Slashdot Mirror
Studios Forcing ReplayTV to Collect Viewing Info
superposed writes "The San Francisco Chronicle has articles here and here about an ongoing court battle between ReplayTV and several major media organizations. A federal judge has required SonicBlue, makers of ReplayTV, to begin collecting data on how customers use the systems to swap shows and skip commercials, and hand the information over to the studios so they can make a case that copyrights are being infringed. SonicBlue is appealing the ruling, saying that collecting the data would violate their privacy policy. " It seems strange to me how
much legal hoopla SonicBlue has been dragged through considering how many of
these things they've actually sold. Update: 05/05 14:22 GMT by M : See the previous story as well.
Now everyone will know I watch Powerpuff girls.
Instead of making a case of their own, the "content-industry" has conveniently gotten the judge to order the other party to make their case for them.
Sheer genius, but also very depressing. Our legal system is more screwed up than people think. Way more...
Who did what now?
The content industry sues..and sues, and sues. Rather than working things out with the developers, they bankrupt them with legal fees. Then they step in, buy the company for cents on the dollar, and either kill it, or castrate it to where it does nothing like it was orginally designed to do.
Could someone reply to this and answer a question I have, which none of these articles has answered? Why SonicBlue, and not Tivo? What's the difference between these two PVRs that lets Tivo get off scott free?
I can't afford either, but from all I've read, they're the same thing: digital VCRs. Maybe ReplayTV should have copied Tivo.
ATTN SonicBlue:
Hand the media companies what they want. With one catch, however. Send them the files in Claris Works 1.0 on 600 floppies. Don't forget to accidently catch a virus that just happens to latch itself onto Claris Works files.
qslack.com
You must be really new to Linux.
"The studios" have, of course, decided in advance that SonicBlue is a criminal enterprise, and that the Replay is a tool of the devil. Now, SonicBlue is being compelled to help "the studios" prove their pre-selected conclusion.
Not only guilty until proven innocent, but they have to help win their own conviction.
Sucks.
To quote Chuck D, "Fuck Hollywood"
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Isn't there something in the legal system that says a defendant may not be forced to testify against himself? It sounds like that is what's going on here.
How many they've sold is irrelevant. The studio's know that this kind of thing will probably be popular someday, so now is the best time to fight it. Why wait until lots of consumers have them and like them? They're expensive and rare right now, so they're going to have an easier job ahead of them. I have a replayTV and I like it better than TiVo....my only complaint is that the menus are too sluggish when you're scrolling through or trying to bring a different one up, but I suspect that has been improved since my model is over a year old now.
Doesn't this fall under the 5th Amendment somehow? They should have the right to avoid incriminating themselves. The burden of proof is on the suing party to show their side as being true. Or is corporate America somehow immune/unbefitting of the constitutional laws? They are an entity, too, composed of real people, whether you like them or not.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
The 5th Amendment applies only to criminal cases, not civil cases. The court may force any potential witness to testify in a civil case, regardless of whether or not it would incriminate the witness.
Of course this is a violation of the 5th Amendment. My question is, why aren't SonicBlue's lawyers screaming bloody murder about this to the press?? The average American is going to be much more outraged by the fact that a judge is forcing this company to testify against itself than that the company has to collect statistics. I know I certainly am.
How about if all the companies that make guns are required to add cameras to their weapons so that the courts can see if they illegally shoot someone.
As a ReplayTV 4000 owner and operator of Planet Replay a content 'borrowing' site, Im appalled by all of this. But one has to wonder - SB made sharing only possible through the use of unique internet IDs and their servers to translate and initiate the P2P. If the P2P didn't require their server, there would not be any way for them to track what we do as easily as they can now.
I'm glad SB is not just rolling over though. Just like Diamond Rio and the MP3 player suit, the Digital PVR suit needs to hit courts and law set, good or bad. People keep referring back to the Sony timeshifting case, but the problem list that was analog, this is digital. It needs to go to court and get settled, but having SB collect evidence for the plantiffs is just ridiculus.
People think Microsoft is the answer. Microsoft is just the question, "No" is the answer.
