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.

Comments

And therein lies the problem...

[thumbtack]

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.

Re:Question

[shokk]

Simple. Tivo has a commercial skip that the user engages (fast forward) and the ReplayTV has automated it. ReplayTV has made it too easy to ignore the media's wallets so they have drawn their collective ire. Tivo is unfortunately waiting in the wings to see the result and has not noticed that whatever paintbrush is used to color SonicBlue will be spattering on them. We as consumers are now too lethargic to protect our privacy and other rights, so we don't bother to fight it any more than to post a few blurbs in a message board. So all that is left is for these media giants to become more powerful as they steamroll over everything. So laying down for a raping is what the market will bear at this time.