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Life or Death for Tivo
CUShane writes "The Washington Post is running an article on the patent case between Tivo and EchoStar regarding Tivo's DVR technology. The article states that Tivo has a better than 70% chance of winning, while a loss would basically doom the company. Is there a possibility that the patent system is working right in this case?" From the article: "TiVo attorney Morgan Chu has been arguing in court that TiVo's inability to turn a profit, despite the popularity of its product, is partially because of EchoStar's infringing on its patent. TiVo co-founder Michael Ramsay testified that he showed EchoStar executives the TiVo product and pursued a licensing deal with them, but that a deal was never struck even though EchoStar began selling its own DVRs that used technology very similar to TiVo's."
... until the TiVo v's MythTV flamewar begins... for the nth time
Just because your paranoid doesn't really mean they aren't out to get you
Fuck.
With.
My.
TiVo.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
...to learn that TiVo hadn't turned a profit yet? I was.
Are there any other popular gadgets (besides blackberry) caught up in stuff like this?
Math is math. Regular expression is regular expression. The tools are there. The future is now.
Is there a possibility that the patent system is working right in this case?
Just because the system didn't crash on you a day doesn't mean it's not crashy. Hellooo Eolas patent? Blackberry?
I had the first Tivo of anyone I knew -- the day I first heard about it I picked one up. It was a great device for its time, but the recent Tivos I've experienced have no shown much improvement. It is my belief that patents stifle innovation, and they allow the patents holders to stick with the status quo longer than open competition would allow. There can be innovation without patents (PDF warning).
For Tivo to say that their livelihood is in a delicate position because of this patent is ridiculous. If they had protected this patent and EchoStar was never able to compete, all it would mean is that Tivo would have left their prices higher than the market would expect, and they'd still not do much to innovate and invent.
In order to bring a product to market, one must look at all sorts of requirements. Marketing, fast competition, consumer need, consumer affordability, and longevity. Not every product will succeed, and many will fail. The great part about failure is that, on a whole, consumers win out in the long run as other people innovate on top of the failure and release a product or service that is financially viable. Nowhere in the system is a patent system necessary, because there will always be people who want to make a product at a lower cost, even at no cost. Look at MythTV for proof, there, as well as any open source success story.
How many times must it be said that patents don't foster creation, they disrupt it. A monopoly is a monopoly, and the worst examples of monopoly are those that exist solely by using the force of government to back them up. In fact, I truly believe that no monopoly can exist without the myriad of government favoritistic laws and regulations that prevent the open competition that is created when restrictions are removed.
Think not of Tivo, think of the consumer that wins out in the end. This is all that matters in a market -- you should not enter a market without having an understanding of what it takes to survive, succeed and surpass your competition. If you think you can win by removing competition from the picture, you're ignoring the basic ideals of freedom that we're supposed to hold so close to our hearts.
I truly believe it is time for Tivo to close up shop. In the next 10 years, the DVR/PVR idea will be gone -- integrated into every bit of electronics we use, up to even cell phones. As bandwidth increases and costs decrease, the need to use a DVR/PVR will be reduced to those who just want to have the data in their home. Tivo (and EchoStar) will find themselves useless fast enough if they think this is a growing market.
This story is entirely about the jury. A jury can decide a case any which way they like, no matter what the law says (see jury nullification)
+1 to Tivo for manipulating the system.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
20 years is crazy!
What is the duration in other countries?
This page The Optimal Lifetime of a Patent is interesting. They say the lifetime should vary based on a cost/benefit analysis. I would guess that the "optimal term" is closer to 3 years than 20 years for most computer/electronics patents.
I know we all love TiVo and all, but it looks like their patent is on simultaneously watching and recording TV.
You know, like you used to do when you watched one channel and had your VCR record another.
Or like when you watch streaming media in your web browser and it continues to buffer even when you hit "pause".
Basically, this is yet another stupid IP patent (is there another kind?), even if we like the company trying to enforce it.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I wonder if any of the Jurors have a Tivo?
TiVo co-founder Michael Ramsay testified that he showed EchoStar executives the TiVo product and pursued a licensing deal with them, but that a deal was never struck even though EchoStar began selling its own DVRs that used technology very similar to TiVo's.
