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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?
PVR's throw a wrench into the finely tuned machine that is mainstream television. They make their money from ads, and the more people sitting through those ads, the more money they make. Well, what happens when advertising firms start paying channels less because there are less people actually viewing the show than recording it? You can guess that the channels will be pretty pissed off. They're just trying to protect a source of money there, really.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Why is it that every large corporation or entrenched business needs to be so afraid of change. Did 8-track kill music revenues? How about tape? MD? CD? MP3? Nope nope nope nope. It simply amazes me how afraid most folks are of change. Don't they realize that without change things don't get better? I see this time and again in all facets of life.
A lawsuit by the Buggy Whip Manufacturers Association against the automobile industry, because the change from carriages to automobiles has decimated their markets. The Horse Manure Shoveler's Association is expected to sign on as co-plaintiff.
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
Nobody's suing people who actually infringe copyrights anymore. Everyone is suing people who make devices...
True. They aren't going after all those who actually infringe copyrights, since that would number in the millions. Instead, they are going after the makers, for contributory copyright infringement, much like the way Napster was sued. Napster itself did not violate copyright, but its users did, and Napster provided a convenient way to do it.
In the case of PVR's, its a little different, since fair-use does allow for time shifting, IIRC. It's the sharing of the "perfect digital copies" that the industry fears.
They are suing device-makers as a preventive measure. Without these devices, many will go back to using VCR's to make imperfect copies.
I'm not afraid of falling, it's the sudden stop at the end that frightens me.
What does editing commercials out have to do with copyright protection? I can understand having a problem with sharing movies but sharing TV shows that broadcast for free seems just a tad over the top.
Here, you can have this free product but you may not give it to others.
Cat
Will they make a law that once you start watching a show, you can't turn the station when an advertisement comes on? C'mon this is silly.
The ONLY ads people watch on TV these days are the ones on during the superbowl. Everyone just changes the channel to avoid commercials.
Networks have no basis to claim they are losing advertising money to DVRS because even without DVRs no one watches them to begin with we just change the channel .
Silly.
The networks are scared more then likely. Speaking as a VERY HAPPY TiVo owner I can say that my viewing habits have changed dramitically. I only really watch what I want to when I want to and I don't EVER watch commercials (fast forward is great) and I sometimes don't even know what station the program is from.
So the problem the networks have is they end up basically showing programs for free, so advertisers are probably applying pressure (ie threatening to pull sponsership) unless the networks fix the situation (ie sue PVR companies into the ground).
Personally, if it becomes illegal to use a TiVo or TiVo gets shutdown, I will stop watching TV, heck I have already stopped going to the movies (boycotting the MPAA) and I don't buy any music (boycotting the RIAA) might as well stop watching TV and just read.
Actually, meta-information is all the rage, in science and in consumer data. So, if they establish that precedent...
"It's illegal to let companies record and store people's profiles based on the location, income or other words in their profile."
My goodness, we could eliminate demographics entirely!
A.
The most disturbing part of the story is that they claim deleting commercials is violating the copyright.
So, here's my prediction (guess I shouldn't be handing them ideas, but someone's bound to come up with it someday anyway, or probably someone has already):
In the future, we will have TV shows where you are forced to watch commercials. Something like: to view the second segment of "Friends", you have to enter the code flashing on the screen during the Pepsi ad that was aired after segment 1.
This should be perfectly feasible (technically), especially once everyone has a PVR.
I guess I should patent this idea...
MSN 8: Now Microsoft even has bugs in their ad campaigns.
Correct me if I'm wong, but last time I checked, "markets" were not constitutionally protected, and neither were coporate profits or business models. (unless, of course, the business model is patented)
They're trying to protect their business model through litigation, because embracing new technology is more expensive than lawyers.
Maybe they'll all be hit with frivolous lawsuit countersuits. Here's hoping, anyway.
--Bob
1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
Actually, I think that PVRs are less of a threat to purchase of TV shows than VHS would be. It's a lot easier (and cheaper) to archive programs long-term on VHS tapes than to store them on a hard drive. Most PVRs are used for time-shifting and viewing once or twice, not long-term storage. I suppose folks could start burning CDs or DVDs with content from their PVRs, but that's likely to be a pretty small minority. I think the bigger concern here is the commercial skipping aspect. Notice that the Tivo boxes that get sold through AT&T Broadband don't have the "commercial skip" button on the remote? If I were a network, I'd be worried too. If there are fewer eyeballs watching the ads, then eventually revenue's going to drop, but the costs of production stay the same or increase. Not an easy problem to solve. As clumsy as the broadcasting industry can be, in fairness, they have a real problem on their hands. The business model that's worked for 50 years (programming's free, you just have to sit through the ads) is starting to break down, and it's unclear what will replace it. Remember, there's no divine right that obliges the networks to create and broadcast The West Wing, or whatever - if we can't find a way to ensure that doing so is profitable, then it ain't gonna happen.