This was posted a few days ago, IANAL but then as now it seems like the main thing replay may have going for them is that they have to keep a unique id with the data from each user, and that id stays with the data so this is not true anonymous data collection.
"Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform." -- Mark Twain
Taco, I never knew.
Writers imply. Readers infer.
The pop-up appearing from the slashdot site reads:
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
The popup on the slashdot site reads "video surveillance everywhere! Makes your home safe and secure!" Irony of ironies. There is an iron law of beaurocracy: if it is technological feasible to demand data about something, they always will. Maybe someone will invent an intermediate device to cloak this data?
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
How will the huge assed companies try to block us out of that one? Remote remote control control? (Think it out, it makes sense)
Don't get so upset when they try to make those little boxes make you watch the commercials, because commercialless tv is only a click away.
But on the subject of commercial skipping I would point very strongly toward the better Panasonic VCRs and similar models that have automatic skipping. My techno savy 70 year mother got the first one in my circle of contacts. Now I have influenced several people to go that way. A simple demonstration is all that it takes. The only person that did not get a Panasonic after I showed them the feature in action was buying a low end deck for his toddler.
We have been working on watching Seinfeld for once and for all -- All episodes in order, as collected by Tivo, dubbed to VHS for additional buffer space. The broadcasts are frequently out of episode order. The Panasonic VCR is virtually 100% effective at catching the commercials with the only annoyance being about 50% of the time it does not detect the final short segment of the program as being non-commercial content.
Also Panasonic VCRs have about the best rating for reliability in Consumer Reports.
All my previous sigs now look like this one, I wish they were permanetly recorded when used.
1. TiVo by default does not remove commercials. You either have to hit your fast foward button, or enable the 30sec skip backdoor code. And either way you still have to be there to do it. The new ReplayTV units remove the commercials automatically so you don't even know they are there at all.
2. ReplayTV allows sharing of problams to other ReplayTV units (also to computers running a program to make the ReplayTV think the computer is another ReplayTV). Now, again, this isn't a big deal until you realize that I can get HBO and record Six Feet Under or Sopranos and now share them with people that don't pay for HBO. This would be in effect the same as buying a movie, and copying it for others that don't own the movie.
Also, TiVo does collect user data, but it's ANONYMOUS, it does not link you to your TiVo unit unless you call in for service and they half to (they have you key something in on the remote). You can also make a 5min phone call and be removed from this.
Free Mac Mini
I'm guessing the studios don't like the idea of this anymore than Internet content providers liked "framing" of their content inside others ads.
--H
i also use my vcr to skip commercials (fast forward) and
i also copy shows from my friend's vhs tapes.
how come they haven't sued vcr makers as well?
When they get all the data, are they going to be allowed to pick out the bits they want, or are they going to be forced through all the irrelevant mundane data that they're not interested in?
A federal court is requiring a private entity to invade the privacy of private citizens -- fascinating. I wonder how the Replay TV customers feel about their conduct being tracked at this degree of granularity. Is such even within the scope of ReplayTV's agreements with their customers?
It would be nice to get a class of consumers to intervene in that action, or to seek some sort of extraordinary write, perhaps a writ of prohibition to keep this court from doing to American citizens what no other branch of government can do.
U.S. District Court Magistrate Charles Eick told GA to create software within 60 days to monitor everything customers shoot at, everything they miss and any bullets they transmit through others.
MjM
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
People watch TV to be entertained, they don't watch it for banal adverts. The advertising industry can produce interesting and amusing commercials, as is witnessed by the various programs that show only funny adverts from around the world. Also, didn't TiVo stats show that during the last superbowl the ads were replayed more than the game (and here)? Its time the industry woke up, and stopped boring people.
It's been known for a long time that there is no such thing as privacy any more. From Carnivore, to traffic/red-light cams, to PVR companies being forced to hand over information to the media, what's left of our "privacy" is dwindling daily. The solution(s)?
1: Go live in a cave without any form of technology at all.
2: Live as a hermit in society today, only letting your electricity/gas bills track you.
3: Come to the conclusion that the only part of the world that is ours anymore is the few cubic centimeters inside your skull.