Lesson Learned: Do not show greedy executives what technology you are working on, or they will steal your idea and change it just enough to sell it legally for themselves.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
According to TFA, they hold a patent on watching one show and recording another at the same time?
I dunno about you guys, but I've had a VCR that could do that since before anyone had come up with the name "TiVo".
(And if this case succeeds, you can kiss any open-sourc PVR software goodbye, you know)
I've upped my standards, so up yours.
That's how he got the idea for his implementation of the GUI; he got "inspired" by visiting Xerox.
Here's the real problem with Tivo's suit and intellectual property law -- this Clark guy who's heavily quoted in TFA explains that TiVo should win their suit because even though EchoStar used a different approach to implement the same functionality, this "doctrine of equivalents" means they're still violating TiVo's patent and then goes on to explain that it also means Cablevision's data-on-servers approach would violate TiVo's patent ... BUT TiVo's founder got the whole idea from the work he was doing at another company for a data-on-servers DVR!
Which means that if TiVo wins their suit based on this "doctrine of equivalents" then they should/would lose if the company the TiVo founder was working for sues TiVo!
Most developers face a dilemma when mass marketing a new development: market it directly, competing with the existing sales channels to the market, or sell/license it to a competitor. It's a kind of "coopetition" more necessary these days when branding and distribution controls most market access. The risk is that the developer will merely educate the competition to the worthiness of the product in the market, and the established seller will decide to sell their own version, without "partnering" with the developer who invested in its development. Patents can help, but they're expensive, time consuming and no guarantee against a well-funded competitor with legal expertise and experience. And a patent like the one at the heart of TiVo's lawsuit against EchoStar is also overly broad, applying legal devices like the Equivalents Doctrine to patent an entire class of inventions, not just the one actually invented. Many developers who make our livings from substantially improving on existing inventions avoid such patents that we would hate to see used against us in the hands of another inventor.
So we usually require a nondisclosure, noncompete, noncircumvent agreement before disclosing any details to the dangerous potential partner. Where is that NDA in this conflict? Was there one, which turns out to be unenforceable? That would be an important lesson for our whole profession. Did TiVo not have one, but gained millions in investment anyway, while EchoStar consumed their business? Another valuable lesson, this time for everyone. Are NDAs worth the paper they're signed upon?
--
make install -not war
I could create a bicycle using my own patented technology...but that wouldn't give me the right to sue every company making bicycles because they are "similar"...
One would have to use my technology to make the case...
Or every car namufacturer would be in violation of eachother's patents...
Why are people so stupid?
--E--
No matter what the outcome of the case, TiVo is screwed.
a blevision+DVR+plan/2100-1033_3-6056149.html
http://news.com.com/Comcast%2C+Time+Warner+back+C
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
This is a classic example of a system propping itself up. Combine these instructions with government education, and there's no hope. One of the key reasons to have a jury is so that they can judge the law as well as the case!
Your photocopied patent diatribe is wrong in this case for many reasons:
(1) Echostar hasn't innovated anything, they copied Tivo's product after it was shown to them, Echostar's DVR isn't different than Tivo's product in any meaningful way;
(2) Echostar and Tivo aren't in direct competition, Echostar is in a better position than Tivo to provide DVRs to its customers because you need its dish to use its system - i.e. Echostar's customers don't get to easily pick between Echostar and Tivo products.
(3) because of (1) and (2), Tivo isn't in any position to compete with Echostar because Tivo doesn't have access to Echostar's market.
As Tivo cannot out-innovate Echostar as you seem to imply, they have no means of inhibiting Echostar's free-riding. If they cant out-innovate Echostar and cant sue them, what do you suggest Tivo do? Build a satellite network better than Echostar's?
Tivo is just such a compelling product that it seems like someone will have to buy their IP out of bankruptcy. That's the worst case scenario -- hopefully someone will buy them before they get to that point. The ripoff products have just never come close to the user interface that Tivo provides. I'd like it if Comcast would buy them instead of deploying this craptacular Motorola DVR that they've got now.
