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TiVo, ReplayTV Agree to Limits
Grump writes "This story reports that 'The makers of TiVo and ReplayTV digital video recorders have agreed to limit how long consumers can keep pay-for-view movies stored on future versions of the VCR-like devices.' Is this fair, or erosion of more fair-use rights?"
As I recall in the recent past, a well-known seller tried to limit viewing of movies by introducing the Divx technology whereby, the machine would connect to a server to get a key to view. Now if Replay or Tivo try this then there will be a backlash from the consumer. What would be ironic is if one of these PVR manufactures goes bully up than I suspect that the software community will pickup the fragments and produce code to do whatever the original community want.
On a side note, I watch a video program on my PVR from PBS that was for educational instructional use and it had a disclaimer at the beginning stating that copies could be used up until 2006 or so. I don't have any intent on keeping the program that long but why should I depend on a 3 party source to keep and maintain material. A distributed system where PVR owners share programs is just about to become a rally by certain. This peeves me - the thing that manufactures/groups worry about the most is usually good for them and the consumer.
To sum the two paragraphs together: the video material should be in an inter-dispersed local (PVRs) and not limited because of popularity (Fair use). In fact the material should only survive if it is popular enough to be wanted/distributed from enough people wanting to exchange the information - If no one wants it then it would disappear.
That's crap!
Not that the story is wrong, but the idea is bullshit.
I have a TiVo and I upgraded it with a 140Gb drive, so I get over 100hrs of storage. I use it in exactly the way they should want someone to. I'm not a couch potato, I work for a living. There are shows I like to watch, but I usually don't have time to just sit down at watch when they're on. I usually start watching television around 2am. For years, this meant I watched crap. Now that I have a TiVo, I can watch good shows.
We'll use their example of '6 feet under'. I may not get a chance to watch it til a week later. Should I miss the episode because they decided to set an arbitrary limit to how long I can keep it stored? What if I'm out of town for work for a week? Can't I come home, and catch up on the episodes that I missed. Yes, this has happened more than once, and it's *REALLY* nice that I can do it.
I haven't seen any black market shops selling '6 feet under' episodes recorded with TiVo.
How about PPV movies? My girlfriend has watched movies, and recorded them (on the TiVo). I may sit down a week or two later, and watch that movie. Fair use. The household paid for it. Or more like, *I* paid for it. If we had been home at the same time, we would have watched together. So if this goes through, now she'll see the movie or show, and I'll be out of luck?
They're not afraid of piracy, they're looking at possible revenue that they're missing. They could possibly get an extra PPV viewing fee because I would possibly buy it twice. Well, that's wrong, I wouldn't. I won't pay twice, I just won't watch it til it comes out on HBO and I happen to be sitting there.
As for '6 feet under', I actually was into that show in the first few seasons. I didn't have a TiVo, but my schedule permitted me to be at home to watch it. At the time, I didn't own a TiVo. My work schedule changed, and I missed several episodes, and was lost about the story line when I tried to start watching again. If I had a TiVo then, I could have spent some time catching up on old episodes, and still been interested in the series. Now that's a show I simply don't watch. It's a waste of their broadcasting time, because I don't know what's happened previously.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
So I guess I better keep that VHS a little longer... feh....
I guess its time to go back to what I did before Tivo--record onto a VHS tape to watch whenever I wanted, and delete if I didn't want it anymore.
Is this fair, or erosion of more fair-use rights?
Sounds more like collusion to me.
That's fine. I'll just start storing them on my hard drive. That, or I'll quit ordering Pay-Per-view altogether and just sign up for Netflix so I can burn DVD-R copies like everyone else.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
First, can you still pull that content off your Tivo/ReplayTV and put it on something else? Yes.
Second, is the time limit as long/longer than a rental? I tend to look at this service as a replacement for going to my neighborhood video rental store. Is the quality, price, rental time limit, etc. comparable? If so, and it removes the hassle of driving out to the store, plus finding a movie that's actually in stock, then it sounds like a great deal to me.
What fair use rights are being eroded when you rent a movie for the night and return it the next day?
I haven't seen a single advantage to PPV. The movies that I see available on DirecTV have already been out in the movie store for over a month (ie Starsky and Hutch). I pay less at the video store and I get to keep the movie for 5 days...
So what advantage does a $4.00 movie via PPV (plus additional fees that they might charge) have?
Let me know when I can purchase DVDs over my Tivo and have a tangible piece of media to store it for life that doesn't take up my TV recording space and I'll be interested. Until then it's just another Divx knockoff that's going to die because no one cares.
