Re: Technology prohibiting copying by VCRs, etc.

On 10/29/98, Bob Schwartz <shebam[_at_]access.digex.net> wrote:
>
> Many on the movie side would like to roughly equate their interests, as
> described above, with a "time shift only" interpretation of the Betamax
> case, so they could limit its application to the broadcast medium and
> evidence of use available to the courts when the case was tried. There
> is no reason to fall into this snare: (1) the main issue in Betamax was
> contributory copyright infringement, as to which the Supreme Court ruled
> that a product with infringing uses may nevertheless be lawfully sold if
> it has any commercially significant non-infringing uses (including fair
> use, but also including authorized use), and (2) ONE sufficient example
> of a fair use that the Court found in the record was time-shifting of
> TV broadcasts. This determination neither excluded nor compelled other
> combinations ofuses and media being found to result in fair use, nor
> did it condition the legality of recorders, for contributory
> infringement purposes, on other such uses being found.

I am not "on the movie side" but it is certainly clear from Justice Souter's language in Campbell opinion that the Court takes a limited view of Sony.

Sheldon W. Halpern
The Ohio State University College of Law <shalpern[_at_]pop.service.ohio-state.edu> Received on Fri Oct 30 1998 - 22:10:24 GMT