People just love Tivo, hey, their brand name has become a verb ("I'm Tivoing '24' right now")! Buying their brand name alone would help any similar product get a better image.
There's a lot of talk about patents and I don't like much of it. It's very ideologically driven with little regard for the facts.
The field of economics believes that people respond to incentives. By giving someone a patent on something, you are ensuring that, for a limited time, they are able to secure most of the "social benefit" of that invention less the "social cost" of developing and producing it. For example, let's say that Tivo spent $100 million "inventing" their product - assuming they were truly innovative and that this is an actual invention. Then let's say that it costs $200 to build a Tivo - the cost of the hardware, marketing, labour used in assembly, shipping, the works. Clearly, Tivo can't sell units for $200 and turn a profit - in fact, they can't sell them for $201 and turn a profit unless they sell over 100 million units (which would cover the R&D).
Now, let's say that there aren't copyright laws for a second and that I can load Tivo software on a box I make (which costs me $200 to make) and start selling them. I can sell at a price a lot less than Tivo can because I don't have to recoup R&D costs of $100 million. This is why software patents are a little more tricky. In the real world, I would have to develop an alternative to the Tivo software which would cost me money, but probably less than the $100 million it cost Tivo since I would be duplicating an already existing piece of software which is substantially easier to do.
Looking at more mechanical things, one can easily see how they work and duplicate the design and the "inventing" company goes out of business - sort of.
There are a lot of people who argue that being first to market is enough of an advantage. An economist wouldn't. Yes, being first to market will provide one's company with a good amount of the social benefit of an invention, but not all of it (patents don't give you all either, but more) and so there is less incentive to invent and less invention than is socially beneficial happens.
I hate to use caps, but I must stress this: WITHOUT PATENTS, THERE IS LESS INVENTION THAN THERE SHOULD BE.
So patents do help correct for that market failure, but they also have detrimental effects. The one that bothers me the most is that patents give a monopoly. For the non-economists, monopolies charge higher prices and deliver fewer units because it is more profitable for them to sell fewer at a higher price. Basically, if I can make a pen that everyone wants and I have a patent on it, I might have a choice of selling 1 million units at $10 per pen or 5 million units at $1 per pen - by selling less units, I get double the money! This won't happen in a competitive market because with more firms selling, it becomes more profitable to sell more units because the more the firms, the fewer of those $10 buyers we each get.
Of course, the natural outgrowth of this monopoly pricing is questioning whether companies are able to capture more money than the social benefit through this system because of above market pricing. Maybe.
Then we get into the "standing on top of giants" problem. Patents mean that you can't stand on giants for a period of time (I actually don't know the exact amount of time, but I think it's about 20 years). So patents retard one's ability to build on the inventions of yesterday.
So, patents encourage and discourage innovation, but is that why the majority of people are in favor of them? No. People see them as fair. People have an "I created this, it's mine" mentality. If you invented something, would you want other people ripping it off? If you wrote a song, would you like others passing it off as theirs - or worse, that their version was better? Ideally, you probably would - it would encourage the type of amazing developments that we see with things like the Creative Commons, but you probably won't feel that way and I don't believe in trying to convert people to different philosophies.
In the end, we mig
The original ReplayTV system offered the following features:
What precisely is the innovation that Tivo claims to have patented?
And don't get me started on the whole "look and feel" patent nonsense...
Companies are starting to offer DVR technology in other devices now. LG has it in a television and a DVD recorder. There are plenty of Windows Media Center PCs being sold these days, etc.
The problem with Tivo is the subscription service. First, the cost, second the fact that you need a phone line. It's inconvenient, and the subscription fee is a hidden cost for buyers. I even had Tivo with my DirecTV service in my old house, and I had to pay an extra $5.95 for it. That's ridiculous.
They ought to figure out a way to make it work just like a standard VCR easily and foolproof, and then license the technology to anybody and everybody who wants to build it into their existing devices. TV's could have a DVR built in for an extra $100. Why not?
The fact that they haven't realized this yet is evidence that their business acumen isn't very innovative.