This is BS as "Fair Use" is well established. It's an obvious extension of technology to use hard drives instead of video tape, and computer searchable guides instead of paper guides. If anything, you would think that studios would WANT people to watch their bad movies / shows. What they are REALLY pissed about is the ability of people to fast-forward through commercials.
Frankly, if there is a show I want to watch, I let tivo record it and watch it later as commercials are just too annoying (one of the worst offenders is TNN which turns a 1:45 movie into 3 hours. Who the hell is willing to put up with that?)
Tivo and friends are are pure time-shifting devices. The don't have the ability to save off to an archive except by playing the movie and recording it with a VCR. If you are going to do that, you might as well just have recorded the damn thing with a VCR to begin with.
If they really don't want people to record by name, actor, director, they also need to sue TV Guide, all the newspapers in the US, movie trivia sites, book authors and publishers, film / entertainment magazines, etc. who also publish this info.
Okay, I can kind of see their problem with the Replay 4000s, because they share data with others and automatically take out the commercials. But the others (TiVo and older ReplayTVs) should be safe.. You can't just get everything every made ever, it would have to be something that you could actually watch on your TV normally.. And in the case of TiVo, they don't get rid of commercials. And because of TiVo's data that they store TiVo can show people what commercials the viewer is actually watching. I own a TiVo, yet I still watch some commercials (those that are entertaining, or something that I find interesting). I think this data is even better.
Free Mac Mini
Whether you like it or not, TV is not a free service. You pay for it, either directly or indirectly; that is, in order for you to have something to watch while you atrophy your motor skills, someone has to bring it to you, and that someone wants to get paid.
Oh? That's not good enough? You don't like that you can't control the scheduling of the programming so that you can skip the ads, thereby avoiding compensating the TV providers the way they deserve to be? This isn't really an issue of fair use, because we all know that the actual money you pay to bring the content into your home does not alone pay for the content. Watching the ads (and the predetermined scheduling is important to the TV providers, as they map their ads according to time and demographic) is part of your payment- fair use does not permit you to skip the part of the payment that you dislike.
visit the hwky website for a lyrical genius infusion.
I think the tivo is cool, but I really dilike devices which require subscription services... seems like we should demand simplicity and independence.
As long as these companies continue to make devices that connect to central servers and require the company to be involved in my life beyond the purchase, then the devices will continue to be fundamentally flawed in my view and I will have trouble defending them against even these frivilous law suites.
Computers should empower people not subjugate them.
The content industries (Movies, Music, and TV) are being turned upside down right now by technology. Instead of changing their business models to correspond and innovate with Value-added products and services, they have chosen to try to keep their old business models by suing the pants off anything that has the potential to hurt their current standings. That's how hollywood works - it is a Big Boys club turning into the Big Babies club as they go whining to the courts about copyright infringement and how such-and-such device is going to hurt their bottom line. They need to start innovating - think, TV stations could setup large storage devices of their of their own so consumers could download programs not otherwise available via cable directly to their PVR for a small fee (pay for what you watch, not for everything on every channel). Eventually, DirectTV and cable companies won't even be in the picture - just a big fat pipe to the Internet in every home. I don't know exactly how it is going to turn out, but I know that the content companies business models are going to have to change, eventually. You can't just make everything illegal. Start dealing with the future and stop whining about the present.
Interesting phrasing here. It seems to imply that recording the entire thing with commercials is OK, but skipping commercials violates copyright.
That in turn would mean that it's not just the show - it's the entire presentation of the show, with each specific commercial at that point, that is the entire "show". I think Domino's would be rather surprised, though, to find their copyright was swallowed up by Ally McBeal's production company.
One also has to wonder if this means that when a local tv station (Hi, Global!) replaces the national ads with their own, are they committing copyright infringement by making a derivative work?
(yes, I know it's taking it to an absurd conclusion)
"What difference does it make how I do it?" Wood said. "The dilemma is, the technology is turning the business model upside down. But that doesn't mean it's copyright infringement."
The media companies only care about forcing you to watch what they want, when they want, how they want. Just as with aural media companies and MP3s, the visual media companies are missing the boat. They're too locked into the current business model to want to change.
