From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!floyd!cmcl2!lanl-a!unm-ivax!nmtvax!greg Newsgroups: net.music Title: Re: tape tax Article-I.D.: nmtvax.192 Posted: Thu Feb 17 08:50:56 1983 Received: Tue Feb 22 08:14:26 1983 There was a recent note by Carl Blesch in net.audio in which he seemed to be against a tax on blank audio tape (the collected tax monies would presumably be distributed among music companies and artists to reimburse them for losses sustained when people copied a record or commercial tape instead of buying the original). The tax actually seems only fair to me. These people (artists and companies) are in the music business. That's how they make their living. It's unreasonable to expect them to keep calm when there are, say, two million copies of their work floating around, but they only got paid for one million of those copies. Someone who copies an album instead of buying it is, in effect, stealing something which was meant to be bought. Although there are a number of side issues (which I'm sure I'll hear about after this), certainly the artists deserve to get *something* when a copy is made of their work, but nothing is paid (to them) for it. greg