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Judge Says Sonicblue Doesn't Have to Monitor
MoD writes "From CNet: District Court Judge Florence-Marie Cooper on Friday overturned a late April ruling that required the maker of ReplayTV set-top box technology to write and install software to monitor what its customers were watching."
YAH!
the last place I need more spyware is on my television. No one needs to know how many episodes of Star Trek I've been watching.
The Only Person Willing to be Me is ME!
I assume everyone remembers the television "screens" in 1984 which allowed the state to view exactly what its denizens were doing? It came *this* close to realization before this thankfully clued-in judge overturned it.
We're not there yet.
"If the networks and studios focused on the inevitable evolution of their business instead of attempts to stifle technology, we believe everyone involved would benefit, consumers most of all," the CEO added. "
I'm starting to hear this more and more. I hope that this was an influence in the judge's decision. The simple fact of the matter is that markets change. You can't legally force them to stay put. Doing so will ruin this economy. There is a lot more at stake here than just ad revenue.
"Derp de derp."
then they should design and market their own Tivo/ReplayTV, etc device. I'm sure that they would know how to market it and I bet they could sell to countless Joe Schmedley's who wouldn't care if their viewing practices were monitored. Especially if they were given some kind of incentive like a chance to win some prize by actively participating in info gathering.
OTOH, the enterainment industry might wreck that product by not providing a commercial skip/fast forward feature. They're still deathly afraid that they'll piss of they're advertisers.
All things in moderation.
That's a cynical point of view, don't you think? I mean the technology (+audience using it) to record people's viewing habits is rather new. It's a problem we, the connected nation, are going to have to be cautious of over the next few years.
It'd take an extremely over-simplified point of view to say 'oh this happens all the time'.
"Derp de derp."
a stay of the order != overturning the order.
/. repeats stories occasionally, but not this time. don't yell at them for something they didn't do.
Got Freedom?
Thinking?
I'm a dumbass... guess this isn't a repeat... being June 3rd and all....
I really should go back to my code now...
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
Consumers have rights? I didn't know that. Usually everything we buy has fine print that tends to negate any rights we had prior to purchasing the product.
-Tolerate my intolerance
Well, seeing as this story is about the previous ruling being struck down (today) as opposed to an interim stay on the order being granted (5/15), it would seem that GOD_ALMIGHTY is looking a bit GOD_ALSTUPID right about now.
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
Slashdot didn't repeat a story. You cited a temporary stay--this is a permanent ruling which overturns the lower court.
<sarcasm> Sheesh. To hell with reading the articles, let's not even bother reading the editorial blurbs anymore. </sarcasm>
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
Unfortunately, I think the victory will be shortlived. Replay TV users can basically ftp television shows to each other's consoles. Neat feature, but it probably makes the entertainment powers-that-be soil themselves with fear ("Holy Cow! That's file swapping! Quick, get me Legal on the phone").
Rather than work with Replay TV or TiVo, it will only be a matter of time before the TV industry reps files for litigation that will require Replay TV to monitor their users for uncopyrighted or illegally disseminated materials, and prevent their transmission.
After all, it worked to get rid of Napster, didn't it?
Sigh.
-FC
All of the people that I exchange recordings with have already or will soon migrate to this type of VCR. It only takes one demo. It is very convincing.
All my previous sigs now look like this one, I wish they were permanetly recorded when used.
"Ok that's it. We've had enough with the public. Who do they think they are? Well, we have a plan.
All network TV will now be encrypted in a similar fashion to satellite TV. In order to be issued a decryption smartcard, customers will be forced to sit through 120 hours of non-stop commercials followed by back-to-back reruns of My Two Dads and Hart to Hart."
Asikaa
Come in, twenty-seventy-seventy, your time is up.
