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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.
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
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!
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.
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?
And I paid them money, so I could have a copy. The government has decided that because I have a copy, it is my right to do certain things with that copy. (Fair use rights.) If I bought it, I may not "own" the copyright, but I certainly own the content to the extent that I should be able to use it however I like.
Restating the obvious since nineteen aught five.
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.