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Five PVR Users Allowed To Join Replay Court Fight
hachete writes with this snippet from the Mercury News: " 'A federal judge in Los Angeles agreed to allow consumers to join the legal battle between Hollywood and the makers of the ReplayTV 4000 digital video recorder to defend their uses of the device.'" The five customers chosen to add some insight include craigslist founder Craig Newmark.
Finally, some GOOD news.
Finally, a judge wakes up and realizes 'hey, maybe the people who will be affected by this decision should have a voice in it'.
:)
Every time I consider fleeing this country in terror, something like this happens that makes me reconsider.
Plus, it probably has the *AA foaming at the mouth, which is always a good thing.
I mod down anyone who uses M$ in their posts. I like to live on the edge.
This is how to get your point across in these matters. Good for the judge.
/.er tried to have a meeting with his or her senator about the DMCA, DRM or any other topic, we could really change things.
You (yes you) can try to meet with your lawmakers (or their advisors) and discuss issues. Not everyone can meet with someone, but it's worth a try. If every
Write a letter. Now.
-twb
It is good that some consumers are in court ... when they lose they can go to gaol as well. Bloody thieves!
Finally, a few viewers of Replay TV have the opportunity to tell Hollywood where to put their commercials!
This sig no verb.
Do you really want to see the broadcasting industry go into the shitter
Hmm... Friends, Big Brother, celebrity boxing, "when someting normal does something dangerous to someone stupid" (FOX only), the Anna Nicole Smith show and the last six years of Saturday Night Live... and you're worried about broadcasting getting worse?
Am I the only one who heard Roxette to sing "I'm gonna get blitzed for some sex"?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Apparently only consumers on the suit will answer those questions. Transferring a show to your laptop is fair use. How is skipping commercials fair use?
Calling that fair use grants the point that not watching commercials is a theft that is only "legally permissible" if there's a kid in the room. Going to get more chips during an ad is obviously now theft. If it's only okay if you've got a kid handy, but then you should send the kid to the kitchen and watch the damn ads yourself. That satisfies everyone, according to the judge: the sponsors are seen, you get your food and the innocent little child is protected from the commercials in a legally permissible way.
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
... another probable results of broadcasters' death:
- we have only special channels on TV (the only ones what we want) for which we have to pay and they are without ads. (pipe dream?!)
- people finally go outside to socialize and meet - revival of social clubs etc...
- as a result of more people going outside and money withdrawn from TV ads market - we'll have more outside ads - as in sweet sixties...
Cars allow people to run over and kill innocent children. Kitchen knives can be used to cut, torture, and kill innocent children. Rocks can be used to bash in the skulls of innocent children.
Video recorders can be used to make (shitty) copies of movies which can then be distributed on the Internet and viewed by innocent children.
Box knives can be used to hijack airliners, which can in turn be used to kill innocent children.
And of course a ReplayTV unit can be used to record porno flics from TV which can then be sent to innocent children for viewing.
We should outlaw anything that can be used for any sort of illegal purpose. It's simple, really.
The biz operates on numbers; if something is popular, you get more of it. Explain to me how tv can cater to your precise needs without having a tv station for each person in the US. This doesn't seem very feasible to me.
?-|||-----x<*))))><
Ok, you're an ignorant butt.
Do you really want to see the broadcasting industry go into the shitter?
So you are saying that if I go there during a commercial, they go too?
I can hardly wait for the DMCA ruling declaring that owning a mute button is grounds for imprisonment. I'm pretty sure I never signed any contract promising to watch commercials, although they are often better than the programming.
I don't know about everyone else, but while some of the times I can't stand commercials, other times when I have nothing better to do I'll just sit through the commercials. Some of them are actually quite entertaining and innovative (hell, almost works of art).
And on a slightly related note, while on-demand TV is alright for some (that is, viewing the shows you want to watch when you want to watch them), the experience of just turning on the TV and watching whatever happens to be on is far better in my opinion. You get a lot more exposure to shows you otherwise wouldn't think to watch.
Seems to me like HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, et al are all making money.
