Re: OT: Question for Anim

BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> wrote:

Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:

On 3/11/2024 9:06 PM, anim8rfsk wrote:

Compare this thinking to beta versus VHS. There's absolutely no doubt Beta
was better in every measurable capacity, but VHS was better at promotion
and underhanded pricing deals. So it won.

I thought it was because Betamax wouldn't allow their format to be used
for porn.

How could they have stopped it?

Sony required studios distributing home video on Betamax to pay a
huge licensing fee for permission to use patented technology. With
licensing, they could control the machines that mass copied onto Betamax
cassettes for home video.

Obviously mass-produced phyisical copies onto Betamax cassettes could be
made without licensing, but if they caught you, they'd sue.

That's like saying Ford wouldn't allow its cars to be used to film porn.
Except once you buy a car, it's yours, and you can use it for anything
you like and Ford has no say about it.

Betamax had no authority to dictate what the people who bought their
tapes could record on them.

D.T. was discussion a restriction on LICENSING to studios that produced
pr0n and wanted it distributed on Betamax cassettes for home video.
Whether he remembers that correctly, I have no idea. I suspect that they
wouldn't pay the licensing fee.

I don't recall any of this. Were there cameras for home video that used
Betamax cassettes as the recording medium? I vaguely recall cameras that
took VHS cassettes, but Sony's 8mm videocassette was superior.