It's perfectly fair. I just won't buy from them.
Feel free to continue to practice your Fair Use Rights by using DVArchive (or whatever equivalents are out for TiVo. Or buy some OTHER company's PVR. Or find out how to hack the feature back into the units. Or build a homebrew PVR using Freevo, Myth, Sage, etc.
Consumers still have a ton of options. This is just two corporations making a dumb decision--nothing to see!
> This is akin to renting a movie from Blockbuster...
When you rent a movie, you have taken one physical copy out of circulation. That's not the case if you tape a PPV movie/event.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
I can't see this argument working well with the current crop of TiVo subscribers, who are used to retaining content for as long as they'd like. With the current TiVo boxes, you can even record off DVD (i.e. rentals) to your TiVo, and watch them as much as you'd like, since the recorder recognizes the Macrovision on the way in, and re-establishes it on output (so you couldn't make a VHS dub of the recorded DVD). I know of quite a few TiVo users that do this, and I can't see them liking losing this functionality. I know I'd be unhappy with this restriction, losing the content in as little as 24 hours.
Instead of, say, limiting the length of time it can be stored, why don't they make it so that (1) once play has started, it must be completed within 48 hours, and (2) once it's finished playing, the file erases itself.
Let the TiVo store unplayed content for an infinite length of time -- but put strict limits on it once it starts to be *used(
it is intended to allay the piracy and business concerns that prevent the studios from releasing films to cable pay-per-view services on the same day they appear on DVD. Such issues also have made premium cable networks reluctant to offer on-demand services that would allow subscribers to watch any episode of, say, ``Six Feet Under'' they choose, at any time.
What piracy concerns? DVDs are available for download the second they hit store shelves (or days before as is often the case). Having some movie on a Tivo isn't going to increase the level of piracy.
"Business concerns" my ass.
"The market alone cannot provide sufficient constraints on corporation's penchant to cause harm." -- Joel Bakan
Its their content. Its their business how they license that content to you.
Although it pisses me off as much as anyone else on here that these content companies want "do not record", "only play until xxx", and "do not copy" type flags on their content, I do believe they've got every right to do that since the material belongs to them.
If you don't like it, don't watch it. There's lots of far higher quality movies, programs and music out there from people who aren't as fixated on keeping strict controls.
If the majority of people care, then they will change or go out of business. But the fact is, most people don't care. They're still going to watch "6 Feet Under"...
mythtv-suite
And this is on the precompiled binaries page! How the heck will any non-Linux-geek figure this out?
Someone really needs to compile a MythTV LiveCD (or whatever) that you can just install and run on a PC with suitable video hardware. Having to figure out all this Linux mumbo-jumbo, or worse, compile it yourself, is a recipe for saying "screw it" and going back to TiVo, restrictions or no.
sulli
RTFJ.
Hollywood's view on copyright is pretty unrealistic in my opinion.
When a film is released in cinemas, a large degree of copyright control can be expected by the copyright owner. They can effectivly control the distrobution and showing of the film.
When the film is released on video and DVD, a large degree of copyright control is lost to the holder. They can only loosly control the distrobution and showing of the film. People can buy films and view them whereever they please, and give the DVD to whoever they please. Maybe even copy.
However when a copyright holder makes the decision to broadcast a film to millions of people, over the airwaves, potentially to every human in the contry, and in future perhaps the world, it is fair to say they have abandoned all pretence to copyright control. They have in effect duplicated the film about as many times as it can be duplicated, almost infinitly, and in so doing have made a laughing stock of their grounds of complete control over their copyright.
If you want to use your copyright to broadcast your film all over the airwaves, fine. Just don't expect to keep the same control over it as you did the day before. If you blast your movie into my box, I've got it and possession is nine tenths of the law mate.
It's like an author emailing his book to every inbox on the globe and then complaining when people start printing it out or reading it on their PDAs. Rubbish.
Hollywood has lost its monopoly on the reproduction of media content. Tought luck. Evolve or die, dinasaurs. Don't drag more innovative compnaies like TiVo down with you. the situation in the UK is a little different. Sky+ actually encourages viewers to record TV content. Maybe it's the lack of a Hollywood there?
May the Maths Be with you!
