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Time shifting is the recording of television shows to some storage medium to be viewed at a time convenient to the consumer.
Time shifting is usually done with a video cassette recorder (VCR) and its timer function, when the VCR tunes into the appropriate station and records the show onto video tape. In recent years, the advent of the digital personal video recorder has made time shifting easier, by recording shows onto a hard disk and using a program guide. A digital PVR also brings new possibilities for time shifting, as it is possible to start watching the recorded show from the beginning even if the recording is not yet complete.
History
The legality of time-shifting programming in the United States was proven by a landmark court case of Universal Studios versus Sony Corporation (Sony v. Universal), when Sony argued successfully that the advent of its Betamax video recorder in 1976 did not violate the copyright of the owners of shows which it recorded.
In 1979, Universal sued Sony, claiming its timed recording capability amounted to "copyright infringement". However, a district court found that noncommercial home use recording was considered fair use and ruled in favor of Sony. In appeals, the U.S. Court of Appeals reversed this decision in 1981 giving the edge to Universal, but the U.S. Supreme Court reversed it yet again in 1984, and found in favor of Sony 5-4. The majority decision held that time shifting was a fair use, represented no substantial harm to the copyright holder, and would not contribute to a diminished marketplace for its product. Today, this is widely referred to as the "Betamax case" or "Betamax decision".
Result
While Universal assumed that the VCR was a threat to its business, it has since made millions (if not billions) of dollars from the rental and sale of its movies to play in such VCRs. Had the courts prevented the fair use guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution, it would likely have crippled the industry, including current-day PVRs like TiVo and ReplayTV.
Future
Currently, the rights of consumers to time-shift are threatened by technology being pursued by trade organizations like the MPAA and others, and legislation such as the DMCA. The broadcast flag approved by the FCC is one such limitation, preventing users from recording a program if the program's owner wishes to do so. Other digital restrictions management technologies will prevent recordings from being portable from one unit to another; thus a person will not be able to send a friend or family member a show which does not come on in their area, for example. There are also likely to be problems even just watching a protected show in the same home, requiring each unit to be registered and approved by a for-profit corporation representing content owners. The flag is unlikely to be activated until customers are well into the new technology, giving them little if any chance to refuse it. The latter is more likely to be activated from the start, as it is part of the design, though it may also be combined with the flag.
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