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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.
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
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.
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.
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-
Yeah, I feel your pain. I especially like the way the cable people come up with digital cable, which allows them to fit a whole buttload more content on the same bandwidth, effectively lowering their cost of operation, and then proceed to charge a higher price for it.
I thought it was a low point when MTV viewers chose their own VJ. I hadn't heard they they're choosing network execs from the same talent pool.
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
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?
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.
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?
Where ya think that content comes from? Does it grow on trees perhaps? Besides, it's not like they phased out analog cable, they provided digital as an alternative. Pay more, get more. It's called 'service'.
If you want to hate digital cable, here's a better reason: Your VCR won't work with it unless it has a digital tuner. I've yet to see one of those at Best Buy. It's for this reason I may go with Satellite, since DirectTV has a Tivo that works with it.
"Derp de derp."
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."
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.
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
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
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.
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.
"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
Hmmm - well we could do like Europe (and most of the rest of the civilized world) and pay a licensee fee for each TV receiver. That is one idea. The thing is that the attitude of the *AA types that we have a contract to watch the commercials is the rediculous part of the conversation. I don't remember signing anything - did you?
Have you compiled your kernel today??
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.
If that happened here I'd have my cable disconnected. *Hopes somebody at AT&T is reading.*
"Derp de derp."
>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.
Newsflash, the UK tv license fee "only" funds the BBC (2 terrestrial channels, 5 national radio stations, endless local ones, a 24-hour news channel on c/s/dtt, etc.). The other 2.5 terrestrial channels (ITV, Channel4 and the excrable Channel 5) run ads, as do pretty much all of the extra channels on cable/satellite/dtt.
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.
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.
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...
The digital-cable box I'm using (a Scientific-Atlanta Explorer 2100) has the ability to control a VCR (in the same manner that most digital-satellite receivers can control a VCR). Going the other way, my TiVo will control it with no problems. It would be nice if the digital-video data picked up by the box could be piped into the TiVo and saved to disk (a la DirecTiVo), but it works well enough if you record at best quality (easy to do when you've stuck one or two big (>=100GB) hard drives in your TiVo.
(The only problem I've noticed so far is that the cable box shuts off during a brownout, doesn't come back up in the power-on state when power is back, and the TiVo won't turn it back on when it's putting out no signal. Putting the box on a UPS (I have one powering the cable modem, a 10/100 switch, and the TiVo already) would fix that problem.)
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
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!