If it doesn't work in all cases it doesn't work, and it doesn't. Inventor invents something patents to make money, patents drive price up and delay, consumers avoid higher priced item, lower priced items with equivalent functionality come to market perhaps even in advance of the patented, grabbed up by consumers. Inventor both broke and alientated, patent office workers overworked. There's no stopping a good idea, nor should there be... what there should be is recognition and reward of good ideas by a knowledgable consumership. I built a homebrew pvr, wrote the code myself... it presents, schedules, suggests and other functions. As basically any other pvr does. I've never used a tivo, or any other non-open pvr... but I bet I infringed a patent or two along the way. Products produced with openness in mind enocurage a knowledgable community... we are after all in it for the long run.
#2 Is true mostly because set-top boxes can directly store the digital feed. They do not need to capture and they don't do an extra compression cycle. This makes them simpler, cheaper and generally better.
No, I don't think that Tivo should be allowed to restrict other people from using the same idea of recording television to a hard drive and all that entails, even if I do happen to think that Tivo has the best and coolest implementation, and even if I am worried that they might go belly up if they are not granted such special monopolistic privileges. :(
I am nothing, if not consistent.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
Dear TiVo,
You and I have had a good year together. But we just aren't meant to be together. You are too overbearing and clingy. You have a lot of good qualities to offer to somebody else in this world, and they'll love you for it, but your ability to somehow predict that I *need* to watch every episode of Saved By The Bell is a bit creepy to me, and we are spending way too much time together.
You won't be easy to leave, dearest TiVo, and I'll certainly think about you those late nights that I come home and want to watch the 9th inning of that game I missed. But I think it's for the best. I've come to the conclusion that I'm better off without you, so this is the end of the line.
-s
I have an E* DVR and I can tell you it is not similar to TiVo. The basic functions (pause, record, ffw, rewind, etc) are the same, but all DVRs have those functions and my VCR had them before that. The menu structure and general UI is not TiVO-like.
Last week if you'd asked me who E* ripped off, I would have answered "ReplayTV".
Stupid management always kills cool products. They priced the orignal service way beyond what most people were willing to pay, while DirecTV users got the unit for $99 and $5 a month! What are you NON DirecTV folks paying for the inferior analog-recorded service that you get?
I hope TiVo loses and has to take LESS money from DirecTV the second time around for their insolence, because if they win the case it is bad for the consumer.
If the auto industry had to be developed in the litigation environment of today, there would only be one make of car available. It would be black, and you'd have a five year waiting period to get one.
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
Here's claim 1:
1. A process for the simultaneous storage and play back of multimedia data, comprising the steps of:
accepting television (TV) broadcast signals, wherein said TV signals are based on a multitude of standards, including, but not limited to, National Television Standards Committee (NTSC) broadcast, PAL broadcast, satellite transmission, DSS, DBS, or ATSC;
tuning said TV signals to a specific program;
providing at least one Input Section, wherein said Input Section converts said specific program to an Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPEG) formatted stream for internal transfer and manipulation;
providing a Media Switch, wherein said Media Switch parses said MPEG stream, said MPEG stream is separated into its video and audio components;
storing said video and audio components on a storage device;
providing at least one Output Section, wherein said Output Section extracts said video and audio components from said storage device;
wherein said Output Section assembles said video and audio components into an MPEG stream;
wherein said Output Section sends said MPEG stream to a decoder;
wherein said decoder converts said MPEG stream into TV output signals;
wherein said decoder delivers said TV output signals to a TV receiver; and
accepting control commands from a user, wherein said control commands are sent through the system and affect the flow of said MPEG stream.
Without patents, people would still invent, new drugs would be made, and new household products would enter the market. Money is to be made so it would continue.
Secondly, ideas are still stolen with patents in place. Its called the legal system, reverse engineering, and corporate spies.
However, patents were not intended to encourage people to invent so they wouldn't be stolen, but rather allow those ideas to be brought into public domain after 17 years.
Its not the innovation that I'm concerned about, but rather the accumulation of knowledge. On occasion in the 1800's (right after being first founded) the USPTO would revoke patents to bring them into public domain because they were deemed too beneficial to mankind (such as the first combine harvester).
