators are on the floor).
The bill is going to be voted on by the House in mid-September.  It is
called the "Audio Home Recording Act of 1991" and is HR-3204 in the
House.  You can write to your elected representatives this way:

Representative Foo Bar
The Capitol
Washington, DC 20515

If you want any more information, please feel free to contact me,
Philip Greenspun, at the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering,
(philg@altdorf.ai.mit.edu).  I testified before the relevant Senate
subcommittee last Fall as the "nerd witness from MIT."

----------------------------- sample letter

August 17, 1992

Representative Foo Bar
The Capitol
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Representative Bar:

Please write to let me know your position on the Audio Home Recording
Act of 1991 (AHRA).  This bill will injure consumers, especially blind
consumers like me, and help foreigners to compete with American
consumer electronics and computer manufacturers.

AHRA will

1) not "promote the progress of the arts," the constitutional
justification for expanding copyright.  In fact, struggling artists
will have to pay more for media and digital audio recorders, thus
hindering them in their ability to compete with estabished stars.
Will Michael Jackson produce better music if the AHRA increases his
income by 1%?  Or will we be deprived of a future Michael Jackson
because an unknown artist could not afford a "professional" digital
recorder?

2) artificially restrain the American computer industry, which, in the
absence of legislation, would use the same blank media as digital
audio recorders.  DAT tapes, the only currently available consumer
digital audio format, are far more popular for computer data backup
than for copying CDs.  Why should I pay a tax on tapes I use to backup
my Apple hard disk to Apple's foreign competitors (Sony and
Matsushita)?

3) make digital audio recorders hard to use for the blind by mandating
the serial copy management system (SCMS).  These expensive new toys
will only record if the SCMS circuits are happy and that fact is
indicated only by flashing lights that I can't read.  Nor can I edit
my own books on tape with a digital audio recorder because SCMS
eventually assumes that I am trying to copy commercial material and
shuts down the tape recorders.  Is this how technology is supposed to
improve life for the disabled?

This bill is completely unnecessary.  Firstly, Congress's own OTA
determined that most taping is done of material that the consumer
already owns.  If I pay $15 for a CD that costs $1 to manufacture, is
it really so unfair that I make a copy to play somewhere else?  Blind
consumers mostly tape record their own voices.  Is it fair that I
should have to pay a tax to Sony and Michael Jackson for the privilege
of recording my own voice?

Secondly, we are about to enter into an era of high-bandwidth digital
communications and machines that transparently handle computer data,
video and audio in the same manner.  This legislation will look
ridiculously vague and silly in five years.  Only lawyers will be
happy with the resulting chaos and litigation.  As a computer
professional, I deplore this kind of government meddling with
infant technology.

Finally, the idea that we Americans are all criminals doesn't sit well
with me.  We paid $6 billion for prerecorded music last year despite
the fact that we all have cassette recorders.  We paid tens of
billions for publications despite widespread Xerox machines.  We paid
tens of billions for software despite the ease of copying it with
computers.  We gave you the benefit of the doubt by voting for you --
please do the same for us.

Very truly yours,

Joe Constituent