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We are facing a very new and a very troubling assault on our fiscal security, on our very economic life and we are facing it from a thing called the video cassette recorder and its necessary companion called the blank tape. And it is like a great tidal wave just off the shore. This video cassette recorder and the blank tape threaten profoundly the life-sustaining protection, I guess you would call it, on which copyright owners depend, on which film people depend, on which television people depend and it is called copyright.

Jack Valenti#15

MediaCopyrightLawTechnologyEconomics

About this quote

What does it mean?
Home recording technology threatens the economic foundation of copyright for creators.
In plain terms
VCRs and blank tapes undermine copyright protections for film and TV people.
What can you take from it?
New recording tech challenges the financial basis of copyright.

Where it applies

  • media industry
  • innovation

Putting it to work

  • legal frameworks
  • industry adaptation

Questions to consider

  • How does tech challenge old laws?
  • Who bears the risk of innovation?

Another view

Recording tech also expanded access and creation for the public.

More from Jack Valenti

  1. In a political struggle, never get personal - else the dagger digs too deep.

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  2. If what you own cannot be protected, you own nothing.

    Permalink to quote #16
  3. No one today knows what is indecent.

    Permalink to quote #13

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