I imagine that, should the bottom fall out of the advertising model, it will all move to a subscription model, which frankly, suits me fine, since it will (hopefully) allow me to pick and choose which channels I want (Discovery, TLC, History, HGTV, Noggn, Cartoon Channel, etc) instead of having to pay for a bunch of crap I'll NEVER EVER EVER watch (QVC, HSN, TNN, BET, etc)
-9mm-
Hear, hear! But wait... the invention of TV ended the glory days of radio entertainers! We should ban that, too. Those poor radio stars... And look what the "talkies" did to all those silent movie stars -- they hardly ever land a good part now! Let's ban the movies, at least, the ones with sound...
As has been said before, and will be said again,
Or, more succinctly,
It's time for them to adapt or die.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
I think the issue is one of convenience. With commercial skipping, yes it is an option, but it is also automated. This is different from what a person would do, because they can't 'skip' commercials. Every time a commercial comes on, you have to make some effort to avoid it, whether it be hitting mute or walking out of the room. Hence nothing is being skipped, but instead dealt with by you, the consumer.
Isn't it true that you can set commercial skipping once on your pvr and never have to think about it again? To me this seems to be the difference - the effort involved and the lack of a human element.
?-|||-----x<*))))><
The ratio of men to women in the personals in craigslist was 10:1. Now, it's going to be 100:1 with the slashdot effect. I might have to meet women in person now.
Not everybody wants to pay for television.
Advertising will not die.
Yes, the 30-second ad's days are numbered. So? There's many other ways of advertising. Product placement is promising (for instance, Survivor integrates products into the show itself), though it could hurt genres where product placement is difficult. Networks will also start selling animated "banner ads" in the corner of the screen.
What will happen is that Madison Ave. and the TV industry will adapt to PVRs.
To paraphrase Bruce Schneier, are you suggesting that we make 'interference with a business model' illegal?
Let me be blunt: that's really not my problem.
If the networks can no longer afford their existing business model, they'll just have to adapt. I have no patience or sympathy for industries who, because they can't adapt, try to stop all progress.
Besides, if you were to examine my list of list of shows to be recorded, you'd notice they're almost all on HBO...
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
How is skipping commercials any different than switching to another channel and watching a TV show there? You are still not watching the commercial.
How about a law saying you can't change channels during a show. Or am I the only one who switches channels during commercials
"The ruling was a reversal from last week's tentative order, in which Cooper wrote that the case would likely resolve ``many, if not all'' of the issues consumers raise -- without their direct output."
She must have realised her Betazoid powers were waning and needed "Output" from actual humaniods.
Dammit, when will these judges realise that we don't have time to tell them what we think.
That's why we elect/appoint them, so we don't have to think for ourselves.
Please expplain how this is different than the millions of people who have been fast-forwarding through commercials with their VCRs for the last 15-20 years. So the PVR can skip 30 seconds at a time to save you the 10-15 seconds of pressing a button on the remote and watching the blur of garbage on the screen. Why is that a big deal?
To follow up on my own comment, would you prefer that television shows had commercials grafted directly into the programming? That's the next step. Have you ever heard of choosing your battles? I certainly don't want to use my freedoms to restrict myself in the end; this seems somewhat self defeating to me.
?-|||-----x<*))))><
Comment removed based on user account deletion
They already are (e.g. World Cup Soccer).
Are you being sarcastic, or have you just not caught any of the TV shows produced in the last twenty years?
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
And all of the shows that I record are on the scifi channel (which is the only reason why I subscribe to cable) and even though I have the option to skip commercials, I still end up watching about 50% of the commercials in the programs that I record.
He does have a point. What are you going to record on that shiny new PVR when no one is broadcasting any more?
Two things came to mind in response.
