Anti-Copying TV Technology Creeps Forward

An anonymous reader writes: " After CDs, then comes TV? Although the technologies being spoken about are supposedly to prevent online sharing of television content as digital network television is born, the extents of the control being spoken of is alarming. When I purchase my next television recording device, will I be able to chose to record my favorite show while I am away from home? Will I be able to record one show while watching another? Or will I be at the mercy of the network ... only allowed to record should they *want* me to record. It could be possible to prevent the recording of first-run shows, forcing either-or choices (and affecting ratings and advertising rates,) rather than allowing us to watch one, record another."

Comments

Because as we all know ...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

... the entire TV, music, and movie industries are on the verge of bankruptcy, because of those evil digital pirates. Yo ho ho and a bottle of TiVo, mateys! Let's take the Digital Main!

Sheesh. The VCR was the best thing that ever happened to Hollywood. Recording and sharing _increases_ interest in the entertainment industry's products. Why can't they see that?

Re:Because as we all know ...

[jafac]

The same is true in Music and Software.

Where would Windows be today if tens of thousands of future MSCE's hadn't pirated the crap out of Windows 3.1 and MS Office? At least PART of Microsoft's success is due to the rampant piracy - especially with MS Office, where WordPerfect employed goofy copy protection, Microsoft did not, and people flocked AWAY from WordPerfect. When people went from home-hobbyist to legit, they bought licenses.

Where would Adobe be today without the rampant piracy of Photoshop by tens of thousands of graphic art students (don't tell me this is not happening).
They'd be the publisher of software that is so hard to use, an artist's costs are DOUBLED *JUST* to begin learning about how to use Photoshop. Photoshop has a HUGE learning-curve to do anything but the most basic operations. Their marketshare would be comparatively microscopic. But since people have pirated it, they can mess around with it, learn it, evaluate it's worth (find out that, hey, $600 really IS justified for this gem!).

And it's been said MANY times, (it's like a broken record - no pun intended) that music sales have INCREASED due to Napster - because Napster tended to act as a free-promotion mechanism, and people may have kept a lot of MP3's they never intended to buy, but they also purchased a lot more CDs that they wouldn't have otherwise been exposed to.

In a society of law and order, we can bitch and moan all we want about whether or not these companies have a RIGHT to protect their own IP in the face of provisions like Fair Use. That's all academic. But it's certainly not in most company's best interests to do so. It's so blatantly obvious - and yet time and again, we see companies who are competing, don't often CARE if their software is pirated. It's a convenient way to gain marketshare - it's dumping, without actually dumping.

But as soon as they achieve any kind of dominance (read: monopoly power!!!) they clamp down the screws. I think this is what bothers everyone deep down in the bottom of their hearts - people know right from wrong, they sense it, and it's easy to justify "stealing" IP from a monopolist who's abusing their position. The monopolists want their cake, and they want to eat it too, and us consumers along with it.

If they weren't monopolies, I would join the "libertarian" crowd and say: hey, just let the free-market punish these assholes for their crappy business practices.
But that would be the same as saying - gee, I hate the way my electric company raises my rates and I still get outages. Fuck it all, I'm going to move to another state.

Maybe it's not so bad

[Ghoser777]

Personally (and there are plenty of people who disagree with me, that's why they buy products like thys), I don't think there's much left on TV that's worth recording anymore. Instead of watching "When Animals Attck VIII", maybe this will get people to read more or do other stuff that's more educational or socially significant, like taking interest in children's education (and having kids focus more on their education because they're not watching as much tv). There are some quality shows, but commercialization and voyerism and other junk have really made network television really aweful.

Then again, I guess the next step would be to copy protect books. Maybe they'll burst into flames if they detect a sufficiently bright light, such as used in copy machines.

F-bacher

Just opening the door for independents...

[NanoGator]

I think that the tighter they squeeze people, the wider the door will get for independent people to make their own shows and publish them on the web.

It is possible with today's consumer technology for people to make movies and broadcast them on the internet. Video cameras are cheap, people are willing to act (although there's need for improvement heh), and TV quality visual effects are within the reach of people with a modest income.

Until the day Hollywood consistantly creates stories that are worth paying for, they can't make these kinds of demands. Take a look at Final Fantasy. The people who are fans of that series are mostly interested in the story. They have their Playstation 2's, they have the $50 to buy the game, and they have the 40 hours to beat it. There isn't a TV show out there that can make that many people reschedule their lives around when the show is aired. Even though a show is half an hour to an hour long, nearly all of them aren't worth making sure you are home for that time.

So go ahead Hollywood, spend your energy trying to protect your 'precious content', you're not going to squeeze more money out of people.

Re:That will be it.

[tftp]

The TV in its earlier days was informative and delivered unique content. Exactly as radio was before that, and as newspaper was before that... and all these technologies had their high points, and they passed them.

What would one read in a newspaper today, yesterday's news? Opinions of illiterate or unqualified journalists? Ads? Same happened with radio; rare a song now is played from start to end because radio people just love to mix and match the bait^Wsong with ads and useless chat that is not even worth the battery to tune to. TV is not far behind; ads drip from every little pause in content, and the content itself is of very low value, targeting lowest common denominator in the society.

Is there something better than TV? Sure, and it is already here. One can have his movies on tapes, VCDs, DVDs or just in big .avi files, just click of a mouse to order at online shop (or Usenet). The one-way pipe (from fools on that end to fools on this end) is now being replaced with tons of chat/messaging software, from rocket-scientist's IRC to uncle Joe's Yahoo boards, where people can actually *talk* to each other, instead of being fed with corporate propaganda.

