George Atkinson
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- This article is about the father of video rentals. For the athlete, see George Atkinson (athlete), for the governor, see George W. Atkinson.
George Atkinson (2 June 1935 - 3 March 2005) is the father of video rentals.
In the fall of 1977, George Atkinson bought one Betamax and one VHS copy of each of the first 50 movie titles from Magnetic Video that were then being sold to the public. Announcing the availability of the videos for rent in a one-column-inch (25 mm) ad in the Los Angeles Times in December 1977, Atkinson launched the first video rental store, Video Station, a 600 square foot (56 m²) storefront on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. In order to raise capital, Atkinson charged $50 for an "annual membership" and $100 for a "lifetime membership," which provided the opportunity to rent the videos for $10 a day.
Atkinson was soon threatened with a lawsuit for renting the videos, but discovered that U.S. copyright law gave him the right to rent and resell videos he owned.
Atkinson went on as an entrepreneur to create the Video Station chain of video stores; at its peak, the chain had over 600 franchised outlets.
Atkinson retired in 1997 and died in March of 2005 at the age of 69.
The battle to protect the public's right to rent videos was a major catalyst for the establishment of the Video Software Dealers Association in 1981.
On his death, Bo Andersen, President of Video Software Dealers Association said "From George Atkinson's innovation, a tremendous industry has developed."