1) BBC in the UK have two channels (BBC1 and BBC2). IMHO, they are the best channels in the world in terms of content *and* they don't sport any commercials whatever. They make their money through television licenses. Whether this system is good for all or not is highly debatable (state run televsion) but is nevertheless a half option
2) What upsets many people is that people *pay* cable/satellite to view their television *and* be forced to watch ads. If ads disappear, the corollary is that subscription prices will increase in conformance with market forces to make up the revenue and cover costs. Some would say that's not a bad thing to pay just for the tele. Me, I don't mind watching television ads, there aren't so many in the UK (ads appear only every 15 minutes here for 3 minutes typically) and sometimes it is entertaining or I learn something. Of course, this latter point is highly subjective!
Where are the mod points when you need 'em!
"If as a result of pvrs, nobody watches commercials anymore and the bottom falls out of the broadcasting industry..."
When a TV show or Movie is made, extra steps are taken to make sure that the stage hands and cameras aren't visible in the shot. Unfortunately, they don't always do enough. Sometimes cameras are visible in the reflections of metallic objects. Mirrors are turned to avoid revealing the crew. Heck, the planet that Knight Rider was filmed on has 6 suns in the shape of a rectangle!
The reason they go through all this extra baloney to keep camera equipment invisible (even though we ALL know cameras were used...) is because it's distracting to the audience. When they can see the boom mic come down above the camera they get snapped out of the immersiveness of the show it breaks up the flow. Out of comfort, they keep these distractions to a minimum.
Unfortunately, they are aware of this, but they don't understand how commercials really deaden the dramatic impact of a scene. When shows like Quantum Leap really get somebody interested in what's happening, it is a pain in the ass when 2-3 minutes of commercials suddenly break it up.
They shouldn't be surprised that people would actually spend time to find a way to remove these commercials. It's not just about watching content, it's about enjoying it! You can't enjoy it if you have to hop in and out of it like Sam Beckett.
I'll tell you all something, it's startling to watch a TV show with the commercials out. It's a big ehough difference that I spent $15-20 on DVD's that contain a couple of episodes. Too bad DVD's haven't caught up with all the content out there.
"Derp de derp."
How else are television broadcasters supposed to cover their costs?
Its really quite simple, CHARGE!
The best TV is and always will be the TV you pay for either by cable and sat subscription or through public funding.
Whatever comes after things begin to change.
Seriously, not everyone is going to skip the ads, so their will be transitional revenue to allow the current model to change. Also, not everyone will have a PVR for a while --same effect.
As the numbers grow, other sources of funding for programming will evolve. Look at HBO now. They charge for their programming and have come quite a ways from their old movie only no commercial formats. Some of the programming produced with these models has enough value that it gets resold on DVD.
So there will be stuff to record for sure, just not the material we have today and that is a good thing.
Blogging because I can...
You're ignorant.
Nobody owes the broadcasting industry anything. If they go under the world would probably be better off. Do you really need to see Friends every week? That bitch Kudrow could use some hard reality that me and my friends who would ordinarily work for a living, but currently are out of work, are feeling right now.
What about Baseball? Oops, they're on strike because millions-per-year ain't enough? Are you that much of a slave? Do you make millions per year? Can you even sit through a whole, boring baseball game? Tell the truth!
-- Jessica
The mutant geek grrl from Hell.
-- Jessica
The mutant geek grrl from Hell.
Ever heard of product placement? Movies (and to a lesser extent, TV shows) do this all the time. I prefer it to the 2-3 minutes of ads (or channel surfing) for every 8 minutes of content.
If you're talking about ads superimposed onto the programming (like those annoying logos some stations put in the corner of your screen), I don't think the public would stand for it. Losing 10-20% of the already small screen space to an ad (most likely a bright, flashing, annoying, and distracting ad) would piss off too many people.
I think a better solution would be to be able to pay for the few shows or channels I like individually, WITHOUT commercials. Better than the current options of either downloading DivXes off the net (a pain to find and watch, and helps contribute to show cancelling) or paying for the whole 300 channel package rather than the cheap 20-channel one that doesn't include, for example, the SciFi channel.
Do you really want to see the broadcasting industry go into the shitter?
