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ReplayTV Users Sue Hollywood
Seth Schoen writes "A group of ReplayTV 4000 users, led by Craigslist creator Craig Newmark, today sued a group of entertainment companies to establish
that plaintiffs' use of the ReplayTV (including skipping
commercials) is not illegal. The defendants are the same entertainment companies which
have sued ReplayTV. Here the end users of the product
are getting involved to defend the legitimacy of their
activity in the face of allegations that skipping commercials is "theft". The plaintiffs are represented by Ira
Rothken and EFF. The case
is Newmark
v. Turner, in the Central District of California (at Los Angeles).
(Some people are calling it
Craig
v. Hollywood.)"
So, now every time I go to the fridge to get a snack during commercials, I'm a thief? Or the thousands who tape their favorite shows and then hit the Commercial Skip button on the VCR remote? Give me a break. Hollywood needs to grow up.
Real software engineers regret the existence of COBOL, FORTRAN and BASIC.
Funny... I don't ever recall signing any contracts. What about the people that channel surf during commercials? Are they stealing programming too?
Well, seeing as how EFF is helping to bring the suit, just donate here
Paypal is amongst their many payment methods.
All things in moderation.
If the plaintiffs win or lose, some good could come out of this suit.
WIN: Reinforces a person's right to use their own technology as they see fit, within the bounds of the law. Skipping commercials is NOT a copyright violation.
LOSS: Gets an admission from the governments and the courts that "You have no rights to the media that you see or own. The owner can dictate terms even after it has left their control." If we get an admission like that, it could be used as a rallying cry to get nontechnical folks concerned about the issue.
These people - the Hollywood content industry - well, idiotic doesn't begin to describe them.
What are they going to do next? Lock the doors at the movie theater during the opening previews and commercials? Make you pay extra is you come in late and thus skip that crap?
And what about fastforwarding through the previews and commercials on videos and DVDs? Are they going to try and put anti-fast-forwarding technology in them?
"You have fast forwarded this tape illegally. Your VCR/CD/DVD will self-destruct in 5 seconds. Thank you!"
Oh shit, and what about flipping radio stations during the annoying 5 minutes of commercials they have at ten minutes to the hour, every hour? Are they going to put a special no-station-changing feature in the radio that's activated during that time?
Oh well. Even if they do I'm sure someone will figure out a way to circumvent it with a paperclip, or perhaps a magic marker. Sledgehammers probably work pretty well, too.
What a bunch of assholes.
I would think that the best destination for your donations would be an EFF membership. In fact, the EFF has already set up a Newmark v. Turner page:
And yes, the EFF takes PayPal.My word processor was written by Stanford Professor Donald Knuth. Who wrote yours?
being a Tivo user and not using the 30 second skip, but using the fast forward I will stop and watch commercials that I am interested in. I will skip the ones that I am not interested in or that completely annoy me.
Maybe this will be a much better way to target advertising and maybe get some of the really crappy commercials of the TV.
If a commercial is something I want see I will watch it. With my Tivo I don't have to have things basted at me repetitively. I will see a commercial once or twice as I feel is needed. If it is something I want I will look into it more. Much better for the advertiser because otherwise I would just get annoyed with the constant bombardment of advertising until I don't want anything to do with there products or services.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Finally, real action by a recognized key-player in the space of online communities.
/. readers, and we WILL support you in these important acts.
Imagine if one of the key slashdot players joined with the EFF and sued the RIAA for a declaratory judgement that mp3 use was legal.
My goal in this post is not to pressure any slashdot hanchos, nor criticize anyone.
Simply this:
Please: Those of you in the community with name-recognition, use your influence for good causes other than running linux on an aibo. You have the ears of 100,000s of
Now - off to the eff to make a donation.
It's possible to pre-emptively sue (at least in the US, which is where this is all occurring) to ask the courts decide if your actions are legal or not. The idea is to prevent the "chilling effect" of not knowing and being subject to the threat of a lawsuit based on actions that may in fact be legal.
If the courts don't think you have a case, or they think that there's no chilling effect occurring, they'll throw out your suit. If there is legitimate question as to the legality, and legitimate value in deciding early, they'll hear it.
Felten and the EFF tried this a while ago against the DMCA, but the courts dismissed it.
When an advertiser buys time on a network program, they're trying to "buy eyeballs". The networks charge a rate based on the ratings, which is a statistic of approximately how many people are watching.
However, it's not accurate as people get up, go to the bathroom, grab a snack, change the channel, etc, or if taping the show (which Nielsen accounts for) people fast forward through the commercials. The notion that you're required to watch the commercials is offensive and ridiculous.
