Word: copyrights
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...legal because last week the Supreme Court ruled, 5 to 4, that home videotaping of television programs for private use is not a violation of copyright law. The anxiously awaited decision grew out of a suit brought by the Disney and Universal studios in 1976 against the Sony Corp., makers of Betamax videocassette recorders (VCRS), for enabling home viewers to record movies and TV shows without paying a royalty. In 1981 a federal appeals court in California decided in favor of the studios. Since then the billion-dollar VCR industry, as well as millions of consumers, has been...
...decision, the court held that "time-shifting," the recording of a program for later viewing at a more convenient time, constituted "fair use" of copyrighted material. Wrote Justice John Paul Stevens for the majority: "One may search the Copyright Act in vain for any sign that the elected representatives of the millions of people who watch television every day have made it unlawful to copy a program for later viewing at home." The court found, moreover, that Disney and Universal-and, by extension, the entertainment industry-had failed to prove that the practice caused them financial injury or damaged...
...sooner had the court spoken than the predictable outcry was raised by Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, who has spearheaded the entertainment industry's million-dollar lobbying campaign against unrestricted videotaping. Valenti questioned whether the "copyright is real or whether it is mush," and insisted that "the future of creative entertainment of the American family is what's at stake here." Producer Irwin Winkler (Rocky III, The Right Stuff) was being only slightly sarcastic when he said: "Creative people have to eat. With this decision they will make less income. They...
Representative Don Edwards of California, co-sponsor of a bill that would authorize a copyright royalty system, affirms that "the court didn't intend this decision to be the final answer." Yet Edwards admits that putting a royalty tax on one of the nation's favorite consumer toys in an election year is no politician's idea of how to keep...
...week's end the publishers had not decided, but were leaning toward seeking further review. Edward Miller, general counsel for Harper & Row, insisted that an important issue is at stake. Said he: "Copyright is the basis of the business we're in, and first serial rights are an important source of income for us." Whatever the final outcome of the case, publishers are considering new tactics to avoid such battles. Some warn that galleys of major books will be offered to fewer bidders with more stringent security restrictions. Others, like Roger Straus, president of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, think...