Why MPAA warning also present in 80s movies?

Question

The following notice is usually present in movies:

This motion picture is protected under the laws of the United States and other countries. Any unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or exhibition of this motion picture or any part thereof including the soundtrack may result in severe civil and criminal penalties.

Any unauthorized reproduction, distribution which means related to piracy.

But camera recordings and BluRay/DVD piracy started in the 21st century. Then why is this MPAA warning also present in 80s movies?

Answer 1

Piracy started before internet sharing, in the vhs underground market, stolen film etc.

William Friedkin in his autobiography talk about some cinema that had "The exorcist" without buying it by distribotur. After that someone made vhs of the movie and started to sell them.

All this in 1973. So it's normal that MPAA put the warning.

Answer 2

Intellectual piracy probably started just after the first cave artist put charcoal to stone. Cracks me up when people think that nothing existed before they came of age.

If you check out the PBS documentary on the "Ulfbert" sword, from the Viking era (that was made of much higher quality steel than other weapons available), you'll see that archaeologists and historians have also found lower-quality knock-offs, initially identified because the engraved "Ulfbert" was spelled differently. So, this kind of piracy has been going on for thousands of years, literally, in whatever format you can possibly imagine.

Making of the Viking Sword