Word: vcr
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...your story "Max Troubles for Betamax [Jan. 16], you stated that NEC was no longer planning to build Beta VCR equipment. On the contrary, NEC has only recently entered the VCR market in the U.S. and has been highly successful with its initial Beta product, with new models scheduled for introduction in 1984. NEC is also adding VHS to its VCR line as part of its policy of offering the broadest possible product selection...
...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 in a state of legal limbo. Last year the Supreme Court took the unusual step of holding the case over until this year and went so far as to request rearguments...
...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 the value of their copyrighted work. Thirteen years after the introduction of the VCR, a switch in time is no longer a crime...
Watching TV is now the most popular leisure-time activity in America. The VCR only expands the amount of time devoted to that peculiarly nonactive activity, and thus expands a market in which many producers can flourish as program suppliers...
Notes Charles Ferris, a former Federal Communications Commission chairman who is counsel for an electronics-industry lobbying group called the Home Recording Rights Coalition: "The VCR watcher was either unable to watch the show the first time or is watching for the second time. Either way that means an incremental increase in the audience." Such an increase benefits everyone, according to Ferris; a rising tide lifts all boats, even Hollywood yachts. -By Richard Stengel...