Frankly, yes. They already OWE us, the people, literally billions and billions of dollars from the FREE bands that the FCC handed over to them. If you think that we somehow owe them something, you are dead wrong.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
This article in the National Post, Canada a few weeks ago made very interesting points regarding the economic interests involved. To quote ""Don't think for a moment there's a free lunch involved in this," Kellner said in his speech, pointing out that DVRs might make free TV broadcasts a thing of the past in fewer than 10 years and force consumers to pay $250 more a year for cable TV." Sonicblue's Andrew Wolfe sees the comment another way: "Basically, Kellner was saying that people were going to have to pay $20 a month more to get television without commercials. Is that really such a bad thing?"
$20 per month for commercial free tv? Where do I sign up?
Derek
HBO has as good programming as anybody else, and no disruptive commercials. We're already paying for $40-$50 or more per month, so it's not like advertising is the only income stream. I'd rather have a few good channels than hundreds of crappy ones anyways.
The other night my housemate and I were wondering, "Is there anything we see advertised on the shows we watch that we actually buy?" At first we couldn't think of anything. Eventually an ad came on for a brand of gasoline I sometimes pump. There are certainly some brands of stuff I don't buy because I'd never want to be associated with the advertising. Has there been any research on the negatives of showing commercials to the sorts of folks who are greatly annoyed by most of them?
But if you really want me to watch commercials as a condition of receiving television - which I don't consider totally a bum deal since I don't watch much television and have never subscribed to cable - then use technology to allow me to see commercials that are about stuff I might have an actual interest in buying. This should be done in a way that can't trace back to me as an individual. I would gladly watch commercials for, say, portable mp3 players - but showing me commercials for cars is just dumb, since I won't be buying a new car in the next 5 years, and you can't tell or show me enough about a car in a minute to interest me anyway.
And please don't show me ads for prescription drugs. The last thing I want to do is justify the further inflation of medical costs to pay for these ads; and I really don't want to think about other people's diseases when I'm trying to relax into some escapist TV - or even focus on the nightly news, for that matter. I mean, old people are depressed, need diapers, and the males can't get it up without help ... but do I need to meditate on my still-years-off future decay every time I want to luxuriate in the fires and floods besetting distant parts of our greenhoused world?
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
>>Explain to me how tv can cater to your precise needs without having a tv station for each person in the US. This doesn't seem very feasible to me.
Hmmmm.... the internet seems to do it pretty well. Even the cable company does; you think they have a separate network for people who get basic cable, extended cable, and digital cable, not to mention the various combinations of channels you can get when you combine that choice with the option to get the subscription channels and cable modems and pay-per-view. Of course not. Access to content you don't pay for is essentially prohibited.
It shouldn't be too hard to provide indivudial channels which the end user can choose. Perhaps charge per channel per month, with an option to pay per program on channels that you don't subscribe to, etc.
I don't know. Maybe nothing -- but I doubt that, as there is an awful lot of money to be made, if you can figure out how. Maybe the same old crap that's on now -- not everyone will use these things and perhaps the transitional revenue will be sufficient to keep "network TV" in play. And maybe something decent, as TV producers are freed from the limitations imposed by the standard 5-act commercial-driven format.
I don't know. It doesn't matter. I wouldn't want innovation stifled and fair use rights trampled just to preserve the things I watch on TV. There are a few shows I like, but they're just not worth the boot on my neck that Hollywood seems to think they require.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
I'm one of the defendants -- why doesn't anyone ever say the suit includes regular Slashdot reader Glenn Fleishman? cuz Craig is arguably much cooler than I. One large part of my involvement in the suit is that I don't believe that any company nor the government should be allowed to outlaw devices or uses or media formats before or after the fact because there simply might be some ways in which that technology could infringe on copyright.
Copyright is held in the public interest -- it's part of the public good as a means to ensure the creation and dissemination of knowledge. Fair use is a tool to allow individuals to have reasonable access and use of materials they license or buy from copyright holders. With the expansion of copyright law, there's no connection any more between the notion of copyright as a limited grant by the people of the United States (and other countries, too, of course) and the utility to which that copyright can be put to use.