So this is getting interesting. More and more companies are coming up with technologies to zap commercials. If the technology is robust and usage widespread, will we see a fundamental shift in how we "pay" for tv content? After all, much of the cost of over the air tv is subsidized by commercials, so what if (in a web crash way) advertisers say, hey, if people are zapping the commercials, we are not going to run them/pay a heck of a lot less for them. Say that this is widespread (again, like the rollercoaster that web advertising has gone through), will the networks then be forced to shift their business models? What would they shift them to? Would this be the begining of the end of "free" over the air tv? I personally know of only a couple of people who do not have cable/satellite, is OTATV a dinosaur anyway? Is the price we'll pay for being able to zap commericials be that we'll have to pay more for content?
I really wouldn't care if the networks were aware of what I was watching right now. Unfortunately, they wouldn't just leave it at that. My TV viewing history would be stored, possibly sold to third parties, and might eventually come back to bite me in the ass. "Sorry Mr. Lehmann, but our records show that you watched 'The Spring Break Bikini Babes / Alien Autopsy Special' on Fox back in 1994. We wouldn't want types like you in this organization. Have a nice day"
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
OK, just to take a (slightly) extreme example...
:)
Girlfriend/wife goes to bed. Boyfriend/husband stays up and watches pr0n (without girl's knowledge). Next day, watching telly together, ads for "the hottest new sex channel" come up.
Man in trouble.
Just a random example. I'm sure there are many other less-morally-dubious ones
- Oliver
The right to bear arms is only slightly less stupid than the right to arm bears...
This is a sad day for us lying bastards. I was just beginning to relish the idea of hacking the reporting mechanism. Then I'd be able to influence network programming without even viewing the shows. This way I could dictate the mindless drivel without having to watch any of it - a double win! Create enough spurious reports and the system would have been useless. *evil grin*
Given one hour to live, the student replied: "I'd spend it with professor FP who can make an hour seem like a lifetime."
Say YES to good precident!
George W.'s campaign slogan for 2004 has been leaked apparently.
Best Windows Freeware
Because as soon as some one has the information, EVERYONE will want to use it, including the government.
Suppose you're in a bitter custody battle for your children and the ex says you're a terrible parent and you're violent. Her lawyer would subpoena the cable company and then hire a psychiatrist to analyze your viewing habits and give expert testimony against you based on information that is totally irrelevant. And you know most judges would believe them.
Or if you want to go with Big Brother conspiracy theories, then lets assume that the new and improved FBI/CIA is going to make a new Carnivore program that will analyze your viewing habits and flag you as a murderer, rapist, child molester, terrorist, etc..
Of course these are extreme views, but are they really that far out there when compared to recent laws?
How interesting that your sarcasm doesn't address the acceptance of bribes. You could have said, "Are you implying that the judges & politicians would actually accept money in exchange for favors?"
I wonder if that means anything...
.. and ALLOW.
The proposed settlement would REQUIRE them to monitor. If they decide that *as a part* of their business model, they would like to monitor viewers habits, they can do so. They can make it voluntary. They can make it opt in. Then can make it opt out. The point is, the government should not be the one telling them what their business model should be.
If you buy a replaytv then all your viewing data belongs to them. Then they use your tv and your pvr to force feed you targeted ads when you pause, in banners on menus etc.
This cached google page is why I will not be buying a replaytv. When will device manufacturers make a decent product and leave me the fuck alone after the sale. I have money to spend and I will not support companies that harass me.
We have the best government that money can buy.
Is there any law like this in the US? I'd love to see users being given the right to see the data on these boxes (when inevitably it is harvested), especially via some kind of telnet login ;-) then you could hack the contents and send their statistics to hell. Big brother, go away.
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
I don't think advertisers care what you want to see. In fact, their goal would be to show you something you *don't* want or need, and convince you that you *do* need it...
...I'm not sure what you'd do with the feminine hygiene products, but I'm sure the manufacturers would love to have you buy them whether you need them or not.
How are cable companies supposed to gather the data they need?
I don't know, and I don't care. They fact that they would like to know doesn't make it any of their damn business.
Before the remote control ads were sometimes downright painful. I remember commercials for headache medicine that emphasized the pounding and pounding and pounding. Nowadays, commercials need to be funny or at least a little entertaining to keep your attention or you'll change the channel. They need will be even better in the PVR era. You can't hold technology back. They may have stopped napster but did they stop file sharing?
