Slashdot Mirror
New Internet VCR Service
owillis writes: "Recordtv.com allows you to choose
what TV shows you want it to record, then come back and play them in
realplayer. Legally, they're probably screwed ... but it's cool
regardless." The site isn't very slick, but claims to have 50,000
regular users. Their FAQ also says they have a grand total of eight (8) "VCRS" (video-capturing PCs), so that's the limit on what can be
recorded at one time right now. This seems even more primed for a lawsuit than iCrave
TV.
Then after clicking on click here for status I got a message noting that they had been hacked on the 13th and lost some files. It also said something to the effect that they would be too busy on Sunday to do much because of Something to to with a radio thing on Los Angelas 640 or something. I have not gone back to copy the message due to the /. effect
Poor guys Hacked on Saturday, /.'ed on Sunday. They will probably will get sued on Monday at the rate their luck seems to be going
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
Uhm, i don't mean to flame.. but.. what are you talking about?
The RIAA is the music industry.
The TV industry is something different.
It's like saying... 'Let's go have the MPAA and Microsoft team up'.. Doesn't make much sense, does it?
Not if you've never seen that license in the first place. Ignorance of law might not excuse, but ignorance of fact does.
While being probably illegal in the UK for the copyright reasons stated elsewhere, use of this service is potentially damaging to your financial health for other reasons:
- lack of a digital transmission license for the UK or EEA means a minimum £50,000 fine (ouch)
- this could be construed as purveying unauthorised decoders for conditional services which carries a penalty of up to 2 years in prison, and/or a fine.
- using the service without a television license can get you a £1000 fine. This is certainly the case with those Hauppage cards, I think the courts would take a pretty dim view of digital retransmission as well.
The television license stuff doesnt apply for screens below a certain size diagonal (9"?) which might help your cause (slightly) if the quality of retransmission is low.
While people have argued that this isnt broadcast, the white paper that led to the various television Acts in 1998 (Broadcasting, Conditional Services, etc) made it pretty clear that it was intended to cover any point-to-point transmission. The UK already had video on demand trials in Swindon that year so licensing pretty much exactly this service is already handled in UK law, and you dont want any of that on you.
--Baz (ps: IANAL. check http://www.hmso.gov.uk/ for relevant Acts and Statutory Instruments online)
good, im glad you brought this up. So If I released GPL'd code (without the GPL license) it would be Ok then. Microsoft does have a license, on their website, or within the download. Posting it on slashdot's board, without the license, is the same as someone putting gpl'd code on their site, with no gpl license attached.
A system requiring Zip Codes to watch web tv could be easily abused - but why would it be?
It the case of iCrave, the only reason to put in a bogus area code was to be able to get the service. If you had something where it asked to you to enter a zip code to watch a national show, probably 90% of people would answer this honestly as long as it didn't matter what you put in.
That's the key, that most people will willingly give up a lot of information as long as you produce results no matter the input.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So does that mean that someone who put up a re-broadcasting site without any ads at all, and without any kind of fee, would be legally OK?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Here we go again..
Clueless Timmy,
Cost of this lame RecordTV service: "FREE"
Cost of Hauppauge WinTV Card: $50.00
One bombards you with spam before, during, and after your visit in the form of unsolicited email and endless banner ads. The other puts a minor dent in your wallet, but buys you a top-quality TV tuner card that works great in both Windows and Linux, and allows you to record MPEG or AVI videos off cable, VCR, camcrder, or any other video source in your house direct-to-disk at your leisure. Oh, and by the way, there are a few nice cable descrambler hacks available for it. Not to mention, it comes with a nice remote control you can put on your coffee table and use that nice 17" flatscreen LCD as a normal TV.
"If lameness is measured in units of Gore, cluelessness has to be measured in degrees of Timothy." - Me.
Bowie J. Poag
Bowie J. Poag
Anyone else notice that your user name and password are passed through unencrypted in the URL? Hmmmmmm.....
Please cease your preachy pedantic ranting.
This is not the place for it. If you must rant and spam us, do it on your own site and provide a link.
thank you.
Yea, yeah, we know.
You're being oppressed by immoral laws that prevent you from enjoying someone else's creative work for free.
We feel for you, you're an oppressed victim. Have you written to Oprah yet?
Where are these TV shows from? The United States? If so, from what part? What if I want to see my favourite Icelandic television show and I'm not home to record it? Can I see it from this site as well?
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
I'm gonna do something I never thought I'd do, least of all on Slashdot. I am now going to write a "me too!" post. :)
Seriously, though - if I'd seen this thread earlier, I would have written something similar. Probably not as well thought-out and put-together, though.
"What these folks are doing is foolish, yes, particularly in today's witch-hunt atmosphere."
That's the worst thing they are doing - inviting trouble. Too bad, I like them already.
Kris_J said: "If I can get this system to record Buffy from the US, well ahead of the local Australian channels, I'm not going to watch it here (well, with Realmedia quality I might) so local ratings go down, local ad revenue drops and local stations drop the program. This leads to a drop in revenue for the Buffy creators."
He then called that theft. What he's missing is, by that standard, competition is theft. Doing something that inadvertantly, as a side effect, drops someone else's profits, is not theft. It is not wrong. By Kris_J's standards, Slashdot is stealing from ABC, etc, Linux is stealing from Microsoft and Apple, who are stealing from each other, and by the time you add up everyone who's stealing from somebody else, every man, woman, and child on the planet gets 50-to-life in the electric chair.
I didn't notice them; Perhaps it's because I'm using junkbuster.
As with most people posting comments, IANAL. While this does appear to be of questionable legality, I think that point only serves to indicate the broken nature of the current legal framework surounding copyrights, broadcast, and the Internet.
Consider. Suppose I hooked my PC and PCTV card to the net, wrote some code to do much what these guys were doing, then used a web interface to set my VCR from work or catch an episode of The Simpsons during lunch. That would be entirely legal - it's just a VCR operating with a remote that can function from anywhere in the world. However, if anyone else accessed this home page I am suddenly a copyright criminal?
Of course, the underlying problem is that broadcasters are refusing to release material on the Internet until they have a technical solution in place that will allow them to charge again for the same material they have already charged you for or distributing for free over the public airwaves.
Regardless as to what happens to this 'Internet VCR Service', soon, we will all have some form of Digital VCR's.
Already we have the products like the ATI-All-In-Woner that let your computer digitally record & playback.
Also, products like TiVo and RePlay TV serve as a 'limited' digital VCR.
It's only a matter of time that we have inexpensive digital VCR's. Likely they will be like TiVO/RePlay, but with the additional feature of allowing one to save the recordings to a standard format and e-mail, http, ftp, sneaker-net, etc. the files to friends and family so that they too can watch.
Regardless of 'legalities' or the will of broadcasters and media conglomerates, this will occur. Media giants may slow the progress of such technology, but they will be unable to stop it.
Maybe someone has a law/proof/theorem/postulate for this. If there is, I'd like to hear it. If not, I'll create one:
"Technological progress can be slowed, but cannot be stopped." -H.Souders
yeah...your country is probably better, where thugs rule the government, freedoms are taken away, and everything is paid for(medicare). The reason the U.S. is one of the most powerful nations in the world is because we WORKED FOR IT! as for that in-bred remark: you're jealous cause you couldn't get your Green Card. America means Freedom, and you can compare it to just about any other country in the world, andget the same results.
Wasn't it called iCrave TV and not Crave TV?
Because: Plugging a VCR into a wide area network (in this case:the internet) in order to seek revenues from banner advertisements amounts to redistibution with comercial intent without the expressed writen consent of the copyright holder.
___
This story reminds me of one of the judge's conclusions in the RIAA vs. Diamond trial over the RIO. He stated that since it doesn't make exact copies of the music itself, the RIO is a "time-shifting" device like a VCR; it allows the user to listen to music at a more convenient time. Since the service is capturing shows just like a VCR, it can be seen as an offsite time-shifting device and would be completely legal.
>There exists VCRs with more than one playback mechanism (GO brand, for example) not to mention commercial tape servers that can access and sort through hundreds of cassettes.
/w robot, but hey, again, IANAL.
:-)
But only one person can use the VCR at a time. Or at least that is the intended design.
>Again, this is a minor quibble over symantecs.