What's my answer? #3. Don't kid yourselves, you're only delaying the inevitable.
k_d
Live or die trying.
OK, I know, this is not a criminal case (and IANAL), but this seems incredibly obviously illegal for a judge to make this request.
This judge is asking Replay/Sonic to gather data that will be used against themselves in a civil action. This should be the primary defense instead of "it goes against our privacy policy" non-sense that any judge would just tell them "so, modify your policy and process my request."
Mailboxes are exploding! Why, you ask?
Attention people.
You do things because you can and want (desire) to
If the government controls what you want to do, they control what you can do.
If you are under the impression that death exists, and you fear it, you do anything to avoid it. (This is the same way pain operates. Naturally we strive to avoid negative emotion/pain.)
You allow yourself to fear death!
World authorities allowed, and still allow you to fear death!
In avoiding death you are forced to conform, if you fail to conform, you suffer mentally and physically. (Are world powers utilizing the natural survival instinct in a way that allows them to capitalize on the people?)
To "live" (avoid death) in this society you are forced to conform/slave away.
I'm here to help you realize/ understand that you will live no matter what! It is up to you people to open your hearts and minds. There is no such thing as death. The people I've dismissed from this reality are not at all dead.
Conforming to the boundaries, and restrictions imposed by the government only reduces the substance in your lives. When 1% of the nation controls 99% of the nations total wealth, is it a wonder why there are control problems?
The United States strives to provide freedom for their people. Do we really have personal freedom? I've lived here for many years, and I see much limitation. Does the definition of freedom include limitation? I've learned about the history of various civilizations in history, and I see more and more limitation. Do you people enjoy this trend of limitation? If not, change it!
As long as you are uninformed about death you will continue to say "how high", when the government tells you to "jump". As long as the government is uninformed about death they will continue tell you to "jump" Is the government uninformed about death, or are they pretending?
You have been missing how things are, for very long. I'm obtaining your attention in the only way I can. More info is on its way. More "attention getters' are on the way. If I could, I would change only one person, unfortunately the resources are not accessible. It seems killing a single famous person would get the same media attention as killing numerous un-famous humans. There is less risk of being detained, associated with dismissing certain people.
Sincerely,
Someone Who Cares
PS. More info. will be delivered to various locations around the country.
Just wondering, shouldn't right to privacy be a default value to respect of the consumers?
Meaning if a company wants to invade your privacy, they should be required to get your permission rather than you having to fight off every F*&Kin company that seems to assume they have the right to invade your privacy. Rather than the "if you don't respond, we then assume we can invade your privacy" it should be "if you don't respond and agree to invasion of your privacy then we legally can't invade your privacy"
This would certainly reduce alot of concern and stress to the people along with reducing the sales hype that uses "your privacy is our concern".
Wouldn't privacy interest be consistant with not responding?
Bell South called me the other day wanting to sell me some sort of new "privacy" service. I didn't listen to the complete sales pitch because by simple logic I shouldn't have to buy my privacy.
War on terror......which seems to have brought privacy issues to the limelight --- what could be more terrorizing than having to buy privacy?
sounds like buying protection from the mob...
Presumably, I could still manually record shows and share them, I just wouldn't get their automated listings. Correct?
Sounds like the Judge isn't familiar with the US constitution to me.
According the the fifth admendment, one does not have to provide information that may be used against them in a court of law.
How is it that this judge does not know this?
Have they ben following the MS anti-trust case to much?
Wait a minute, so the court has ordered them to collect information on customers user habits. This information is handed over to the studios, who in turn use the data to prove that ReplayTV, a product of Sonic Blue, is infringing on the copyright of the studios.
So, wouldn't this have the potential of allowing the studios to sue Sonic Blue in the end? As far as I know, you tell the police to investigate a crime, not the family of the victim.
I am Lord Snowbeam. Heed my call!