I'm an author as well as a defendent in this case, and I support copyright as a method by which words, images, and motion can be protected for a limited time to allow the artists, writers, and other creators to make a living. If other modalities arise in which I would copyright nothing but still be able to pay the bills, I would certainly be interested in that as would most authors I know.
The point is this: I don't ask Xerox and Canon to stop selling copy machines because they might photocopy articles that appear in magazines. I don't ask ISPs to filter all content because my words might pass through without payment. I don't require my readers to peruse advertisements and read my articles in one sitting. (You can make the case that one useful item built into new color copiers is their ability to recognize when currency is being photocopied and prevent it -- that has compelling public and private interest all over it, even though it prevents certain kinds of art.)
Freelance tech journalist for the Economist, MIT Technology Review, Macworld, and others
--great analogy here -->What's next? Ripping ads out of magazines so you don't have to see them
while reading going to be the next thing that's illegal?
--I was thinking that meself. Their lawyer in this suit should do exactly that. Walk up in front of the court and judge, show them a magazine that he bought, it's now his property. Tear out an ad, crumple it up, throw it away. fold open to a page of an article he likes, make 3 copies, hand them to his friends to read. Let his kid cut out some pictures to paste into a school report. Show the jury how it's "the same thing".
This is all stuff most everyone has done, no one has any problems with it, and there's NO DIFFERENCE with doing the same with digitzed media of any sort. Any jury would find for the plaintiffs in this case, if a similar plan was followed-maybe anyway.
I thought they were testing the TV version of popup ads. Its gonna end up like Headline News where 1/3 of the screen is news and the rest is info. the info her being ads of coirse
I was of the (obviously incorrect) illusion that paying for cable TV was actually a way to pay the broadcasters so that there didn't have to be commercials..?
I too have very little sympathy for the content industry for similar reasons.
Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. -Ayn Rand
I dunno, but (content-wise), it seems they are already there!
Fearing the demise of television reminds me a lot of the Futurama scene where Bender throws Fry's beer into the TV, smashing it. Fry exlaims indignantly, "Hey! Now what am I supposed to drink and watch all day?" TV is a lifestyle for a lot of people, not just a gadget that can be used to watch certain, specific things. I think it's disgusting, and it's contributing to the ignorance that causes most of the problems we see today in the US.
>shows produced in the last twenty years?
>
>
Last twenty?!? Try from the early 50's. Just watch some of the *Really* old quiz and varity shows from that time. They litterly hit you over the head with those ads.
It appears Sagan was remarkably prescient, and I hope that he's right about the outcomes of both the legal fight and the arms race!
Some advertisers already have caught onto the fact they need to change their advertising strategy by adding product placements to shows. Take a look at that wacky American Idol on FOX TV - they have product placement with Coke and Ford. Luckily I can TiVO through the Ford things. Can't quite FF through the show with coke overlays logos and judging with Coke cups on the table. Funny thing I only tuned in after I read an article about type of product advertising they were doing.The phone in thing seemed a little suspect.
Well said!
For a lot of people, TV is their life. They work, eat, watch TV and sleep. They have nothing to look forward to. How do we as a society motivate those people? And when they say 'fuck you, I want my TV and beer!'??
I love the PVR technology and want to play with it under Linux rather badly.. But I don't have cable and don't watch TV other than Formula 1 races and CART races. So spending a bunch of time so I could watch garbage TV would be a waste (and you can waste your life away watching just good educational programming...).
"Students in Japan beat the heck out of American kids in important areas like science and math, and not acting like an idiot in public. That's because American kids, instead of studying, would rather spend their time in front of television sets that are made in, er... Japan."
-Drew Carey, as quoted in Joke Soup
"Fair Use" is a specific legal concept that we're probably hurting ourselves by misusing all the time like this. It is unlikely that skipping commercials is "Fair Use". Wrong problem, wrong concept, wrong argument.
... or TV at all? (Are they specially immune because they are executives?) As a democratic republic, can we seriously believe this argument has the slighest basis in law when every television watcher and voter does not agree with it? Isn't that where the law ultimately derives from, not the means-are-ends fantasy-land interpretations of the law promulgated by Big Copyright?