That minor quibble over symantecs means a LOT to the government. Mazda (I think it was Mazda) was able to import their "trucks" because they were classified as cars (they shared the same doors as one of their cars). This reduced their import taxes significantly. Symantecs will work both ways. Chances are you'd be needing to have a giant tape server
Another, more recent example of symantecs meaning everything is the Rio device. The RIAA attempted to prevent it because they said it was a "home entertainment device" (or something similar). Diamond was able to get away with selling it because according to the law it isn't an MP3 player, it is a computer peripheral...
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Sorry I confused you - I think I tried to cram far too many arguements into my last post, so I'll try to focus a bit more this time.
As for you distinction between copyright infringement and deprivation of revenue, I understand the difference but I don't understand your claim that one "doesn't factor at all" into the other. Are you saying that I could infringe the copyright WITHOUT depriving of future revenue?
Absolutely. People who copy music, for instance, wouldn't have necessarily bought the music had they not been able to copy it. As a real-life example, when I was a kid I would copy music tapes for my own personal enjoyment. I was poor and my parents were poor and there was no way I could have afforded to actually buy the music, even though I would have liked to. In this case the record companies lost no revenue because I wouldn't have been able to buy the music anyway. There are plenty of other examples I could give of people who have copied music that they wouldn't have paid for had they not been able to copy it (whether because of financial contraints or because they felt the price of a CD is too high). Incidentally, as soon as I turned 14 I got a minimum wage job and poured most of my earnings into CDs, a lot of which I had copied previously and gotten hooked on, so my copyright infringement actually increased the record companies' revenue rather than decreasing it.
My point before was that you are stating that the revenue is what is being "taken" but it is not a felony to deprive an entity of future revenue. The deprivation of revenue is merely a potential side effect of a felenous act and not a part of the act itself. The deprivation needs to be part of the act itself to be considered theft under your original definition as the side effects are not certain (i.e., loss of revenue is not guaranteed).
Do you think that "copyright infringement" is a less appropriate term to use for unauthorized copying than "theft"? I think it fits the bill far better as there is no guaranteed loss with unauthorized copying.
-----
Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
You do realize that in countries where free/inexpensive public health service in place you can opt for private clinics if you can afford them?
How does this make it any better? So now the average person doesn't get healthcare because of the over-populated hospital. (rich people can get healthcare as long as they have they $$$).
Denying basic health care is barbaric (as is death penalty BTW
you're right. when someone gets convicted of killing 10 people, we should 1) keep them in jail and cost the taxpayers millions of dollers. or 2) slap them on the wrist and tell them it will be alright. What do you think we should do with such criminals? let them go free (I bet you think gun control is good, too)
You must also be one of the people who think that stupid people shouldn't breed and reducing excess population by letting people starve or die of curable diseases is a good thing(tm) and very economical indeed.
sorry, not me. I just don't like to pay for people living off the government (when they are perfectly capable of making their own money, but refuse to). Now let me generalize people like you: You are living off of welefare, Bitching about how bad the government is, meanwhile, not taking the time to get a job.
Uh... according to this logic free software shouldn't exist
welefare makes things like this possible...or the hope of Communism
if it were up to you, everything would be free. (you need a reality check)
It's just like that commercial from IBM (i think) where the company makes their e-commerce site live and they start getting swamped with more orders than they can handle. Well, my point is, if site X can't handle a couple thousand users, then site X shouldn't be on the net... or they should sign up with IBM e-commerce solutions :)
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
"In this case the record companies lost no revenue because I wouldn't have been able to buy the music anyway. ...as soon as I turned 14 I...poured most of my earnings into...a lot of [CDs] which I had copied previously ..."
I was all set to agree that this one case presents a counter-example and then I rethought: What about decreasing prices, inflation, interest and the time value of money? Let's say it was 1985 when you copied CD C. You saved, let's say, $20. 1990 rolls around and you have money to buy the CD, so you do...for $15.
First, clearly you saved (and thus the company/artist lost) $5 right off the bat.
Second, $20 in 1985 was worth more than the same $20 in 1990, even if you had paid that price.
Third, the interest on $20 for 5 years is probably not entirely negligible at the interest rate someone their size can probably swing.
Fourth is the time value of money. I don't claim to totally understand this, not being an accountant. But my wife (the one with the business degree) says that having money sooner rather than later is a benefit all unto itself (divorced from the interest and inflation issues already mentioned).
So did they really make money from you or not?
But wait! There's more: Even if they made money on this one transaction, it doesn't necessarily mean the company/artist was better off. More copies of C mean lower demand which translate to lower prices (assuming constant supply). For instance, if you ever loaned your illegal copies out, that allowed other people to not-pay or maybe convinced them NOT to buy (the reverse of your case).
In any case, while I agree that maybe "theft" isn't the clearest word for this, I don't think it's the howling error the original poster made it seem.
--
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Everything was illegal before, but was there was no commotion over it for two reasons: .
1. It was still vaguely difficult to amass copyrighted material
2. It was impossible for many reasons to track people and bust them for making a copy of "Master of Puppets" for friend.
With the internet, #1 is no longer true. It's pretty convenient to get whatever you want over the net, and it will only get easier. So the people who profit off distributing information are getting a bit antsy.
The problem is, #2 is still very much true. What can you do about it? Send the police into private residences to confiscate people's computers? Put ads on TV until everyone realises copying is wrong?
Probably the only solution that keeps the sellers of information in business is to develop closed formats that cannot be copied and put onto the internet. It's a shame, because so many of the Industry's solutions run counter to so many good things, like artistic integrity and free exchange of information.
--
share and enjoy
I was a little unsure about my statement re: interest so I did a little calculating:
.66%/mo.
Let's assume the company can get 8% compounded monthly (should be easy for them in a money market or something).
8% APR is
5 years is 60 months.
$20 * (1.0066 ^ 60) = $29.60.
So in order to fully reimburse the company/artist for a $20 CD copied 5 years ago, youd have to pay nearly $30 today, counting only interest. Did you pay that much?
--
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Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
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OK, there's obviously a market for this. So let's imagine how it could be done The Right Way (or at least within the law, until someone decides they don't like it and buy some new laws to make it illegal):
Imagine a company that NEGOTIATES broadcast rights with the networks, exactly like a local cable TV station, but does its broadcasting over the Internet. Preferably in MPEG but I could live with Real or QT streaming.
This company would effectively be a "regional cable company" where its "region" is the Internet. Local cable companies (like Time Warner) would probably complain, but it's still perfectly fair.
The company could do other interesting things too, like allow a personal VCR service like this place. Maybe do some shuffling of commercials for such timeshifted rebroadcasts.
I can imagine a "free" usage level, where the picture size is small and there are banners and commercials everywhere, then a "budget" level with a bigger window, no banners, but the usual amount of commercials, and a "premium" level with no commercials (black space during real-time broadcasts, deleted space on 'playback's) that would probably have to cost about $80/month to offset the lack of commercials (since the company would have to pay both the TV producers and advertisers some sort of royalty to cover the deleted commercials). Or maybe have special Internet-only content that doesn't interrupt the show for commercials, but places banner ads all around it in the browser window!
I like the idea of having this in MPEG, so I can download this week's Farscape or the episode of Law & Order where the kid hacked someone's pancreas (well, hacked the hospital and made them mess up a diabetes patient) and watch it again, without having to clog up my connection every time (and so I can just watch the good parts). But fat chance of that happening, even though there would be little risk of piracy - if the service becomes popular, why trade MPEGs if you can go get your own from their archives? Besides, it means more exposure for the advertisers if people DO pirate the shows, though without a means of tracking it; if the Internet cable company is fine with this, the networks shouldn't have a problem either, and the advertisers will CERTAINLY be happy. (Or if the company is worried, they can charge MPEG downloads at 10x the usual advertising rate, on the notion that the commercials will be seen many more times; the 'live' broadcasts could still be in a streamed format and the commercials sold at the usual rate.)
(Removal of commercials from the MPEGs once you download them: is this also a piracy issue? Not much difference in file size, so it's not like it'll be a mad rush to download the decommercialed version - especially if they adaptively compress it so the commercials are small to begin with. Plus the advertiser is already paid at the "ten people will watch it for every one that gets downloaded" rate anyway.)
