Sandra Day O'Connor Hits CTRL+Z

On Tuesday, June 28th, 1983, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor read a letter from her colleague Harry Blackmun about the Betamax, the machine Sony sold that recorded TV shows onto tape. Universal Studios had sued Sony, arguing that a family taping one of its shows was making an illegal copy, and a federal appeals court had agreed. Justice Blackmun had written an opinion upholding that ruling, but he was 2 votes short, and in his letter he refused to change a word to win hers. She had 2 choices. Sign his opinion, or refuse. She refused, the Court heard the case again, and on January 17th, 1984, it ruled 5 to 4 that taping a show to watch later was legal. Congress never passed the studios' bill to control movie rentals, so video stores kept renting, and Blockbuster grew to about 9,000 locations. Money from rental tapes paid for A Nightmare on Elm Street, Dirty Dancing and Reservoir Dogs. In 1987 Americans spent more buying and renting videocassettes than they did on movie tickets. What if she'd signed? This week we hit CTRL+Z on Justice Blackmun's letter, and follow the ripple to today: a chip in every new recorder that stops it from taping a studio's shows, Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street shutting down just before filming, Quentin Tarantino behind the counter on the last day of the video store where he works, and Netflix selling itself to Amazon in its first summer. In 2026 most American homes pay a cable bill, the recorder under the TV plays every ad, and YouTube is for birthday parties, because one Tuesday in June Justice O'Connor signed the opinion against the Betamax.