“Do Notte Buye Betamacks.”
—
Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett wrote that classic line in Good Omens in the late 1980s, when Sony’s Betamax video tape system was already known to be a commercial failure. While it was the first viable at-home video recording system, it had been largely supplanted by VHS videotapes because of their longer recording time and lower cost (although they had a slightly lower quality image as well).
But there was one area where Betamax was never supplanted by the VHS tape and player manufacturers, and that was in the US Supreme Court. On January 17, 1984, the Court issued its ruling in Sony vs Universal, the case that gave device manufacturers the right to invent, make and sell products that could be used to infringe on copyrights, as long as there was also a significant non-infringing purpose in/regarding the device.
When the Justices first discussed the case, only one of them thought that it was legally permissible for an individual or family to make a single copy of a tv show at home. Just think for a moment of what our world would look like if the Court had ruled the other way - at a minimum, cassette tapes would have been taxed or sold with a license fee on behalf of the songwriters’ publishers, recordable DVDs and the devices that record on them would probably have never existed, and it’s not even clear whether home computers would have developed the way they did; Congress certainly would have regulated the Internet differently in the mid-90s.
As the EFF wrote in 2005, had the case gone the other way, would innovators have been
forced by copyright law to ask permission from entertainment moguls before building new technologies? If Sony had asked permission from Hollywood, the Betamax might never have made it to market (or might have had very different features). It’s thanks to the Betamax ruling that the makers of VCRs and every other technology capable of infringing and non-infringing uses (e.g., personal computers, CD burners, the TiVo DVR, Apple’s iPod, and Web browsers) can continue to sell their wares without fear of lawsuits from copyright owners.
Fred Von Lohmann, now with Google’s GC office, wrote this ten years ago - before YouTube (and even gmail) even existed:
New technologies make copyrights more valuable because they unleash new markets and business models. That’s been the rule, without exception, for a century. The VCR ended up making Hollywood rich, with sales of pre-recorded cassettes quickly eclipsing the receipts from box office ticket sales. There’s no reason to think that the Internet won’t create even more revenue-generating opportunities.
Every new technology that’s accepted by the mass market impacts all the markets that already exist. Von Lohmann mentioned the publishing industry and scanners in that article ten years ago - and scanners are what made the entire Google Books ruling possible last fall, which in turn expanded the definition and tests regarding Fair Use of all types.
Every new technology that’s accepted by the mass market changes how we interact with stories, and often, it changes (and expands) copyright law, too.
So no, do notte buy Betamacks (in 1980) if you’re interested in a lower-priced way to record tv shows for two hours before switching tapes.
Do buy into Betamax’s argument from thirty years ago that a single copy of a copyright-protected work does not infringe. Do buy into Betamax’s argument that single copies and library-building are both Fair Use. Do buy into the Supreme Court’s ruling that inventors and users cannot be liable for infringement for creating, distributing or using a device, program or item that is capable of non-infringing uses.
Do record something today - likely on digital media - to mark the fact that you can do so, legally.
Happy 40th Anniversary to the case that underpins Fair Use, technology & the Internet.