Only the movie studios might be unhappy, since when Episode One gets shown on the nightly movie, anyone can download it, splice out the commercials (and ignore the 20 minutes that usually gets edited out of any movie to bring it down to length) and put it on Hotline for all and sundry.
Thoughts?
~ radiographite: art by john shepard
Actually, the country that will get the "prosperity" will be the country that allows the legal sale of DDOS services to economic interests who want stuff like this taken down in whatever way necessary.
Say, the Christmas Islands makes it legal to host sites that offer for-pay DDOS attacks to interests like the MPAA. . . Gonna complain that they're not playing fair??
I don't think you understand the term "software piracy" (I know we're not talking about software). Do you think that software piracy means that as the Windows 2000 CDs are being shipped from one country to another you board the vessel and steal the boxes? Software piracy is theft of intellectual property. Copying someone else's copyrighted work without permission is theft of intellectual property.
That is all irrelevant because there is no way I could have bought the CDs in 1985. Forget that I said that I eventually bought the CDs several years down the line - I had the copies during the period that I could not afford to pay for the music. Whether I had the copies or not made no difference to the record companies' bottom lines as there was no way I could have paid for the CDs/tapes. The point at which I had enough of an income to buy the original music and would have paid the asking price if copying weren't available would be the point at which I would have been witholding revenue from the record companies. Some people never reach that point for various reasons.
Here's another concrete example of copyright infringement that doesn't lead to a loss of revenue: somebody who writes a computer program in their spare time and posts it on the web under the GPL has a copyright on the program. If some company were to take said program and incorporate it into one of their products without licensing their product under the GPL they have committed copyright infringement but they have caused the original author a loss of revenue as the original author was not generating revenue off of their program. Yes, the author's rights have been violated, but no revenue has been stolen.
In any case, while I agree that maybe "theft" isn't the clearest word for this, I don't think it's the howling error the original poster made it seem.
The original poster is probably sick of organizations like the RIAA as I am, over statements such as copying a CD that you own to MP3s on your computer solely for your personal use is illegal and theft (yes, they actually state this on their web page). They try to romanticize their cause and villify those that they oppose by referring to them as theives. I am very offended at being called a theif for using something like my.mp3.com where all parties involved have legally paid for the CDs that are being used.
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Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
Believe it or not, I was actually in the process of starting up a service like this in the near future. I leased a server with RackSpace.Com and I had paid enough premiums to have my legal insurance kick in. Buuuuut...it looks like someone beat me to the punch, so I guess they get to test the legal waters and not me.
= -=-=-=-=-=-=-
I had a couple consultations with lawyers to review the various legal attacks that might be made on this "Internet VCR" issue. According to the 1984 Betamax decision, the courts have ruled that personal, time-shifted content is legal. So to all those bitching "this is theft": shut up, you don't know what you are talking about. We consumers can tape any shows that we are legally entitled to view. If we live in a region serviced by over-the-air broadcasts, we can record and time-shift over-the-air broadcasts. If we subscribe to cable, the same goes for cable broadcasts. If we subscribe to premium services, etc.
But even though the courts declared time shifting to be legal, it was understood that there was going to be some amount of infrigement going on. Person A would record a show that Person B could watch even though Person B wasn't entitled to view the show. Also, Person A could watch and re-watch a show and thus get sick of it and not watch it the next time it was available, thus hurting ad revenue and premium services (recording a pay-per-view movie to watch many times, for example).
My lawyers are still looking for this exact law/ruling but my understanding is that shortly after the Betamax decisio,n the studios and production companies had a tax or tariff established on all video media sold in the US (or expanded a previous one to cover video cassettes not just audio). This means that for every blank VHS (or Beta or whatever) tape sold, a portion of the price goes to a fund that compensates all of the various studios and companies that produce content for television.
Now, as I said, the lawyers haven't gotten back to me on the exact language, but the theory goes that this type of Internet VCR venture would be perfectly legal if:
A) You are able to restrict content based on right to view...this means both geographically and by service. Someone without cable in the 12345 area code should only be able to "record" and "playback" shows that you can get with an antenna in the 12345 area code. I had toyed around with the idea of having customers fax a copy of their current cable bill to allow/disallow access to cable channels and premium channels. If they did not want to fax in their most recent bill, they would be restricted to over the air content pulled from that area by an agent of the company in that area.
B) For every "two" (assuming SP quality) hours of video recorded, the company would have to purchase and sit on a blank video tape. In this manner, the media companies are being compensated. Cable companies have to pay to rebroadcast over-the-air broadcasts because they are not using the existing mechanism (purchasing recordable media with built in compensation). No one is compensated if you use digital media, hence the studio's resistance to allowing this.
But if one uses the existing compensation mechanisms by buying blank media, the only legal cases would be issues of symantics (is commanding a machine to push a button the same as pushing the button yourself, can VCR be in next room, next house, next state, and so on). Any such arguments would be a waste of court time and dismissed or very short, to the point legal events. I don't see how it should make an ounce of difference where the physical VCR is as long as tapes are being purchased and content is being properly restricted.
Once again, I Am Not A Lawyer, but I have been consulting with several and based on some preliminary discussions, this seems like a valid model for this type of Internet VCR service.
Regarding advertisements... How many people record stuff just so they can fast forward through commercials? On the other hand, how many times have you seen or been sent copies of really good commercials? (the farting SmartBeep commercial comes to mind) If commercials are good, people WILL watch them. But if it is crap like current Pepsi commercial (ugh, did anyone catch that absolute insult to Einstein?) then they WILL and should be able to fast forward or skip them. I don't see any problem with allowing this skip-commercial mechanism. There is no guarantee that just because an ad is airing eyeballs are staring at it. If the ad industry wants to turn this into that scene from A Clockwock Orange and FORCE us to watch commericials against our will...I say to them, good luck trying.
To all those people bitching about extra ads being adding: grow up. It called VAR...value added retail. I provide a service, I charge extra for that service. No one is making money by putting ads on someone else's copyrighted content. They are making money by putting ads on the mechanism that delivers that content. If someone wants to give me a free TV set with ads all over the bezel then, by golly, I'll take it. ABC shouldn't be able to take away that TV set because I'm watching ABC on it the manufacturer didn't compensate them for the ads I'm seeing. Content and delievry are two separate and distinct things and you are a fool if you think otherwise.
- JoeShmoe
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-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Now I can finally get all the episodes of Murder She Wrote from USA and all the episodes of The Tick from Comedy Central! And lets not forget anything shown on Lifetime!
This idea is obvious one that went with little planning. The company is allowing cable shows to be taped and viewed by people who don't pay for the cable. This is just like stealing cable tv in a way. Eventually we are going to see a new tv commercial going something like, "does your dad steal cable tv from the internet". Come on get some brains when you try to do something.
I tried it out. I asked it to record The Simpsons, which it did. I went to watch it, and it was the lowest-quality RealAudio stream I'd ever seen/heard. I'm sure that has in large part to do with the slashdotting, and they did say they're getting a new T1 in a few days.. but for now it's miserable. The picture is horrible and the sound is literally inaudible.
If you insert comercials into your work, and decide to broadcast it one day, and one day only, and you NEVER want it seen at any other time, that is your right (by default). You don't have to put in any special restrictions. By recording such a program (which is all programs not specifically displaying a denial of right to copyright) you violate the right of the author to the restriction of the content to being viewed at a certain time. That is a copyright right (to the best of my knowledge).
You have the right, under fair use, to make copies of anything for which you have in some sense purchased copyright. It is wholely legal and aboveboard to tape cable TV, pay per view, regular TV, or ANYTHING that comes into your TV set, for your own personal use.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that recordtv merely wants to take this same right, under fair use, and allow someone else to tape it and rebroadcast it for use. Critical in this is that they may not
1) derive revenue from the copyright itself
2) Devalue the copyright compared to a person taping it at home and replaying it for personal use.
I think this will be an interesting case, as it walks a tightrope wrt fair use. Probably it would ultimately be legal, but probably the lawyer fees will overwhelm them.
If we are not careful the copyright moguls (RIAA, TV networks) will completely erode our rights to fair use through intimidation and money. You can see this happening everyday in cyberspace.
Can I send them movies that I rent from the video store too? :P
Hmm. Scary.
