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Five PVR Users Allowed To Join Replay Court Fight

Posted by timothy on from the but-your-honor-those-people-are-criminals dept.

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.

3 of 138 comments (clear)

  1. Scary. by Fat+Casper · · Score: 4, Interesting
    ...whether specific uses -- such as transferring a TV show to a laptop to watch while traveling or using the commercial skip features to avoid exposing children to commercials -- constitutes a legally permissible ``fair use.''

    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.

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    I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
  2. Re:Call me ignorant, but.. by Skyshadow · · Score: 5, Interesting
    How else are television broadcasters supposed to cover their costs?

    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...

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    Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
  3. Re:Possible infringing uses don't outlaw a device by eggboard · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Weirdly, none of us have thought about a blog or journal on the case. I wonder what our lawyers will think? EFF has a truly terrific, hip bunch of people behind this (not just saying that because they read Slashdot), and I wouldn't be surprised if we could pull something off like that. Thanks for the suggestion!

    Yeah, when Larry Lessig said at OSCon, what are you doing? I thought -- Hey, I'm actually doing something! I hope to attend the actual trial.

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    Freelance tech journalist for the Economist, MIT Technology Review, Macworld, and others