The record companies blew it with MP3s. Most people I know used Napster/Morpheus/Bear Share to find music that they either couldn't get in their own contry, or were previously unaware of (found through a keyword search). This, in turn, would lead to more music sales. The record companies panicked. They got scared and attempted to close off what could have been a promising new business channel.
Now it's the turn of the tv/film studios to resist change. I have a TiVo. I love my TiVo. When a friend sees a cool show, he tells me about it, and I tell my TiVo to look for the repeat. This is convenient for me, and what the studios are missing is that I JUST WATCHED MORE TV THAN I NORMALLY WOULD HAVE. Isn't that what they want as an end result? You'd think so.
There is no such thing as new media, only new ways to consume it. Apparently, we're not allowed to choose how we do it...
Look, the article only mentioned commercials once, and in passing. Thats not the issue here. I mean, what the hell does Universal care which commercials you are watching? They want the revenue from the movies and shows - that includes VCR, DVD and royalties from pay networks.
What they're more worried about is the fact that you can record and store digital quality shows and movies. That means, that they think they will lose revenue from all the folks who would normally buy the Simpson's DVD, but instead catalog all the episodes on a hard drive somewhere.
What they don't realize is that people are not likely to do this nearly as much as they think. Movies often come out on DVD before they come out on pay TV, I believe that the benefits of the DVD far outweight the value of taking the movie from HBO and storing it somwhere on a disk. I also believe that most people who would buy a Simpsons DVD set would still buy one, owing to the fact that syndicated episodes are cut for time. In short, people who normally would buy these DVDs would still do so, regardless of TiVo.
Yes, these lawsuits are useless, and generally a waste of time. But ever since the beginning of time, the industry has been unable to keep up with technology - and running to the courts has always been the great equalizer.
Do you have Linux and a DotPal? Click here now!
Sure, you can build a custom PVR system, but where are you going to get the data from to run it?
My Tivo's value is in the service, not in the device.
You can't grep a dead tree.
-- A video capture card + a PC + software = a PVR. This has already been done, though primitively. You can outlaw anything you want, but you can't stop everyone (and it only takes one) from capturing NTSC/PAL content.
-- PVR users aren't generally intellectual property Robin Hoods intent on stealing from you. They just want to watch TV, and help build mindshare for your programs. If you push them underground, though, expect to see commercial free versions of your programs on P2P networks.
-- Your copy protected HDTV, D-VHS, "rights managed" media, etc. will fail in the marketplace. Should you purchase legislation to mandate them, people will simply turn elsewhere for entertainment.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
The networks will continue to generate revenue through advertising by ramping up product placement within the shows.
It already takes place to a large extent (watch the 'entertainment' shows- they are infomercials for the entertainment industry)
This type of advertising is much more subtle and probably more effective anyway.
.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Don't count the current advertiser-supported TV paradigm out yet. Commercials will still persist in live feeds like news and sports. The standard commercial in entertainment may be a dying breed, but there's plenty of other opportunities that are much harder to avoid. Watermarks, pop-ups, and on-screen banners could become more prevalent. Most significantly, product placement will surge. New methods even allow you to digitally insert products where they weren't before. Advertising will never go away completely - it'll just get more insidious and harder to avoid.
I for one don't think that a commercial-free future in which all TV either costs money (via pay-per-view, channel subscription, and show subscription) or is publicly/privately supported is such a bad thing. There's the obvious lack of commercials (yay). The direct relationship between content producer and consumer will allow more flexible dynamics of how much money will go into making a show or channel, and how much it will cost, even more flexible than theatrical films. Consumers will be much more picky about how much they're willing to spend and where they do, forcing quality to rise and less shows to be made. If channel subscription models prevail, a relative few networks will dominate with exclusive, tailored content, and syndication will boom amongst the players to reach as wide an audience as possible with lesser shows. Show formats, freed from the restraints of commercial breaks and standard lengths, will diverge. The big media players will force expensive package deals on the consumer rather than cheap individual channels... oh wait. They already do that.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
they should make a deal with them and/or change their business model. They could put programming information into their video signal (like in teletext and vps) and using those make them include commercials when recording. Since there are virtually no privacy laws in the US, they could get back detailed information about the viewing audience. Or they could find another more innovative way to make money with their material. But no, they have to throw away their money to lawyers. In the end, all the attempts to prevent people from copying something which can be heard or seen anyway, will waste more and more money.