So if I can convince a machine to do it, it's okay, but if a *person* pushes the button, suddenly they're doing something evil. Oh well, I'm just waiting for sentient robots or sane legislation, we'll see which one comes first.
One thing I would consider illegal is using this service to record programs you couldn't normally get, like if I recorded something from Cable when in fact I don't pay for Cable. They don't seem to check this sufficiently. But if this only offered local network programming, I can't see that it would be a problem.
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I have seen a number of posts referring to this service, and other acts of unauthorized copying, as "theft" (of cable service, or material, or whatever) and "piracy." Enough already.
While this service may violate some of the more draconian priveleged copy restriction legislation of the last couple of years, and might even be a violation of traditional priveleged copy restrictions, it is not theft.
Nothing is being stolen. If the commercials are left intact, then even the revinue stream of the original broadcasters and advertisers is enhanced, not diminished. Even if the opposite were true, it would still not be theft. A violation of law which allows for priveleged restrictions on copying information, yes, but not theft by any reasonable definition of the word.
To those who keep using such inaccurate terminology as "piracy" and "cable theft", let me reiterate: this is not theft. Piracy is an act of violent robbery on the high seas, involving armed robbery, rape, and murder. Theft and robbery both involve the taking away of property from someone, either by force or by stealth. Making a copy, legal or otherwise, involves none of these actions! The original is left intact, the original possessor is not denied the product which the various media moguls would have us believe was "pirated" away or "stolen."
What these folks are doing is foolish, yes, particularly in today's witch-hunt atmosphere. Their service is probably a violation of so-called "copyright" (what any society not communicating in newspeak would more accurately term priveleged copy restriction). However, this reflects more so on the appalling state of legislation granting priveleged copy restrictions and the overall state of so-called intellectual property law than it does on the ethics of those offering the service or lauding its existence.
It is bad enough entities such as the MPAA, the RIAA, the SPA, and others use their media muscle to inundate us with their propoganda and rhetoric day in and day out. If there is anything the DeCSS and MP3 struggles have taught us, it is that the least those of us who are a little informed could do is refrain from echoing their refrain, by refusing to use the perjerative terminology these propoganda moguls insist in foisting upon us.
Illegal != Unethical. just ask any black man in America last century, any Jew in 1930's Germany, any Mormon in Missouri prior to 1980, or any Muslim in Serbia today.
Unauthorized Copying != Theft
Unauthorized Copying != Piracy
Unauthorized Copying = Crime (Currently)
Being Jewish = Crime (Germany, 1930s)
Being Mormon = Crime (Missouri, until 1980s)
Finally, for those who miss the obvious:
Law != Truth
Law != Justice
Law != Morality
In short, think for yourselves. And please refrain from echoing official party line rhetoric ("piracy", "theft") until and unless you (a) really mean it and (b) can defend that stance with a well reasoned argument.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Neverthless, it is a kick-ass idea. Since I'm not into watching TV on my computer, I probably wouldn't be using it instead of my VCR, but it would come in handy often enough. What is preventing TV networks from rebroadcasting TV on the net right now? If you have to watch the commercials anyway, why not?
On an unrelated note, GeekPress has a story on how the Air Force had secret plans to nuke the moon.
-- Diana Hsieh
-- Diana Hsieh
GeekPress: The Weirder Side of Tech News
In case you missed it, one of the results of that Telecommunications Act thingy was that cable companies are now required to pay the broadcast networks if they carry their content. Now, based on that, how happy do you think the networks will be to hear that the big bad Internet is now carrying their content?
Whatever you do don't have them tape any metallica videos!
:)
Don't worry, they've had some Metallica bootleg videos in rotation for a few weeks now. Apparently Metallica doesn't go after those of us who own such non-copyrighted material...
Seriously though, I wouldn't see any problem with this if they kept fully uncut television on there, with full commercials and all (we wouldn't want another lawsuit involving cutting out banner adds now would we?). But they would probably still need the station's permission to re-broadcast. How this deffers from regular taping of shows on my VCR and passing them to a friend (with all commercials cut before hand, as I rock) I honestly do not know.
eraseme
Interesting.. aren't THEY coping and rebroadcasting the shows themselves?
Anyways, I'm a dialup user, so I'm used to super-slow load times, so the Slashdot effect doesn't really get to me much. From what I can see, the site is really well set up -- you say "OK, I want to record a show on.. Sunday!" and they give you a list of shows they can record.
Hrm.. I wonder if I can use it to record pr0n =)
.- CitizenC (User Info)
The GPL is not, I repeat, is not, and End User License Agreement.
The latter requires agreement, as it extends the restrictions normally implied by copyright to such areas as how the product is used.
The former merely places license restrictions on distribution, which copyright clearly implies, and requires no agreement by the end user.
A copyright license is not even close to being an EULA, all MS Fud and propoganda to the contrary.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I just don't like to pay for people living off the government (when they are perfectly capable of making their own money, but refuse to).
oh, I was just about to make a remark about the beauty of forced-labor economies when I realized you were a troll, and an active one at that...
Silly troll, opinions are for the informed.
--
+&x
You're right about those first two points, but there's got to be a better way...
:)
:) I'd pick it up to fill out my collection. Maybe I'd grab it at a pawn shop and rip it when I get my new hard drive. But until then, people are lazy, they'll just trade over the internet, or trade CD's of mp3's.
First, they *can't* "develop closed formats that cannot be copied and put onto the internet", without making them completely useless. If you can view it on your computer in any way, shape or form, you can copy it *back* onto your computer. Also, open formats will always be more popular because even though any closed format can be hacked, and open format will be more widely used, and therefore more widely distributed.
I remember when I had a CD-ROM drive that could not rip CD's. At the time this was difficult anyhow, because it would generate large files, in excess of 30MB... So of course I wanted to get samples, sound clips, songs, etc., from my CDs to put onto my computer. At first, I just used a patch cord to feed the output back into the line-in, or something similar, and I could record things that way. But once I got a new computer, I just bought a drive that could rip it directly.
The analogue, mp3 files, seem pretty popular. I haven't seen that many vqf files lately, and *no* abc, a2b, or whatever-they-are-called-this-week 31337-protected-music-filez, but I'm sure they've all been converted to mp3's.
As it stands, many people don't have the bandwidth to copy this stuff around over a network, but I'm sure lots of people know someone who could burn a CD for them (and soon a DVD) so protection by sheer density of information won't work for long, either.
I think the only real solution is to be economically competitive and attentive to the needs of the customers. If "Master of Puppets" was like $5, (and it should be--it's old!
Notice that the music industry is scared shitless. NO ONE has said "hey, we could have an electronic 'Best of Metallica' collection on one disk, charge $40, sell a CD and a book, and make money", they've just ignored the technology. They're afraid, and they don't know what to do with it.
Remember, folks, mp3's don't skip, and cdparanoia is *excellent* at recovering damaged CD's. It would be far cheaper to buy a used CD, dump the entire CD to disk and burn it onto a blank CD than to buy a new copy; heck, destroy the original and sell the new copy that isn't scratched. I'm sure that's illegal, but I don't know why. Is there no warranty, no rights to the information you paid for? Even a one-user license?
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Yeah, I'm not really happy with that decision either, but apparently that's the law, this week.
:|
Well, die-hard fans would probably still want the VHS tapes, but that's a very good point. To comply with the spirit of the law, I think you'd need to make sure that your users could only record programming that they already have access to, and there's no really good way to do that on the internet. (my idea was to use the zip-code on a credit-card billing address, and to only record local programming...)
I doubt it's great quality, but it could be. In this case, it can't be better than VHS, because it sounds like that's how they record shows in the first place. It doesn't matter, though, 'cause RealPlayer 7 doesn't do sound correctly on my Linux box. I need to reinstall it...
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
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Too bad, I still miss iCraveTV and I would love to see more of this but, its illegal! The first web site to negotiate deals for rebroadcast with the major networks and cable will have a REAL audience, until then, all we will have are fly by night operations.
On the other side of the coin, these guys and iCrave both recognized that content on demand via IP has a REAL audience. iCrave just rebroadcasted whatever was playing but RecordTV.com provided selection and thus improved on the model. The big question is: WILL THE AUDIENCE PAY??