That which does not kill me only makes me whinier
There is danger in targetted advertising. New customer aquisition tends to suffer when you target _too_ well (because you're advertising to people who are likely already customers), and then advertisers get soured on the value of advertising. Some of the best and most valuable advertising and marketing is decidedly _non-targeted_ where advertisers surprise themselves by finding high converstion rates and RIOs in market segments they never would have thought of had they been offered uber-granular targeted media buys.
"Old man yells at systemd"
The way the article describes the system it makes these devices out to be a lot like an "internet-device" style napster clone. Wonder if this ruling will have any effect precedent-wise for these type of companies in the future...
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The original ruling was ridiculous on the face of it in the first place.
;)
I already had a device that would allow me to record a live television program, skip all of the commercials and for a small fee send the ENTIRE program to my friends.. It's called a VCR.. It use to come in two flavors, Beta-Max (the Macintosh of VCR's) and VHS (the DOS of VHS, does 70% of Beta-Max, with better marketing).
I really think that the people who should have pressed the suit in the first place were the Nielson folks. They're the ones who really need to know that I've watched the entire Band Of Brothers series about 80 times so far....
The only reason that the first judge didn't make RCA/SONY/et al write software for VCR's that reported who was recording what was the simple fact that NOBODY knows how to program a VCR...
The Dopester
"Yes, I'm a Karma Whore, but I'm doing it to pay my way through school."
The skipping-commercials feature gets Hollywood steamed. And I don't blame them -- it is the crux of their business model. No one likes their business model ruined, just ask the RIAA. The thing is, in the USA we get free, over-the-air TV in return for advertisements being pushed into our houses. That isn't going to change. Instead, where the advertisements are put will change.
On the third-to-last ER of the season, in the ultra-emotional opening segment where we saw people's reactions to Carter dying, the local NBC affiliate had a scrolling text banner across the top of the screen. "Important Details About The Crisis In Boston's Catholic Churches -- stay tuned to Channel 7 The News Station for an important news story tonight at 11!" (Or something close to that.) To the people that really care about ER, this was a major distraction and hurt the content.
It isn't just local affiliates that do this sort of thing. Sticking with NBC for a minute (though they aren't the only ones who do this), is anyone else sick of the text overlays when they come back from commercial? They state the show that you are watching (NBC logo + "The West Wing"), but right before they wipe it away, they REPLACE IT WITH AN AD for something else like "The Friends Baby Is Born This Thursday! (Check local listings.)"
This is only going to get worse. I'm not talking about product-placement stuff that has gone on for decades, I'm talking about how our television will very quickly resemble a poorly-designed web page. Navigation banner on the top, news/stock/other update scroll on the bottom, advertisement on either side and less than 40% of the on-screen space used for content, right in the middle. This will be extra-great with the poor NTSC standard we have in the US.
Sigh. [STRIKETHRU]At least we can point out drastic flaws in our administration when we need to.[/STRIKETHRU] The United States will win the war on terror, and dissenting voices will be quashed. This is wartime, people!
Online wrestling as a trading card game? WWF With Authority.
Two points:
.. a la Double Click fiasco. Have you ever heard of a company providing the feds with contest/survey data? They dont, or if they do, they have absolutely no choice. Thats not to say that companies dont fuck with your data - just pay attention, because the Blue Chips (Coke, Nike, etc) have been watching all the online privacy issues from the sidelines and are very cautious about what and how they deal with your data. A large company deals with exponentially more scrutiny with respect to their consumer data collection and management processes than your mom'n'pop or e-new.com businesses.
Suppose you're in a bitter custody battle for your children and the ex says you're a terrible parent and you're violent. Her lawyer would subpoena the cable company and then hire a psychiatrist to analyze your viewing habits and give expert testimony against you based on information that is totally irrelevant. And you know most judges would believe them.
