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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.
The Replay has some sharing capabilites built in, the Tivo doesn't. I think it's the ability to swap recordings between two Replay units that they're objecting to.
But this is America, and tampering with data to manipulate the system is done every day. We should all go buy ReplayTV units from Best Buy, set it to record only the most inane infomercials, and return it within 30 days.
And Sonicblue should provide all the info in hardcopy.
The first is that you can easily send shows over the internet, etc with the sonicblue box. We know this for a fact pisses the industry off. Not only can you send shows, etc, it's marketed strongly that way.
Secondly I think they are probably attacking SonicBlue because they are the weaker company. They have less dollars and most likely less lawyers. Once they get standing and precident from a case that's easier to win they can move on to going after the big dog with that in their pocket.
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.
Let's look at this another way (as I'm a replay owner too). The judge has ordered the company to invade your privacy - Ever hear of the 4th ammendment??? The requirements for a search warrant are even close to being met here! Now - the judge said that our identities will be protected for the time being... how nice.
Support the EFF - they are at least looking into helping us. Whether they can or not is another matter. I was a disinterested 3rd party to this proceeding until the judge violated my rights. Wait you say - doesn't a judge have the power to do just that - yes they do, but it mustn't be a global invasion like this, but specific and for specific legal reasons. I gotta think that this is wanting in that department. I sure hope so.
Again - drop a check to the EFF. $10, or $20 or whatever you can afford. They seem to be the only people concerned about this BS.
Have you compiled your kernel today??
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.
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
Yes, there are several programs that do this. SwapDV is probably the most prominent tool, Replayer is another, and a third is ReplayPC.
SwapDV lets you pull shows from your ReplayTV and can even show up on your UPnP network as another Replay box to stream shows from, acting as a nice backup. Users can also burn the MPEGs to CDs and DVDs or swap them with P2P clients. Gnutella integration is coming also from what I understand.
People think Microsoft is the answer. Microsoft is just the question, "No" is the answer.
The first article states:
The Electronic Frontier Foundation of San Francisco and San Jose's TiVo Inc. , Sonicblue's main competitor in the digital video recorder market, rushed to Sonicblue's defense, saying the order could prove a setback to consumer rights and could have a chilling effect on new technology.
It definitely sounds as if TiVo is aware of the gravity of the situation.
"It can't be hard for SonicBlue to gather the data in aggregate, so I bet the court will think thats ok."
Instead of "betting", read the articles. The judge specified that individual users behavior be tracked, and linked to an anonomous ID. This is *not* aggregate data collection. Somewhere there would be a record of every movie you watch, and how often, and when, and every keystroke you use with their machine.
Central District Court Magistrate Charles F. Eick told SonicBlue to gather ``all available information'' about how consumers use the Santa Clara company's latest generation ReplayTV 4000 video recorders, and turn the information over to the film studios and television networks suing it for contributing to copyright infringement.
Also:
The plaintiffs asked SonicBlue to turn over information on how individuals use the recording devices. SonicBlue said it does not track that information. The magistrate, who is supervising discovery, ordered the company to write software in the next 60 days that would record every ``click'' from every customer's remote control.
Judge says: "Prove it! I know you have that data, now hand it over!"
/. readers don't understand their rights? You misconstrue the context, creating a "straw man". The facts are that discovery is being used to generate *new* data that exceeds the privacy policy as put forth when the devices were sold.
*Wrong! The judge gives them 60 days to write the software that will collect more information than they have ever collected before. The fact that you think they are already collecting this data indicates you didn't read, or can't understand, the articles mentioned. Yet you suggest