George Atkinson

George Atkinson (2 June, 1935 - 3 March, 2005) is the father of the storefront video rental store.

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, which were then being sold to the public by direct mail. 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. 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.

Atkinson went on and expanded into a chain of Video Station stores; at its peak, the chain had over 600 franchised outlets.

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