1. Large, bluechip companies (believe it or not) are terrified of mismanaging your data. When they sell you to third parties, you're likely to complain, maybe file a suit or two if they violated their User Agreement as it pertains to your data. But if they start sharing this data with the feds, they know they'll never have a hope in hell of getting your permission to collect this data. The first time something like your scenario happens, everyone will complain
Or if you want to go with Big Brother conspiracy theories, then lets assume that the new and improved FBI/CIA is going to make a new Carnivore program that will analyze your viewing habits and flag you as a murderer, rapist, child molester, terrorist, etc..
Do you really think that collecting the viewing habits of users watching legal, mainstream television are going to help tip FBI/CIA off to trouble-makers. Its not like Bomb Making - A Guide to Anarchists is on every Wednesday at 7pm or something.
I really dont think aggregated viewing habits is data that is too sensitive to be collected. The only thing I'd be scared about is the media buys getting too granular, and having that turn advertisers off when their buys suffer from a low ROI (due to viewer burnout.) Then, they turn around and devalue the media, thus fueling the need for more advertising. Sometimes targetted advertising can suffer from tunnel-vision blindness.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Another example is on the Rosie O'Donnel show she recently shilled for Wendy's new salads, saying how great they were. I wasn't watching, but apparently while she was talking her producer said "Take a bite", "What?" "Just do it."
Another good example is the TV morning "news" shows on the day Coke launched Vanilla Coke. The Daily Show did a wonderful send up of this. "The Today show host then informed the Coco-Cola spokeswoman that it was time to go to a commercial break, at which point she just allowed her to continue speaking."
I can picture this getting a whole lot worse, as it's the enw hot trent in advertising. I've basically stopped watching TV altogether except for the Simpsons anyway.
___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
It's funny, I got to thinking about how to have valuable ad revenue despite commercial skipping technologies, and it didn't take long to come up with a plausible idea: Trivia contests.
Imagine buying a Cell phone from AT&T, but getting $25 off for being able to answer this question: 'Q. What AT&T plan offers one low rate for any time, any where? A. One rate'
If somebody doesn't know the answer to this, they could go look it up on the net or watch TV with the ads and figure it out.
If somebody does know the answer, then what's the point in pummeling them repeatedly with ads? Annoyance is a big reason that people want to skip the ads. Well, if I'm willing to remember the 'One Rate' plan, then the advertiser's done their job, lets stop bugging me about it until it's interesting to me.
The big advantage of this idea is that it gives people incentive to watch the ads, instead of trying to strap them to their chairs.
"Derp de derp."
Not so much on the Judges ruling but this week on the show "On The Media" had two stories about TiVo and a follow up on product placement because of TiVo.
0 2_ tivo.html
:)
_ product.html
http://www.wnyc.org/onthemedia/transcripts_0601
Which talkes about TiVo, and then in intresting fact, it seems that someone was reporting that the BBC had down loaded a show or two to all TiVo machines that could not be deleted, had to wait one week before it was removed. Thus hoping I guess for people to watch it. ( Could be full of add
And http://www.wnyc.org/onthemedia/transcripts_060102
another story:
On what the advertisers are doing to get their products in front of people's eyes.
-Scott
It is said that a child learns wisdom from the parent,
but the truly wise parent learns joy from the child
...they can't have that, now can they?
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Blipverts here we come!!
Geez... The USPTO will rubber-stamp anything these days, won't they? This isn't really even patentable let alone meeting the un-obviousness criteria.
The only reason why they haven't set up an "attention brokerage" is that it's deuced hard to manage with what we've got in place and the people buying the ads and selling the ads still think the old ways work.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
There are two assumptions that I think are being made, incorrectly, by both sides. One assumption is that given a specific technology like commercial skipping, that everyone will use it. The second assumption is that, with the absence of a specific technology like commercial skipping, that commercials won't get skipped.
