As intimated by my last (and first) post, Macrovision has a lot of patents. However, while owning patents is one thing, enforcing one’s monopoly on a particular kind of technology may prove more difficult–hence the rise of the “video stabilizer,” a device that removes the video signals that Macrovision tampers with to distort the image. My friend told me a story of how, in the wild west era of VHS tapes, his video rental store sold these out of their back room to customers who were wise to the home video underworld of illegal copying (or making legal backups, right?). Today, they’re easily found on eBay or one of many internet retailers selling off-brand electronics.
According to what I understand of technologies that circumvent copyright protections, creating and selling this product wouldn’t be illegal. Instead, the responsibility falls on the user to employ the device in an “appropriate” manner (see the warning on the image above). However, seeing how Macrovision continued to file for patents on technologies that would circumvent their copy protection through the 1990s, it would appear that they were trying to stifle the creation of such “video stabilizing” tools. I’m sure somewhere from the back rooms of video stores to the time in between Macrovision’s patent filings there’s an interesting history of technological negotiation and adaptation, as Macrovision attempted to build walls that were constantly being torn down.
