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Philips Patents Technology to Force Ad Viewing
An anonymous reader writes "According to New Scientist, Philips has filed a patent for technology to force viewers to watch the ads in a program. Basically they plan to add extra flags to the Multimedia Home Platform that would stop controls from working until the ads are finished." From the article: "Philips' patent acknowledges that this may be 'greatly resented by viewers' who could initially think their equipment has gone wrong. So it suggests the new system could throw up a warning on screen when it is enforcing advert viewing. The patent also suggests that the system could offer viewers the chance to pay a fee interactively to go back to skipping adverts."
I hate the forced adverts on DVD. what pisses me off even more is when they aren't even advertising products, they're just forcing me to watch their "copying DVDs is piracy and is the same as mugguing someone so don't do it" bullshit. on a DVD I've just fucking bought anyway.
stuff like this, like computer game protection, just makes it easier as well as cheaper to get things illegally.
Remember the episode where Marge asks for the tv producers to ban Itchy and Scratchy?
Suddenly all the kids "wake up" like the Awakenings movie, and begin playing outside.
_IF_ this product is "successfully" imposed on the people, we'll see more and more people go away from the TV into the internet / books / games / radio / whatever.
In regards to radio, have you noticed tha channel surfing is nearly as affective at avoiding commercials with Clear Channel owned stations. In my neck of the world, Clear Channel stations seem to be in sync with one another in regards to commercial breaks and quite often play the same one at given moment. Okay, back to the topic.
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Landfill Mining Co.
Managing the (Un)natural Resources of Tomorrow
When ads are on I go read articles on /.
I used to hit mute and do the same (or read email) until I got my MythTV box. I couldn't live without it - watching ads and tv in real time, how archaic.
Actually, this article gives me a better idea, which as probably been thought of before, but it's new for me! Let's start thinking up technologies (like not being able to skip commercials) which we reeeeeally would hate to see come to market. Then let's patent it, and not license the patents. If these media companies can use the law to limit fair use, then I think we should use the law to limit their anti-consumer techologies. We could then make money on the side when they try to implement these techologies by suing them for infringment.
Forget muting commercials, this is TV - when the ad break comes on, will I be able to switch channels?
What about the advertising on the other channels that I'm missing.
What if I am flicking around the channels (from a sanctioned spot) and happen upon a commercial, will I not be able to continue to the next channel?
liqbase
The best thing about any restrictive technology is that it opens up the opportunity to break or work around the restrictions. If it's not region-free DVD players or modchips for your Playstation, it'll be HDMI dongle hacks and Philips adbusters.
It doesn't matter what they do, the only people who really gain from restrictive techs are the shady people who sell the hacks and modchips.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
And if it prevents you from switching channels? Return it as defective.
It seems likely that we have until the patent expires before non-Phillips products can use this technology without paying licensing fees. :-) Also means no open source implementations for about 17 years...
We might not have to wait nearly that long before some insane law gets passed that mandates technology like this. Perhaps through some kind of back-handed method like a rider on an appropriations bill (can you say "broadcast flag?") or by bundling it with some kind of legislated DMCA control built into the players.
Far-fetched? Maybe. But six-odd years ago, who'd have thought we'd see DMCA at all? Remember: DMCA is not about protecting copyright, it's about controlling access and I think we have yet to see all of the ways that content providers would like to use that control.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Phillips was just not thinking clearly when they invented this. There will be a flag at the start of commercials, and another at the end, to tell the anti-skip system when to activate. Just how long do you think it will be before someone figures out how to use the flags to start and stop the fast-forward button? This system of flags would be just as effective at automatically skipping ads.
I guess you didn't read the fine print....
;-)
There will also be a channel switching prevention built into it, so you can't switch a channel. When they want to force you to watch ads, they mean it!
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
IIRC, back in the late 70's/early 80's either Popular Electronics or a similar magazine had plans to build a standalone device that did much the same thing. It was based on detecting a sudden upsurge in volume to work automatically. It wasn't perfect, as audio tracks that had a lot of dynamic range sometimes would trip the device, but it was still a pretty cool hack.
\/\/oobie
Though I too greatly prefer the book to the film, it's not entirely Kubrick's fault. He wasn't given the complete novella to work from; the version published in America at the time lacked the 21st chapter, due to some terrible editing decision, which drastically changes the ending of the book. I used to absolutely abhor the film, but I've warmed up to it slightly over the years.
Also, by way of interesting anecdote, Burgess was so outraged by the film and Kubrick's treatment of it that, in the musical version of ACO, which Burgess published after Kubrick's film, there is a bald, bearded, bespectacled old man, an effigy of Kubrick, who is severely beaten by Alex and his droogs.
