Networks and Studios Against PVRs

HiredMan sent in an LA Times story talking about more suits against PVR makers like Replay and Tivo. The most bizarre quote to me is that the suit argues that "it's illegal to let consumers record and store shows based on the genre, actors or other words in the program description." Huh?

Comments

Explaining the bizzare "illegal" quote

[Seth Finkelstein]

The "rationale" for "it's illegal to let consumers record and store shows based on the genre, actors or other words in the program description." is "explained" further down:

"If a ReplayTV customer can simply type 'The X-Files' or 'James Bond' and have every episode of 'The X-Files' and every James Bond film recorded in perfect digital form and organized, compiled and stored on the hard drive of his or her ReplayTV 4000 device, it will cause substantial harm to the market for prerecorded DVD, videocassette and other copies of those episodes and films," the lawsuit states.

IANAL, but I think the idea is reaching to come up with a negative effect on the copyrighted work itself, so as to undermine the longstanding law that personal use of VCRs is fair use.

Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)

Re:Explaining the bizzare "illegal" quote

[Seth Finkelstein]

Take a look at the legal criteria for fair use

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

They're trying to make an argument which goes to at least element #4. Remember, this an EFFECT test. That's not the same as the idea of being possible to do it with much more work before these sorts of PVRs

Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)

Jack Valenti Quote

[Hieronymus Howard]

Courtesy of the New York Times:

'The growing and dangerous intrusion of this new technology,' Jack Valenti said, threatens an entire industry's 'economic vitality and future security.'
Mr. Valenti, the president of the Motion Picture Association of America, was testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, and he was ready for a rhetorical rumble. The new technology, he said, 'is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman alone.'

It was 1982, and he was talking about videocassette recorders.

And they're still as paranoid and as utterly wrong now as they were 20 years ago.

HH