From: philg@zurich.ai.mit.edu (Philip Greenspun)
Newsgroups: rec.audio
Subject: US Congress to tax audiophile computer hackers to subsidize Japanese
Date: 17 Apr 92 20:10:54 GMT
Article-I.D.: orion.PHILG.92Apr17161054
Reply-To: philg@zurich.ai.mit.edu
Distribution: rec.audio
Organization: M.I.T. Artificial Intelligence Lab.


Congress is about to pass the Audio Home Recording Act of 1991.  This
bill will tax digital audio recorders and digital audio media, create
a new Federal bureacracy to distribute the tax revenue to
foreign-owned record companies, and restrict the capabilities of
digital audio recorders so that digital-to-digital copies cannot be
made.  In addition, the bill does not distinguish between digital
media used for computer data storage and digital media used for audio
recording.  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.

Is it fair that you should pay a tax on tape that you buy to record
your own performances?  Is it fair that you'll have to pay $5,000 for
a "professional" digital audio recorder in order to use the equipment
for editing?  Is it fair that a small American company wanting to
compete with heavyweight Japanese digital audio manufaturers will have
to pay a lawyer to wade through hundreds of pages of legal
requirements, technical specifications, and administrative decisions?
Is is fair that our Congress would pass a copyright bill without
anyone even once mentioning whether it will "promote the progress of
the arts", which is the only constitutional justification for
expanding copyright?  (Since the money is to be distributed linearly
according to sales, only the biggest record companies and most popular
stars will get any significant money.)

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 taxing the American
public to subsidizing Japanese computer vendors isn't such a great
idea.  The bill is going to be voted on in about two weeks.  It is
called the "Audio Home Recording Act of 1991" and is S-1623 in the
Senate and HR-3204 in the House.  You can write to your elected
representatives this way:

    Senator Foo Bar
    The Capitol
    Washington, DC 20510

    Representative Foo Bar
    The Capitol
    Washington, DC 20515

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