In general the majority of the population will not use commercial skipping technology. I know that most of the people that I've sat around with when watching a tape recorded show, rarely if ever hit the forward button and I think this is similar with the PVR folk. Additionally people will skip commercials even during live broadcasts, they'll flip channels (mostly the men) or find something else to do (especially if you have kids or your multitasking TV with some other chore). I would say that skipping technology would be statistically insignifant in it's effects on the ad market. I'd love to see someone come up with independent results to show one way or another.
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
The same way we get targeted advertising now. Ever notice the lack of ads for 'feminine hygiene products' during the Superbowl? They target the audience. Football game = beer and car commercials. Ally McBeal = tampon and shopping commercials. Two o'clock in the morning tv watching = 'phone chat' (wink wink) commercials. They already target the audience, no need to target the individuals.
do not read this line twice.
Once digital TV rolls around and they get the watermarks put in you'll see commercials running non-stop in the "black bars" at the top and bottom of the picture. You already see commercials for programs during program playback (usually in the lower right corner).
Of course, since the TV networks see a very sizable chunk of their revenue from their non-broadcast divisions it really doesn't matter much. They'll scream and kick their way to Congress and the FCC who will accomodate their lockdown on program "sharing", but boradcast TVs days are numbered anyway. I give it until 2009 which is a few years past the mandatory digital changeover before people no longer care just as they no longer care about boradcast radio.
And small scale attempts to hack reporting software like you suggest won't even be a blip either. Sorry to make you realize that you aren't the world-changing, corporate-overthrowing, l33t hax0r you think you are.
My post was intended to be humorous, although the content was serious. You raise a objection which deserves a response.
You argue essentially that the actions of one man can't change the world. To recast this statement, you claim that a single write-in vote has little effect. I agree.
My argument is a little different. If the channel is open and the protocol broken, I can create many spurious activity reports, effectively 'stuffing the ballot box'. If only 20% or better yet 50% of the votes are mine, I'd have a significant influence.
To make this possible, three criteria be satisfied. One, the channel needs to be open and cheap. Using the internet to sending reports meets this criteria. Two, the protocol must be broken. This is the achilles heel. Clever encryption techniques would prevent an attack, but, ReplayTV doesn't have any incentive to do this well. On the other hand, the studios might be able to dictate the protocol. Fortunately, their track record hasn't been very good, so I'll suppose that their protocol can be broken. *smile* Three, the reports must avoid fraud detection mechanisms. Here I only need to make sure that my fake results model the statistics of the real ones close enough to fool the filters. Of course, my personal goals could be even weaker - I can corrupt the system by just casting doubt on all the legitimate results.
Finally, I'd like to commend the judge for this result. Unfortunately, not every spyware mechanism will be thrown out. As another reader has mentioned, the studios could just as easily build their own digital VCRs. If the existence of the spyware cannot be attacked, go for the protocol. If that doesn't work, try something else. Just keep fighting.
Given one hour to live, the student replied: "I'd spend it with professor FP who can make an hour seem like a lifetime."
Okay, so even if this monitoring does in the end become a fact of life (there are higher courts), what will prevent some clever hackers from making up a firewall for these Replay systems?
With a network probe or phone-line tap you could easily reverse engineer the protocols used to transmit this data.
You get a small box with a low-powered CPU, 2 network cards and modem interfaces and plug the Replay in to the "safe" side ports, and plug the others in to the wall.
Whenever the replay goes to send viewing data to SonicBlue, the fierwall changes all the data. It could either be random data or you could tell them you watched the NASA TV all day every day.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
AOL/TW set top boxes won't allow ad-skipping.
The PVR itself is easy to use, and allows you to record any show you want! Unlike Tivo's poor hardware model, I have designed a system with unlimited storage, in the form of inexpensive 'cartridges'. Unlike Sonic Blue's cold digital picture, Steve-O's warm analog signal gives every character a healthy, ruddy glow! Buffy never looked so good!
Steve-O's excellent service is unrivaled in the industry! Find out what's playing anytime, day or night by calling the Programming Line: Steve Ballmer at 1-888-Vel-0P3R. He will be happy to answer any questions you may have, as well as offer program selections! (MSNBC is always a favorite!) Your information is safe because he never writes anything down!
