Join me in congratulating Kathleen Demain of Oceanside, California, and Karl Gunderson of West Fargo, North Dakota, recipients of this year's Kent Porter Scholarships. Both Kathleen and Karl, who are full-time students, full-time parents, and longtime Dr. Dobb's readers, are managing to maintain a nearly straight-A grade average while pursuing degrees in computer science. We're happy to lend a helping hand and wish them the best of luck in attaining their goals.
When we announced the DDJ Handprinting Recognition contest in July, we planned on presenting the results and announcing the winner in this issue. What we didn't plan on was the time it would take to evaluate all the entries, as well as attending to other special projects, conferences, and the like. Look for the results in our January 1993 issue.
In September 1991, I discussed the need to reallocate the radio spectrum if the promise of wireless communication is to be realized. At issue was the need to make room for services like digital personal communications.
This position was backed by the FCC and companies such as Apple, NCR, IBM, Tandy, and Grid who want to set aside the 2-GHz RF band for emerging technologies. The sticking point is that these frequencies are currently allocated to others--railroads, utilities, and the like--who'll have to move off that part of the spectrum before others can move on.
After intense lobbying by the railroads and utilities, Sen. Ernest Hollings (D-S.C.) tacked an amendment onto a spending bill to force the FCC to maintain the 2-GHz band for existing users. Personal-communication services would have to sit and wait, causing U.S. developers to lose billions of dollars as companies in other countries continue to move rapidly ahead. Luckily, the FCC avoided indeterminate delays by proposing a three- to ten-year transition period for current 2-GHz users to voluntarily move to other frequencies.
While the railroads and utilities were whimpering that reallocation would seriously affect the safety of their operations, the real hue-and-cry involves the monetary value of the radio spectrum--estimated upward of $200 billion. Even though existing spectrum users don't "own" their frequencies, they have first right to use them. You can bet that we'll pay millions of dollars to entice them to move elsewhere on the spectrum.
Digital-recording manufacturers got a much-delayed shot in the arm while consumers got a shot to the chops with the recently passed Congressional bill covering home digital-recording equipment.
For the past five years, home digital recording has been on hold while lawyers and legislators wrangled over copyright and royalty issues, stifling the proliferation of digital-recording equipment until compensation for songwriters and music publishers was guaranteed.
Under the terms of the recently passed legislation, royalties will not be paid to individual artists in the music industry, but to an industry "association" which will get a 3 percent royalty on all blank digital tapes and discs sold, and a 2 percent royalty on all digital recorders. (That's an extra $14.00 tacked on to the price tag of a typical digital recorder.) The rationale for this is it's impossible to collect royalties from everyone making copies, so Congress assumed all digital-recording equipment users will be making copies and is taxing us accordingly.
Additionally, the bill states that digital-recording machines must include technology that would allow copying original prerecorded music, but not the copying of copies.
Frankly, I'd like to know what's so special about the music industry that it deserves special protection. If users of digital audio-recording equipment have to pay taxes for blank tapes, why don't users of photocopiers or digital scanners have to pay royalties for blank paper? Or, for that matter, why don't PC users have to pay copy-protection taxes when they buy blank floppies? (Is there a chance that what's really special about the $25 billion music industry is a strong and well-financed lobbying effort in Congress that helps out with re-election coffers?)
Perhaps what's most galling is the presumption of guilt inherent in this upcoming law. Everyone, or so Congress seems to think, is guilty of copyright infringement, so everyone should pay their fine up front.
Furthermore, digital data being digital data, a precedent is being set in terms of software copying. I don't know what it will be (maybe you have some thoughts--let me know), but I do know that it will likely mean someone else dipping their hand into our pocketbooks.
Copyright © 1992, Dr. Dobb's JournalHold that Thought
Radio Days Revisited
Copyrights and Digital Royalties