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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, 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.
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
To paraphrase Bruce Schneier, are you suggesting that we make 'interference with a business model' illegal?
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!
"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."
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...
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
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
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.
"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
>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.