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Author Name: BoingBoing
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VHS viruses! Tapes used to come with bizarre lies and threats to dissuade copying

2022-04-22 00:00:00

On Twitter, Rob Sheridan posted some pictures of the surreal warnings that used to come on VHS tapes in the hopes of preventing users from copying them—fascinating artifacts of a more ignorant age, but one where strange things seemed more possible.

Kind of obsessed with the sinister sci-fi tone of these obscure VHS warning labels that outright lied about a "VCR Virus" that would destroy your VCR if you tried to copy the tape. I want to start an extremely niche anti-piracy museum (obv called "You Wouldn't Download a Museum")

Kind of obsessed with the sinister sci-fi tone of these obscure VHS warning labels that outright lied about a "VCR Virus" that would destroy your VCR if you tried to copy the tape. I want to start an extremely niche anti-piracy museum (obv called "You Wouldn't Download a Museum") pic.twitter.com/vtTHOUcf4g — Rob Sheridan (@rob_sheridan) April 22, 2022

My favorite anti-piracy device was called the Lenslok: a tiny serrated prism bundled with 8-bit games that you would hold up to the screen to to unscramble eldritch text (e.g. below) and get a password. You could also use it to see The Others, but more on that another time.
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[1] URL: https://boingboing.net/2022/04/22/vhs-viruses-tapes-used-to-come-with-bizarre-lies-and-threats-to-dissuade-copying.html
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