A compromise of a short term monopoly lets the inventor bring his invention in the open and after patent expiration allows the public to see how they created said invention.
This way... The inventions secrets are able to benefit society without "dying" with the inventors.
However, these "non-obvious" patents aren't really benefiting anyone since society kind of already knows how to do these obvious things.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I live on Long Island, NY where Optimum // Dolan rules with an iron first. I get my TV, hi-speed Internet (worth the hype) and VoIP all on the same bill, and until now I have been happy to pay my "Dolan Tax" in hopes of toppling the "Nynex Empire".
I'm not a big fan of TV (cartoons on DVD mostly) but HBO does some stuff that is truly excellent so I use the "on demand" feature now and again.
The cable service allows me to see the schedule of "live" programs, about 20 hours in advance in fact, but as best I can tell, no actual DVR service is being offered at this time. This is especially odd to me, considering that "on demand" is essentially the same sort of "push" technology which I expect is what television (as a whole) will look like in 30 years. It would even appear as though the cable box *is* equipped with some sort of DVR capability, but again, like I said, if it does exist I am too stupid to figure it out, and it certainly isn't being advertised yet.
Anyway: to my point- it just occured to me that Sir Dolan would *not* want his viewers using a DVR for live television. I pay an extra $5 (I think) for HBO on demand, but using a DVR to avoid commercials at primetime is another animal entirely. In fact, if I was Dolan, I would go OUT OF MY WAY to keep DVR out of my viewers hands. Let's have no delusions here- if he pisses off his advertisers, he pisses off everybody- the whole "pecking order" has been watching TiVo with a nervous eye.
Perhaps TiVo is a fraud, some reminent of dot-com scams that deserves to die a violent death. Then again, perhps someday our children will all be using a Dolan-and-chronies-sponsored DVR to watch seasme street 2015 (complete with "clickable" targeted ads embeded at the right of the screen).
Math is math. Regular expression is regular expression. The tools are there. The future is now.
Until you've labored for years to create something truly innovative and received a cease-and-desist letter claiming that you've infringed someone's ill-gotten patent, you have no legs to stand on. I've been through this. I've seen these guys' bogus patent claims, and determined that they wouldn't stand up in court. But, I'm sorry to say, I didn't have the $10 million needed to defend myself in litigation against them (that's the average cost of this type of legal proceeding, you know), so I folded.
Many hours of my life went down the toilet because of the patent system, and the world never got to see what I was about to unleash upon it. Perhaps that's all for the better. Perhaps my invention sucked. But we'll never know, will we, because the market never got to cast a vote on this one. Instead, poorly informed and overworked beauracrats in the government's Idea Regulatory Board (the USPTO) handed out monopolies over ideas like they were candy.
The patent system is FUBAR.
...and it may be too late. I've long been amazed at the lack of hardware innovation on Tivo's platform. I've owned my S2 Tivo for nearly 4 years now and there's been a couple of times I would have considered buying new devices to solve very specific problems but Tivo had no hardware innovations available.
Nobody really likes hardware churn for minor features, but I think Tivo really cost themselves a lot of sales (and hence service) opportunities by not coming out with incremental upgrades.
I would have moved my S2 to the bedroom and bought a new one for the ability to record and play digital audio, and might even have considered replacing that non-existent unit with one that could do digital audio and CableCard 1.0 even without HD support. Of course that unit I would have replaced with the upcoming S3 unit which appears to solve all the problems at once, including HD.
So there's 2-3 Tivo hardware sales plus at least one additional service subscription (wife probably wouldn't have accepted three Tivo subs). And I don't think I'm alone in this regard; I think there's a lot of people who defected completely or at least compromised and added cable DVRs for HD recording.
I'm just hoping Tivo makes it and the S3 boxes come out, as I think they're Tivo's last, best chance.
What exactly is a "70% chance of winning"? A court case is not probabilistic, and the likelihood of TiVo winning cannot be quantified. It's one thing for the Washington Post to be dumb, but News for Nerds should not perpetuate it.
+1 to Tivo for manipulating the system.