The only way to protect their copyrighted material is to implant chips into the viewers brain, and nobody wants that. If you give people a convenient and fair way to pay for the things they like, you just might make some money, but if your only goal is to suck every possible cent out of them with low grade cheap entertainment people will always find other ways to get what they want.
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
The argument they give here has absolutely no merit, as it is still possible, without a PVR, to look at the local listings and program your VCR to tape all of them for you. Better still, you can just make sure you're home to watch them live. There's nothing stopping you from doing that...in fact, maybe they shouldn't show anything on TV, because if you see it for free on TV, you won't buy it when it comes out on video. What will they argue next? TV Guide shouldn't be published, because then you'll know the shows are on, then you'll watch them, which will "cause substantial harm to the market" for the DVDs.
I'm interested to see what happens, but I have a hard time believing that the case won't be thrown out almost immediately.
They're putting dimes in the hole in my head to see the change in me.
Let's face it, network programming is just there to attact people to watch commercials. Pure and simple. Yes you can record stuff on the VCR and skip past the commercials but it is a pain in the butt and most people don't do it. Networks were intially worried but it didn't turn into much of a problem for them.
PVR's make it easier and more convenient. More people will skip the commercials. I think they really do have a reason to worry now. PVR's seem to modify the way that people watch TV in a way that the VCR's never have.
You can sit down for the evening and watch your programs 30 minutes delayed and easily skip through the commercials. With a VCR you had to wait until everything was finished recording before you watched it.
As these things become more common prices will drop and they will be connected to every TV in the house. It won't be long before you will be able to pick one up at WalMart for $100.
If this happens I wouldn't feel to secure if I made my living trying to get people to watch commercials.
I used to work at a shopping mall where you couldn't take pictures. If you had a camera visible, security would bar entrance to you. If you whipped one out later and started snapping shots, the security people would toss you out. Very weird.
Wrong, yourself. You don't have the right to free television just because the airwaves are public any more than you have a right to a free vehicle because the government supports the highway system. The networks broadcast to everyone without charging for the signal itself (think encrypted signal like premium cable for contrast). In exchange, they air advertisements to pay for their costs. This is why they feel so threatened by devices like TiVo and Replay.
Virg
If digital technology is adopted instead of being fought tooth and nail, I think we will see that the market *INCREASES*. Who wants to buy full-blown cable to only watch a few shows? I would certainly pay-per-tv-show if I could. But I can't. So I don't (or maybe I just figure I'll download the content instead), and they lose money.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I think somebody mentioned down below that these corporations need to evolve. It's time to find other sources of revenue. If their only salable "product" is airtime for advertisements, they're in real trouble. Every business that I know that stuck with a single product has gone down the tubes.
These are the same folks who anticipate using the free digital channels they were given to provide revenue by forgoing HDTV in many cases, and using the additional space for revenue data type services.
But the 'illegal' to copy using keywords like titles, authors... it sound more like a slap suit than copyright suit, and someone should slap back. I'd love to see them site case law on that one. It'd be like the publishers going back to the Supremes and asking to revisit the Xerox case because instead of copying a page at a copier, one can now use search engines by keyword to get that page you want for your book report or thesis and then print it on the printer. That's an exact analogy to the theory they're using.
I'd say if we ever go back to the stone age, it won't be through nuclear war as was once thought, but it'll be due to the RIAA, MPAA, Valenti (who's from that age anyway). This is all about control, and trying to get back what they lost in the Betamax case. They should get censured for filing a frivilous suit on that keyword thing, and then go from there. (standard IANAL disclaimer. I actually was prelaw, but decided early after meeting some real jerks, it wasn't for me. I see many are still practicing.)
"The dilemma is, the technology is turning the business model upside down"
:(
That last line says it all. Much like the music industry, the business model is CHANGING. Instead of trying to compete head on to this change, the existing monopolies are reacting by suing their new competition out of existence. It's unfortunate that our legal system is helping them do that. It'd be nice to see free competition, instead of who ever is the biggest (old) company that's bought the most politicians wins.
PVR's have changed the way I watch TV. I'm actually watching MORE, because there's always something *I* like on. I find it very frustrating that the big monopolies are going to end up crushing this new way of watching TV (For now.. I"m sure they'll come up with their own after all the competition has been killed off by the lawyers).
"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 ... it will cause substantial harm to the market for prerecorded DVD, videocassette and other copies of those episodes and films," the lawsuit states."
Ok, so I'm supposed to care about harm to their markets? What's better.. the government is supposed to care?! This seems like a whine to me, rather than a legitimate grievance.
