Dean C. Dunlavey, a Los Angeles trial lawyer who gained national recognition in 1984 after successfully arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court that consumers have the right to videotape copyrighted movies and other programs on television for their own use, has died. He was 77.
Dunlavey died Saturday at a San Pedro hospital of complications from a fall.
As a partner in the Los Angeles firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Dunlavey tried nearly 100 cases during his 34-year legal career, including arguing and winning several cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The most important was the landmark Sony Corp. of America vs. Universal City Studios Inc., more commonly known as "the Betamax case."
Universal City Studios and Walt Disney Productions, seeking damages and an injunction against the manufacture and sale of home video recorders, sued Sony, which marketed the Betamax video recorder. Also named in the suit were four retail distributors of Sony's Betamax, an advertising agency and a single Betamax owner.
During a trial in U.S. District Court in California in 1979, the studios argued that consumers' use of the Betamax infringed on the studios' copyrights and that by making the devices available to the public those named in the suit were "contributory infringers."
The District Court ruled in Sony's favor, but the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco overturned that decision in 1981, saying Sony infringed on the studios' copyrights by enabling videocassette recorder owners to tape programs on television without paying royalties.
Sony then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
As Sony's attorney, Dunlavey urged the justices, during the second of two oral arguments in 1983, to reject the movie industry's view and allow Americans to continue to have unrestricted use of the recorders. Dunlavey contended that because the movie studios are paid for selling their product to television, they are not entitled to further compensation if the movies are recorded by viewers.
"The studios have been paid once. There's no reason they should be paid twice," Dunlavey said.
Stephen Kroft, a Beverly Hills lawyer representing the movie studios, told the justices that the VCRs constitute "a billion-dollar industry based on the taking of someone else's property" and that Sony is selling the machines "for the primary purpose of recording copyrighted material."