Since the plaintiff brings the case, the American legal system is very much weighted in favor of allowing the plaintiff to bring suit wherever they want to, provided jurisdiction can be established.
Tivo's counsel would be quite remiss in bringing suit in a venue with a bias against plaintiffs.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I've seen Chu speak on the subject of how to explain technology to jurors. His methods are extremely effective, and Chu has a long and distinguished trial record. He is nothing like what you might expect of a corporate attorney. He is very down to earth, self-depricating, and respectful of others. If more lawyers were like him, the profession as a whole would have a much better reputation.
I know nothing about the opposing counsel, but I think Tivo would be hard-pressed to find a better lawyer to state their case.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
your experience with Tivo is outdated. The ability to tell an un-subscribed Tivo to "record Channel 11 from 8PM to 9:30PM on Tuesday, 4/4/2006" was possible with the older Series 1 units, but is not available in the (still years old, just not *as* old as Series 1) Series 2 units.
details details. The point was the original poster suggested shortening the patent life by following other countries. Well, that's not going to help since theirs isn't shorter.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
>then I'll have died in my car, and I don't want to think about why that would happen.
. . . that happens when a power surge simultaneously bolts the doors shut and turns the radio to disco . . .
hawk
"I do not think there was a single device with single media that allowed you to do this until tivo."
Well, every series 2 Tivo can work with 2 hard drives.
And if you remember, Go Video made a start by selling a 2 tape deck that allowed you to not only dub but.... watch one tape while taping with the other tape.
So, I think this is prior art.
And yes, I own a Tivo.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Who is EchoStar? I've never heard of them before today.
Actually, I had a good point posting this. The fact that I've never heard of them implies to me that they are by no means whatsoever hurting TiVo. After all, if this company was beating them up so badly, we would ALL know of this brand and I know I would certainly be recommending it to people who were interested in a TiVo.
Besides, if TiVo wants to know what's hurting them, maybe they should consider NOT charging a constant fee to use the stupid things. It is that which encourages consumers to look for an alternative where they just pay once and then get to use the thing they bought until it breaks or they no longer wish to use it. There are free programs for getting the TV data, so it's not a valid excuse that it costs money to do that.
Our homebrew PVRs and quarterly free renewals to labs.zap2it.com don't look so bad now, do they?!?
</dick>
Seriously, how many people shelled out for "lifetime" subscriptions for scheduling data and product updates from TiVo and expected them to really last for a decade or more?
(Even the homebrew's time is coming. We won't even have analog cable in a few years and our cards will be mostly worthless... we'll have to start jury-rigging our digital cable boxes with IR blasters and it will be a fine mess. Hopefully Haupauuge comes out with a solution before then.)
..internet. It really is, in this and in other situations where actual knowledge isn't locked away only available to insiders like it was in the past. I could about guarantee there are a LOT more people know about jury nullification now than 10 years ago. And it's not because ABC/CBS/whatever or the public propoganda indoctrination schools told them, nope, it's from reading stuff on the net. We are no longer confined to what a small handful of media outlets tell us, or government spokesgoons, or what the local library might hold. It is the "great enabler", and the main reason most governments seek to put more and more restrictions on it.
The Abekas A62 disk recorder could record one video stream, while playing back another. It was introduced in the mid 1980's, so any patents involved have likely run out by now. Abekas even won an Emmy award for it in 1986.
It was meant for professional studio use, cost about $150K, and only held 100 seconds of video - but hey, that was 20 years ago. I'm not sure how Tivo can claim to have invented the technology.
In legalese, their suit has no merit.
They shopped for a venue where juries find in favor of the plaintiff in patent cases 80% of the time.
They are given only a 70% chance of winning their case.
Reading between the lines and looking at the odds implies much about their case which will never be explicitly stated.
Digital video goes back to at least the 1960s. What about the Tivo was truly unobvious by the 1990's? Of course, obviousness of the material being patented is not a problem limited to Tivo...
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
That's 1000 hours of programming for $200. Getting cheaper every minute.
I think many people's time would be better spent adding storage to avoid burning/shuffling dvds.
