Sony Corp. v.

Universal City Studios

17 January 1984; Stevens, J.
Digest prepared by Dianne Cadorna
I. Facts
1. Petitioner Sony Corp. manufactures and sells home videotape recorders
(VTR's)1.
2. Respondents Universal City Studios and Walt Disney Productions own the
copyrights on some of the TV programs broadcast on the public airwaves.
3. Some people record some of respondents broadcasts, among others,
using the VTRs.
4. The above led respondents to sue petitioner for damages and injunction
before the Federal District Court, alleging that VTR consumers had been
recording some of their copyrighted works that had been exhibited over
commercial TV, and thereby infringed their copyrights, and that petitioner,
as manufacturer and seller of the VTRs, was vicariously liable for such.
5. The District Court denied respondents all relief, holding that noncommercial home use recording of material broadcast over the public
airwaves was a fair use of copyrighted works, and did not constitute
copyright infringement, and that petitioners could not be held liable as
contributory infringers even if the home use of a VTR was considered an
infringing use.
6. The Court of Appeals reversed.
II. Issues
Whether petitioner Sony Corp. may be held liable for contributory infringement in
selling copying equipment allegedly used by petitioners consumers to infringe
on respondents copyrights. NO.
III. Holding
Judgment reversed. The Court of Appeals' holding that respondents are entitled
to relief, if affirmed, would unduly enlarge the scope of respondents' statutory
monopolies to encompass control over an article of commerce that is not the
subject of copyright protection.
IV. Ratio
1 Components: (1) Tuner - receives electromagnetic signals transmitted over the
television band of the public airwaves and separates them into audio and visual signals;
(2) Recorder - records such signals on a magnetic tape; and (3) Adapter - converts the
audio and visual signals on the tape into a composite signal that can be received by a
television set.

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1. The monopoly privileges2 that Congress may authorize are neither

unlimited nor primarily designed to provide a special private benefit.
Rather, the limited grant is a means by which an important public purpose
may be achievedmotivate the creative activity of authors and inventors
by the provision of a special reward, and allow the public access to the
products of their genius after the limited period of exclusive control has
expired.
2. It is settled that the protection given to copyrights is wholly statutory, the
remedies for infringement being only those prescribed by the Congress.
Courts are therefore reluctant to expand the protections afforded by the
copyright without explicit legislative guidance.
3. In this case, the only way respondents can obtain the relief prayed for is to
(1) prove that VTR users have infringed their copyrights; and (2)
petitioner, as seller and manufacturer of said VTRs, should be held
responsible for this infringement.
4. Unlike the Patent Act, the Copyright Act does not expressly render anyone
liable for infringement committed by another. However, the absence of
such express language in the copyright statute does not preclude the
imposition of vicarious liability on certain parties who have not themselves
engaged in the infringing activity, as the concept of vicarious liability is
ubiquitous in many areas of law.
5. In Kalem Co. v. Harper Brothers, the Court held that the producer of an
unauthorized film dramatization of the copyrighted book Ben Hur was
liable for his sale of the motion picture to jobbers, who in turn arranged for
the commercial exhibition of the film
6. However, the above copyright decision does not support respondents
present theory that supplying the means to accomplish an infringing
activity and encouraging that activity through advertisement are sufficient
to establish liability for copyright infringement. Unlike in Kalem, petitioner
Sony was not in a position to control the use of copyrighted works by
others. Neither did it authorize the use without permission from the
copyright owner.
7. Here, the only contact between petitioner and the users of the VTR's
occurred at the moment of sale. There is also nothing to support the
theory that petitioner sold the VTR's with constructive knowledge that
their customers might use the equipment to make unauthorized copies of
copyrighted material. The sale of copying equipment, like the sale of other
articles of commerce, does not constitute contributory infringement if the
2

Article I, 8, of the Constitution: The Congress shall have Power . . . To Promote the
Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and
Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

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product is widely used for legitimate, unobjectionable purposes, or,

indeed, is merely capable of substantial non-infringing uses.
8. Here, it was shown that:
a. substantial numbers of copyright holders (respondents are far
outnumbered by them) license their works for broadcast on free
television without objecting to having their broadcast time-shifted (i.e.,
recorded when the VTR owner cannot view the broadcast so that it can
be watched at a later time); and
b. no likelihood that time-shifting would cause non-minimal harm to the
potential market for, or the value of, respondents' copyrighted works.
9. The VTR's are therefore capable of substantial noninfringing uses. Private,
non-commercial time-shifting in the home satisfies this standard of noninfringing uses both because respondents have no right to prevent other
copyright holders from authorizing such time-shifting for their programs
and because the District Court's findings reveal that even the
unauthorized home time-shifting of respondents' programs is legitimate
fair use, over which the copyright owner does not possess exclusive right.

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