As Ian Clarke once said [paraphrasing].. "If you make money by selling water in the dessert, and it starts to rain... it's time to find some other way to make money."
Well folks.. it's started to rain, and the studios are turning to the government to supply the umbrellas.
Let them get wet, I say!
"To make a mistake is only human; to persist in a mistake is idiotic." Cicero
Well, there's paying, and then there's paying. If you watch three hours of commercial television, you are seeing about two hours of content and paying for it by watching one hour of advertising. But how many people really stop to think just how much of their time they are giving up to the advertisers? I have my "guilty pleasures" programs, and I have bought back an hour on Tuesday nights by timeshifting and skipping the commercials.
As to charging the cable and satellite providers, well they already do. A couple of years back Disney/ABC got into a pissing contest with Time Warner (houston market at least). It seems Disney wanted Time Warner to carry Disney's answer to the Cartoon Network, and was withholding rights to the regular ABC programming as a bargaining chit. Both "channels" are considered "free (advertiser supported) TV". TW stopped carrying ABC for a brief period of time and all was eventually worked out, but somebody pays for it - and my basic cable bill keeps getting raised without any change in programming that I can see. So it looks like I'm paying with cash as well.
Personally, I think that going to Video On Demand is the answer the studios/networks need. Stop selling audiences to advertisers and start selling entertainment to audiences. Of course, if I pay a dollar (I figure that would be a good fee) for a forty minute (1 hour less commercials) program, then I should be able to record it and do anything else I like with it except those actions which would prevent the shows copyright holder from selling it to other people (like sharing it with 20 million close personal friends via a P2P networks)
Of course, this is a whole new business model for the studios and they just don't adapt well. Let's see, using my example, I'd pay fifty cents for an episode of Seinfeld - how many people would it take to get the 5 million per episode that Jerry turned down?
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
"If a ReplayTV customer can simply type 'The X-Files'...and have every episode of 'The X-Files'...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,"
What drek! ok, the replaytv 4000 can hold up to 320 hours at it's worst quality. If you recorded at the best ratio, you'd get something like 55 hours. The X-files has (roughly)191 episodes. Anyone see a problem here? They're not going to be recording every episode at the best quality if they plan to record anything else and their life is going to be dedicated to saving to the external hard drive....
I'm sorry but I have better things to do with my time. My suggestion to the network exec is to price the x-file DVDs in a range where it's not worth the bother of saving them to external sources.
Plus the network exec never seems to mention my favorite part....being able to get that rare one that is never played except at late night or is never availible at the store. As a fan, I'm willing to fork over the dough to get a good, clean legal copy of the stuff I love (dvd/cd/whatever.) However, it's hard to see the harm when the man isn't releasing the goods any more.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
Since the birth of copyright law. Remember, the whole thing started as a way to gaurantee business for publishers, so that they could safely invest the money to support the original work.
Actually, the first copyright laws came as a response to the invention of the first digital copying technology -- Movable type. Before movable type, there was no such thing as a professional writer. Writing was something that you did with pen and ink, and if you were very lucky, some scribe somewhere might painstakingly hand-copy your work, and a second copy would exist. The original purpose of copyright was censorship. In exchange for submitting to censorship by the crown, publishers were given a monopoly over printing. They had the right to seek out and destroy unlicensed printing presses and books. Only when copyright was on the verge of being abolished, due to publisher excesses, was it reinvented as an "author's benefit."
This isn't about our rights, it's about theirs. Fair use is a specific and limited exception to their right to control their copyrighted material; in a sense, it's a 'privilege' granted to us by the courts.
Absolutely wrong, and a dangerous meme. Fair use, far from being an arbitrarily created "privilege", is actually a consequence of the First Amendment. Remember that Exclusive Rights clause is part of the original Constitution. It authorizes Congress to grant speech monopolies. A copyright is really the right to exclude others from repeating or building upon your speech. One of the basic principles of law is that if a newly passed law conflicts with a previous law, then the new law supercedes the old. The First Amendment bans Congress from passing any laws abridging speech. After the passage of the Bill of Rights, the courts had to wrestle with the question of whether the First Amendment prohibition against speech control superceeded Congress' authority to grant copyrights. The doctrine of Fair Use was invented to save copyright in the face of the First Amendment. Fair use is an attempt to separate the commercial aspects of speech from the non-commercial aspects. Fair use was only codified into copyright law in 1976. It is not a "privilege" -- it is part of the First Amendment right of freedom of speech.