The real question is, since when are we obligated? I'll leave the sentence fragment like that, because it makes more sense then specifying the obligations. Exactly at which point did we become obligated to watch commercials? Where are these obligations stated? How did we agree to these obligations? Who the hell seriously believes in these obligations? What legal basis do these obligations have?
Are we equally obligated to watch every single commercial that comes into our home? Are we obligated to watch the same damn Burger King commercial all 4000 times it is on a day? (One could interpret it that way.) What if we only watch part of a show? What if we only watch two minutes of the show, then leave? Are we obligated to watch some commercials later?
Are we all going to be in deep legal poo-poo for retroactive penalties for not watching commercials? Can the judge rule in favor of the obligation theory when he or she has almost certainly not behaved that way themselves? Do the executives making these insane claims themselves watch commercials?
Fair use is a phrase best left unused by Slashdotters, as most of them get it wrong. The real questions in this case are trivialized by using the fair use concept. (Look it up.)
The purpose of television is the advertising. If there was no advertising, there would be no commercial need for TV in the US, not even PBS.
American Corporations depends upon broadcast television to market their product and brand their trade and service marks. TV has been very kind to the U.S. corporation, allowing mega corporations such as McDonalds, WalMart, and Coca Cola to create a unified vision of their corporation in the public mind, one that often has little to do with reality. Broadcast television has, in effect, given the corporation a means to brainwash entire generations.
To the U.S. Corporation an end of television commercials means an end of a powerful marketing technique. If McDonalds is not allowed to brainwash the kids to annoy their parent for a Kids' Meal, what is to stop the consumer from just going to the restaurant next door, or, god forbid, actually cook a nutritious meal? If WalMart is not allowed to push the fallacy that they provide the best value, what is to stop the consumer from going to a store where the workers are actually paid for the hours worked? If Coca-Cola did not constantly equate itself with the American Way, would there be any reason for us not buy Shasta?
Some may think I am exaggerating, but I am not. TV has been critical in the evolution of the American Corporation and the mass adoption of new products. For instance, when instant coffee first came out, it was not widely accepted. Most women at the time were homemakers, and making real coffee for their husbands was considered part of their duty. Instant Coffee producers launched a large scale campaign to equate instant coffee to loving one's husband, by way of having more time to be with him. We see the same thing in recent paper plate commercial aimed at the single mom. By using paper plates, the single mom has more time to spend with her kids, and therefore only a mom who did not love her kids would not use paper plates. Every few minutes on kids' shows, McDonalds equates going to their restaurants with loving your kids.
So, now perhaps we can stop all this silly talk about the quality of TV, or that maybe we can just start paying for TV. The sole purpose of a television program is to deliver a large number of a certain demographic to an advertiser. Nothing less, nothing more. Advertisers know how important this is, and will often pay inflated prices to insure their influences. This is particularly true for certain groups such as young men. This, by the way, explains why male professional sports do so well.. Such sports are also a vehicle to deliver a demographic to the advertiser. The value of such entertainment to us as consumers is far less than the value to the advertiser. We would unlikely to be willing to directly pay that kind of money.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
You just broke the first rule of persuasive writing: don't ever, and I mean ever, use "Quantum Leap" as a key point in your argument. If this show really puts you on the edge of your seat, I'd say you have been the victim of too many dramtic impacts--to the head.
"If this show really puts you on the edge of your seat, I'd say you have been the victim of too many dramtic impacts--to the head."
Ummm okay. Your questionable taste in television shows has failed to deliver a dramatic impact to my point. Heh.
"Derp de derp."
Okay. I'll call you ignorant. What we have here, is an industry that wants the government to legislate protection for their outdated business model, because that's cheaper than evolving to meet the needs of the marketplace. The idea that this should happen goes against the very fabric of our capitalist economy that we have worked so hard to build. I honestly would like to see the broadcasting industry go into the shitter. That's where we're supposed to put shite... right?
What? Me? Worry?