If you purchase a movie ticket for tonight and hold it until next week, would you expect to be allowed to view it later? No, in fact under most circumstances, you wouldn't even be entitled to a refund if you missed the showing. The problem is that the Studios don't view it as "you paid for it" giving you unlimited viewing rights. No, they view it as "you paid for the ability (access) to view it within their viewing window." Just because you missed the "viewing window" is not their problem. They provided the content that you paid for, but if you couldn't watch it on their terms (to which you agree), then you're out of luck.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
Uhh have you used any of those so-called DVRs? They aren't even remotely close to a Tivo. I understand from a business perspective Tivo is F'ed, but I would never in a million years pay my cable company 5 bucks a month just to save 7 bucks a month over Tivo's cost to get the incomparably worse DVR service.
These two competitors have agreed on a completely arbitrary limit for recording PPV shows. Why?
Replay took away the ability to automatically skip commercials in their newest units? Why? Because they got their ass sued off over that feature. So they caved and took it out.
It doesn't matter if you are in the right if you can't afford to prove it.
Don't blame TiVo and Replay, blame the broadcasters who are really the ones who want to control what you do.
Previous court rulings have allowed for infinite, private use of recorded things like Pay-Per-View events/movies.
If you want it *THAT* bad, then go buy yourself a goddamned VCR/DVD-R and dump it to that. The ones who like to hack theirs, send it to PC and save it there or something.
Inspite of having mammoth HDs andsuch, do you *really* want a huge 2+ hour file recorded at hgh quality just sitting on it for a long period of time? Do you lug your TiVo over to friends' places to do a movie night?
Better yet, as someone else suggested, go out and pay thr $20 or so an buy the DVD so you get a better copy, the special features, and a copy you can use anywhere.
Anonymous Cowards generally receive no replies because you're a coward and I'm a bitch
"Therefore, a TiVo really doesn't have the legally established right to have a "Save Until I Delete" feature. Current TiVo devices offer that "green ball" as a keep-forever setting, but that's really in the gray area that we've never seen any court rulings about how legal that is."
Using the language of that cunt, Mary Bono, I'm only saving for "forever less one day." It cuts both ways.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
They control the access codes and law. We control our wallet. If we were as digilent over the wallet as they are over their control and laws, we would see our viewpoints taken more seriously.
But, as studied in microeconomics, the reason the big guys get away with it is the "little people" are disorganized and do not provide a unified front as large organizations do. The effort to organize is far greater to the individual than the value of the benefits lost. So the big guys just take. And get off scot-free.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
This seems to me like a terrible business decision made short-sighted people who haven't done the proper research into consumer habits... Restrictions like this may appear to increase copyright-holder's revenue, and perhaps even do so in the very short-term, but in the long-term these kinds of restrictions REDUCE the revenue they make.
...Is this really that complicated to understand? By relaxing the rules, they've convinced me to SPEND MORE MONEY.
Or, to say it another way, less restrictive copy controls actually INCREASE the amount of money made on a property, so long as the expense is primarily discretionary.
Remember, I can entertain myself in many other ways aside from TV/Movie -- and so the convienence factor is a primary purchasing decision. If the _perceived_ value of the purchase is low: because of price, annoying rules, etc -- then I will go and spend my money somewhere else.
PPV is a perfect example of this... Up until last year, I was _never_ interested in PPV: why spend as much money as a rental, and not be able to pause for the bathroom, get interrupted, whatever. I occasionally rented movies: but renting is a pain, I have to go to the store, then I have to remember to return it (which I often don't) etc. As a result, I only rented movies when I was ready to have "a movie night" --and as a result rented movies once a month or less: 2 movie rentals/month.
Last year, I got the DirecTivo. DirecTivo with PPV is great: Every once in a while I go onto the PPV lists and pick a few movies I might want to watch, the Tivo records them and they're waiting. I find that I watch a lot more good movies this way: since anytime I want to chill for an hour I can just pop on a good movie (or the end of one I was interrupted watching). Using PPV like this, I buy probably 5-6 movies a month.
What's the downside to the movie studios here? The average person does not watch even a purchased DVD more than once or twice -- does the movie industry really think I'm gonna keep it stored on my Tivo for 2 years and watch it so many times that I will stop buying other movies?
Oh well, I guess I'll just stop buying PPV when this happens -- just like Copy-Protected CDs and the various other inconvienent drm formats that i've ignored...
"The right we have here is to buy or not buy, that's about it."
that is woefully ignorant.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I've seen some very clever posts on this board about the applications of TiVo and ReplayTV to change the industry, some things I didn't even think of before.
The problem is, however, is that the bigger the industry, the less change is appreciated.