In the previous article on this, many suggestions were put forth to skew the results of the information gathered. Don't do any sharing outside your own personally owned devices. Record shows, then fast forward through them and watch the commercials only, and be sure to backup and watch the same 3 seconds of a paticular commercial several times. Fast forward through the whole show, then do it again, to the same show. Record shows you hate then delete them without watching at all. For shows you paticularly like, run them two or three times, don't fast forward or mute the commercials. If even 10% of the people who own one of these, does at least one of these actions, SonicBlue can probably get the data thrown out as unreliable, because the lab animals knew they were being watched and changed thier habits or at the very least, you can make shows you like appear more appealing, because they are being watched several times before being deleted.
"Our products just aren't engineered for security,"
-Brian Valentine,VP in charge of MS Windows Development
Joe Krause, a co-founder of a new Silicon Valley group, DigitalConsumer. org, said the media companies are "trying to make the argument that consumers have signed a contract to watch the television commercials." Remind anyone of a Slashdot article a few days ago? http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/05/02/055021 4&mode=thread ("Turner CEO: "PVR Users Are Thieves")
The Supreme Court already decided in the Betamax case that it doesn't MATTER if video recorders can be used for infringement, because they can ALSO be used for NON-INFRINGING uses as well Didn't the Supreme Court already decide this case with Betamax? Why is this clueless judge even allowing this to move forward? Do they (the content providers) have something on him? Seems to me that the only difference between this and a VCR is the storage medium involved (a disk platter instead of tape).
Of course everyone screams about this without reading up on it. The judge is requiring SB to report the content viewing habits of users of the 4000 series Replay box. The problem with it is the automagic ability to skip over commercials. This always pisses off the TV industry because they can't charge X amount of dollars per commercial slot at certain times if the advertisers can show somehow that the network's audience numbers are too high. The judge is requiring SB to provide statistics on commercial skippingh abits of users in order to decide whether their ReplayTV box actually screws the television networks over as they claim. The home recording cases in the 80s allowed people to use VCRs to record stuff and watch it later (called time shfting) because the commercials were preserved. A recorder that automagically removes commercials doesn't fall under the ruling of those cases.
The retarded part of the whole thing is the TV networks conception that not watching commercials is somehow evil. They don't get money from me watching a McDonalds commercial (even though that is how they charge advertisers), they get money from me buying a Big Mac and a Coke. The only reason they're going after PVRs is because they fuck up their audience statistics. If a show has a specific rating they can assume a certain number of people are watching and charge advertisers accordingly. All an advertisers has to do in negotiations is whip out a paper that says there are a million ReplayTV and not have to pay the netwok as much money as they are charging. It's greed on two fronts screwing over ReplayTV users.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Tune your Replay/Sonic Blue to the Teletubbies when you're not watching. Cut your TV off, and let the commericals come through...When they raise their advertising rates to Superbowl levels, advertisers will quit paying, and Teletubbies will be canceled. Falwell will be elated, and he'll shut up. This way we get rid of two of the scourges of society.
If all of the /.ers who are upset about this war the media is waging against our freedoms aren't contacting their senators and congressman about this, then you are conceeding victory. Tell your representatives that you don't want to see them accepting money from the media. Tell them that a vote for the media is A VOTE AGAINST THE PEOPLE. Contact them once a week. We must start to wage total war! Get your friends and family involved. Our rallying cry should be "Fuck Mickey!!!!!"
step 1: gather data
step 2: apply trivial content protection
step 3: hand over encryted content
step 4: require subscription service to view data at $0.75/user's info (fees would be on a per-lawyer basis...sharing of the data would be expressly prohibited).
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
Isn't Teletubbies a PBS show?
yes, big media are bastards.
but stop fooling yourselves with a lot of self
righteous bs.
it's one thing for someone to pull the wool over
your eyes.
it's quite another to do it yourself.
there is a certain amount of slack that the System
can tolerate.
so copying stuff with cassettes because of the
time and effort limited the amount of it that was
done.
the riaa bitched about it sure, but they could
live with it.
But as annoying as commercials are, the network
execs are right that if a significant % of people
gain the ability to skip through them it will
undermine commercial tv.
at least with a vcr you still see the product
logo as you fast forward thru.
commercial tv comes with commercials.
When a Draconian 1984 nightmare world is thrust
upon us I will blame the Geeks for provoking the
powers that be into overreacting.
