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.

Comments

Tried their registration option

[the_other_one]

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

Yet another "Clueless Timmy" post.

[Bowie J. Poag]

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

Re:Banner Adds

[vectro]

I didn't notice them; Perhaps it's because I'm using junkbuster.

Legality

[Robert Wilde]

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.

Here's why:

[Money__]

The answers to all 4 of your questions are:

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.
___

Internet cable TV: an idea whose time has come?

[Squid]

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?

Re:Reducing Potential != Theft

[Kris_J]

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.

Correct! How to make this work legally better:

[JoeShmoe]

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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Re:Correct! How to make this work legally better:

[Kris_J]

According to the 1984 Betamax decision, the courts have ruled that personal, time-shifted content is legal.

The recent MP3.com decision has shown that the courts do not recognise the transfer of a logical licence to a third party organisation. I may well have the legal right to make an MP3 copy of my CDs so I can listen to them at work, but apparently I don't have the right to make a "virtual copy" on MP3.com's servers so they can stream the music to me in a 1-to-1 transaction. Similarly, I may well have the right to time-shift my personal viewing with my personal VCR, but I doubt the courts will uphold this right if I use a company to do it for me with their equipment.

In addition, the company is well aware that people would consider using this outside of the state/country that it's in - a use that is a clear breach of copyright - and all they have a pathetic little "I agree" link. MP3.com had a pretty decent verification package and they were (I believe unfairly) shot down in flames.

"Theft" is a pretty simplistic term, but it can be applied to this service. This "Internet VCR" is very much like a re-broadcasting facility - heck in Australia the radio stations cracked down on shops playing the radio to the customers by getting it called "rebroadcasting".

A service like this will only work with the full support of the copyright holder, and I don't think this one has it.

Re:Correct! How to make this work legally better:

[JoeShmoe]

This is not rebroadcasting in any sense of the term. Broadcasting means "casting" to a "broad" audience. This is specifically targetted.

There is no difference between running a coaxial cable from a VCR in CA to a customer in NY or running a fiber cable and then using coaxial-to-fiber coverters on each end (at least there is no court decision to say there is such a legal distinction). That's what the computers are doing. They are converting the coaxial (RF) signal into a form that can travel much faster and much further. It is still a point-to-point transaction. It is renting a VCR that happens to be a lot farther away than traditional tecnology would allow.

The problem with MP3 was they were making the copies onto digital media (hard drives). I strongly believe that if they had put the copies on standard audio cassettes (or purchased audio cassettes) and then described it as a "rental" service, they would have had a stronger argument for fair use.

MP3 also got into trouble because they made copies of everything...even stuff that perhaps hadn't been requested by users. If no one requested a copy of a really bad show and I still had a copy of it...I could buy a possible argument that the copy is infringment. But I would be sure to wait for a customer to indicate they wanted a show before it was actually captured and thus eliminate this issue.

This is about renting physical devices. The customer is free to use them for personal, fair use purposes. My companies, and companies like it, would be profitting from the rental of such devices (no different than Rent-To-Own or most video stores who allow VCR rentals).

The only difference is that my VCR has an additional output port that allows the customer to watch the content on his or her computer without having to buy a TV capture card.

And, it is a service that people really, really want. I am always forgetting or messing up my personal fair-use recordings. TiVo et. al. have the right idea but are horribly expensive and do not allow consumers to upgrade capacity. A service like this gives them a limitless TiVo that they can rent instead of buying.

In fact...if I succeeded with the tape approached, renting TiVo over the Internet was going to be my next plan. That way I could stop buying blank VHS tapes and offer video in full MPEG-2 (not VHS) quality.

- JoeShmoe

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Re:Correct! How to make this work legally better:

[JoeShmoe]

As far as I know, renting equipment is a perfectly legal business model. There are hundreds of for-profit companies that do it.

Remember, this is a service, not content. Whatever the customer does with his or her rented VCR is personal, non-profit, and fair use.

Please see my reply to the previous post for a more detailed response to this argument.

I do not believe I have to have a copy of the program for each person on a separate cassette. Again, this is a minor quibble over symantecs. 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. For any conceivable input/output scenario, it is possible to construct a physical device to imitate that. Also, I eventually plan to move to renting TiVo devices which already break the digital barrier. I will leave it to my lawyers and the courts to iron out the exact makeup of the backstage hardware...but if I have to buy a giant tape server with a robot to swap tapes around on demand and rent that to the users...so be it.

- JoeShmoe

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It's not a vapor service..but it is pretty lousy..

[medicthree]

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.

Re:This is not theft!

[blakestah]

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.

This is not theft!

[FreeUser]

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.

Re:This is not theft!

[Kris_J]

It is, you're just not aware of the layers.

The revenue stream for the channels is the ads, but the revenue stream for the programs is the channels - by re-broadcasting one local signal outside of its normal footprint you're boosting the local broadcaster at the cost of all the others, thus the program creators get nervous that other stations might drop the programs being offered.

I'm not explaining this well, so here's an example. 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.

Admittedly a lot of this is an artificial revenue structure created by the segredation of populations and the control of what each group has access to, thus artificially raising "prices", but even though this looks like price fixing it's legal and is backed by BIG corporations with deep pockets.

I'd prefer that the studios released their stuff directly to the public, like Alien Nation, but it's a major uphill battle that no one wants to fight at the moment...

Re:This is not theft!

[blakestah]

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.

Now that has to be the biggest crock I have ever heard. Do you mean that if I take screenshots of The Simpsons and print them out and stick them to my cubicle, Fox can't bust me? Uhhh, hello, COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT. So many websites have been busted for this (taking screenshots of The Simpsons), there is even a special Fux-Hate website: http://nerd.simplenet.com

Now, there is a substantial difference between taping something so you can watch it later, and taping something to put it on your website. Within the realm of fair use, this would fall under the category of "use of the copyright, in particular whether is it commercial or nonprofit use."

