If you ever tried to copy a rented movie and got a picture that rolled and faded, you met Macrovision. The Sunnyvale company added a hidden signal to videotapes that a TV ignored but a VCR could not record cleanly. Hollywood studios paid a small fee per tape to protect their releases. When Macrovision went public in March 1997, the DVD was just arriving, and the studios needed the same protection for a new format.

The Cotton Club Goes First

John O. Ryan and Victor Farrow founded Macrovision in 1983 to build video security. The first tape to carry its signal was The Cotton Club, released on video in 1985. The bet was that studios would pay a few cents a copy to stop casual piracy. They did, and Macrovision licensed its system to tape duplicators and, later, to the makers of DVD players and set-top boxes.

A Name That Kept Changing

Macrovision priced its IPO at $9 a share in March 1997 and listed on Nasdaq as MVSN. Over the next decade it spread from copy protection into software licensing and digital rights. In 2008 it bought Gemstar-TV Guide and renamed itself Rovi in 2009. Rovi bought TiVo in 2016 for about $1.1 billion and took its name. TiVo then merged with Xperi in 2020.

Cover: Trompe-l'Oeil Still Life with a Flower Garland and a Curtain, Adriaen van der Spelt. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a painted curtain hiding the picture (copy protection).