The Piano-Scroll Precedent - Industry Trend or Event

Industry Standard, The, August 14, 2000 by Scott Harris

In 1984 the Supreme Court ruled in Sony's favor, saying that it did not have to discontinue Betamax sales because the device did have a "substantial noninfringing use." Looking back, now that Hollywood has made billions in the video business, the question is: What were they thinking?

While court decisions have sometimes eroded copyright, expanding the "fair use" doctrine, Congress has tried to expand and strengthen copyright protections. The 1909 law was reformed in 1976 to give copyright holders "the exclusive right to control reproduction of their works," while specifically exempting library photocopies. The law eliminated a registration system, conferring copyright upon authorship, and extended the protection to unpublished works.

Lawmakers in 1998 updated the law once again with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which, among other things, extends copyright protections to software and digitized music and movies by outlawing technologies that circumvent antipiracy measures. It also exempts ISPs and search engines from liability for copyright infringement. The DMCA figures in much of the recent litigation over copyright, and is at the center of the DeCSS case, in which eight film studios and the Motion Picture Association of America are suing a Web-zine publisher for posting a DVD decryption program on his site; the case is now being decided by a federal judge in New York City.

Many lawyers suggest advances in encrypting methods may make current law adequate to address copyright concerns. Goldstein, a consultant to entertainment firms, envisions an ultimate encrypted cornucopia of digitized entertainment. This "celestial jukebox," he says, would be able to zap copyrighted materials to your interactive TV, your car, your laptop, your PDA -- whatever. Minuscule payments would be assessed, so low as to disincentivize hacking. And art and science, the story goes, would continue to thrive.

Great Moments in Copyright

Once upon a time, people who created stories and songs had no legal claim to the works. The evolution of copyright law may be traced to the oldest copying machine.

CIRCA 1455: Johannes Gutenberg invents the printing press.

1509: Crown of England grants certain printers right to publish "privileged books."

1557: Queen Mary I grants the Company of Stationers in London, a trade guild, a monopoly in publishing and bookselling. The guild develops a system for recording licenses. Unauthorized publication -- piracy -- emerges as a concern.

1710: "Statute of Anne" codifies English copyright law.

1790: U.S. Congress adopts its first copyright statute, protecting "only maps, charts and books."

1831: U.S. copyright protections expanded to cover musical compositions.

1877: Edison invents the phonograph.

1908: U.S. Supreme Court holds that player-piano scrolls based on copyrighted music are not a copyright violation but a piece of machinery.

1909: Congress adopts new copyright act to extend protections to player-piano scrolls and phonograph.

1975: Sony introduces Betamax videocassette recorder; Disney and MCA Universal subsequently sue for copyright infringement.