Here Comes the Judge (part 1):

"Kojak" and "Columbo"

As if the controversial cab driver commercial hadn’t been enough (click here)Sony now had "Kojak” and “Columbo" to contend with, as the introduction of the Betamax VCR and the dawning of home video recording entered a new arena—the US Courts.

It was late summer in 1976 when a letter from Doyle Dane Bernbach, a New York City advertising agency, on behalf of Sony, was sent to Universal City Studios in Hollywood, California, requesting permission to run a newspaper ad that read: "Now you don't have to miss Kojak because you're watching Columbo". (Back in 1976, “Kojak” and “Columbo,” both produced by Universal, ran simultaneously on CBS and NBC respectively at 9:00 P.M. on Sunday night.)

The spirit of the Sony ad campaign was to entice the consumer into buying a Betamax VCR and view one show while taping the other. Time-shifting, as it was called back then, was a new concept that involved watching one program while simultaneously recording another; something quite foreign to television audiences up until that time. Doyle Dane Bernbach believed that of course Universal would think this was a great idea since not only would they get free newspaper advertising for their shows, but viewers would get to see both “Kojak” and “Columbo,” for example, thus being exposed to television commercials they would otherwise have missed.

But Hollywood didn't share Madison Avenue's vision or sense of humor about home video recording. Instead of welcoming this new technology with candy and flowers, executives from Universal and its parent company, MCA, in the midst of a bitter court battle over the remaking of King Kong, “monkeyed around” (sorry) with the idea of idea of bringing legal action against Sony and Doyle Dane, believing that home recording of television programs violated US copyright laws.

But the US copyright laws had a loophole that permitted the recreation of copyrighted material under certain conditions. This was called the "Fair Use" clause; it was a very grey area and allowed reproduction of copyrighted material for uses that might be considered “fair,” such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. No one had ever come up with a satisfactory definition, and this "Fair Use" doctrine could effectively be used at times as an "escape hatch" to circumvent US copyright laws. However, the safest course was always to get permission from the owner before using copyrighted material, which was what Doyle Dane attempted to do.

However, as Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once said about pornography, "I know it when I see it." Universal Studios would see "Fair Use" as "Unfair Use,” and they knew it when they saw it! Sidney Sheinberg, President of Universal Studios and his boss Lew Wasserman of MCA, declared: "There is something wrong with all of this," and contended that the manufacture, sale and use of the Betamax was a violation of US copyright laws. Some believe Sheinberg and Wasserman's primary motivation was to block the VCR, which they saw as a threat to the Discovision (Videodisc) preferred by Universal and MCA. The Videodisc system was better quality, it was playback only, featured random access and did not use blank tape for recording (ouch!).

So they did what any good old American company would do: threatened to sue.

Sid and Lew acting like the cigar-chomping, trench coat–wearing Lieutenant Columbo (Peter Falk) and the bald-headed, elegantly dressed, lollypop-sucking New York detective Lieutenant Theo Kojak (Telly Savalas), came to New York prepared to “investigate.” They arranged a meeting with Sony Chairman Akio Morita, where they made him an "an offer he couldn't refuse,” withdraw the Betamax from the market, or perform some other form of accommodation, else face a major lawsuit from Universal Studios.

"And, uh, there was just one more thing... who loves ya, baby!”