I used to keep my music on CDs for everyday use, now I just throw some in the car, everything at work and home is on hard drive. I expect the same will happen for video.
Man, you really need that seminar!
TIVO makes a poor choice for a ./ poll, IMHO. First, we're only given two options, Life or Death. Second, there's no CowboyNeal option. Third, there's no way to register your choice (Life, please)
Just my $.02.
Mr. T pitied this fool on 27 July 1992.
So if I sold some software that wrote an MPEG stream to the harddrive and allows to read the resulting file from the beginning to view the stream before the write is finished, I would violate a patent.
Please!
As much as I like TiVo, there's nothing novel in that justifies creating a monopoly. If another company can come up with a better (or at least competing) product... All power to them, this is what a free market is all about and it is good for the consumer. If TiVo wants to be profitable they simply have to have the best product, rather than pointing at others for "patent violation".
Yes, I am a lawyer. No, this is not legal advice. If you get that on slashdot, you may *need* nullification.
>The whole point of a "jury of his peers" is to be a check on the government.
No. The "of his peers" was to limit the power of the king against the nobility. The point of the petit jury (trial jury) was that by rounding up the men of the town that knew the parties involved and already knew what happened, the system could operate swiftly and (hopefully) more accurately. Over time, we switched to juries who didn't know about it.
Contrarty to what the nullification fanatics say, there is *not*, nor has there ever been, a general right of juries to judge the law. Nullification *is* an inherent power of the jury, however. The jury has the power to refuse to convict when following the law to do so would so shock their consciences that they just can't do it. The classic case is the refusal of British juries to convict poor men of theft of bread when the law was changed to make it a felony, punishable by death.
By its very nature, it is not appropriate to instruct juries on nullification. If they hgave to be told, thy're not so shocked that they're doing it in spite of the law. Again, it is *not* the power to judge the law.
Also, there is no appeal of nullification, as it only applies in criminal cases and can only be used to aquit--which is nonappealable under the double jeapordy doctrine.
hawk, esq.
... if that was a good thing is also rather questionable.
...that cars and motorcycles and planes were all invented before this whole patent crap started. I can see it now...Karl Benz sues Ford for manufacturing it's own version of the automobile. Benz says "After all he has 4 wheels on his auto just like mine!"
I love how the one unit controls two TVs independently. I also like the 100 hours of record time. Now you can even download your shows onto a portable player that they will sell you.
It is real nice.
...
This is much like arguing that people refuse to play WoW because Guild Wars is free of subscription.
The reality is I know more people that play WoW, WoW is bigger and more popular, and I have quite a few friends with a TiVo.
I work in software & IT, and really mind having to hand-build and maintain a device to smoothly record tv for me. People buy Linksys router boxes instead of hand-building a firewall box for the same reasons.
If there was another device with compelling features over TiVo such as I DON'T NEED TO HAND BUILD IT, home media network integration such as with iTunes, gave me more search/find/record abilities, then maybe I'll get interested, but so far the TiVo just works.
Alternatively, I don't care to watch that much tv because I only got so much time to spread between a life and other more important things to get done.
Why are gardeners, restaurants, software companies, etc. still in business when you can do it yourself?
As the other poster already said, it does turn into a paperweight if you don't pay the fees.
My bad - the one I have (early Series 1) does work without a subscription (the other poster indicated this only works for early Series 1's). Sorry for the bad info.
The fees are not $10/month like you said, but $13/month subject to go up any time TiVo has a whim.
Apologies, again. I threw that in as something close, and didn't figure most people who could afford a TiVo ($) to watch cable television ($50+/month) would care about $36/yr.
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$13/month is total BS for the service of letting me download TV listings. It's more than having a print TV guide mailed to me every week...Before you [say it is] a wonderful service well worth the price, consider this...[strained example about the value of TiVo vs. the value of water/sewer]
TiVo is the same thing. You might say the convenience is worth the $13 monthly fee...
Precisely - I might say that, and so do TiVo's 4.5 million subscribers. You don't. So you don't subscribe. That doesn't mean no one else sees value in the deal. "You" don't equal "Everyone".
