I don't know where to start. It's so stupid yet serious.

Sony's Betamax,home video cassette recorders are accused of illegal acts. Universal City Studios and Walt Disney Productions say Betamax and other video recording machines are used to violate the copyright laws. They want Sony restrained from selling Betamaxes and Betamax cassettes where this hardware/software is used to record/playback copyrighted material. (Like making it illegal to sell guns if they're going to be used to shoot people.)

TV shows are not free. It's okay to watch them. But if a consumer records a tv show to watch it at some time other than its moment of broadcast, the consumer winds up behind bars for copyright infringement.

I think broadcast television is in general a hateful medium: Hateful because it's so good. Everything on tv is a lie in one way or another. So I, for one, don't watch broadcast tv. I use my tv set to play video tapes, play pong, watch Home Box Office movies, and occasionally to record programs to view when I get around to them. When HBO showed Gone With The Wind, I taped it on my Betamax. Does that mean I'm part of the problem that keeps Universal and Disney lawyers up nights? Or do I become part of the problem when I replay the tape and watch Gone With The Wind a month after I paid Home Box Office to see it? Are Universal and Disney going to break into my house, impound my Betamax cassettes, and take me to court?

First of all, let me explain something to Universal and Disney: Watching movies back on Betamax cassettes is a pain in the ass. I've had video equipment in my home for seven years. In that time I've taped maybe five feature films. I've never watched most of them again. "Wouldn't it be great to have a tape of Expresso Bongo?" I thought. I made the tape, put it on the shelf, and there it sits. Too much trouble to play back, too much technology to deal with. As in audio, the plastic disc is the medium of instant reproduction. Tape is too cumbersome:

I do occasionally tape hour tv shows on the Betamax. I hope CBS-NBCABC don't mind, but sometimes I like to go out at night. So I set the timer on my Betamax and when I get home I watch the show I might otherwise have missed. I do, of course, skip over the commercials, but then I never watch the commercials anyway. Some of the tapes I keep to watch from time to time, or to have as reference material. For instance, I have everything about Houdini that's been on tv this year because I collect Houdiniania. I don't charge admission to seethese tapes, nor do I make copies and sell them to other Houdini fans. They're for my personal use. If I could buy tv records of these shows, I'd do that, since the quality of a Betamax recording is minimal.

I understand Universal and Disney's concern regarding copyright infringement. I earn my living producing original works which I consider valuable and which are copyrighted. When I see people at Xerox machines running off pages of a book, or I make audio cassette copies of records, or I tape someone singing at CBGB's, I know the copyright law is not being upheld as in most instances of duplication on this level the creator only profits from the spiritual event of transmitting creativity to other human beings.

Artists and corporations have much in common in this fight for protection of their materials. But as an artist and a corporate person, J believe that technology which enables individuals access to artistic or informative work is an important step forward. Big Brother is when there is only one source of information. Big Brother is when people are not allowed to own pens and paper because B.B. isn't sure they'll write nice things.

There is too much ignorance, electronically generated hate, and corporate crushing of individuals the way things are: If Universal and Disney succeed in their suit to halt Sony (and personally I believe they're doing this because they want to restrain Sony's trade in video cassettes in anticipation of their own commercial entry with tv records), one more step away from freedom of information will have been legalised. The only legal defense of my position may be that the consumer/citizen should be free to do what he/she chooses with media in the privacy of his/her own home. But that shouldn't have to be the defense. The defense should be that every person has the right to whatever artist-created corporate-merchandise knowledge isavailable. Unless of course the corporates and the government get together and make it illegal. Then we may get to the point where \ve have to sign contracts that when We buy a pen, or a typewriter, or a tape recorder, or a video machine or a tv set, that we won't use this technology to violate anybody's copyright. "I'd like a red Flair please." "Not if you want to write something down out of a book, because the book is copyrighted."

What's funny about all this is that it's really corporations fighting it out with each other with artist and consumer as perennial losers. Sony is as big and corporate a* structure as Universal/ MCA. The copyright law and the consumer are only the battle field. And it's not going to get any simpler. For instance, RCA makes tv sets, and video recorders, and sometimes sponsors tv shows. Now if I buy an RCA tv set, hook it up to an RCA video machine, and tape an RCA sponsored tv show, can RCA then sue me for copyright violation? Doesn't it make more sense for me to assume that when I buy the tv set I have certain rights and privileges connected with how I use it? I don't know if you get my drift, but isn't it technically a violation of copyright for anyone other than the owner of a particular tv set to watch that particular tv set?

If there is any humor in all this madness, it's that few people in the media and the corporate media merchandising racket honestly understand what media hardware manipulation is about. There's too much theorizing and very little practical knowledge. The big wigs at Universal and Disney should install a Betamax in' their homes and use it for a year or two. Then they might figure out that they doa't know what they're talking about.