Would you pay for this? If yes, how much per month? My guess is that $5/month/suscriber would be a very profitable set up. Will the network and cable people go for this (~$2/suscriber/month split many ways)?
Who do you think will make the first deals with the network/cable? AOL? YAHOO!? M$? Inktomi?
From the site: update 5/14/00
Happy Mothers Day! We expected some publicity but we didn't know Slashdot would print a front page story about us (www.slashdot.org). At the moment the site is not able to keep up but, by signing up with a valid email address, we can notify you when things are calmer and we have more bandwidth to handle it. We expect our first additional T1 line on Wednesday and another yet in 4 weeks.
update5/13/00
We were HACKED. Lost some web files and shows. Sorry. Also, we will likely get very busy on Sunday since we will be discussed on the Jeff Levy computer show (KFI AM 640 Los Angeles).
update 4/27/00
We were written up in Yahoo Internet Life today which has once again made things overwhelmingly busy today (we did not know this one was being published). We also are doing an interview on CJAD 800 AM today. Things will probably be slow for the next 2-3 days, sorry. updated 4/22/00 I have added a time clock and improved recording priorities.
updated 4/19/00
Well, things are better. also, we are changing the recording so that the most popular shows will get recorded first. This should help satisfy more users. Also SORRY about the annoying banners but this is the only thing that keeps our site up and running! Please click on the Valueclick banners (thats when we get paid) or sign up for the "Joke of the Day" newsletter (again thats the only time we get paid).
no sig.
Well, it's not as if we pay vast amounts for the TV we get now. It's mostly advertising.
>So according to you, I can't tape anything on TV and watch it later, unless there's a disclaimer?
:-|
;-)
:-)
:-(
If you don't want to break any laws, pretty much, yes.
If it carries a copyright symbol, yes. If it doesn't, certain legal precendents have been set in the US over the past decade saying that material missing the copyright symbol is still protected by it. In other words, everything is copyright. So yes, there must be a notification of release of copyright terms before you can tape it. It's a bummer, I know.
>So why do VCRs have a "Record" button?
(Real reason: For the same reason there are CD-R burners. To make "backups" of stuff and "transfer" to other formats...
What the VCR companies lawyers would likely tell you:
So you can tape your home videos, public access stations, public service announcements and other non-copyrighted/public distrubution material etc... Sounds stupid but here it is, straight from my new JVC VCR (HR-S3600U) manual:
- "It may be unlawful to record or play back copyrighted material without the consent of the copyright owner".
I guess they say "may" because you never know when a copyleft copyright for movies will exist (or if it does already). It is interesting they say unlawful; in the US that means it often isn't a jailable offence (unlawful is reserved for misdemeanors, whereas illegal/illicit is reserved for heavier crimes).
There's one for my RCA VCR too (I don't have the manual handy tho).
And from my ainchent (sp?) VR1820 Zenith VCR manual:
- "Duplication of material that is copyrighted may be illegal. However, it is not illegal to copy home movies and material that is not otherwise copyrighted".
That should clear up the "intended" use of the record button for ya...
>And why give numbers for programs I can't tape?
Because VCR+ doesn't create the numbers for specific programs. They made the system for the numbers. It really isn't much more that an overglorified calendar linked with a channel number. Looking at it like that, you'll see that if VCR+ was illegal, writing "Tape public access channel 5" on your calendar would be an offence too.
I don't know if the TV Guide people do the numbers, or if the broadcasters do them. If the broadcasters do them, you might sucessfully argue with a judge (not that a judge would even bother to accept such a petty crime as time shifting copyrighted material into the courts) that they are giving you the right to make a copy of the material by encouraging you to use those numbers by making them easily availiable. If the TV Guide people do it, I don't think this would count.
I hate the laws the way they stand too. They are vauge and open to interpretation. The only stance you can take if you need to protect yourself nowadays is the defensive. If it "looks" illegal, or was illegal, it still is.
Current copyright laws have to be ammended/changed to have any true effects on the average person at home. Right now, I would be most everyone in a first world country is guilty of breaking copyright in at least some minor way. All I know is I can't change them, I can just guess at them.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
The internet, as well as slashdot, is getting totally ridiculous. People think that anything on the internet is legal, and untouchable. Everyone here jokes about MP3s (i.e. recent poll choice) and thinks it is funny, but it's theft. Does no one pay attention to the: "This may not be retransmitted without express written consent of the NBA, NFL, NHL, etc" at the end of any game? This is so _obviously_ illegal it's obscene. BTW, please don't Score: 0 Troll me, that's not the effect i'm going for.
Because most of the local advertising is primed to feed me to local programs, so that's what I'm (mostly) interested in watching. The size of the local economy keeps the buying power of the local station down, so most of the US/UK made programs screening down here are ~2 years old.
Besides, I want to see the Dr. Who that a local program is screening, from approx the beginning (for those episodes that haven't been destroyed/lost)
... and today's pet project has
500 Internal Server Error. Am I alone?
___
ACTUALLY, that doesn't sound so screwy.
Just think; did AOL and Time Warner getting together make any sense either?
--
The other side is crowded. The dead have nowhere to go.
Thank you, that actually clears things up a lot in my mind.
I guess the short answer to my question is, everything is unlawful, but if you do it on the Internet, it's probably illegal too, and then you're a malicious pirate, profiteering on the backs of others...
I suppose some other new technology will appear for people to hate and fear soon enough, and then we can all record our movies in peace once again.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Oh, I just noticed info about the 1984 Betamax decision allowing one-time, non-commercial taping. (It isn't my fault I never heard about that -- I'm Canadian ;) So, I guess that is legal. It still doesn't help out RecordTV though, since they profit from their venture (I think, their site is hard to get to).
So here's my modified (and MUCH easier to understand argument):
You still have to destroy/erase the tape once you have watched the show once. I don't think you are going to be technically allowed to pause, fast forward, or rewind, either, since that differs from the original broadcast. And, like I said, RecordTV doesn't get the same protection as a home non-commercial user. This one-time-taping deal is the only fair use of TV shows I have seen yet. So you are still not allowed to keep what you have recorded. This is the only personal use allowed. You can't keep the recordings after you have watched them for the personal convenience of having them.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
>So according to you, I can't tape anything on TV and watch it later, unless there's a disclaimer?
If you don't want to break any laws, pretty much, yes.
Not true. Taping for later viewing is considered fair use (dealyed viewing). Strictly speaking you have to erase the tape after you watch it.
Ok, so I find out just now that in 1984 a law was passed allowing one-time non-commercial recording of TV shows in the US. So, you are allowed to record Murder She Wrote, IF you watch it once and erase it.
:-)
Still, you are not allowed to keep it, and doing so would violate various laws.
This really doesn't give you the legal freedom you'd need to run RecordTV, or to do most anything useful with your VCR (ie: Record movies from Pay-Per-View).
Ah well, you learn something everyday.
I'm still not sure if taping copy protected shows is allowed (ie: Scrambled cable channels). We'll see...
>then we can all record our movies in peace once again
Since most people tape movies from TV for keeps, I think you'd still be violating laws.
The problem with commiting a crime on the internet is that unlike giving away copies of stuff to freinds and family, you are giving it away to many MILLIONS of people. So a small crime becomes a huge crime as fast as your T1 can overflow with connections...
>I suppose some other new technology will appear for people to hate and fear soon enough
I'm working on it -- I'll trade you my prototype for a piece of new technology that people love and enjoy.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
>Not true. Taping for later viewing is considered fair use (dealyed viewing). Strictly speaking you have to erase the tape after you watch it.
Ok. I just found that out (as did, I'm sure, most of the other slashdot users). The ruling was 16 years ago...
And it doesn't apply to RecordTV because they are commercial/for-profit. The law excludes people in that situation from benefiting from it.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
I don't think they will stick around long, as I am 100% sure this will find it's way to court, and like they say themselves, without funding a court battle would make them bankrupt.
*SNIP*
Your probably right we will get a lawsuit, but we also probably fall under
the VCR legal exemptions to the copyright laws. However, right or wrong, we
need financing to fight a lawsuit or we lose by default.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Ryan"
To:
Sent: Sunday, May 14, 2000 2:39 PM
Subject: I smell a lawsuit.
> I think you better announce your IPO, get lots of money, and then prepare
> for a legal battle because you're almost providing the same resource as
> iCrave did and they got blocked. Good luck!
