Letter to Senators: Oppose the Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act of 2004

Copyright protection is important, but it cannot be advanced by stripping American consumers of 200 year old rights of “fair use.” S. 2560 would essentially nullify the landmark 1984 Supreme Court Betamax decision which reaffirmed those consumer “fair use” rights and stopped Hollywood’s efforts to ban the VCR. That Court decision has served as the “Magna Carta” of the technology industry and paved the way for huge technological innovations such as the DVD player, the CD-Burner and Apple’s iPod. Indeed, if S. 2560 had been in effect thirty years ago, it is unlikely that the Supreme Court would ever have heard the Betamax case because VCRs would probably never have been introduced by innovators in consumer electronics in the first place.