The US copyright laws are posted on the web in pdf format, so that if you are really interested you may educate yourself.

Re:tsk tsk

[EraseMe]

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

RecordTV Disclaimer..

[citizenc]

This site is intended to be used just as your own personal home Video recorder is currently used. That means you may NOT record and watch any shows which you do not already have access to or subscribe to in your own personal residence. You may use this only for your own personal viewing. These shows may not be copied, sold or rebroadcast. By accepting you agree to follow these terms and accept any legal responsibility for any violation of these terms.

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.

.. Unfortunately, even a dialup user has his limits. The site has timed out on me several times, so I wonder how you would even watch the recorded shows properly. *Shrug*

Hrm.. I wonder if I can use it to record pr0n =)


.- CitizenC (User Info)

GPL != EULA, not even in Washington

[FreeUser]

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.

Re:How could anybody think this is a good idea?

[sallen]

Cable companies probably could offer it, relying on your indidivual record/playback requests and vaidating your subscriptions-like replay or tivo at a central site. But this stuff has all the problems described. Plus, if network shows are involved, you have the contractual agreements of the local stations. You'd have to replay only those stations that were in your local area, not a network station from another area. And if generic recording/playback then it's rebroadcasting. This is definitely a dead end that will profit only the lawyers. It'd end up cheaper for them to give all their subscribers a tivo than pay the legal fees, though certainly IANAL, just an opinion.

What would be a realistic buisness model

[yuriwho]

Check out the info below and you will see that these guys are are a lame version of iCrave. Sure they have the additional feature of recording shows but they can't handle their demand and they have little if any marketing skills. At least iCraveTV had a set up to handle their bandwidth. When the lawyers from network TV begin to attack do you think this site will be able to stand! Me thinks not.

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).

Ridiculous

[Sean Hermany]

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.

Re:Ridiculous

[drivers]

I agree it is probably completely illegal under current law. Maybe it is a little bit of a gray area, or else we wouldn't be having all these lawsuits. But there is room for improvement and as you can tell by the types of issues being covered here, we think there is a lot of room for improvement in how so called intellectual property is handled on the Internet.

Anyway, what I wanted to reply to was that you use the claims at the end of the NFL broadcasts to back up your argument. What they say is probably true, but just because they say it, doesn't make it more true. It's like the small businesses that put up stupid signs saying "we reserve the right to refuse service to anybody." As if. Does that mean they have the right to refuse service to you because of your skin color? Can they point to the sign to prove it? Hell no.

/. Crashes . . HARD ! 500 Internal Server Error

[Money__]

FYI: for the last ~2 hours I've been getting a

500 Internal Server Error. Am I alone?
___

Re:How could anybody think this is a good idea?

[-tji]

Uhh.. Who are you stealing from by doing this? The cable networks don't get paid by the cable carriers, they get paid by the advertisers. Their goal is to get the highest possible viewership, to increase their value to advertisers. And the cable or satellite companies do not have some inherent right to my business. If I want to get the shows from their competitor, that's my choice. If this were done a bit more ligitimately, it would be much better for the networks than broadcast. It would allow them to easily gather viewing metrics, the biggest challenge they all face. I think this is a great idea.. In need of some legitimate business relationships with the networks, and MUCH better infrastructure. The site looks amateur, and their status messages tout moving to Windows 2000 as the answer to their problems!

Re:Stop, and ask yourself...

[luckykaa]

>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.

I emailed them and look what I got.

[steveargonman]

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!

Re:Ad pay/ Subscriber pay?

[dingbat_hp]

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.

Re:This is theft!

[Money__]

Your assesment of the situation is interesting and I would be the first to sugest your insights to 2600 for cross posting. I have just a few questions that perhaps you could address.

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.
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Region Issues for non-US users... err viewers

[schmack]

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!

Re:But advertising is local!

[brianvan]

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...

Don't hold your breath.

[gad_zuki!]

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.

Reducing Potential != Theft

[FreeUser]

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.

tsk tsk

[Sonicboom]

Lars' panties are all bunched up now! Whatever you do don't have them tape any metallica videos!

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!

Re:How could anybody think this is a good idea?

[DGregory]

If cable was that cheap in the USA, fewer people would be stealing it. $7 or $13?? Hell, we pay almost $30 for around 60 channels (depending on where you live, keep in mind that not all the channels are watched by everyone... golf channel, food channel...) or you can get a whole 13 channels for $11.

Re:Stop, and ask yourself...

[fougasse]

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.

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.

Banner Adds

[Money__]

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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its nice to know but..

[joshua_doesnt_know]

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_

Stop, and ask yourself...

[pb]

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.

more primed for a lawsuit!

[swinge]

hey, since they're gonna get sued anyway, I hope they're cutting out all the commercials and playing mp3s from major artists instead, and replacing the credits at the end of the shows with the scrolling text of Microsoft's ill-conceived kerberos plans :) Then, late at night they could turn the programming over to infomercials hawking mislabelled Athlons, binary-only linux cds, and copies of decss.

Why not? they say there's no such thing as bad PR!

Ad pay/ Subscriber pay?

[PopeAlien]

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?
-

hmmm, I wonder...

[DrEldarion]

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.

Actually...

[Amphigory]

If I'm not mistaken, your friend (who taped the video for you) breaks the law when he gives it to you. I forget the details of the ruling, but one of the key features is that you are free to record broadcast content for your own, personal, use. Redistribution is a very different animal.

No one would ever prosecute your friend -- but that's a matter of discretion and ignorance, not a matter of law.

--

This won't last

[Money__]

Re: "These people do not do anything that your average VCR can not do."

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.
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