Slashdot Mirror
TiVo Has to Fund Your Local Stadium
Strudelkugel writes "The Washington Post has a truly Kafka-esque article regarding TiVo, the broadcast flag, the NFL and limited file sharing. "TiVo, the company that makes the digital-video-recorder boxes that inspire such strange idolatry among their users, is in a weird spot. It's asking the Federal Communications Commission for permission to add a new feature -- the option for a TiVo user to send recorded digital TV programs via the Internet to nine other people." Just wait until your read the rest of the story..." This one is actually really worth a read to see just how bizarrely corrupt this all is. Enjoy.
Just to spread the word, there is a site calledBug Me Not that is designed for the specific purpose of supplying usernames/passwords for these types of free registration sites.
They have Mozilla and IE extensions for easy access, and anyone can add to their database. Tell everyone you know (their motto).
Looks like some tool has changed the password already
TiVo, the company that makes the digital-video-recorder boxes that inspire such strange idolatry among their users, is in a weird spot. It's asking the Federal Communications Commission for permission to add a new feature -- the option for a TiVo user to send recorded digital TV programs via the Internet to nine other people.
Huh? Permission? Doesn't the government's involvement in consumer electronics stop with making sure that a gadget doesn't jam your neighbor's reception or electrocute you? Since when do the feds get to vote on product designs?
The answer is, since last November, when the FCC voted to require manufacturers to support the "broadcast flag" system by July 1 of next year. This convoluted mechanism aims to stop full-quality copies of digital broadcasts from circulating on the Internet.
The FCC didn't mandate any one anti-file-sharing scheme and instead invited companies to submit their own proposals, which brings us to TiVo's vaguely Soviet predicament. Among the schemes a handful of firms have proposed, only TiVo's would allow tightly controlled online transfers of recorded programs.
For this, the company has drawn the ire of the National Football League and the Motion Picture Association of America, which have asked the FCC to deny TiVo's proposal.
The NFL says that TiVo's Internet-sharing feature will allow people to send game broadcasts to blacked-out viewers in real time (a team's home game can be aired locally only if it sells out beforehand).
"It's a question of pure ability to sell tickets," said Frank Hawkins, the NFL's senior vice president for business affairs. "Buffalo typically sells out September and October, but they've got an open-air stadium. They'll never sell out those December games if they are unable to enforce the blackout rule."
This is an important point: The NFL is not asking the FCC to protect its television business -- never mind that the flag exists only to stop indiscriminate file sharing, not cure every copyright-infringement issue.
No, the NFL is asking for help with a stadium business, one that already benefits from massive government welfare. (A December 2002 Buffalo News story calculated that the taxpayers of Erie County, N.Y., had anted up about $148 million for the Bills and their stadium over the previous decade.)
In other words, the league is asking manufacturers and viewers to further subsidize team owners who are already gorging themselves at the public trough.
There's also the slight problem that the NFL's nightmare -- blacked-out viewers watching a game live on the Internet -- is all but impossible. With almost every broadband connection available today, it would take hours to upload a game. A recipient would be lucky to finish watching a Sunday afternoon game before Monday, and sending a high-definition copy would take most of the week.
Jim Burger, a lawyer for TiVo, fumed about the NFL's complaint: "Maybe their engineers understand how to inflate a football, but I don't think they understand encoded, encrypted MPEG-2," TiVo's tightly secured format.
Whenever full-quality, real-time video on the Internet does become commonplace, I expect to see the NFL capitalizing on it instead of complaining, just as it has profited from such earlier advances as satellite TV.
The MPAA, meanwhile, says that the way TiVo would allow customers to share recordings online with people who may not be friends or family members amounts to indiscriminate redistribution.
The Washington-based group wants TiVo to impose an "affinity requirement," said Fritz Attaway, its executive vice president for government relations.
But how can TiVo tell if the people to whom you've sent a program are really friends and
everything in moderation
Who gives a shit about pro sports anyways? I cannot think of a more useless waste of time than sitting down and watching an NFL game.
I care. Pro sports invokes a number of base emotions, and hence its popularity. To the geek who does not care I would suggest this: why not try following a team, such as the Packers, the Steelers, or the Raiders for awhile. In other words, follow a team with a real identity. One might be surprised at how interesting and fun it is, and even if this is not the case, one might gain an appreciation for the NFL and its devoted following.
The reality of the matter is this: the average person, football fan or not, is ambivalent about their government. Football fans run the gamut: from distinguished intellectuals to the practically uneducated.
It is sad to see this elitist view about the NFL still rampant among some "nerds" today: the same foolish individuals who claim to reason and think critically display an utter lack of understanding or open mindedness when it comes to sports. In a way, maybe a "joe six pack" football fan displays more wisdom than you do.
"Don't blame me, *I* voted for Kodos!" -- Homer Simpson
...just my 2 gil.