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FCC Says TiVo Owners Can Share Shows
Ec|ipse writes "Last week TiVo received alot of heat from MPAA and NFL for a proposal regarding sharing of recorded shows with users, see previous story.
Today it looks like TiVo has received approval." From the Reuters story as carried by Yahoo!: "TiVo, maker of popular digital television recording devices, on Wednesday received approval for technology that would permit users to send copies of digital broadcast shows over the Internet to a few friends."
Three more: Never gonna happen :)
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
now hopefully they can be shared over p2p as well. same concept, different deployment.
Amen.
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
I doubt it. Your circle of friends have to be authorized by a key. You can't switch those around very easily, I'm sure.
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
It's not at all the same concept. TiVo2Go is like iTunes; you can only share among computers registered with the same account.
Tivo is nice, but ReplayTV is better. I use Pooli.com to share shows all the time with people all over the net. I've been using DVArchive to store shows on my PC's drive and burn to DVD for a long time. If you get the 5040 or 5080, Commercial Advance is fully operational and works great. As far as I know, none of this stuff is going to change for the ReplayTV.
Sounds to me like what's happened is that the MPAA and NFL won't be able to lobby the FCC to take action against TiVo. Instead, they'll have to spend their own money to sue TiVo under the DMCA.
Breakfast served all day!
Well, there are a few places you're incorrect.
First, TivoToGo seems to be a streaming application, akin to the current HMO features on Tivos. This means that there will [likely] never be a complete copy of the file on the computer. This of course doesn't prevent someone from developing an app to catch the stream. Good luck though.
Second, you didn't read the article: in order to play back one of the Tivo'd files, you'll need a physical dongle - a small USB tab - to provide the decryption key. That is how they limit you to nine people: only nine dongles can be tied into your Tivo's account.
Now, it should be noted that existing hacks (look for "Sleeper's ISO" for more info, to start) provide the ability to fully extract video off a Tivo (after it's been hacked somewhat), and that is what Tivo is trying to combat. In much the same way that iTunes' Music Store snagged the music-downloaders who were willing to pay a little for the convenience of (a) downloading the file quickly and (b) doing so legally, Tivo is hoping that TivoToGo will snag the people who want to view their shows in other places and do so without violating their warranty.
"Stumble before you crawl"
The FCC did exactly what it's supposed to do when it specified the new digital TV broadcast standard; it created a national broadcast standard where clearly one is beneficial to the public. No jurisdiction question here.
The MPAA successfully lobbied for the inclusion of the "broadcast flag" in the DTV standard, which when present in the broadcast signal requires the receiving device to provide appropriate copy protection to the program being broadcast. The FCC had no intent to disallow the recording, off-line storage or even limited sharing of high quality digital broadcasts, it simply intended to limit widespread re-distribution of high quality recordings.
The FCC very wisely decided that there was no need to limit the set of appropriate copy protection mechanisms, so it established a procedure by which to certify a copy protection mechanisms. It's that procedure which TiVo availed themselves of (and you could too if you want).
So given that the FCC has jurisdiction and that TiVo has satisfied the FCC that their copy protection mechanism provides reasonable protection against widespread re-distribution there's nothing for anyone to sue about except to claim that the FCC somehow violated its own procedures in certifying the TiVo mechanism.
DCMA doesn't apply here either, since the TiVo software isn't circumventing a copy protection mechanism it's actually enforcing one. If you found a way to break the TiVo protection, that would violate the DCMA.
Not sure, but figure my Series 2 Tivo for direcTV is in the cold on this one. When I got word that Tivo was releasing the former "add on" network functions, I learned that my Tivo did not have the USB ports activated, and neither DirecTV nor Tivo had any word on plans to release "firmware" to activate them.
DirecTV Tivo with 2 tuners rocks, but this might be the final straw to get me back on cable.
The government doesn't have to - Tivo's doing it for them. Content can only be transferred between devices associated to the same credit card. Are you going to give something that you're paying a significant monthly fee for to a complete stranger?
As far as I'm concerned they're out of their jurisdiction, but that's something only a judge can determine. Everybody here is celebrating the FCC's decision, but to me this is just another hint at the fact that the FCC is attempting to regulate copying through their broadcast flag mandate.
I'd like to think that it's the job of Congress and not the FCC to regulate copying. Why is this an important distinction? Because congresspeople are elected, but FCC officials are appointed!
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
By applying with the FCC, Tivo has gotten permission so that even when the broadcast flag is enabled, broadcast content can be transferred between all Tivos associated with the same account (up to 10). And the spectacular thing is that Tivo network can even be across the internet.
But everyone has to be aware that the sharing can only happen between Tivos connected to the same account through a credit card. Unless you plan to pay for your friends Tivo subscriptions, you still can't transfer content to their Tivos.