Or $1.20 per hour of commercials (not the show) that the station gets paid by the advertisers for each viewer. My time is worth more than 2 cents a minute: I'm willing to pay that penny for each commercial I don't have to watch. The TV industry will have to learn to adapt, rather than force me to watch dreck for pennies. This essay by Brad Templeton (of the EFF) covers some possible business models TV could take.
[insert witty comment here]
If that happened here I'd have my cable disconnected. *Hopes somebody at AT&T is reading.*
"Derp de derp."
You are absolutely right. Anything is lethal. I'm not even going to make the joke about resting in peas.
I for one welcome our new SCOviet Russian overlords to whom all our base are belong.
>Having your freedoms is one thing, but destroying somebody's livelihood is another.
Are you a Communist?
I remember living in Soviet Union where we was
told every day that we should give up our freedom
and propriety (if anybody in Soviet union had any)
to help starving children somewhere in the Third World, tortured by evil Americans, or to build
bright future for our own grandchildren or to something else.
In 1991 we said "enough' and throw communist goverment away.
Now, evil American capitalists, which do not need
assistance of their own people to fight Cold War
with us anymore, begin to borrow communist ways
of propaganda, which are aimed to get more money
from the people without giving any real goods
back.
And they was able to brainwash innocent slashdoter
enough to make him feel that he is obliged to
pay people, who brainwash him, otherwise
these poor people would starve.
I suspect that some our most competent brainwashers emmigrate into US and were hired
by advertising industry. Patterns are too recognizable.
Isn't it true that you can set commercial skipping once on your pvr and never have to think about it again? To me this seems to be the difference - the effort involved and the lack of a human element.
It definately doesn't work that way on a Tivo. You have to manually ff through the commercials. You can set up a 30 sec skip button. Tried it a few times and then went back to fastforwarding, it just works better.
How else are television broadcasters supposed to cover their costs?
What exactly is sacrosanct about the television broadcast industry? (Or for that matter the record industry or the movie distribution industry.)
If as a result of pvrs, nobody watches commercials anymore and the bottom falls out of the broadcasting industry,
Programming with intermixed commercials quite clearly isn't the only possible business model for broadcast television. Nor is broadcast television the only possible method of getting content from the production company to the viewer.
what do you propose to do with the countless people who were employed by said industry and now are jobless with mouths to feed?
Having companies even whole groups of companies fail is part of capitalism. Other areas such as airlines and telecom suppliers are not doing too well right now. But no-one is calling for special legislation to force people to fly or to force people to buy additional telephone lines.
Now. . .digital cable. Whole new signal-processing infrastructure, new set-top boxes. Amplifiers will need to amplify AND regenerate the signal: digital signals tend to go to much over a given distance without active regeneration. Hence, the 185M Cat5 limit, or the chain of 5 devices rule when laying out network wiring/infrastructure. Lots of new stuff. Operating cost will likely be less, but have you forgotten about implementation costs ???
Hear, hear! But wait... the invention of TV ended the glory days of radio entertainers! We should ban that, too. Those poor radio stars... And look what the "talkies" did to all those silent movie stars -- they hardly ever land a good part now! Let's ban the movies, at least, the ones with sound...
Also could have banned ice making machines, they put the ice cutting and shipping industries out of business. Airliners put ships out of the business of mass transport of people over oceans. The invention of the motor car put many industries related to horse transport out of business.
Sometimes industries adapt, taxis easily made the switch from horse to internal combustion engine, cruise liners providing recreational trips is big business, involving ships much larger than those which used to be major "people transporters".
Nobody weeps for the buggy-whip makers!
Or the buggy makers, not all of whom turned to making "horseless buggies". Equine vets who couldn't simply become car mechanics. Horse breeders. Farmers and distributers of horse feed. Those responsible for cleaning the streets of horse manure and dead horses.
I can see one of the defendant's aruments now.
Your Honor, I would like to bring your attendtion to Defense Exibit A. This will be shown right after we return from a word with our Sponsors.
Enter Defendant #2: Are your robes as black as they should be? New Woolite helps keep black robes black....(after 5 miuntes return to Defendant #1)
Defendant #1: And now to Exhibit B. Oh, you missed A? Maybe we shouls rewind..but that would not be allowed if the ReplayTV has their way...