Now I can see why the ability to skip commercials might be frightening to networks, but it's nothing new for the reasons I've described above. The worst that can happen is that there's no money to be made in traditional commercials, so advertisers are forced to pay for product placement. For example, instead of a 30 second add with a poorly written, poorly sung "Diet Coke" commercial, maybe Jennifer Aniston drinks a Diet Coke and talks about how much she loves it on Friends. You know.. this is how advertising is still done in places.
The big problem I have with Hollywood also is the notion that SonicBlue should be FORCED to collect usage statistics. It's nobody's business that I watched Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs (go Red Wings) unless I want it to be, meaning I agree to fill out one of those stupid Nielsen books or otherwise agree to be a Nielsen Household.
And this should be a lesson: When your current business model is out of date, CHANGE THE MODEL. Too often big corporations try to legislate profits rather then be innovative.
I was just wondering, but how is it that TiVO seems not to acquire the wrath of the MPAA and television studios?
They have a fast forward feature, but unlike ReplayTV, they don't have an instant 30 second skip button. Does that make all the difference?
It's exactly like that, without the girl.
Craig
So we're talking about something that means that no matter how clever, relevant, and eye-catching an ad is, the user still won't stop and rewind to check it out since they didn't even receive the briefest of notification.
Anyway, this issue may or may not affect your opinion on the ReplayTV unit's acceptability, but it's worth keeping in mind as to why people are singling out this unit. (There's also the other controversial feature of built-in capability to share files, which the networks aren't happy about, either.)
more product placement.
How can you even bitch about product placement as a way for companies to make money? It's completely non-intrusive. Do you really get upset when you see someone on a sitcom drinking a Pepsi? I know you want 24 hours of great uninterrupted entertainment geared directly towards you, with no money being made by anyone and all, but give me a break...
Mark
My question is what copyright is being violated? The industry is upset that their revenue model is being circumvented by this product, but what EXACT copyright is bein violated and how? It's the same argument as "skipping commercials is theft". Am I a thief if I get up to go to the bathroom? Am I a thief if I fast forward through a commercial using a VCR? Hollywood is scared that they won't be able to make money the same way and they want the government to make laws to guarantee that revenue stream. No matter how they try to hide it by using phrases like theft and copyright violation, in the end that is their only argument: "We can't make money the same way if people use this product". That is not the government's place.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: Those who understand binary and those who don't
As far as I am aware, the parents lost all of these lawsuits. Courts held that government did in fact have the power to force (pre-voting) citizens to watch commericals.
sPh
Skipping the commercials is theft?
I guess if they can FORCE us to watch their commercials, then they don't have to be bothered with developing better, more captivating ways to get people to WANT to watch their commercials, and ultimately buy their products. Why don't they just skip the millions they spend in post-production of the commercials, and show a simple white background, with a huge black font, and static text like:
BUY CELINE DION CDS
for 30 seconds. I mean, if they can FORCE you to watch it, why spend all that extra dough trying to make WANT to watch it?
I can just hear it now:
"You veel vatch dees commercials, and LIKE THEM!"
"You veel go out and buy de Celine Dion CDs!"
I guess they're logic is: "We made a commercial, so if you don't like it enough to watch it, something must be wrong with you."
I thought the whole idea of advertising was to make the product look appealing, so that people want to buy it. If people dont want to watch your commercial, then something's wrong with the commercial, not the people watching it. That's why I like websites like adcritic.com. you can (could) go there and watch the really creative, entertaining, and captivating commercials.
"A terrorist is someone who has a bomb but doesn't have an air force." -William Blum
No one wants ads (I don't)
No one wants to pay for programming (although we do anyway to some extent, cable, hbo, etc.)
No one wants adverts plugged in the background
and No one wants to pay for public tv
So where does that leave us? While I fundamentally agree that it is my choice to watch ads or not while at home, I also understand that economics and the free market play a role here. I cannot expect that someone is going to produce or air a TV show without getting anything in return for it. That's just not reasonable. Now if we don't want commercials, then we'd better start supporting our publicly funded media, because they're only ones who do that (and they're so underfunded they can't seem to get away from sponsors anyway). Otherwise, we're stuck with ads, because there is no other business model for media content except to sell ads (either in the program or between segments) or to sell the programming via subscription.
What further frustrates me, are the posts where people are declaring that these big media co's need to update their antiquated business model; To what, I ask? How should they update it? and where else are they going to get their revenue?