The idea was that the ad would get dealers'/druggies attention because they're used to hearing the TV running in the background.
In advertising, sometimes anything you can do to set yourself apart from everyone else is a good thing.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
the flags are in the live broadcast
We should all get behind this and get the networks to start using this system as soon as possible! Has no one else realized that if they embed flags in the broadcast that indicate when a commercial starts and stops that those same flags can be used to AUTOMATICALLY SKIP those same commercials? This will be a major boon to home built DVR systems.
So get out there and support this technology!
Will flags be constantly on during infomercials? Since they don't have ads throughout it could be quite a problem if channel surfing and you stumble across one.
If we are going to be stuck with patents, can someone form an organisation that patents the evil stuff and makes it extremely expensive to do?
I don't understand why Philips would do this. They make TV sets and VCRs and DVDs and such - but they don't own TV stations or cable networks so they don't profit from advertising. All this would do would be to make people not want to buy their equipment...where is the profit motive?
I used to work for Philips Research Labs - they encourage employees to patent stuff - but that doesn't mean that they intend to make products that use the patent. Often they just want a large pile of patents to threaten other companies with - or patents may be defensive in nature. (There is a great story that Philips made a PacMan clone on one of their game consoles years ago - and just like every other company in that business, they got sued by Atari over it. Everyone else caved in and paid up - but Philips dug out an incredibly ancient Magnavox patent that covered the use of TV sets for synthetic video entertainments of all kinds...Atari dropped the law suite - but Philips didn't ever use their broad patent offensively. So defensive patents - when used ethically - are not necessarily a bad thing).
Anyway - it's very dangerous to assign motives to a company due to some random patent.
Personally, I can see a hidden advantage here. If the TV can lock out the controls when there are adverts present - that means that there must be some kind of flag embedded in the advert so the TV can recognise it. This flag would be a wonderful thing because it would mean that someone could use that very same flag to cause a PVR to skip over the advert completely automatically!
www.sjbaker.org
I would acutally welcome such flags in programs. It will make it so much easier to detect and autoskip commercials in mythtv.
Doesn't Nielsen (Media Research) already have a way to encode signals in broadcasts with program & commercial identification? (used in their automated meter boxes and to track air times of commercials). I don't know of any recording devices that automatically detect those signals yet...
Yes, I do own software that I've purchased. I don't own software that I've licensed. The distinction is a contract.
A wide variety of restrictions and conditions may be included in a sales contract. But a contract requires that all parties to the contract understand and agree to the terms in advance of the exchange of value. I've licensed software under a true contract, and was required to read, understand, agree, sign, and date that contract before I received the software or before the vendor would accept my money.
If you buy retail software, that's an ordinary sale, not a sales contract. If you gave your money and received the software, then the transaction is final. No EULA revealed after the fact of the sale changes the nature of the sale. Click-throughs and sealed envelops do not represent agreement, because the time for any agreement passed once the goods and money changed hands.
That's why the average consumer doesn't care what the EULA claims. They understand that the typical EULA is a fiction, that a so-called License Agreement lacks the one true indication of agreement: acceptance of the terms shown by the exchange of value. The deal is done when the exchange is made. The terms are those that were disclosed and agreed to in advance of the exchange. It's a simple concept, even children understand agreement must occur before the deal is closed, and changes after the fact are not binding.
There have always been, and will always be, those who profit from creating complication and confusion around business transactions. Some swindles and frauds are illegal, some trickery and sharp practice is just inside the law. But it's all dishonest.
If Philips discloses, in advance, that others will keep partial control of the device, and buyers read and agree to those terms, then I have no problem with such informed consent. Just as I can sell my house with the condition that I will have the use of it for the rest of my life. The price will reflect those terms. What I can't do is agree to sell, take the money, and then later tape a notice on the front door that entering the door indicates acceptance of additional terms. It's the buyer's door once I take his money, and he can do whatever he wants with it. It's no different than taping that notice on every door in the neighborhood. I can claim it, but my claim is without merit.
They could overlap the ad flags for a random few seconds into the programming on each end of the ad block.
I can think of one. No Ad Sunscreen. I think it's kinda clever. Pretty good stuff, too. Does this count as an ad?
warning: This post is likely to contain gobs of dripping sarcasm. Consume at your own risk.
Look at what's happened in the UK to telephone advertising. We have the TPS now implementing the EU privacy directive, which is like the US `do not call' registry but with teeth. No exemptions for politics, charities, pre-existing relationships, and real sanctions against transgressors. Combined with XD I get about one junk call a year, and the same's true for the >60% of the population who have signed up. So the call centres are left chasing those that haven't, and as their call volumes rise, people become motivated to also sign up. It's a death spiral for outbound telemarketing.
