SonicBlue Ordered to Spy on ReplayTV Viewers

An Anonymous Coward writes: "Got outrage? According to a story on SiliconValley.com, a federal magistrate has ordered SonicBlue to track ReplayTV users' every click to see what they're watching, recording, skipping (commercials) and e-mailing to friends. The info is to be given to the entertainment industry control freaks who are suing SonicBlue for allegedly abetting copyright violations."

Comments

In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

According to a story on SiliconValley.com, a federal magistrate has ordered SonicBlue to track ReplayTV users' every click to see what they're watching, recording, skipping (commercials) and e-mailing to friends

In other news, a federal magistrate has been ordered by ReplayTV users to kiss their collective ass.

Just let the bastards tax us!

[NewtonsLaw]

It strikes me that the whole music/movie piracy issue could be solved in one fell swoop if the industries involved simply lobbied government to add another 2% onto income taxes and then give the music away for free.

Sony, BMG and the others could then set up "free download" sites where Net surfers could drop in and grab as much music as they wanted, absolutely without further charge.

The huge revenues thus generated would be paid back to the recording/music industries and apportioned according to the number of downloads of each album/movie.

Likewise, some of the money would be aportioned to video libraries to compensate them for the losses they'd suffer.

Hey, it's a win-win-win situation.

The big companies get massive wads of cash. They can then pay the artists. Copy-protection is no longer an issue. Plus, you could then afford to listen to (and perhaps grow to like) a much wider range of music/movies.

Even though I'm just kidding, I suspect that it's only a matter of time before someone seriously suggests such a plan.

Just look at the lame technology/IP bills proposed already!

Re:Just let the bastards tax us!

[Dr. Awktagon]

Sure, a good idea, music and art are public goods, so lets have the public pay for it.

So. 2% of income you say? Well I think it should be 3%. No actually, 5% sounds pretty fair. I mean, think about all that music that's been stolen over the years. Billions of dollars lost, thousands of musicians died of starvation. Okay, you got me, I made the last one up completely. But then again I'm in the entertainment business, we make stuff up for a living.

And of course that will have to be increased by 1/2% per year. For inflation, DUH! What? I don't know what 95 times 2 is, why do you ask?

And of course we'll have to figure out the best way to distribute the funds to the artists. I say we go by top-40 radio airplay. We can just review everybody's contract and be good to go.... No I've never heard of "Independent Artists" is that the new group on Arista? Eh? You mean there are musicians who don't have record deals with us? Well, fuck 'em, they can get their own percentage, we got ours already.

This tax sounds like a good plan to me!!

Sincerely,

Record Company Executive

Its Just wrong...

[Quicksilver31337]

How anal retentive can these freaks get, its becomming more and more impossible not to give out your personal information, now they wanna know what people are watching...rewinding....then watching again....then rewinding...then watching again. HOW STUPID ARE THEY, I can save them the trouble and tell them right now. ITS PORN!!!!!!!

Heisenberg-esque, don't you think?

[Dr. Awktagon]

So, now a few geeks know that they're being watched more carefully. They can tell other geeks, who will make a fuss, and maybe even the general public will hear about it. Maybe you have to do some protesting or set yourself on fire or something.

Then, everyone who gives a toss will modify their behavior (Skip every commercial or watch only one show over and over. Or set up a robot arm to push the skip button once a second. Get creative.)

Then, when SonicBlue goes back to the court, they can say that the data are obviously flawed, because the rats knew they were being watched and changed their behavior.

SonicBlue must've been keeping data previous to this, anyway, they could compare and prove the behavior changed soon after the ruling.

Also, anybody know how this machine would store all this data? I can't imagine it streams it off to HQ everytime you push a button. Sounds like good hack possibilities to me. "Your honor, viewer #23489A somehow managed to skip 10,000,000 commercials last weekend. I think if you just arrest him the TV industry will be good to go."

Re:a major dilema

[soulsteal]

Ok I'm stuck, do I avoid Sonic Blue's PVR's because it will invade my privacy, or do I buy PVR from Sonic Blue, because they are as outraged about this as I am. I suppose I could record all kinds of crap on it too, that would at least subvert their data.

What to do is easy.... get 3 SonicBlue PVR's. Set them ALL to tape the Golden Girls everytime it comes on Lifetime, Law & Order everytime it comes on A&E, and grab as much Cinemax softcore porn as possible. Make sure to have the three PVR's just randomly grabbing so that the monitors catch your "unique viewing habit."

Lobotomy Time

[huntdwumpus]

I'm sorry folks, your brains are now property of Disney. How many images of Mickey Mouse have you illegally recorded in your memory? How many movies, books and songs? All the knowledge and experiences in your memory are stolen intellectual property. Confess now, and we'll offer you a special discount rate to license your brain back for limited periods of regulated thought.

Mess with their stats!

[shuane]

Here's what the users should do:

• Pause during ads, rewind over a particularly annoying one and run it through several times.
• Record programmes and then do not watch them.
• Record programmes and watch them entirely in fast-forward.
• Record infomercials and leave them running while you go out.
• Generally do anything you can to skew the statistics (people seem to really like infomercials, perhaps we here at OmniCorp should bring out an infomercial-only channel?)

Re:Redundant

[Em Emalb]

Hey mods,

thanks for clarifying that my post was redundant...hopefully the title helped :^)
a little humor, don't get too excited!

now, it would be ironic if this post here gets modded as off-topic. that would make my day.

yours,
Em Emalb

Re:Cable TV Privacy Act of 1984

[peddrenth]

the court seems to be exceeding its authority here, and should issue wiretap or search warrants for each subscriber it wants SonicBlue to monitor.

I believe that american courts can already do that, by using the "John Doe 1" through to "John Doe 112,300" naming convention.

Makes you wonder how useful it would be to name yourself John Doe. Would utter confusion at the courtroom suffice, or would you be able to cause a divide-by-0 error on your speeding tickets?