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Charles Lane: Thank (or blame) John Paul Stevens for your binge-watching habit

Many Americans are mourning John Paul Stevens, the retired Supreme Court justice who died Tuesday at age 99, as the liberal lion who stood for gay rights, campaign-finance reform and government power to regulate gun ownership.

All true. But let us never forget Stevens’ most transformational cultural contribution on the court — as the intellectual godfather of binge-watching.

Seriously: Stevens was the author of a landmark 1984 ruling that thwarted the entertainment industry’s efforts to control in-home video recording of television programs, clearing a legal path not only for the VCR but also for all the consumer-controlled viewing that followed it — from the DVD to Facebook to Netflix.