I just wish they'd die faster so the market would be more open for a real set top DVR.
I think you just proved my point - they have a big piece of the market (and somehow are preventing competitors from gaining traction as quick as you'd like) precisely because people see value in their offerings. That certainly may change in the future, but that doesn't mean it's not true now.
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Before you spew some garbage about...
Even if you're happy paying your addiction money...
Jeez, easy there, fella.
(1) I have a TiVo that I didn't buy, never used, nor paid a subscription for.
(2) Ever hear of disagreeing without being disagreeable? It's only a discussion about Tivo, for fuck's sake. I realize you are awfully passionate about a company that seems to do you no harm, but how about not insulting anyone who has a different point of view?
really? You had a VCR that lets you watch one tape while recording another show to same tape? I do not think there was a single device with single media that allowed you to do this until tivo.
It was called "Amiga".
MOD PARENT UP
Support SETI@home
Echostar should file for change of venue - if TiVo protests that past history does nothing to show bias then EchoStar should present a notoriously anti-plaintiff location. Jury shopping is a great, big, steaming load that violates both word and spirit of the concept of equal protection and due process.
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
Parent post is incredibly ignorant.
It was DirecTV, not TiVo, that severed that relationship. DTV was acquired by Fox Broadcasting, who already owned Sky+ in Europe. Sky+ developed their own DVR. So DTV decided to end the TiVo relationship because they believe they can save money by using their own DVR with in-house software. Combined with the fact that DTV wanted to move to a completely lease-based equipment revenue model, they could not continue to offer a 3rd party box that competes with their own and costs them a per-subscriber fee.
Further, the DirecTiVo was originally quite superior to the standalone TiVo, but that is not the case anymore. While the standalone TiVo has acquired the ability to get service data over the network, transfer shows between rooms and to PCs, play audio, video, and photos off of networked PCs, and have web-based scheduling, the DirecTiVo has barely evolved at all in 7 years. Although it still has higher picture quality due to no digital signal recompression, and it supports dual tuners, it is severely lacking in features now compared to its standalone brethren. (The dual-tuner advantage is also largely negated by the multi-room viewing capability, IMO.)
As soon as the TiVo series 3 is released, it will be the best of both worlds and will leave the DirecTiVo (and the Sky+ derived R15/HR20) in the dust. The Series 3 could never have existed under the rule of DirecTV.
I had two VCRs hooked up to my TV, with a switch box, more than a decade ago. All housed in an entertainment centre (=big ugly purpose built wooden cabinet). Arguably that is a "device". If that's what their patent covers, then all they have done is build a more elegant case.
Woah, really?
Ok, that is a little dumb. I mean, admittedly, a VCR can do that.
Still, though, the channel lineup is a recurring cost to tivo... I stick with that. And even this new knowledge, though it pisses me off somewhat, isn't going to stop me from using my tivo. I love that little guy.
sig?
DirecTV is one of my clients, so if they are lying dont blame me. But they are not, and as the obvious TiVo employee or fanboy you are, you should know that. They say that TiVo did the severing. It is a FACT that DirecTV made an offer on TiVo which was rejected. A FACT. Also, the only feature I mentioned was direct-digital recording, not all those meaningless bell-and-whistle crumbs that are of value to to only a small subset of the total audience. To most, picture quality is THE REASON that people go with DirecTV over cable or other competitors. TiVo series 3 means nothing to me, if there is an D-A conversion in the mix, regardless of whatever else is in the package. Besides that, there may never be another innovation from TiVo if they lose this law suit, because they wont have the cash flow to support their business operations. Now, get back to work, you TiVo employee you.
Features of Tivo which are worthwhile and useful:
- Recording Live TV, giving you ability to pause or rewind
- Storing 80 hours of programming on the disk, deleting off old stuff as necessary so you don't have to worry about forgetting to stick a tape in.
- Ability to quickly fast forward through commercials and other crap
None of these require a subscription.
Unfortunately Tivo was so desperate for money they crippled their boxes so you have to have the bloody subscription. I figure another year or two the DVR will be everywhere, and Tivo will be dead because they failed to acknowledge the utility of their box without the greed.