From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!seismo!hao!hplabs!hp-pcd!tw Newsgroups: net.music Title: Re: Re: tape tax - (nf) Article-I.D.: hp-pcd.690 Posted: Fri Feb 18 18:01:38 1983 Received: Sun Feb 20 10:46:04 1983 #R:nmtvax:-19200:hp-pcd:6600003:000:1211 hp-pcd!tw Feb 18 15:49:00 1983 An additional consideration: what reason is there to believe that such a tax would ever find its way back to those who deserve the royalty? Even if some record companies got money back they would probably be the large corporations, not independents and small concerns. How could you know how much to distribute to which companies? Who would know what those tapes really got used for? I'd bet that lots of tapes get used for taping obscure, out of print albums from small labels which went out of business long ago. Is it fair to charge me a tax for taping that, then take that money (whatever was left after government distribution overhead, if any) and send n percent of it to Warner or someone? Also, what about people (like me) who buy an album, then tape it to have a copy to play in the car? I'm not about to buy two copies! I agree that it isn't fair to copy someone's work without paying for it, but I don't see how a tax on blank tape will help anything. Tw Cook