At 08:09 PM 2/14/01 -0800, Tim May wrote:
Why should someone who is not downloading music or images (or whatever it is the tax is allegedly meant to support) be taxed thusly?
Yep. This is terrifically offensive.
(But some of us had the last laugh. The "Home Recording Act" tax came with the proviso that unlimited "non-commercial" copying was now unprosecutable. A friend of mine copied more than 4500 CDs onto about a thousand DAT tapes. The DAT tapes were purchased in bulk from a guy in Nashville for about $2 per 4-hour (highest quality) tape. Now, of course, CD-Rs can be purchased in bulk for about $0.28 per 80-minute blank, so my friend is now making mostly CD-Rs. He makes extras for me, for the cost of the materials, so I have about 500 CDs "for free" that are perfectly legal under the Home Recording Act. Of the 28 cents per blank CD-R, how much is going to Limp Biskit?)
I'm not convinced this is legal[1], but if it is: then Napster tools that work only for "buddy lists" would also be untouchable. With what constitutes a "buddy" decided by some judge, eventually. I realize this is just a historical spur; the fate of copyright in the era of crypto-equipt networked pcs etc etc... [1] Not familiar with the HRA in detail... yes you can make personal backup or other-media copies for yourself, but distributing them while you retain copies yourself?