On January 17, 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. (the “Betamax case”) that a videocassette recorder manufacturer cannot be held liable for copyright infringement solely on the basis of distributing a product capable of substantial noninfringing uses.

By Hoikka1 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Reposted from the History of Copyright Timeline at the U.S. Copyright Office.