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The Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 (AHRA) amended the United States copyright law by adding chapter 10 "Digital Audio Recording Devices and Media. more...

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" The act enabled the release of recordable digital formats such as Sony and Phillips' Digital Audio Tape without fear of contributory infringement lawsuits.

The RIAA and music publishers, concerned that consumers' ability to make perfect digital copies of music would destroy the market for audio recordings, had threatened to sue companies and had lobbied Congress to pass legislation imposing mandatory copy protection technology and royalties on devices and media.

The AHRA is often overlooked, but it establishes a number of important precedents in US copyright law that defined the debate between device makers and the content industry for the ensuing two decades. These include:

the first government technology mandate in the copyright law, requiring all digital audio recording devices sold, manufactured or imported in the US (excluding professional audio equipment) to include the Serial Copy Management System (SCMS).; the first anti-circumvention provisions in copyright law, later applied on a much broader scale by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.; the first government-imposed royalties on devices and media, a portion of which is paid to the record industry directly.;

The Act also includes blanket protection from infringement actions for private, non-commercial analog audio copying, and for digital audio copies made with digital audio recording devices.

History and Legislative Background

By the late 1980s, several manufacturers were prepared to introduce read/write digital audio formats to the United States. These new formats were a significant improvement over the newly introduced read-only digital format of the compact disc, allowing consumers to make perfect, multi-generation copies of digital audio recordings. Most prominent among these formats was Digital Audio Tape (DAT), followed in the early 1990's by Philips' Digital Compact Cassette (DCC) and Sony's Minidisc.

DAT was available as early as 1987 in Japan and Europe, but device manufacturers delayed introducing the format to the United States in the face of opposition from the recording industry. The recording industry, who feared that the ability to make perfect, multi-generation copies would spur widespread copyright infringement and lost sales, had two main points of leverage over device makers. First, consumer electronics manufacturers felt they needed the recording industry's cooperation to induce consumers—many of whom were in the process of replacing their cassettes and records with compact discs—to embrace a new music format. Second, device makers feared a lawsuit for contributory copyright infringement.

Read more at Wikipedia.org