I think the status they have up on the site is the best part:
4/11/2000 1734 PST
We just updated our servers to Windows 2000 Advanced Server... (Note that it is REALLY bold like it's a HUGE selling point).
Fast forward...
5/13/2000
We were HACKED... (Not quite as bold text).
--
Quantum Linux Laboratories - Accelerating Business with Linux
* Education
* Integration
* Support
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
...................
...................
...................
It's not quite the same thing. IANAL, but I figure mp3.com at least had some ground to stand on, since you were supposed to own the cds it let you listen to. This, on the other hand, doesn't appear to make an attempt to confirm you legally receive that tv channel. But since mp3.com lost anyway, it just means that this service is beyond doomed. Too bad, it's a cool concept.
Q:Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?
A:All my autopsies have been performed on dead peop
don't kid yourself - sites like this are dying for any kind of publicity. a story on /. is worth more than any ad they can place themselves and costs a hell of a lot less $. furthermore, if they can't handle the traffic they'll get from one /. story then they're not gonna last long anyway, certainly not with the service they're offering, which is quite bandwith heavy.
He's right! Why would I want to go out THERE? I'd much rather stay in my dank cave staring at my Precious and munching on the occasional goblin with my Mountain Dew.
I don't believe any commercials are inserted into the RealVideo file. What's the argument now?
:)
Also, if you can't find South Park on RealVideo, you haven't been paying attention.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Hmm. I knew the Satellite companies had a big fight over this, and would pay certain stations money for licensing their shows to get the networks, but couldn't get local programming.
I don't know how this has changed, but as long as these shows are recorded off the air, I don't see a problem. Bringing the cable companies into it would probably be a bad idea, but if they don't provide an alternative, it will happen without them, regardless.
If the content providers don't leverage the technology, then someone will, and they will get left behind.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Yay, MEEPT!
Anyone else want to talk about copyright issues and censorship, 'cause it's all applicable, and there hasn't been much "News For Nerds" lately.
Hey, who wants to post a copy of "The Matrix" on Slashdot? (or would it consider uuencoding ASCII-art, or too many capital letters?)
Sure, it's all old news, but that doesn't stop the media, much less Slashdot...
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Does this make the service legal?
It's a new and innovative service. People have been sued for less, just on the basis of FUD
The content they're "misappropriating" if any isn't that of the channel, but of the content author. Perhaps the channel and advertisers would be happy for this service to exist, simply because (as you imply) an eyeball is still an eyeball. OTOH, the makers of "The Zippy the Pinhead Show" are paid for the original broadcast by the channel, but not this rebroadcasting - I bet they'll have issues with that.
I think they want to be sued. Get a TV company interested in them, then roll straight over and sell out immediately. Given the state of the stock market these days, that's probably the best path to geek riches.
I might as well ask you, what's wrong with breaking silly and outdated laws? Haven't commercialism reached its peak yet? -- And don't we want REAL content instead of that plastic make-believe world that is the media today (owned by RIAA, Time-Warner and AOL)?
However, I have to agree with you that this is illegal. Perhaps both on redistribution of cable service and copyrighted content. Alas, I disagree it's morally wrong to do what is most efficient and convinient.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
"Channels buying US programs from countries outside the US would have a good reason to be pissed off at this site. In Australia, we get programs up to a couple of seasons after they air in the US."
How can a company be pissed off? I thought feelings were reserved for humans and animals.
It sounds to me like the viewers of programs in other countries should be pissed off by constantly getting ripped off. Why do they only send old reruns on the TV?
"Given this, TV companies over here are going to feel their product is being diluted by the availability of these shows to Australian viewers well before their air on TV. "
The selection is already diluted and limited, by the very same companies that export from the US and those that import. Removing a limitation might feel like you are losing something when its the reason you make alot of money. However, all power-structures have to come down sometime (ie, "what goes up, must come down"). Companies has an opportunity to make money, but it's not a right. If they fail to follow the dynamics of the market and development, they will fall down eventually.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Disintermediation. The removal of intermediate steps from source to user. We are seeing in audio, print, TV, software, cars, airplane tickets, everything that is sold. Our whole economic system has been set up with multiple "middlemen" to create a distribution channel. See Stephen King's novella - he did not need a publisher. He could have cut that deal direct with Amazon or Yahoo. Whoever wanted to drive clicks would have done well to buy it. The Net creates a possibility to remove all of these -- and once that possibility is created, the economic drive is to remove that additional cost that has now become unnecessary -- the force is unstoppable. You will see those middlemen fight as hard as they can since if they accepted it, they are out of business. But surely as the sun will rise, they are toast. It will just take a while. Long term, don't make investments in middlemen.
Obviously you didn't even read my post.
"What you are taking when you commit copyright infringement is intellectual property, but you are not depriving the ownder of the same."
No, what I'm taking when I commit copyright infringement is future revenue. And I am depriving him of same. I am STEALING a source of revenue. I have committed theft.
--
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http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
I think this service is destined to be off-air within one or two months, just like I-crave did. There's allways someone going to complain about these kind of services. Both are nice plans and living in Europe I like it a lot, because I can watch some series that are not playing in Europe (but I hate the many commercial breaks grrr..).
But alas, I guess the best thing to do is relocate the servers to Russia, thereby avoiding problems with the cablecompanies, television stations and other complainers. Maybe setting up the capturing-computers in the usa, and streaming the content to the distributing computers, because not everthing is receivable with the satellitedishes.
Regards,
we don't provide free medical care for everyone is, actually, embarrasing....
I see you have never been or read about a country that provides free medicare. In countries like Canada or Sweden (sem-socialist), the hospitals are so over-crowded that people are coming into countries like the U.S. What does that Tell you about Socialism?? It DOESN'T WORK. Im glad we don't have it in the U.S. Welefare is ten times worse. the only people that need welfare are the mentally disabled or people that can't (not won't) work. The people that are actually getting it refuse to get jobs(I mean hey, when you get everything for free, what incentive is there to work).
Think about it....
What I mean is that the RIAA is fighting unauthorized replications of music on the internet (a.k.a. mp3's), and this is unauthorized replications of TV shows. It is the same type of thing, and the only big difference is the medium. Maybe we'll get some type of Napster for TV shows too, who knows.
"I have not failed. I've simply found 10,000 ways that won't work." --Thomas Edison
Has recordtv.com has already gone to CBS, ABC, NBC and AOL/TimeWarner to get the rebroadcast rights?
Have they signed a deal with the NFL, NHL, and the NBA to pay for the rights to show their games?
If the answer is yes then you are correct in every detail.
___
First, let's provide a dictionary link
To quote from the site in question: "...the felonious taking and removing of personal property, with an intent to deprive the rightful owner of the same."
The crux here is "felonious taking and removing".
So, is copying theft?
Felonious? Yes (currently)
Taking and removing? Yes, if we think carefully. Let M be a band that derives it's revenue from the selling of CD C. A copy of C, C', totally displaces a copy of C in the marketplace but directs no revenue to M. Therefore the making of C' deprives M of the income from C. I suppose you could make a case that "taking a removing" is different from "diverting before it got there", but highway robbery is still robbery.
This is not to say that I think M is totally in the right and that the theives are totally in the wrong. But let us call a spade a spade and label the thieves "modern day Robin Hoods" rather than trying to re-define them out of existence.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
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>Let's say I record a program. I record a baseball game, Murder She Wrote, it doesn't matter. I watch it for my own personal use. It's all legal so far.
:-)
:-)
1+2) Nope, copyright means copyright. Unless that program says "You may record one copy for later viewing.", or "Released to the public domain" you have violated copyright. This is in the same vein as saying "Well, I taped Star Wars TPM at the theater because I had to go to the washroom for a looong time.". Even if you meant it (you wanted to watch it later at home, not distribute it), it is still illegal. This doesn't mean that anybody cares, but the law is the law.
3) VCR+ isn't illegal because it is just a method for easily recording what is on a station at a certain time. This is the same as, say, a timed packet sniffer on a network [if such a thing were to exist]. If it records copyrighted content, that is YOUR problem, not the problem of the people designing the system... Remember, TV static, and often test patterns are not copyrighted.
