Sony Corporation Of America V Universal City Studios Inc Case Study

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Sony Corporation of America et al. v. Universal City Studios, Inc., et al.
Petitioner: Sony Corp. Respondent: Universal City Studios, Inc.
KEY TERMS:
Fair Use:
Have valid reasons for infringe another’s copyright under certain situations that are legal without permission from the copyright owner. It must be determined that the use is only for non-commercial or nonprofit purposes by considering “the nature of the copyrighted work”, “the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole”, and “the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work” (Copyright Act). Examples include collections in libraries open to the public or related to academic research.
Universal City Studios, Inc.. It cleared Sony of any liability from “contributory” infringement. While Betamax recording devices could be used to record copyrighted material, they were meant to be able to record anything, not only copyrighted works. The court reinforced the concept that personal, non-commercial use, even if people saved small libraries of tapes, was acceptable “fair-use” of freely available entertainment available over the public
Making a single copy for time-shifting is hard to be considered as productive use, because productive use must create extra value for the public (even more so than the original).
Supporting cases for the dissenting opinion:
Bobbs-Merrill Co. v. Straus, Inwood Laboratories, Inc. v. Ives Laboratories, Inc.

DATA:
Useful to figure out if owning a VTR has any effect on the copyright market!
75.4% of VTR owners used it to record shows to watch later at least half of the time
96% of the Betamax owners used it to record programs shown when people weren’t able to watch
55.8% of VTR owners had 10 or less tapes
Over a month, 70.4% of recorded programs had been viewed only one time, while of those, 57.9% were not going to be watched again
81.9% of VTR owners watched the just as much, or even more, television as before ownership
83.2% of VTR owners still go to movie theaters the same amount as before owning a VTR

PRECEDENTS:
District Court:
Columbia Broadcasting System , Inc. v. Democratic National Committee:
Granted television the same protection of freedom of speech that newspapers

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