Well, I guess the entertainment industry will know what the rest of the world already does--people don't like commercials, and given the chance, they won't watch them. I wouldn't, but as a college student I can't exactly afford ReplayTV.
I just wish we had ONE prosecutor with the guts to file a RICO suit against the xxAA. Or file barratry charges, or something!
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I'm worried about this whole monitoring thing, especially in light of the earlier comment by the CEO of Turner Broadcasting to the effect that people who don't watch commercials are stealing programming. If the content industry wins this one against Sonic Blue, what's next? Will some astute judge order webcams installed in our homes to make sure we don't skip out to the bathroom during the commercials? Will our telephones have embedded anti-content-theft software that deactivates them during commercials, lest our attention be illegally diverted by conversation with real humans?
Too bad the Fifth Amendment only applies to individuals. Even though corporations are persons in the eyes of the law they are not protected under the Fifth Amendment because it only covers natural persons. Thus ReplayTV can be compelled to produce incriminating evidence during the discovery process.
Actually the Supreme Court gave corporations access to protections under the constitution why back in the 1800s. This is why the FCC cannot ban corporate advertising - access to free speech.
An exagerated example would be if a corporation wanted to advertise crack cocaine on tv. Provided a network would take the advertisement, there would be nothing the FCC could do about it. Law enforement departments would grumble loudly about it and possibly investigate the company, but the advertisement could not be banned by any government agency.
Tivo and ReplayTV both record everything onto tape, commercials and all. Unlike Tivo, however, ReplayTV can be set to Skip Commercials during playback using "complex formulas that mark where each commercial begins and ends", for success rates of " 96% in lab tests and 70 to 90 percent realistically. " (I was just researching both of these products two days ago and remember most of this but not where I remember it from.)
ReplayTV apparently thought that because they record commercials onto the tape, and give the user an option to view commercials, that it would be okay. Why exactly? Because there are VCR's that auto-fast forward past commercials (or so I hear) and the VCR companies aren't being sued! So ReplayTV was thinking, if it's okay for VCR's to do it, we will do it too : record everything on to tape, but skip by commercials during playback! Of course, the big difference here is that ReplayTV skips by commercials instantaneously, because it's digital and has no tape to wind through. So that's really scaring the TV companies... some of which both own channels and movie companies AND THOSE SAME VCRS THAT HAVE THEIR OWN COMMERCIAL SKIP!
It would be funny if ReplayTV or the court decides to put the VCR companies into the same boat by making its commercial skip feature non-instantaneous---have the user watch the commercials quickly go by like you would with a VCR anti skip. THEN the companies cant do anything because the end result is the same!!
HAHAHA!
~I forgot my username/password,
me
When Napster was going down the tubes, as a news reporter in Nashville, TN, I did a piece on the company that was propped up by the labels and nailing Napster.
Napster was required by law to send all of the relevent material to the company that was handling the lawsuit, which I can't name right now, I don't think they exsist anymore, I might be mistaken.
SO THEY DID. IN HARD COPY.
Napster mailed long, old dot matrix printouts to the office in reams that (I kid you not) were at least three and a half feet tall.
Moral of the story... they complied with the company. And the company couldn't afford to compile all of the infringers by hand but instead tried to have a chilling effect on Napster by getting a few of them scared.
So my suggestion would be paper.
Besides, I cannot believe that this is even happening. This is extremely "Farenheit 451" in the way that the television companies are trying to legislate the way we watch television that they supposedly give away for free.
They ought to be profiting from providing scheduling information/tables, hardware sales, Jabber/XML connectivity hooks, etc. IOW, BUILD A BETTER PRODUCT and distinguish themselves from the pack, Tivo, ReplayTV. Or, keep playing the game of hoarding your own operating software and forever be kowtowing and or ducking the interruptions from the movie studio majors! No fast-forward, no mute, no networking, et cetera.
If they start recording information on what we watch and what we skip they will soon be telling their advertisers that we don't care about their commercials and we don't like our shows interrupted.
... just seems that the more information they gather the less likely it will be that they will sell advertising (for the prices they do).
Seriously, I've been thinking about this one for a while. There is only a chance that a viewer will stick around for the commercials. If they start showing customers (ie: Pepsi, McDonalds, yatta) that we flip or "skip" then the advertising customers will not want to pay up.
