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by blairebear on November 14th, 2004

blairebear

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When and where was the first video store?

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  • by anguilla on November 29th, 2004

    anguilla

    November 1977:

    Magnetic Video, operating as Video Club of America, offers 50 titles from Twentieth Century-Fox for sale directly to consumers through an ad in TV Guide. The titles, which are available in both the Betamax and VHS formats, included Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, Hello, Dolly!, M*A*S*H, Patton, The French Connection, The King and I, and The Sound Of Music. The price is $49.95 each. The videos are supposed to be for home-use only and not for rental.

    December 1977:

    GEORGE ATKINSON of Los Angeles buys one Betamax and one VHS copy of each of the Magnetic Video titles through a third-party. Announcing the availability of the Fox titles for rent in a one-column-inch ad in the Los Angeles Times, Atkinson launches the first video-rental store, Video Station, a 600-square-foot storefront on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles.

    (He actually opened Video Station the month before and advertised "Video for Rent" even though he didn't have any videos.) In order to raise capital, Atkinson charged $50 for an "annual membership" and $100 for a "lifetime membership," which provides the opportunity to rent the videos for $10 a day. Atkinson was threatened with a lawsuit for renting the videos, but quickly discovered that U.S. copyright law gave him the right to rent and resell videos he owned.

    --SOURCE: A National Association of Convenience Stores website

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