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TiVo User's Fears Explored
elrous0 writes "In spite of TiVo's continuing insistence that recent appearances of 'red flag' recordings are mere "glitches," the AP is reporting that customers are beginning to get nervous about the new content-blocking feature added in a recent TiVo upgrade. The story quotes Matt Haughey, of PVRblog.com, as saying 'TiVo would be of limited utility in the future if the studios were allowed to do this with regular broadcast content ... This is like cell-phone jammers. What if you couldn't talk on your cell phone? If customers can't do something with their TiVo that they could in the past, they will stop using it.'" We've touched on this topic in the past.
TiVo has caved into the content producers, and handed over control of the DRM process to them. The recent accidental flagging of content in this way proves it is out of TiVo's hands, and within the realm of control of the broadcaster. That makes it only a matter of time before broadcasters will begin to use this feature. If TiVo wants to retain loyal customers, they need to take back control: they should require digital authorization codes for DRM features and DRM the DRM so that only TiVo can authorize DRM restrictions on content. Unfortunatley, even then TiVo users will have to worry about whether TiVo will allow DRM on content only in reasonable situations, or if TiVo will cave into monetary or legal pressures and allow it on anything the broadcasters want.
The end of TiVo's usefullness is approaching quickly. Probably time to get some more developers working on the open source alternatives.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Exactly why is TiVo adding this functionality? I cannot for the life of me figure it out. Is there a law somewhere that says they must? Or are they just afraid of the cost of a legal battle with the **AAs? Are the media companies so powerful now that they can impose thier will with just the treat of a lawsuit?
Str8Dog
using System.Darkside; public
I have watched and laughed as Tivo has bent over and taken everything from the industry. I am both a ReplayTV and MythTV owner. I don't understand why or how Tivo does what they do. If I bought a box with functionality X,Y,Z, and later Y is ammended in a way that causes some controversy (in a way I do not like), then I think Tivo has broken a contract.
Throughout it all, my ReplayTV experience has gone un-touched, I still have commercial skipping and the like. The way Replay skirts the issue is that they change model numbers and can then change the feature set. My 4500 has commercial skip where the 5500 does not. How Tivo is legally able to change it on all models is beyond me.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
I cancelled my TiVo subscription 4 days ago - I'm now using BeyondTV. I had the original model of the TiVo, and have been paying the monthly on it since TiVo first came out (yeah, I know, in hindsight I should have bought the lifetime subscription). I loved my TiVo - it really changed how I watched TV. But what I wanted in a DVR is something that records TV, keeps it until I tell it to get rid of it, etc.
:)
The TiVo rep argued with me that they had "resolved" the problems with shows getting deleted. I understand that it wasn't intentionally turned on, but the fact is the device now supports and allows broadcasts to muck around with this kind of thing. They offered to knock the monthly down 1/2, but I'm not interested any more.
I don't like the direction the company is heading in, so I've switched. I'm not going back, unless there's a radically change in their direction - and even then I'm no likely to. I like having control over my DVR - dual headed, 1TB storage, DVD burner, can ADD shows to the machine (and get them off), and I can extend and expand that machine as I see fit.
Long live BTV!
-Greg
This should not be hard. All the hardware is present and you have a instant DVR that can do more than what Tivo did. Maybe even use a usb dvd drive to put movies on dvd and such.
Sadly DirectTivo's probably are out of the picture for this.
and later the company takes away some of that capability, do you have some legal basis for claiming false advertising, or reneging on contract, or something like that?
I think this would be more of a question for people who paid for a lifetime subscription, but it also throws into the question the value of any future lifetime subscriptions, because if their contract allows them to start adding restrictions after the fact, is it really of much value?
Perhaps a similar question could have been first pursued back when the company started venturing into adding advertising into the skip features, etc., as well.
Most people I know who have one swear by their TiVos. I'm probably the rare Slashdotter that doesn't have one yet, but my reasons are very simple: I hate TV and the vast majority of the content available. I have a few shows that routinely take up my time, and they're on at shitty hours (damn you, [adult swim]!), but I can't justify buying a TiVo just to watch 3 or 4 shows in the middle of the afternoon rather than 1:00 AM.
