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Sony's legal team worked feverishly to file an appeal with the Supreme Court. In the US, filing an appeal with such a high court does not automatically grant you acceptance. The Supreme Court first hears the grounds for appeal and, if it finds that the appellant has sufficient reason to appeal the case, it then hears the case in full.
The exceptional amount of preliminary work done on the case paid off when Sony filed the appeal in March 1992. But the actual appeal proved to be long and draining for both parties. Unbelievably, however, the Court's first ruling did not bring an end to the matter. The Court wanted both sides to reargue their cases. After going through the rigorous ordeal once again on January 17, 1984, Sony won the appeal in a perilously close five to four decision. The majority opinion reasoned that reproduction by a VCR of information broadcast for free by television stations was not an infringement of copyright. Therefore, VCR manufacturers could not be said to have breached the property rights of program makers. The phrase  time-shift was actually used in the written opinion.
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Kenji Tamiya, then president of Sony Corporation of America, announces the good news at a press conference. |
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The decision confirmed Morita's conviction that the VCR was first and foremost a device that benefited consumers by removing time constraints. It was a sweet revenge for the countless hours that Sony's legal team had spent on the project. Sony had proved its time-shift argument was consistent with existing copyright laws and, in the process, had become the first Japanese corporation to win an appeal in the US Supreme Court.
If the case had been held at another time the outcome might have been different. In the 1970s, home use VCRs were being used by consumers to record TV programs so that they could watch them at their own convenience. There is no doubt that the home video recorder, or Betamax case, was a test case that at the same time ushered in a new generation in home entertainment.
The influence of this case is still felt today. Governments review copyright laws with each new technical development in recording media. Sony carefully analyzes the potential for legal problems before releasing new products. This procedure is particularly important given the ongoing advances from analog to digital video recording technology. Before the first digital audio tapes were released, hardware and software makers worked together in drafting a proposal regarding copyright issues.
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