Advertising is a crap shoot. Anything from banner ads to newspaper ads to tv ads. Even if they (us) see them it doesn't mean they care.
I'm 110% for Nielson style ratings. I want the network to know I like Futurama before it's too late, I don't want Night Court to go out of syndication again...
But who knows. Most companies spend their advertising budget on "conceptual" ads that don't even tell the customer where to get the product. When was the last time you saw a Pepsi commercial which said: "Go to your local Rite-Aid for Pepsi this week!" ? Of course that is a bad example. Simply tell us where to get the product, how much and why it's better. Save Mrs. Spears for the porno (that we are waiting for).
Get your Unix fortune now!
Tivo is obviously headed in the same basic direction. There's a reason the new Series 2 units have USB ports (and unoffical support for USB->Ethernet dongles in the software).
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I think the point may be that TIVO *does* collect user selection and programming data.
:P
Yes, they do, anonymously. This order goes even beyond that, in that a unique ID will be assigned to each users data. Tivo is capable of doing that, agreed, but they do not and their privacy policy forbids them from doing that without the user's explicit consent...
This is a heavy blow to privacy, and probably illegal according to the 5th amendment. I sincerely hope they tell the judge to fuck off and take it to a higher court somehow. Stupid legal system.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
All we need is someone at SonicBlue to tell us how to prevent the flash from being updated. Then everyone will still be running the old code that will not give out very much as statistics.
Or better than that, everyone turn off commercial advance so the studios get no data about the commercials being skipped automatically. I would certainly be happy to manually skip the commercials to put egg on the studios' faces!
...I skipped this story last time because I didn't read that part of Keller's statement.
He claims that VOD isn't on the side of the betamax case, but what is the point? I enjoy VOD right now from Time Warner/AOL [the people who pay Keller]. I also enjoy it with no advertising what so ever.
Why is it that I get no ads with VOD? Because I fucking pay a monthly fee. HBO on demand, iControl - both are funded directly by me, the consumer. (iControl is a pay-per-view based model)
These technologies are a step forward because it gives us what we all want. We want media, free of ads. Subscription based viewing is nice because you get what you want for a price you can swallow. It's similar to the pay-per-single music idea. No ads, it's on when you want, you can fast forward and rewind - and his parent company is selling it to me.
How can he complain? Especially since I'm watching "Contact" on a Turner station and the volume for commercials is about 20% higher....
Get your Unix fortune now!
I'm in the process of building a DIY digital VCR. I personally feel it's the best way to get all the functionality I want, without being exposed to any issues like this. Bonus is the machine automatically encodes/plays to divX when it's not recording shows, so my collections are all nice and small :) Ethernet in the back of it connected to my other PCs also enables me to swap in/out files with ease.
First we have SB ordered to spy on the activities of "innocent" people. With that precedent, what is to stop the court from ordering the phone company to monitor every single call? What's the difference between SB and the phone? Or a digital phone? All of these are devices that can be used to commit a crime. Should we not have the phone company monitor calls to prevent crime?
From my limited understanding of law, it seems that the information gathered by spying on third parties should be beyond the discovery process. The SB subscribers should be sued individually or as a class by the copyright holder(s). If I were a SB subscriber, I'd get me a lawyer and fight. My argument would be simple: I'm not named in the lawsuit so why should I be spied upon?
If the information is supposed to be general, why does anyone need individual identification numbers that could be linked later to individuals. ARe they going to use this to catch people violating the copyright law? The implication that you TV will be used to spy on you is so literally Big Brother.
Creative Spelling Copyright (2002). May use without Persimmons
...I hope this isn't off-topic or a troll. I am truely not understanding the privacy issues here. I am a ReplayTV owner. I am not doing anything illegal. I watch TV. I record most shows on my ReplayTV box. I skip most commercials. My ReplayTV box is an older model that doesn't allow sharing or auto-commercial skip.
OK, that said, what does it matter if someone knows what I watch?
Please explain how does this affect me as a consumer?
How does this affect me as a US Citizen?
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!