I'm wondering if most people don't feel the same way, considering the response to this DRM seems to be "I'd have to get rid of my TiVo and stop watching TV". Given this, doesn't it seem that IP TV and true on-demand services might get a big boost out of TiVo's being crippled with DRM? If broadcasters can't sell commercials they won't buy shows, and if shows can't sell themselves to broadcasters they inevitably have to start selling directly to the people who want to watch.
Basically: might this be a blessing in disguise?
C
The Sun is proof that we can't even do fire properly.
Saying that the King of the Hill issue was noise smacks of B.S. That that is his opening salvo really weakens that article.
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
How did Copyright Law force them to add anything? It seems more likey to me that certain cartels forced them to put it in under threat of legal action using Copyright Law, but the law didn't force them to do anything.
I read the internet for the articles.
People are going to start *caring* very very quickly as soon as programs start expiring automatically and can't be saved.
If I was TIVO, I'm not sure I would have made the entire screen red. That's really going to upset people. Maybe this will become the 'RED SCREEN OF DEATH' for TiVO.
-- "It's not stalking if you're married!" My Wife.
What a dumb comment. Some of us don't want to spend the time to tinker with that shit just to watch TV. Most of us TiVo owners know about Myth and Beyond - if we had the inclination to DIY we would have.
What cracks me up is that Slashdot used to be "WE LOVE TiVo because its based on Linux, way to fight the man!!" to "Screw TiVo they are the MAN with the DRM, DIY with some 0.x release of MythTV! Way to Fight the MAN!"
...they were right about you...
"The PPV and VOD broadcasts are encrypted by Macromedia's technology. In order to decode said broadcasts as cable boxes do, they had to license Macromedia's decoder,"
;) ):
I'm pretty sure that's innaccurate... my understanding (which may also be innaccurate
TiVo needs Macrovision license for their combination DVD burner/player Tivo (not sure why, but it's probably part of the spec to get a "certified by the DVD consortium" DVD device with the appropriate stickers or whatever...)
Macrovision put Tivo over the barell that if they didn't ALSO license/implement their broadcast content protection they couldn't get the certification they needed for the other DVD related products...
fast forward to today (or rather tomorrow) when everybody loses, yeah! clarification/corrections welcome...
e.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
I don't watch TV. Period. The down side is that I do miss out on a bit of social interaction with my peers (e.g. nope, haven't seen that show). But news/sports/etc I get online, so as a whole I don't believe I'm missing much.
You want more control over your media? Be able to honestly say "Fuck You, I don't need you!" to the media companies. You as a person may not make a difference, but us as a whole will. You'll be surprised at how much they'll be willing to give when you don't give a shit anymore.
My $0.02.
PS. No, I'm not just talking shit. I really don't watch TV. Trust me, it isn't a necessity for survival, etc.
Twice now this week at 1am my TiVo prompted me about a program to record. The first time I let it assuming it was a season pass I had set up. It switched to an infomercial. It wasn't a normal recording and I had a time switching it back to the channel I was watching. Last night it happened a second time exactly the same way. When it prompts to change it doesn't tell you what it's switching to just it's some kind of TiVo extra. I couldn't find my controller in time and wound up going through the same nightmare switching back. I called up TiVo and after an hour wait was told it wasn't them doing it. I think the agent was sincere but I question that some one at TiVo central isn't test driving passively recording infomercials. They are definately doing it since all sorts of TiVo logos come on while it's switching. I told them flat out if I can't block it the third time it happens I cancel my service period. It's going to cost a bundle to set up a PC based system but I'd rather do that than pay TiVo $13 a month to record infomercials. Sad to see TiVo go down this road. It was fun while it lasted but I'm sick of being sold to 24/7. I already turn off the sound routinely during commercials because they boost the sound during commercials. Yes some guy going for a beer will still hear it but I never hear them at all so you can try to sell to the guy in the kitchen. Obnoxious advertising doesn't work. People just shut down after awhile and the solution isn't more advertising.
Roll forward to today, and things have changed fairly radically. The technology exists now to stream individual video programs. DVD sales now encompass all types of visual content. Cable companies make money from "video on demand". Further, it is easy to create, as TiVo has, restrictions that take into account cooperating content producer's wishes. As such, a generic device that just space shifts and time shifts could concievably reduce the commercial value of a product.
