Is Home Taping Killing Music/Video/Movies....

Back in the '70s the music had a large and expensive campaign against home taping because it was killing music.  Needless to say it didn't.  Now they're doing it again and the new enemy is the internet.  Naughty internet.

Back then some people wanted to make the sale of VCRs illegal in the USA. (The land of the free?).  To quote Jack Valenti (1982) in the HEARINGS BEFORE THE SUBCOMITTEE ON COURTS, CIVIL LIBERTIES,
AND THE ADMINSTRATION OF JUSTICE OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES NINETY-SEVENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION ON H.R. 4783, H.R. 4794 H.R. 4808, H.R. 5250, H.R. 5488, and H.R. 5705 HOME RECORDING OF COPYRIGHTED WORKS, "I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone."  The rhetoric hasn't changed, but there is still a movie industry.  The VCR is long gone however. Mine is anyway.

NB. In no way do condone piracy.  Artists need money to live too, although gettig paid C $100M for a years "work" could be regarded as obscene by people living on benefits.

A tenuously connected link

Last changed: 25th January, 2012 at 1:28 AM

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