Why would an advertiser spend huge sums to place an ad during the 20h00 run of a prime time show if people with PVRs are just as likely to watch an off-hours run of the same show? For example, UPN runs "Enterprise" as a prime time slot on Wednesday, and in a non-prime slot Sunday night. If an advertiser knows that people are just as likely to watch the Sunday transmission as the Wednesday, why would they pay the premium fees for the Wednesday prime time run?
PVRs also mean a lot of the "filler" shows that run before and after their big hits don't get any audience, because they aren't scheduled in the PVRs. Suddenly their advertising fees are tied to the popularity of a show, not the time slot, and that means they have to invest a lot more effort into producing something people want to see for it's own sake.
Given the quantity of drek on the airwaves, it's no wonder they're running scared. How dare the audience demand quality shows!
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Now a weird thing is that some of this stuff is already available.
I'm an American living in Spain and I recently bought box sets of the first four "Friends" seasons on DVD to watch with my wife. They were just sitting there in the DVD section of a big department store here. (Subtitles and various soundtracks make DVDs perfect viewing for bilingual couples like us... and hell, let's watch tonight's episode in Polish!)
It seems that you can't get these box sets in the U.S., only here in Europe. You can, however, go to Amazon.co.uk and see that all of the seasons up to #8 are available (a little net research and I found out that season #9 is being aired now in the U.S. and that Rachael is pregnant. Oh no! I've been out of the country too long!).
Who knows if they'll ever sell these DVDs in the U.S. It basically seems that Warner Bros. is relying on country codes to keep U.S. viewers from getting all of the shows on DVD, thus forcing you to watch the repeats at 7 p.m. on channel 25 or whatever your local UHF/Cable licensee is... I guess they don't do that sort of thing here (cable not existing here in Spain) so they just sell the DVDs.
Random info: The weird thing about these box-set DVDs is that they are double-sided and only contain 3 episodes per side except for the last which contains 4 episodes on one side (for a total of 25 episodes per season). My best guess is that all the soundtracks and subtitles bloat the shows so they have to do this to fit it all in.
-Russ
Me
Big Media is looking at this all wrong and they really stand to gain the most if they could stop preaching the mantra of the traditional TV format. I think as /. commentary proves there are a million ways to skin this cat. You could sell on a per season/per show basis, you could provide promotional tie-ins, shorten commercial breaks, pay-per-view, etc. But these all smack of TV v2.0. Not really a TV rethink.
I actually think that the future of television could be a producer-delivery-storage system. Television studios produce shows, a delivery network delivers those shows to a PVR and the user gets them in their INBOX every week like a magazine. Essentially like a magazine. The money could be made by subscription, and a subscription ensures access to back issues, special commentary, a nice fanzine, no commercials, guarantee of quality and on-time delivery, special subscriber only shows. You know, perks for being a subscriber.
I see the major stumbling blocks, other than adoption, as the corporate need to not standardize the format and make stupid alliances with one company and not the other. It should be possible for any PVR to play in this arena. Also a central location to manage your accounts and collection would be cool to. Then they could move to making sure their shows would play on 3G devices.
People will no longer beholden to the dross that any single station presents. Content will solely be profitable if it is worthwhile content.
Ideas contained herein are released under a GPL license.
How soon can we expect signing EULAs for cable service that commits us to watching the commercials in return for the 'agreed upon entertainment'?
"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.
It's a stupid argument, anyways. I've got a ReplayTV 4000 which stores 80 hours at "standard"--which is good enough for time shifting, but the image is pretty grainy and not at all the quality of a DVD recording. If I wanted to store every episode of the X-Files on my ReplayTV, I could only store 20 episodes at high (near DVD) quality.
Which means for just $1,000 I have a piece of hardware which stores what I could buy for $99 at Amazon.com--rendering my ReplayTV unusable (as I'm using all my disk space to store 20 X-File episodes) in the process. How stupid is that?
Furthermore, the argument is incredibly dumb, given the fact that the studios refuse to sell me the damned DVDs of my favorite programs anyways! I love Stargate SG1--but can't they be bothered to release anything but the first season on disk (which I bought, dispite owning a ReplayTV)? Noooo....
Come on! I've got $400 burning a hole in my pocket, and the studios can't be bothered to put down the episodes to DVD for Region 1 (though the episodes for Seasons 2 through 4 are available for Region 2)...
The whole management process at these various entertainment companies stinks to high heaven. Using a lawsuit to protect a market they don't even want to sell into in the first place by making life more inconvenient for me is rediculous.