For example: I might be tempted to buy, on DVD, the complete season of "One Day To Defeat The Terrorists By Whispering Everything", the new hit Fox show, if I missed various episodes. Fox might release the DVD set with that in mind. However, if one can simply program their DVR to record every single show, they're not likely to buy it, especially if they can transfer the show to tape or DVD-R afterwards. Thus, one of the measures SCOTUS used in making the Betamax decision simply isn't true any more, as technology has improved.
Whether Betamax would get overturned is something for the lawyers to answer. But if I were TiVo, I wouldn't rely upon the Betamax decision to protect myself from potential copyright violation suits, especially in an environment in which other technologies which have tried to rely upon the space-shifting and "Substantially legal uses" defenses, such as Peer to Peer networks, have currently not won the support of the courts. Specifically, the supreme court's ruling has been over-simplified by many of its enthusiasts: it wasn't "Time and space shifting are human rights, man!", it was "Because there's no way today, in 1984, that this technology could reduce revenues for content producers, amongst other things, it's fair use, right now."
What we actually need, rather than this rather shakey Supreme Court ruling, is actual legislation that enshrines certain things people do with content into law. Of course, with half the advocates of this type of thing thinking that copying someone else's song to millions of anonymous strangers is "Fair use", it's going to be hard getting a consensus on what those rights should be, and to ensure Congress actually has something legitimate that doesn't actively damage artists at the end of the process.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
For that solution I'd recommend going with the semptron getting a barton core athlon XP would have a slight edge in performance, but for a DVR the semptron should be plenty fast, and can be had real cheap :) 512M ram, a 300-320 gig HD, and a DVD-burner and you've got a pretty nice PVR, throw a PSX style controller USB device and you've got a kick ass emulator station too ;) and the total hardware costs should be right around $500.
but really many slashdotters will have a Pc of that generation lying around. all you need is the capture card, and a big HD...
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Just because something is in the ToS doesn't mean that clause is enforcable, however.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
That's where GNU radio comes in. The hardware is so simple and generic it cannot be outlawed without something draconian like outlawing all unlicensed receivers of any RF spectrum. All the hard stuff is done in software. I've seen demos where they can decode HDTV with it. Quite impressive.
More importantly, the only thing the content providers will do is destory television. Once someone uses a TiVO, they change their lifestyle because of it. I, for example, cannot imagine ever again watching TV on somebody else's schedule. People won't go back to the way things were.
True.
Firstly there are illegal acts
hack the Tivo and you become our slave
The outrageous ones
hack the Tivo even a little and we get your car
Some that most wouldn't consider kosher
sell your Tivo to a 3rd party and we bill you for the cost of a new unit.
However, saying "we reserve the right to change our service as we see fit and thus modify the unit's software accordingly" is completely acceptable. Even doing something as draconion as, say, deleting shows after they've been stored for more than 14 days regaurdless of user input is would be acceptable. If they feel that their service shouldn't allow for long-term archiving for some content, so be it. I doubt anywhere in the user contract they "guarantee all content is archivable as long as the user wishes" because that could come back to bite them in the butt later.
You're choosing to use their service and thus must abide by these legally acceptable terms. You could always stop using the service, as the Tivo is functional without it (all-be-it not as nice). But that's your choice to continue on.
I use a MythTV box that a friend programmed for me. I love it but it is essentially a black box to me (literally) because I am not a programmer.
I am trying to resolve what seems like a contradiction.
1 - open source software is constantly (on Slashdot) said to be the way to go.
2 - TiVo has an interface that appears to be an order of magnitude better than Myth
This seems like a contradiction in my mind.
If Myth is open source and so many people are improving it and making feature additions then how come the average fairly intelligent person (I am an engineer) can't, with a minimum of fuss, install the software, have it find the installed hardware and configure itself accordingly?
Myth is great because it's independent & free of restrictions. It does not seem up to par on some things you would expect to do easily (watch a DVD, Archive to DVD, program on screen, for which I use the mythweb function almost exclusively). This is my first experience with open source and it seems like it's not yet ready for prime time.
The circumstances that led to the Betamax decision have changed. It is certainly possible that the Supreme Court wouldn't decide the case the same way in 2005 that they did back in the infancy of the VCR (though the Supreme Court decided the case in 1984, the case was originally brought in the infancy of the VCR, well before the movie studios realized that they could make a huge profit from releasing movies on video tape.) E.g., the case specifically mentioned that it was only considering time-shifting because librarying (keeping a copy of a taped show for an extended period of time) was rare. That "fact" is probably not true anymore.