Viral Betamax tweet

18 Jan 2013

I never know when the things I’m interested in around copyright policy have general appeal, and I definitely thought this vague joke — on the occasion of the 29th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Sony v. Universal (the Betamax case) — was a bit obscure.

29 years ago today, the Supreme Court ruled Betamax legal. As the studios predicted, it crushed the budding American film industry forever.

— Parker Higgins (@xor) January 17, 2013

Twitter disagreed; it’s far-and-above the most widely retweeted thing I’ve ever posted, closing in on almost 1,000 retweets. Who knew?