It's the same thing with the music industry. We like our nice sounding CD's and many people enjoy the big concerts and personalities developed and paid for by these entertainment co's, but everyone's complaining that they're trying to make a buck. Sheesh, people, do you realize how much it costs to pay the artists (who don't get enough from records anyway), make that nice sounding record, and put on a concert...
Now, I'm not saying that the media co's and their strong arm legal tatics don't reek of misconduct or that these companies don't need to adapt their methods for selling and capturing the marketplace somewhat, but I have to side with them in some ways because they are the ones getting that shaft at both ends financially (and don't give me that "they're so rich it doens't matter" crap, this is capitalism, not charity).
They have a right to be pissed that their ads are getting skipped, because what happens next is that advertisers start saying "well 30% of the viewers of your shows skipped our ad, so we want to 30% credit back" or in the future they force a cheaper rate. Which in turn impacts profits, which then forces the studio to limit what they make, thus impacting selection for the consumer. Or even worse, forcing production companies and studios out of business so that it then narrows who is producing content. Which as we all know would suck.
-s
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
By watching TV you are entering into a Hobbesian contract.
Excellent use of obscure terminology. The phrase Hobbesian contract makes you appear smart, because most readers don't know what a Hobbesian contract is. (Namely, an agreement to obey an authority as long as said authority does its duty.)
They agree to show a show, you agree to watch the commercials. It's a concept as old as the Magna Carta.
Citing historical documents. Excellent.
I can't wait until these self-delusional pirates are given the smackdown by a clueful judge.
Here's where you lose me. A skilled troll would have omitted this sentence, or at least softened the wording a bit. Referring to people who want to skip commercials (at last count, almost everyone) as "self-delusional pirates" is an obvious attempt at ruffling feathers.
One other note: you probably should have written a few paragraphs and explained your ridiculous opinion in more detail. It's far more effective to progressively piss people off than hit them with one insult four sentences into your post.
Final Grade: C
Keep at it. You'll get there eventually.
Contract? What contract? I didn't sign any contract with anyone.... I never even SAW a contract. I think that if I were going to sign a contract that involved my telivision service I would certainly demand that I get ONLY the channels I want. And pay for nothing else. And I would demand that commercials be between the shows only so as not to mess up my continuity, and that no single commerical could exceed 20 seconds, and no block of comercials could exceed 3 minutes.
I would sign that contract.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
If everyone decides to skip the commercials, then the audience ends up paying everything
I think that would be just fine as long as I decide which networks I pay and which ones I don't.
I never asked ABC/CBS/NBC/etc. to broadcast their crap into the sky... but I am more than willing to pay HBO for their content (which has never included advertising).
Ever notice that movies have FBI warnings at the beginning? Those warnings are a big clue that we're not supposed to copy movies and send them around. TV lacks these warnings, though. We have no reason to believe that there's anything illegal about capturing a show with Replay, for example, and sending it over a network to another user. You'd think at the very least they'd explicitly deny that, but they don't. They don't deny *anything* with TV.
It is for this reason that I am extremely unhappy with the statement that the CEO Turner made about 'implied contracts'. It almost feels like entrapment. "We'll bombard ppl with commercials until they develop technology to circumvent them, then we'll sue them, then we can exercise even MORE power to cram more ads in there." Yah, I know that sounds ridiculous. I'm just expressing how this whole thing strikes me.
"Derp de derp."
Let's space shift and put the commercials in the bathroom. Just have a little flat screen and a speaker next to the toilet with a motion sensor, and then whatever commercials are associated with the programming you watch start scrolling when you enter the room. Put a pressure sensor on the toilet seat, and appropriately themed adverts could play as you sit down. Get one of those fancy Japanese toilets that perform instant stool analysis, feed that back to the sponsors to help them determine your medical and dietary needs and vices, and get hours of special bonus viewing! Install a proctoscope and get even more!
___
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Ok first of all in many states verbal contracts are only binding if the value of service rendered is under 500 dollars. My cable costs me about 600 a year so I would be excluded from this.
Secondly their is the hude regulatory issue. The airwaves are the publics, and the rights given to the channel coportations are contracted very specifically with the FCC.
I mod down any one who says "I'm sure I will get modded down for this"
If companies didn't market their products there would be no product awareness by the consumer and they wouldn't know to buy the product.
So, I'm a thief no matter what I do. Worse yet, I'm a thief even if I don't do anything. Nughty me for breathing their air! Next thing you know, it will be illegal to own a TV with an off switch. (que Mac Headroom)