4) The internet is new. New stuff tends to drag up mud that has settled. People are used to doing something one way, and the advertisers/TV companies haven't really cared about VCRs for a long time. Now you pour salt into an old wound. Of course they're gonna howl...
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Channels buying US programs from countries outside the US would have a good reason to be pissed off at this site. In Australia, we get programs up to a couple of seasons after they air in the US.
Given this, TV companies over here are going to feel their product is being diluted by the availability of these shows to Australian viewers well before their air on TV.
Sure NBC, CBS et al. might not give a damn, but they'll have a lot of pressure on them (as will the production houses) from outside the US to stop this site.
And just think what kind of salary rise the Friends stars are going to be asking for now!
--
Rare Window - free your photos
What use is this. Natalie Portman is not on the list. I can't use it for my Outlook petrification program
Very true. However, like you said, there ARE national ads too. Although what these guys are doing does suffer from that problem of not being too smart for the networks because of the misdirection of local advertising, I'm sure they could come up with a network station over the net that had only NATIONAL ads and NATIONAL news, so that the ads would be targeted appropriately no matter where someone viewed them. I'd say national advertisers should pay a PREMIUM for that kind of targeting. But anyway, if they did that, there would be no problem with broadcast relays from different locales.
BUUUUUUUUUT...
that's not gonna happen. First of all, there's about 1000 unforseen issues with doing that... for example, making the video stream available on the net means someone can do the VCR thing, except cut out commercials and send it around IRC... or hackers can edit in a big black mustache onto Kathie Lee Gifford's face, and the local affiliates are STILL getting ignored, and even if you say that the network can distribute on the net, then who's to stop indie producers to hop on the bandwagon with new networks, or who's to stop production companies to be their own networks? (Kinda like if MP3 takes off, and the artists can just post directly on the net, they don't need a record contract, so the RIAA best not encourages online distribution) Second, they don't need to do it because the market is admittedly small right now (good enough excuse for them) and there's too many risks against their total control right now.
Hell, they FORCE us to buy a TV set if we want to watch at all (instead of having public TV viewing shops or allowing us to pipe it over the net), and pay for subscription cable (if we want cable channels that each wouldn't know the difference if we got them through any other means), and to buy a VCR (if we wanna watch "ER" any time other than 10pm Thursday). TV is not about empowerment at all - it's about control that you get lured into by entertainment. Prime time TV is basically infomercials with acting and news inbetween.
I seem like I'm going off the radical end of the cliff here, but here's my point: this is a new distribution method. They could try it out and see if they'd make money on it - and judging from the way a lot of people are, they probably could with some effort. Or, they could swat it down and keep doing things they way they currently are. Of course it's unethical to use intellectual property legislation to eliminate innovation at the expense of the consumer for the sake of corporate laziness and ignorance. But do you expect anything different from these people?
Personally, I wouldn't really make this issue a big deal. I'd rather be more concerned with those non-existent HDTV standards that everyone refuses to get taken care of. They're dragging their feet on that one too - luckily the FCC is gonna kick their asses if they don't get it taken care of on their own. In the meantime, online TV distribution is kinda looking like a bad idea just because it's simply not close enough to perfect yet. Seeing how MP3 turned out to be "perfect" for online music distribution, I'd be worried if I were the TV people. Or for that matter, the MPAA or the RIAA or any of the book/magazine publishers out there...
Why aren't all television shows, all episodes, available on-line yet? Broadband is here, people are watching all sorts of high-quality video, yet the networks lag behind.
Well, imagine what would happen to TV when everyone has broadband. People wouldn't tune in anymore, they'd wait for reviews or word of mouth before they sit down to invest 30 mins to network or cable programming via the net. Like tonight's simpsons, I'm better off watching a classic episode or a different highly rated show.
Advertisers would probably complain about how banner ads run continously and they only get 30 seconds of time for their money. Networks would lose money as they don't have the realtime presence that advertisers crave. What good is commercial if the audience gets to see it 2 months after its been released or that their CGI crawling roach didn't look convincing on the smaller screen?
This idea is too much 'power to the people' for the media moguls to pick up on. Maybe people will get a taste for it from this new site and its possible imitators and demand it. Would be nice.
Haven't you ever heard the "any portion of this broadcast may not be reproduced..." message towards the end of any pro sports game? MLB(Major League Baseball), et al can sue the rebroadcaster for the offense. This is similar to pay-per-view "events" held in many bars.
Dispite the fact that this implementation is well, illegal, underpowered etc... I suspect that this kind of thing will become very popular in the future. Being able to log onto the net, select a programme and have it delivered to you inbox in, perhaps, MPEG format makes a lot of sense. Of course, it lends itself to the natural progression twards totally personalised, on-demand TV. --
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Being able to watch select shows without access to a TV set or cable sounds like a cool idea. Of course cable companies will not take kindly to a service that allows people to enjoy their product without paying for the service.
As more and more high bandwidth lines get installed, the traditional distribution model for entertainment is going to become more and more murky. With devices like Tivo in existence, and the capacity for anyone to record and rebroadcast live transmissions from the airwaves onto the net, at what point does "fair use" stop, and copyright violation begin? This reminds me of the whole VCR debate. For years the media industry wanted only VCP's to be sold, without the record capability. In the end VCR's won out and we can all record at home. Question is, broadcast television is supported by an advertisement model. They throw their programming out onto the airwaves where anyone can recieve them. If I take the airwave transmission and make a realtime RealVideo broadcast, have I commited any worse a violation than someone who records onto a VCR tape and then hands it to a friend? Two friends? Ten? We'll see.
Time for TV networks to make an alliance with the Recording Industry Association of America? I forsee a huge legal fight in the making and an escalation in the war of copyrights, even more so than with the mp3's...
"I have not failed. I've simply found 10,000 ways that won't work." --Thomas Edison
It's the dreaded day star.
kwsNI
As much as I think this would be a great service... I have to say that these people are just *begging* for a lawsuit. Especially with what just happened to my.mp3.com... this is basically the exact same thing.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
It's not what it is, it's something else.
Guys, guys, don't you learn? I wonder who pays for such lawsuits? However, maybe this one will not actually loose. These people do not do anything that your average VCR can not do. Some VCR's even have commercial breaks detection and removal.
On the other hand, MP3.com just lost a lawsuit and they provided basically the same type of service (technically it is not too different, maybe legally it is?)
Maybe the defence will have to insist on the following: Anybody with a VCR can record their own shows, anybody who does not have a VCR may buy one or ask a friend to record something for them. So this site can be such a friend?
Remember what happened to ICraveTV? I hope RecordTV.com folks do not superimpose their own advertisements over the content provided by the tv stations.
GOOD Luck, Very Very Good Luck, You will need it!
You can't handle the truth.
Please keep your definitions clear.
Potential revinue is not the same as money in the bank. If I have a business, or hobby, which denies your business some of its potential revinue, either by competing with your service or making it obsolete, that is not theft.
It may make you angry, and given the abysmal state of current legislation even entitle you to artificial remedies through legal thuggary, but I have in no way taken a single possession away from you, and whatever else I may have done I have not committed any act of theft or piracy.
You are entitled to possession of that which is already yours. You do not have a God given right to whatever potential earnings your (hypothetically) outdated business model implied, until my (hypothetically) better solution came along. In fact, you have no inherent right to potential earnings regardless of how sound your business model may be.
Current copy-privelege legislation has created a form of corporate welfare and government enforced monopoly at the expense of the consumer and the culture (how many of our "cultural" icons - e.g. Micky Mouse - remain private property? Imagine if the same were true of Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny.)
Again, I reiterate. Just because the law says something is so doesn't make it right, ethical, or even defensible. It just means that the notion, however misguided, is backed by the Guns of Government, pointing at you.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Woe to thee who crosses the annoying mullet-man!
Seriously tho - this is a COOL idea! Too bad this is probably about as illegal as re-selling warez!
[Connection closed by foreign host]
what a shame that there's no internet nation to protect all the lawless ventures out there.
I don't believe that he intended the list to be exhaustive. Obviously, there are persecuted people in all the world. He was merely pointing out some examples.
The Mormon example is particularly chilling. Until 1980, there was an extermination order in Missouri against all Mormons. In other words, if you were Mormon and in Missouri anybody could murder you for the simple fact that you belonged to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The state government of Missouri had granted a legal right to kill based solely on religion!
