The videocassette recorder today is an unassuming, almost pedestrian device. According to webzite.com, 80 percent of the population had a VCR at home in 2000. Its ubiquity is evident in everything from home movies to TV sales pitches offering a free video. However, 20 years ago, its very existence was declared a violation of copyright law by one court and saved by only one vote in another.

The case is Sony Corporation v. Universal City Studios, more popularly known as the Betamax case. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and four Supreme Court justices wanted Sony’s version of the VCR banned. Yes, the early VCR was ruled legal only by a 5-4 decision — and it almost went the other way.

According to an “inside story” posted on the Web site of the Home Recording Rights Coalition, the court had decided after the first arguments to uphold the Ninth Circuit. After some justices expressed a change in position, the case was held over into a second term and finally decided Jan. 17, 1984.

Had the original ruling been issued, the landscape of today’s television and video would be radically different. Home users would have far fewer rights in the recording arena. People would end up watching fewer of the shows they want to see. The VHS format, which had already beaten out Sony’s Beta for the home market by 1984, now generates millions of dollars in sales in both blank tapes and movies on videocassette.

It is ironic, then, that after the VCR has generated new and profitable revenue categories for Hollywood, the studios seem determined to never let it happen again. The physical tape format is inching closer to the end of its life, replaced by hard disks and digital files.

However, it seems many things that could be done to stop digital recorders from assuming the throne as heir to the VCR, including at home, have been done.

For example, in October 2001, Hollywood studios and networks sued the makers of the ReplayTV 4000, alleging the device contributes to copyright infringement. The ReplayTV, like its more famous counterpart, TiVo, is a digital version of the VCR. One difference is that instead of having to push the fast-forward button, ReplayTV users could automatically skip commercials. The ReplayTV can also “space shift,” moving TV shows to other devices. The studios and networks allege that those two elements “amount to misuse and theft of programming,” according to a June 6, 2002 San Jose Mercury News article. Because of this lawsuit, more recent ReplayTV models need to have a button pushed to advance the recording manually.

Nothing has really changed between the Betamax and the ReplayTV. Both enable users to watch programs when they want and where they want, under the users’ conditions. However, what has changed is that the industry is more determined than ever to pull away fair-use rights of both audio and video. These rights were first exercised with placing owned records on audio tapes in the 1960s, made law after the Betamax case in 1984, and challenged by such restrictions as “copy-proof” CDs in the early 2000s.

Today, there are fights over new technologies as they come into their own and replace 20-year-old formats. The Betamax case and its consequences should be the guideline for what should and should not be done to stop users from enjoying items in those new formats. The Supreme Court’s opinion in the Betamax case, written by Justice Stevens, applies to 2004 just as it applied to 1984: “[T]he sale of copying equipment … does not constitute contributory infringement if the product is widely used for legitimate, unobjectionable purposes, or, indeed, is merely capable of substantial noninfringing uses.” Time-sharing is one of those uses.

The cash cow of videotape sales, both blank and commercial, is reflected today in the growing market of DVD sales of TV shows. But would there be the demand for them if, for the past 20 years, people had not been able to see those episodes they otherwise would have missed? If not for the past 20 years of viewing tapes on the VCR, would there have even been a demand for DVDs in the past six years, or DVD/hard-disk recorders in the past two?

In 1984, the Supreme Court gave a victory to consumers with the ability to enjoy TV shows whenever and wherever they wanted. The rights awarded then and considered common sense today may hang by an even more precarious thread than the one vote that declared the VCR legal. If the VCR is getting ready to ride off into the sunset, it will only happen if the next types of recorders are guaranteed the same rights.