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."

Comments

Re:YES!

[aka-ed]

Don't celebrate. Did you RTFA? DRM will keep your shared programming to a max of 9 good friends. No promise that the presence of DRM won't allow some things to be made unshareable somewhere up the road. Anyway it won't be in your hands to make those decisions...

No P2P for you

[Wesley Felter]

It's not at all the same concept. TiVo2Go is like iTunes; you can only share among computers registered with the same account.

Re:is this in the FCC's jurisdiction?

[PCM2]

Once you've received a digital program over the air, does the FCC have any more authority to tell you what you can do with the copyrighted product that they don't even have the rights to distribute?

You are correct. What has happened here (according to the article) is that the FCC has adopted rules requiring digital broadcasters to implement controls (i.e. copy protection, DRM etc.) preventing indiscriminate sharing of media. So in other words, the FCC can regulate broadcasters, and one of the FCC's mandates to broadcasters is that the protect the rights of the copyright owners of the content they carry. TiVo has implemented some such restriction in thie new system, and the FCC has approved it -- meaning TiVo's system meets the FCC's definition of a scheme to protect copyright. (So I guess this also must mean that TiVo's system meet's the FCC's definition of a broadcaster?)

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.

Re:YES!

[The Only Druid]

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.