For example, someone said that with TiVo, prime time will go away and you can schedule your show any time and it will get picked up by one of these recorders. The problem with that is that then there is no longer a need for the executives who run prime time. Their niche is threatened. Plus without prime time pricing, advertising rates fall for those hours.
And then, if you can fast forward past commercials, rates fall even faster.
If you can't control the distribution of a movie, there is rarely a need for all the producers and execs responsible for filming and funding movies. The artist makes it, and then distributes it via their chosen medium. The pictures are high budget so they have to make sure money flows in a specific direction. Much of that money has to flow into the pockets of those execs.
I keep wanting to point out about failures in capitalism, until I realize that this isn't capitalism! Capitalism requires competition and, like so many industries in the US involving media and services, there is so little competition to actually be capitalism. We just conveniently forgot about that chapter Adam Smith wrote about when it comes to media.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
it is collusion! normally collusion has to do with prices (and sometimes sales territory) rather than features such as this.
But think of this like an economist: reducing features and charging the same price is essentially the same thing as raising the price (go with me on this one). If two companies agree to limit functionality and maintain their prices (or agree to similar prices, or even simply agree on price) then that really is price collusion.
Think about this: Ford and GM executives at one point never even spoke to each other for fear of collusion accusations!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Lost Sheep to Shepard, you got your ears on?
Actually, I'll bet Porn is driving this.
The price of Porn on PPV is significantly higher than regular movies. According to some friends in the business, the entire PPV business model is based around porn. There's no way they can make a profit based on the random "Let the kids watch some movie they've probably already seen". They just have to offer non-adult programming to make it acceptable to the community.
Since many people are embarrased to buy Porn, even via mail order, they certainly won't go rent it at the local video store. So they use PPV.
By expiring it, they guarantee a revenue stream, compared to letting the viewer record a few dozen shows and repeatedly viewing them.
No mystery here. Move along.
It doesn't just cost your $4 to save it on your Tivo forever. It's $4 + % of Tivo capacity used * Total Tivo cost.
At some point, just buying the DVD is more economic.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Lost Cluster, with all due respect you have a misunderstanding of the law. IMO misunderstandings like yours are a large part of the reason why the US is in such a mess nowadays.
Statutes and courts don't GIVE people rights. The theory in the United States is that we have all of the rights which God or whatever has given us from birth, and statutes and courts sometimes (with our ultimate consent) can TAKE those rights away. So, start from the proposition that you can do anything at all that you want, unless law restricts it.
The Betamax decision said only this: We, the US Supreme Court, have decided not to take away the right to make copies of videos for time shifting purposes. All the decision told you, or anyone, was what the court would not in that instance take away.
The decision doesn't mean that time shifting is the only valid reason which permits copying, which is the way you are mistakenly interpreting it. Rather, the court looked at it and when asked the narrow question, is time-shifting copying invalid, answered, "Nope."
So, you continue to HAVE EVERY OTHER FAIR USE RIGHT, unless and until those rights are taken away by law. Oh, and to the posters who will chime in and say, but the copyright statute only gives 4 examples of fair use, well, that is not an exclusive list. I'll say it again, until your rights are taken away in America, you have them. That's the theory anyway.
Now, will you all PLEASE start acting in accordance with the thory our country was founded on? I am going to make copies of copyrighted content until I am blue in the face. I can think up hundreds of reasons why my copying is a fair use, besides time shifting or the few small examples cited in statute. Heck, maybe I just ENJOY it, and copying for enjoyment is a fair use? Who's to say?
I get to say, until that right is taken from me by process of law, I have it, and I am going to exercise it. IAAL.
Ps, I have noticed on Slashdot frequently that when people make mistaken legal arguments like yours, they often use the term "allowed," as in your reference to the court decision not "allowing" us to do XYZ. Please, please, please, for the sake of our country, banish the word from your vocabulary, stop using it, and leave the word to be used by children only. Adults in a free society aren't "allowed" or not "allowed" to do things. We do whatever the hell we want, unless prohibited. Please grow up and evolve, the whole world is suffering because US citizens are acting like they are small children instead of adults with rights and responsibilities.
Take control, this is yet another reason to dump TV entirely and download what you want to watch.
Except that's illegal of course. There's no excuse to break the law. If you don't like a law, fight to have it changed. If you don't like this limitation, find a legal way to get around it or don't use TiVo or whatever else will make you happy. Buy your movies instead of keeping them on TiVo. Boycott the movies and only watch stuff from indi sources, there's plenty of free content on the internet.
When you break the law you just give the **AA's an excuse to become even more draconian and you ruin it for the rest of us.