The TV is losing its appeal, especially (for now) among people who know how to get better information from Internet. Joe Sixpack still uses TV; however he does so not because he loves it but because it is there. He loves beer much more, and if he can get his football elsewhere, he will. If he can't tape his play he would be mad, and the TV would be useless to him.

In any case, there is no free market in broadcasting, and as such the monopoly (made out of several sister TV companies) is free to abuse the viewer in any way it wants. The only remedy is to stop using their services. They are not worth much anyway, and if a movie is good you can always buy it, free from ads, squishing, logos and other fluff.

Re:hmm...

[msobkow]

I have a feeling they're trying to create a market for the over-priced DVD episodes of TV series. Who in their right mind would pay $20+ for two episodes on DVD when they can get tolerable quality with an SVHS recorder ($4 for premium blank tapes), or use a capture card and crunch it down with their own DVD-R burner ($5/disk)?

This isn't about preventing "piracy", it's about finding a new way to steal a few more dollars from the consumer.

Personally I would have less issue with a pay-per-view approach provided that:

1. Price per 1 hour episode is no more than $1
2. No commercials, previews, ad-banners, or other such nonsense is included
3. The data stream is 100%. No bullshit blurring, bitrate reduction, or other nonsense like DirectTV uses. If I gotta pay, I want unreduced 1080p (not 1080i), with full 5.1 sound.
4. A guarantee that there will be no dropouts, glitches, etc.
5. I can make a non-duplicatable archive copy using a durable media like DVD.
6. No monthly service charges. If you want me to pay per episode, I'll only pay for what I want to watch, not for all the hundreds of hours of useless tripe.
7. No time slotting. If I subscribe to a series, I expect it to be deposited for viewing or archive on a weekly basis, to be viewed when I have time and the inclination.

All in all, I don't have an issue with protecting the content from wanton copying and redistribution. I'm rather shocked at the number of people I know who already see first-run theatre movies captured by DV cameras and transcoded to crippled-bitrate MPEG4; I can understand the content provider's concern over the issue as bandwidth increases.

As to the advertising revenue, do these morons really think I buy anything because I saw it on TV? I select purchases based on rational evaluations and independent 'net reviews, not based on some glitzy TV advertising or the biased sound-bite reviews provided by print media or ZDNet and it's affiliates.

It's been said before...

[AnalogBoy]

but i'll say it again..

If you're going to bitch,

bitch productively!

If you put the same effort you do here, into legit politics (wow. now *THATS* an oxymoron), the least that's going to happen is you're voice will be heard. The most? The sky's the limit.

Just do yourself a favor. When writing your congressperson or representative:
1) Don't troll
2) Don't flame
3) Don't mention your /. karma. They won't care.
4) Don't start with "I didn't vote..", or, especially, "I didn't vote for you, but..."
5) Above all, write intelligently.

P.S. Inconspicuously hinting that your wealthy father could make a sizable donation to the rep's campaign wouldn't hurt.

Reality Check

[Kasreyn]

"...When I purchase my next television recording device, will I be able to chose to record my favorite show while I am away from home? Will I be able to record one show while watching another? Or will I be at the mercy of the network ... only allowed to record should they *want* me to record..."

Here's Captain Obvious with Clues for the Clueful!

You're ALREADY at the mercy of the network. Who cares about what you can record? You only *watch*, in the first place, the programs they *want* you to watch. (insert Twilight Zone theme here). You seem to be operating under the misconception that TV viewers were ever offered any choice of any variety, which they were not. So please, lose the outraged squawking, it's just plain silly. Either watch TV and accept the crud they shovel at you, or DON'T WATCH TV. This is known, among adults, as a Decision.

End clue session, exit's to your left...

-Kasreyn

I'll second that

[StandardDeviant]

Yes, by all means read the whole thread. I also stuck a link to it in my signature, which hasn't changed in something like a year previous. If any moderators (or god forbid the chimpanzees that have tied up the editors and taken over their consoles) see this post, consider that if you look at my record, I'm consistently giving back to the slashdot community by trying to post worthwhile comments and do my metamod every day. In other words, while most likely I'll get a -1 Troll or offtopic for this, I think this thread reflects legitimate concerns in the slashdot community.


A side note to anyone at Andover.net/OSDN/VA who happens to read this. Remind yourself that when Slashdot became corporate, the userbase became your customers, and indirectly your source of revenue through advertising. Piss us off too much, and watch your revenue stream trickle off...

Re:Because as we all know ... correction

[Reziac]

Sorry, you're dead wrong on one point -- WordPerfect has NEVER had copy protection of ANY sort (at least from v4.1 onward), and still doesn't, other than an easily-defeated serial number. Conversely, Word2.0 and 6.0 (there were no Word v3/4/5 for PC, only for Mac) DID have a rudimentary sort of copy protection -- the installer wrote back to the first diskette, "personalizing" it with the registered user's name. And now M$Office has full-blown Activation.

WordPerfect started losing market share when some suit-encumbered moron decided to restrict tech support to registered users (this was really the key point, not WPCorp's slowness in adapting to Windows). Previously, totally free toll-free tech support was available to ALL WordPerfect users, including for pirated copies, as WPCorp recognised that the best way to lock in a customer base is to get them using your product in the first place. And it worked -- people pirated one version, but bought the next (well, I bought 16 "nexts" and counting). That deliberate winking at borroware, along with near-total printer support, made WP the market leader.