Steve-O's start at just $299! That includes a lifetime subscription to the Steve-O service and three empty cartridges! Call now!
These are reasons to not watch TV at all, not reasons to not buy a PVR. Are you just super-retarded?
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
That's why you back up the HD (just like with your computer). Besides, if a service center replaces your TiVo, your lifetime subscription will be transferred to it.
(The 14GB drive that came with my TiVo was removed a few months ago; it's now in a FireWire case that I can take between home and work. I now have a 100GB 7200rpm hard drive (WD1000BB) in the TiVo. 30-some-odd hours at best quality (or is it more?) is a Good Thing.)
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
First of all, the fact that you had to get that page from the Google cache and not from Sonicblue's own web site is a major clue that it is out of date information.
Second of all, I've owned a Replay for going on 3 years and I can report (accurately) that:
(a) So far there have been no banner ads in menus as you suggest. I'm not sure this feature even exists in the current software.
(b) While the "ad on pause" feature does still exist, it hasn't been used for a paid ad in over a year. The only ads that have appeared there recently are ads for discounted versions of Sonicblue's new products, to reward loyal Replay customers. And frankly they are not that intrusive, all you have to do is hit the EXIT button to clear them off and see the paused screen underneath.
So much hysteria, so few facts.
IIRC, the original VCR ruling held that it was legal to time-shift a program, that is, to record it at one time and watch it at another time. It is not legal to watch a taped tv show more than once, far less to transfer it to another individual, and even less than that to transfer a -duplicate- to another individual.
Fortunately, it is also not legal for the media industry to forcibly monitor what we do with our VCRs and tapes. (Of course it's not illegal for someone to produce a product that does monitor your use of that product, so maybe the media industry will find a different way of pressuring the recording devices industry... make it required for THX certification or something...)
Parity None
--Parity
'Card carrying' member of the EFF.
This is a great victory for more than just Sonic Blue. This sets a precident that prevents manufacturers from being required to install monitoring software. That said, the issues of file sharing and commercial skipping are still open (for which litigation is no doubt forthcoming!)
By the way, the whole "file sharing" issue has often been misinterpreted. ReplayTV's file sharing is not an unlimited sharing tool like Napster was. You can only share a file with up to 15 other people, and once the recipient receive the file, they cannot share it further. Yes, itis file sharing, but it's been designed to be somewhat limited.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
If you think that was a guy I'd say either your memory needs work or your TV set does :-)
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Can you name the company?
.. the large well known companies that are not super-net saavy.
Maybe I can clarify I meant only large, blue chip retail/service companies who know that they are known by name by a large portion of the population. The type of company that takes out media buys on cable and network television. The McDonalds, the Nikes
I believe your story, but I'm interested in knowing, who is this credit reporting agency? I'm guessing they are not really in the general public conciousness, so needn't be as concerned about data mismanagement turning into PR nightmares.
Asides, sounds like they fucked up your data by accident - I was refering to companies using your information in purposeful unscrupulous ways (like selling _correct_ information behind your back.)
"Old man yells at systemd"
ReplayTV... not "a tivo."
Yes, you're right. I was lazy and just copied TiVo from the post I was replying to.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Even public radio and TV have fallen victim to product placement. :(
The other night I went with some friends to a Karaoke Box (basically, you do karaoke but instead of it being in a big bar in front of everybody, American style, you go in a room just big enough for you and your friends.. like what they do in Japan.
Anyway, I was disturbed that in the background video for one of the songs (you know what I mean, the really cheesy low-production-values video that they play as a background to the lyrics on the TV screen), some woman was wearing a denim jacket with Coca-Cola patches sewn all over it.
Given the patches and how they didn't really go with the jacket at all, it is pretty much impossible that the jacket just happend to have Coca-cola patches on it for no reason.
I guess they'll stick an ad anywhere.
- In Capitalist America, law violates YOU!
There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or a corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years , the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped ,or turned back, for their private benefit.
-- The Judge in "Life-Line"
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.