Fast Forward: Hollywood, the Japanese, and the Onslaught of the Vcr

by James Lardner

An account of how the video cassette recorder set off a war between two giant corporations, Sony and Universal Pictures, a war that entangled Hollywood and corporate executives, lobbyists, the Supreme Court, and ordinary Americans

344 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1987

About the author

James Lardner has written extensively about business, technology, the financial sector, and the role of regulation. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and The New York Review of Books, among other print and online publications. He was a senior fellow at Demos, a center for public policy based in New York City and a staff writer for the journal Remapping Debate, sponsored by the Anti-Discrimination Center. He was a member of the Washington, D.C., police force.

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fast Forward is quite literally everything you could ever want to know about the development of the VCR (Video Cassette Recorder, for some of you younger folks). Starting with its early development and then leading through the battles in Congress and the Supreme Court Case that settled the future of this at one time ground-breaking device, Fast Forward, (written in 1987) is both a blast from the past and a testament to how little things have changed.

It is hard to imagine now, but at one point the issue of skipping the commercials on a TV program or simply being able to see any movie you want within your own home was unthinkable. But the VCR changed that. And as with any new technology, there were unforeseen difficulties, mainly between the Hollywood “anti-home taping” faction and the Sony “pro-home taping” faction. At the time, Hollywood felt that the home video market was going to cut into their profits. This issue was contentious it literally went all the way to the Supreme Court, who ultimately settled the fate of this device.

There are interesting cameos in this book, including one from the future President-elect, Joe Biden:
“Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware agreed to talk to a group of [home video] dealers over a telephone conference line. He spent an hour and fifteen minutes on the phone with them, and an eavesdropping lobbyist heard him say ‘Let me tell you guys up front-you’ve got all the political arguments. I know if I vote against you, they’re be signs in the stores saying ‘Joe Biden wants to make you pay more for your videocassettes.’ At the end of the call Biden asked one of the Delaware dealers to hold a copy of Star Wars for him to rent when he got home for the weekend.” (page 292). Classic Joe, in all the good and the bad.

Fast Forward is a pretty lively book considering the dryness of its subject matter, and you can hardly blame the author for being unable to avoid the drabness of describing an endless court case. Some of the predictions as to what would ultimately become of the market were spot on: streaming video is more or less described and also the role of the actual physical movie theater and its continued viability (Pre-Covid, anyway) even with the option of watching a movie at home.

In the age of Netflix and…whatever you do when you watch Netflix, it’s good to remember that this all started somewhere. It started with a clunky video player and going to a store to pick something out. Those days are long gone (there is one Blockbuster Video in existence, and I’m pretty sure they don’t have any VHS tapes.) But if you’re a freak like me, you’re still into VCRs, and this is a great book for you.

[Asher · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting exploration of the history of the VHS and Betamax debacle. This book was written in 1987, by the time VHS had come out decisively victorious over Betamax, which settled down as an also-ran. History sometimes forgets, however, the context before a decisive victory. As Lardner illustrates, Betamax paved the way for videotape's consumer success, and thus changed the history of home entertainment (or, you could argue, wrote the first pages of that history).

If you have any interest in such a niche subject, this book is a detailed compendium. You could divide the book into roughly two sections, which are interspersed. The first concerns the technical challenges and innovations to the advent of videotape. Lardner does this with quite a bit of technical detail. This also includes a brief history of Sony and its competitors.

The other section is about copyright law, particularly the Universal v. Sony lawsuit. This was a big issue for videotape, because it allowed viewers at home to "timeshift" — to record a broadcast on tape and watch it later. This raised alarm among studio executives, who believed they could lose revenue from piracy, and among copyright advocates who believed that this could be a slippery slope. This section got a bit dry for my taste, and I could have done with a bit less detail here, but it's still a very interesting part of the story.

[Brent Newhall]

Rarely does a book on such a divisive subject as manufacturing and copyright, written only a few years after the events it describes, maintain such an even-handed approach while maintaining a lively style. I came away from Fast Forward with an appreciation of every faction's perspective. There were no heroes or villains, just people, presented with wit and an impressive number of facts.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book took me AGES to get through but it was absolutely worth it.

A truly in-depth and compelling examination of how VHS came rose to popularity.

Detailing everything from the creation of the format to the various court cases that decided it's future.

[Andres Jaramillo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Muy interesante y además muy divertido. La historia de cómo el formato VHS cambió la industria del entretenimiento. James Lardner, columnista del NY Times, narra los intríngulis politicos, corporativos y sociales del enfrentamiento entre Estadounidenses y Japoneses generado por el "Home Video".

[Professor Miriam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recommended for anyone who wants to understand media better. All about the history of the home video industry.