Free Mac Mini. Yes, I'm
How can anyone not expect services like these to be brought to the surface? This is the INTERNET, the exchanging of information is all based on hyperlinking.. I'd think that they would be happy with all these impressions because of their nifty banner ads. If they were vying for a private service, then why not firewall the damn thing or just keep the entire thing confined to a company/private WAN/LAN where only a few buddies can take advantage of this? (That may actually not be a bad idea)
/. effect can be quite deadly ;)
I do agree however, the
It might, except that most advertising is local. These guys record from LA cable. While McDonalds may get some value from from people in Chicago or Helsinki watching their ads, the local LA advertisers get nothing.
That's a very nicely defined example. Let's try this one:
You're one of the declining number of people that still watches "South Park". You're also too cheap to pay for cable. You go to your "friend", who does have cable, and ask him to tape it for you.
You give him a tape and he records it for you. When you get the tape back, it's got a few ads on it that your "friend" put there to cover the cost of his time to record it.
Suddenly, your "friend" is no longer time shifting programs, but rebroadcasting without the consent of the copyright holder. It's never been legal, on or off the internet, to do that.
It's a neat idea, but I'm going to be surprised if they are still going by the end of the week.
I completely agree.
Also, that's why I don't agree with the banner ad argument: the signal in question is not being altered in any way! People are still watching the shows, and the advertisements...
But I've learned not to expect much from the government and the media conglomerates; I don't expect them to point out their own shortcomings either, seeing as how they control the news. *sigh*
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Why?
Because the owners of the copyrighted material have licensed it for broadcast on various TV stations for the purpose of home viewing only. Yes, you can record a program. But that does not give you the license to rebroadcast that program other than for your personal use.
Even Cable TV providers cannot carry a broadcast station for free. Under the new FCC rules, Cable TV providers must pay local TV broadcasters for the right to carry their signal to Cable subscribers' homes.
So, what this all boils down to is that RecordTV et al is republishing copyright-protected material without a license.
And, they are doing it for profit, at least to the extent that they are receiving some advertising dollars from their ad-boxes.
This makes their acts of copyright violation a U.S. Grade A Authentic Federal Crime.
Not that it'll go that far. I suppose that they will cave under the threat of lawsuit.
IANAL. I am, however, a law student studying for the California Bar (not that this makes me an expert or anything).
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
from their front page (I couldn't find a better since the source of the page shows "meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 4.0"")
:)
update 5/14/00
We expected some publicity but we didn't know Slashdot would print a front page story about us (www.slashdot.org). At the moment the site is not able to keep up [...].
update5/13/00
We were HACKED. Lost some web files and shows. Sorry.
update 4/27/00
We were written up in Yahoo Internet Life today which has once again made things overwhelmingly busy today. [...] Things will probably be slow for the next 2-3 days, sorry.
Updated 4/11/00 17:34 pst
We just updated our servers to Windows 2000 Advanced Server [...].
Now I understand
Looking for a great online backup: Green Backup
TV Networks are very dependent on the local affiliates to support their programming. Since netcasting from NY or LA would jeopardize future revenues, I'd expect a big fuss put up. Affiliates generally have exclusive broadcasting rights within there geographical region, they'd demand a cut and the law would support them.
Of course, it's possible to require a zip code to tailor local ads, but this is very easily abused.
The big potential of this service would be the ability to drop cable service and just get high speed net access (once quality improves of course).
Where does the money come from?
Regards,
kfg
Actually, I don't think this is legal. Not positive, but I think taping and distributing is illegal under any circumstances.
In situations like the one you described, the law will never be enforced and was never designed to be enforced -- it's in nobody's interest to prevent you from doing that. But what if your friend decides to make a few more copies and gives them out to other people he knows? What if he sells the copies at the mall? That's what this situation is -- this company is taping things then redistributing them for profit.
I couldn't help but notice the 4 banner adds per page they have on their site. Could it be that it's a vapor service just using the idea for clicks/impressions?
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As soon as sites like this get posted on slashdot they immediately get swamped, the service goes to hell, and nobody can use it... or it attracts attention from outside sources. This does not sound like a big commercial website that has backing for their systems by outside funding... and now they will be overun by slashdotters trying to use the service... Do you ask the permission of web sites before posting them on here? If not, that might be a good idea to let them know their system is gonna be clogged with users for the next week, or next few days at the least.
_joshua_
Why is this illegal?
Let's say I record a program. I record a baseball game, Murder She Wrote, it doesn't matter. I watch it for my own personal use. It's all legal so far.
I like TV, but I don't know how to program a VCR, so when I'm out of town I ask my friend to tape shows for me. When I get back, he gives me the tape, I watch my show, no media execs were harmed in the making of this tape, etc., etc. Sounds pretty legal still.
Then my friend moves away, and since the Internet is my last remaining friend:
I go to recordtv,
tell them what I want to see,
and they tape it for me,
so now I'm happy...
Nothing really destructive or subversive going on yet, not the downfall of civilization as we know it...
Okay, at one point there might be *two* copies of a show, but that's legal too, right? "For Archival Purposes"? After all, the real tape is just a backup, and I'm sure it will get written over. The copy *I* want to see is a RealVideo file, and that's *my* copy, that my friend recordtv made for me.
So, before you all start pointing fingers, first tell me:
1) How is this illegal?
2) If so, *WHY* is this illegal?
3) Why isn't VCR+ illegal?
4) What makes the Internet so special, that once the same thing is done there, everything is suddenly illegal, patentable, etc., etc.?
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Why not? they say there's no such thing as bad PR!
There's a good chance that they're standing on shaky legal ground, but remember, there's also a chance that what they're doing is legal. It would be EXTREMELY stupid to risk a lot of money on a startup like this without at least having adaquate legal protection. Remember, the recording studios would probably justify this type of streaming if they got a fair chunk of the revenue, and its quite possible that this is what they're doing.
Of course, its possible that they're just stupid. Time will tell.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
From the FAQ:
9.We currently do not support Pay per view or pay channels (HBO etc.)for legal reasons, only commercial supported channels.
Does this make the service legal? If they are recording shows with Ads, Isn't it the advertiser that is paying for the content to get eyeballs looking at their product? From an advertiser point of view I imagine something like this would be a good thing(tm).
I guess this brings up the question- If you are watching a cable channel that is antenna broadcast, but not in your area, are you paying the cable provider for the content or for the service?
-
air and light and time and space
I think it was more amusing to go to the humanclick.com website linked from that page and click on the free demo.. jonathan the live operator is quite interesting to talk to.
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|-_-| . o O ( bEef!)
The difference is that I don't like the association of the low-brow high-seas violence (piracy) with something of a much more white collar crime of making unauthorized copies (also piracy)
p iracy
In case FreeUser doesn't understand:
http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=
Wow, three definitions and two of them go against his argument.
Who said future revenue was intellectual property? Not me.
As for you distinction between copyright infringement and deprivation of revenue, I understand the difference but I don't understand your claim that one "doesn't factor at all" into the other. Are you saying that I could infringe the copyright WITHOUT depriving of future revenue?
"Future revenue is not protected as property under the law..."
Semi-correct, which is exactly why I am opposed to groups like MPAA and RIAA trying to make it seem that way. Why "semi"? Because SOME future revenue IS protected. For instance, if I were a concert pianist and you were an incompetent doctor attempting to remove a hangnail, I could sue you for lost revenue when you amputated my arm.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
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I tAkE cArE oF tHe PlAcE wHiLe ThE mAsTeR iS aWaY.
Dee doo doo dit dee doo doo dit...
(Okay, no-one but a MSTie is gonna get that...)
if trolling means the advocating of Free speech: yes
--
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fat lenny's gonna lick your brain today.
What would happen if the actual TV companies made a website like this? That way we could still have the service and they could make some cash off of it (though a banner ad or something) and also still have the regular ads shown...
I, for one, would use the service a LOT.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
It's not what it is, it's something else.
No one would ever prosecute your friend -- but that's a matter of discretion and ignorance, not a matter of law.
--
-- Slashdot sucks.
Plugging a VCR into a wide area network (in this case:the internet) in order to seek revenues from banner advertisements amounts to redistibution with comercial intent without the expressed writen consent of the copyright holder.
___