Sig? What's a Sig?
Fair enough. I like to use the whip manufacturers because their product is only incidental to the goal. That is, you use the buggy to travel. You just use the whip to motivate the horse. It's necessary for movement if your model is horse-and-buggy. But it's not fundamentally necessary for movement.
Much like all these content providers, who are -- under the current model -- needed for the distribution of music, TV, whatever. Under a new model, they become overpriced unnecessary middlemen... just like the buggy-whip makers. (And I like the connotation that the content providers whip their artists to motivate them...)
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
BBC in the UK have two channels (BBC1 and BBC2). IMHO, they are the best channels in the world in terms of content *and* they don't sport any commercials whatever.
The BBC does carry advertising, both programme trailers and promotion of other parts of the corporation (some of which is most definitly commercial advertising.) What it does not have is commercial advertising for third parties. The advertising carried by the BBC also virtually never appears in the middle of a programme either.
Me, I don't mind watching television ads, there aren't so many in the UK (ads appear only every 15 minutes here for 3 minutes typically)
When showing North American produced programming there is often the same amount of advertising on UK commercial TV as in the US. But the proportion of third party commercial vs self promotion and trailers tends to vary. With the BBC you'd simply have a "hour long" programme shown in a 45 minute slot. Sometimes UK commercial TV will use a 50 minute slot, but only outside peak viewing times.
The way in which ad breaks are scheduled are also different. In the US you typically have no ads between programmes. You'd have an ad break immediatly before the closing credits and immediatly after the opening credits of the next programme. Which is probably why US (and Canadian) drama often has a long pre opening credit scene. Programming produced in Europe and Australia tends to have the title sequence right at the begining. (In the case of a European/NA co-production it can go either way, e.g. it looks like the Germans were in charge with Lexx.)
Ever heard of product placement? Movies (and to a lesser extent, TV shows) do this all the time. I prefer it to the 2-3 minutes of ads (or channel surfing) for every 8 minutes of content.
The problem with product placement is that it highly restricts your potential advertisers, not uncommonly to transnationals only. Being able to have local adverts, possible with the US model of network TV or video on demand, cable systems, there are even ways of doing it on satellite, means you have a much bigger market to sell to. Also things can look silly if your product placement involves a Pan Am, Enron or similar.
I think a better solution would be to be able to pay for the few shows or channels I like individually, WITHOUT commercials.
This would be a good deal for the viewers (likely also the production companies, actors and everyone else who actually produces the content in the first place), there are a great many shows where there are probably more than 2 million people prepared to pay at least one US doller per episode. But it would completly kill the existing broadcast companies, they arn't going to go quietly...
Obviously part of the sponsorship includes ads on TV, but it also includes changing one of the show titles from "Cheat" to "Cheat Pringles Gamers Guide", and changing the actual set of the show to include Pringles "stuff". The show home page on our web site (for this show) is also part of it.
You get exposure even if you fast forward the commercials.
hope you can adapt.
see ya!
You know, as long as it spares me the ethnically diverse friends having fun with Pringles in a hip and edgy way, that's fine. You know, I wondered at first why all the G4 shows have such terse names -- it didn't occur to me that it was to leave room for the advertisers' names!
1. Find a local electronics store that will give you financing for a ReplayTV 4500 at $20/month for about three years.
2. ????
3. Profit!
I was going to build a site once, when bandwidth was cheap, I had a lot more free time, and I was much dumber. TVonDVD.com. Even had a little spinning logo worked up, of an old fashioned tv on a cd.
But the domain was taken, and I quit the job for better pay with a higher workload.
Oh well
Yay me!
the broadcasting industry go into the shitter
Umm, I thought they were already headed there. Most of the filth (sex sells) is unsuitable for the church ladies. Did you know there is only a few of the words left on George Carlin's list of seven words that still can't be said on TV? I certianly can not use the over the air TV as entertainment for young children anymore. (A PBS childrens program even has an AIDS muppet now)
The truth shall set you free!