In 1974, the Japanese government's Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) tried to force the Japanese video industry to agree on just one home video recording format, in order to avoid consumer confusion. Later, Sony built a prototype of a Betamax VTR. Sony presented the prototype to MITI, and convinced them to use Betamax as the technical standard. Sony was then allowed to charge other companies licensing fees to use the Betamax technical standard, so that they could also build and sell Betamax machines.