Now TV has a similar problem. There just aren't the channels that will deliver 20m. Dr Who got 8.5m on Saturday night, and ~10m is about the maximum anything will get. The young middle classes, to whom you want to advertise, are off watching BBC3 and BBC4 (no adverts) or surfing the web or down the pub. The more you try to lock such people as _are_ watching TV into seeing your adverts, the more you will encourage them to do something else. And people with money, or with technological chops, or with alternatives (ie the very people you want to see your adverts) will flee first. You're left with a desperate weight of adverts pressing down on one poor sod in a long-term ward in Scunthorpe.
I'm always amused by empty shops with pounding music, who assume that as they have X customers at 90dB they'll get 2X customers at 100dB. Er, no: the people who have the money can't stand the noise, so turning it up loses you business. Same principal: you need to think outside the box, not just turn up the volume.
ian
Kinda like my dvd player...
Indeed.
My dad decided to waste some 300 euro on a brand DVD player.. I spent approx 40 euro on some cheap no-name one (oh wait.. it has a name, Denver Electronics? whatever)..
His player plays DVDs with all the 'required' limitations, ie, macrovision, region locks, unskippable content etc.. It has digital 6 channel and analog 2 channel audio out and s-video and rgb video out
Mine? does all that as well, but I can disable all those things. It has a built-in 'trick' to bypass active region coding, plays virtually any mpeg1,2 and 4 video from either DVD or CD, and has nice modular firmware running on a fairly well documented microcontroller... It has 6 channel analog and digital audio out, rgb, component video, s-video and digital video outputs.
The one and only advantage of the expensive player is that on an old fashioned CRT connected to composite or s-video, it produces a slightly better picture.
There are also some 'brands' selling comparably featured and priced players. Interestingly, Phillips is among them.
I may be a bit differentially-centric here, but I think I must disagree. One is paying to watch, it's just that the coin is distributed rather than in an all-up fee. Part of the fee is in the products I buy that I wouldn't otherwise choose because of some out-of-band communication to my hypothalamus (pick a more appropriate bit of brain, I'm only a rocket surgeon) and the rest is in that most valuable commodity, the time I can't spend leveling my Mage.
Half of me doesn't like commercials, half of me hates 'em. The rest of me is just plain bad mathematician...
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Who says that only active zapping can get you trapped? Suppose I'm waiting for a program to start on channel A, but that channel is right now just drivelling away. So I decide to watch at the at least somewhat interesting channel B "until time has come". One minute before I intend to switch to channel A, channel B initiates a 5 minute block of ads. Then what?
Linux user since early January 1992.
I always thought that patents should protect original ideas to cover for the expenses that are required for research. When I read patent proposals like this, they are a prime example for what patents should NOT cover. I mean, how hard do you have to think to come up with a flag like this? Basically this is already done in games, to skip cutscenes, only the other way around. I really don't see why a patent should be granted on such trivial ideas. That completely defeats the purpose of patents.
I have no problem accepting patents for stuff where a company actually has to invest money and months or years of work, but ideas like that ar so trivial that you don't even have to think more then two seconds to come up with this solution, if somebody describes this "problem" to you and how you could resolve it.
The only good thing this may have is, that you would have a reliable advertising flag. This was already in that older stream (forgot the name) to automatically program VCRs but no channel used it. Since this flag most certainly would be used, you could cerate a counterdevice, that does the opposite, unless it is not protected by some stupid laws.
Walking down the Path of Evil to the Ultimate Precipice of Slippery Slopeyness:
I've had this idea for a long time. Instead of making you watch a commercial or making commercials louder to make them harder to ignore, you get the choice to watch the advertisements or not. But before you can proceed to the rest of the content, you have to have some interaction with the set to make sure the advertisement made an "impression."
Examples:
- Click the advertiser's logo (logo moves so no auto-clicky)
- 4x4 game of "concentration" to match logo, product, company name, etc.
- Multiple-choice questions about the advert
- Click on character "talking heads" from the advert to make them reiterate parts of the message
- Characters act out a bit, then you get to choose "should Clara (a) Use Brand Z to bake her cake or (b) use SuperMix Cake Mix- with Real Cake Bits(sm)!" then react appropriately to your choice.
The possibilities are endless. Make it entertaining enough (and short enough), and the "user" (aka the "used") won't mind much at all.
Truer than you realise:
Source ArticleCorporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce