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Death By DMCA
Dino writes "There's a good article in the IEEE Spectrum, titled 'Death by DMCA', which talks about how whole classes of devices were eliminated, and how others won't even see the light of day as a result of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. One example is ReplayTV's TiVo-like devices which featured sharing capabilities, along with automatic ad skipping; the company was sued to bankruptcy, and the reincarnated device supported neither sharing nor ad skipping."
...is that what that screaming sound was.
This is cool, I don't have to change my "subject" lines for posts any more... it's all about the entertainment industry's state of mental health.
From the article: "These new capabilities did not please Hollywood. Jamie Kellner, then CEO of Turner Broadcasting System Inc., called skipping commercials "theft" and, along with 28 entertainment companies including major movie studios and television networks--such as Disney, Paramount, Time Warner, Fox, Columbia, ABC, NBC, and CBS--sued ReplayTV for contributing to copyright infringement."
WTF? Skipping commercials is theft? FUCK YOU Jamie Kellner.... FUCK YOU TBS, FUCK YOU Disney, Paramount, Time Warner, Fox, Columbia, ABC, NBC and CBS! So, for those not using some sort of tivo-like device, if they should step out to relieve themselves, is THAT theft?
It galls that devices are being driven away from the marketplace because they're too good. And it equally galls that layer upon layer of obfuscation continues to be heaped on existing technology, to the point that when something works, my heart palpitates: is it the signal?, is it the unit?, or is the FUCKING DRM that I somehow forgot to set correctly?
Also from the article (referring to the ability to create "unencumbered digital tuners": "The entertainment companies do not like the flexibility of these home-built machines--or, more significant to them, the flexibility of the machines that consumer electronics manufacturers could offer under the current copyright law and its Betamax rule." WTF?, again?
They don't like the flexibility of these machines? I'm willing to bet somewhere in their ad campaigns they're bragging on some feature they're offering as flexible, etc. Gawd, I hate the industry.
So, technology continues to improve in quantum leaps, but the governor that is the RIAA/MPAA consortium does everything in their power to ensure technology is crippled to their whims, to enhance their power and profit.
Has anyone read Player Piano by Vonnegut? Great book... pretty good story about technology and designed obsolescence, and the collapse therein of a society... I won't give away the ending, it's worth reading.
</vent> Thanks, I feel better now.
1998 called and they want their post back.
... there's no more "commercial advance" button, and no more automatic commercial skipping, but you can press the right or left arrow to jump to the next commercial boundary. For more than commercials, it also comes in handy when you don't want to watch a particular story on 60 minutes.
...when is somebody going to call the RIAA and MPAA out on RICO charges?
Either that, or disband them by force - let them be first against the wall when the revolution comes!
For the moment, DRM and all of its related ridiculousness is the concern of geeks. We're the ones who are informed about the problems with DRM and the slippery slope that it's sent us down.
If things continue to get worse (and there's no reason to believe they won't), it will get to the point where the general public will no longer line XYZ Company's pockets. And when you hit the bottom line, you suddenly start speaking that company's language.
is to actually involve yourself politically. If you just sit there and do nothing, the government/industry/lawyers will continue to infringe on your rights. Stop complaining in forums when stuff like this happens; VOTE or WRITE LETTERS or ORGANIZE A PROTEST *before* it happens and help ensure laws like this don't get passed.
Otherwise, this article reads just like any other rant on the DMCA. Honestly, why can't anyone think beyond "all your stuff should be free!" mentality. It won't work. Music is a bussiness. It will always be a bussiness. Same with movies. And software. Stop bitching when idustry chooses to fight technology rather than embrace it. Organize, make contacts in industry, lobby, tell everyone you know, VOTE! And remember:
Flaming != helping.
Flaming == counter-productive. Always.
I forget the exact quote - and the author - but someone once said that for every law that is passed there is a new business opportunity created in the black market. Fortunately, I'm close to Mexico. Place your orders here.
It was never about piracy. Domestic/consumer level piracy is so minor as to not make a difference in their bottom line. The real media pirates are the overseas DVD pressing plants that press legal DVDs by day and bootleg DVDs by night.
This is about controlling what you watch and how you watch it. It's about protecting their advertising revenue. It' about making you buy a new copy of your favorite content every time they change formats.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
The most tell-tale part:
In 2003, 321 Studios, of St. Charles, Mo., launched a software product called DVD X Copy for these more typical DVD owners. The company built in aggressive measures to prevent piracy, including an antipiracy splash screen that appeared when viewing any copy and watermarks that would enable copies to be traced back to those who made them. The management at 321 Studios hoped that these cooperative measures would stave off Hollywood's wrath.
The company was wrong. Before the DMCA, 321 Studios would have been on relatively safe legal ground. From the time of the Betamax case, U.S. courts had made it clear that copying devices were legal so long as they had any substantial lawful use. But the DMCA changed the rules. When the movie studios sued 321 Studios, the Hollywood contingent did not argue that any of their movies had been unlawfully copied. Instead, it said that the product circumvented a "technical protection measure," which in this case was the Content Scramble System (CSS) on DVDs.
The CSS is the scheme Hollywood uses to encrypt movies on DVDs. Decryption requires a key, which manufacturers of DVD players obtain by signing a license with the DVD Copy Control Association, a consortium of movie studios, including Fox and Warner, and technology providers, such as Intel and Toshiba. This license, in turn, forbids licensed devices from making digital copies of DVD content or from offering playback modes that the studios disapprove of. (DVD recorders can copy only unencrypted digital material, such as home movies.) The licensing rules and DMCA put companies like 321 Studios in a quandary. If they signed the license in order to obtain the CSS decryption keys, the document prohibited them from using those keys in software capable of copying a DVD. If they didn't sign the license and forged ahead anyway, deriving the CSS keys on their own, they risked prosecution or a civil suit under the DMCA for circumventing the CSS. After consideration, 321 Studios opted to go forward without a license. The DMCA quickly washed away DVD X Copy. After the movie studios prevailed in court in 2004, manufacturers pulled DVD X Copy and similar ripping tools off the U.S. market.
By eliminating free trade.
... well, what exactly? In Communism, The Party decided what's good for you. What do you call a market where the producer, and him alone, dictates what you can and may buy?
Given the choice, the customer would buy the "better" product. The "better" product, for the customer, would of course be the one that offers him more liberty.
Now, devices that do that will vanish from the market because their companies are sued into oblivion. Result: Only crap can survive.
The customer is left out of the loop, as the deciding mechanism which items should survive on the market, which is actually his responsibility and role in a free market.
Free trade is dead. Welcome to the world of
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
but they can never stop people building their own, nor can they stop people from 'loaning' their CD/DVD/Whatever to their friends. The 'sneakernet P2P' service.
All the *AA will ever manage to do is drive the sharing and fair use into a dark underground where they can never be able to find it without spending all of the money they do make. At that point, they will have to blame the loss of sales on their own crappy content, and their insane business practice of financially murdering any company that stood even half a chance of helping them find the 21st century.
Yep, so by all means, lets all work together to help the *AA find the real world, and do all our sharing underground, off the net, so they have only themselves to blame. Who knows, it might work..... NOT
Can't we just shoot them now?
Seriously, this is just one more reason to have them outlawed for monopolistic and draconian business practices. I personally don't see anything wrong with making *AA groups illegal... If enough of us vote, well, you never know...
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
This is yet more evidence that we are not a democracy. These bans and discouragements are almost entirely the result of lobbying backed by big inc's with deep pockets. No citizen majority voted for these. "Silly company, voting is only for humans".
Table-ized A.I.
I keep saying we need to form GeekPAC, a so-called Political Action Committee (AKA "trade organization") to help counter the big lobbying from deep-pocket companies. Geekpac would also promote open source, reduce software patents, and make companies scientifically justify "shortage" before importing more H-1B's. If we don't protect our political ass, nobody will.
Table-ized A.I.
As there will continue to be.
MAFIARIAA's are slowely digging their graves, as people will always figure out ways to get what they want, so-called 'legally', or not.
The music/movie industries are sooo fat now, that they can play these games, that they never win.
However they can become a 'real' problem, since they are attempting to openly threaten our basic freedoms.
And the only way to combat them, is with our continued efforts to express ourselves with our speech, OSS, P2P, and other mechanisms which show these dirt bags, who reallly has ALL the power.
-- SORRY!! But I'm still a proud member of SlashDot :)
I will gladly loose all of life's battles.. in order to win the war..
Here's what needs to happen: put your money where your mouth is. Set up a PAC (Political Action Committee); fund it liberally so it has a lot of clout; and let it loose after the politicians who sponsor legislations which hurt consumers. In the end, it's all a matter of money. If you people are willing to put your money where your (loud) mouths are, then you can expect change for the better. Otherwise, just bend over and take it quietly from the *AA.
EFF has its place; but it's not a PAC. You need a Consumer's PAC, with at least $10M+/year of budget, to have a serious impact.
Consider this - though the (analog) VCR was invented by Ampex, a USA corporation (now defunct I believe), not a SINGLE VCR was ever built in this country! I don't believe that there is a single motherboard or other computer part that can claim to be 100% USA made either.
We are a country of takers and users and Congress leads the pack in taking! WHEN (not if) our style of living falls flat on its face, we'll have no one but ourselves to blame!If we can somehow goad them into engaging in clearly racketeering activities, we may be able to get them to do that to themselves. They way they act currently it doesn't seem like it would be that hard, though I'm not good at that area of things and the apparent ease may be due to my lack of ability.
Olson was puzzled why economic growth was faster in the South, after it lost the civil war, and also why France in the 19c after having had three or four revolutions and two catastrophic war time defeats had grown faster than Britain under stable rule. He concluded and showed that long periods of stability allow vested interests to accumulate anti competitive practices which enrich them at the expense of the whole.
We are looking at a classic example of this. Consider those who profit from the DMCA. Olson's insight was that it is in their interests to impose costs on society as a whole which are many times, maybe 100s of times, greater than what they themselves receive, as long as what they receive is more than they otherwise would.
Let interest groups carry on behaving like this for year after year, and gradually the costs imposed on society become so great that economic growth slows or stops totally.
Then, only a dramatic structural change, abolition of the accretions, will help. The good news is, it helps dramatically.
In an ideal world, the various Federal Agencies would counterbalance such interests, because they, being nominated by people elected on a broader basis, will have it in their interests to represent the country as a whole. However, special interests are ingenious and find ways through, and this only works by fits and starts.
It can be done. Thatcher did it in the UK. Democracies can do it, when they see the need. This is the good news, the bad news is, it has to get pretty bad first!
First, it hurts the end user or consumer by imposing government restrictions on how we use things that we "own". Or more to the point, we no longer own things that we buy.
It also hurts us that we don't see competition. This means higher prices, collusion, price gouging, and all the other nasties that come along with pseudo-monopolies.
We are further harmed by the lack of new jobs and opportunities. Real growth for our country is not in the 1000+ employee multinational corporations, but in the small companies employing 25 or less employees. The DMCA seriously harms innovation and prohibits companies that are more truly American companies from growing, making money, paying taxes, and employing more workers.
And we get the short end of the stick when these companies no longer need to innovate from the unnatural monopoly caused by the DMCA protects them from newer, more competent competitors. Not only do we not see the innovative, improved, products from fresher companies, we also see outdated technology from the companies that have lost the need to improve in a free market system.
Listen p*ssy. I'm sure your the same homo that posted earlier about alf's boner and you just want to remain anonymous fo
It's called Fascism.
My question is, if this is such a big deal, what are you doing about it? If every person who was pissed off about this gave $100 to a lobby to fight it, we'd have it overturned by next week. Imagine the political power that could be brought against the MPAA/RIAA if we took our DVD/CD money and spent it on lobbyists...
(voting and writing to representatives is for wimps)
I don't know what the answer is, but venting on Slash about the end of society isn't any way to bring it about.
Ohh, like people are going to learn about this very serious problem, which cannot be talked about enough, by watching cable news?!
Motivating people to increase their use of P2P and making even more copies of 'legit' dvd/cd's is a wonderful thing.
I suppose you think you are slick, but I have news for you, you are the only one here who probably thinks so.
-- My favorite thing about OSS, is it's militancy!
I will gladly loose all of life's battles.. in order to win the war..
Really,
Microsoft still is evil, and I know that they happily jumped into the DRM wagon too. But when I compare today's news with the past I get a chill. Our rights are being ripped in a astonishing fast pace, and hollywood is suceeding in making things that even Microsoft never dreamed off.
The sad part is that they are likely to succeed; The average people don't understand the ramifications of those laws, and when they question their representatives, they are easily convinced by some crappy explanation in the line that this kind of laws helps to prevent terrorism, or save americans jobs or something like that.
But the truth is that RIAA are a threat to capitalism and free market. They are blocking inovation, subverting the law, and turning law-abiding citizens into criminals without they even knowing that.
We have to stop them. Know! Maybe it's time for another Boston Tea's party.
Your ad could be here!
As a consumer I prefer flexibility. The more options I have for using a purchase the more likely I am to buy it. In what other industry exists the mentality that the more restrictions that are placed on products the better off the industry will be? Imagine if you could only buy a particular brand and style of shoes to go with a particular brand and style of suit or a particular brand and size of nails to use with a particular make of hammer.
Everything that the entertainment industry is suggesting is causing me to think more and more about what my options will be for circumventing restrictions so that I may "enjoy" music and video in the manner I desire. It scares me when I stop to think that I am trying to devise ways to break the law.
Be that as it may I have no doubt that as greater restrictions are placed on what I legally acquire in both media and electronics I will buy fewer legitimate products and put my resources elsewhere.
Stop buying? Are you kidding me? There's millions of people out there who love to be fed shit through TV and to whom "DRM" sounds like Greek. They'll keep giving cash to the corporations as long as there's a demagogue convincing them that it's for their own good. Things don't change that way.
There's this town not far from where I live where a lot of real estate companies want to ruin the coastline with those fucking semi-detached houses, and the town's right-wing council wanted to approve a new land use plan to allow them to do so. Two days ago, a mob of angry locals -infuriated because of the council's disregard for their wishes- assaulted the town hall in true pitchfork-and-torch style (forcing the councilors and mayor to escape) and burnt said land use plan.
BTW, the previous mayor and councilors, who didn't approve of this land use planning, were extorted and received death threats. The real-estate mafia is quite a reality here in Spain.
Pitchforks and torches are the way to enlightenment, my friend.
OTA Television is not encrypted, so there is no reason to avoid television because of DMCA, yet. Also regular people know about DRM, they don't know what its called though, they know they can't play certain mp3s as ringtones on their cell phones, or why they can't use their Apple iTunes songs on their Samsung mp3 players.
So many people repeat this theme. What's preventing to get rid of the TV altogether? I did that two years ago, and never looked back.
Whenever I use a VCR to record something, I really enjoy the fast forward to skip ads. In fact, I usually prefer using the VCR than watching the thing live for that very reason...
So I wonder. Does Tivo prevent you to make a fast-forward? Otherwise, wtf about this ad skipping capability... no one is gonna watch ads if they have the ability to skip them by pressing a button. No? Am wrong?
already done
Now get your ass over there and donate!
I patented screwing your mom. But it got revoked for "prior art."
I'm not an economics major, but all the capitalists I've ever talked to seem to love the whole idea of "the market will solve". It's sort of their silver bullet to any arguement. So why don't we let the market solve? Capitalism is supposed to be dynamic. Companies have to accept changing roles and adapt to them, not fight them. Big companies have to be forced to accept that sometimes they "have to roll the hard 6" and take risks. There should be no corporate entitlement. No company is guaranteed to make money. That's what pisses me off about the RIAA and MPAA. They refuse to consider changing themselves to the world, they'd rather change the world to suit themselves. Granted, that might mean the end to $300 million production value blockbusters or fewer 1 hit wonders and more solid bands, but the world will cope, and the market can decide which model they like better.
People don't realize what they are missing, perhaps we should advertise to the world all the cool things they COULD be doing...but won't be able to because the Media companies have bought the politicians?
Blar.
http://www.ipaction.org/
I patented screwing your mom. But it got revoked for "prior art."
That sounds interesting, do you hava a link to a story?
http://www.ipaction.org/
I patented screwing your mom. But it got revoked for "prior art."
Now I can sleep well in the evening knowing that after a day full of downloading copyrighted music and movies, not paying a cent for them and still making copies of what turns out not to be junk to give to my friends ... I'm doing my role to make this world a better place to live.
why "just not buying" cannot correct DRM
modern DRM is a result of large scale collusion and/or caving by electronics manufacturers, standards groups, hollywood, the FCC, and many other private parties.
who do you boycott? all of them? well then be prepared to live in a cave, eat by candle light, and hunt for food again.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Next thing you know, they're going to make microwaves illegal so I can't get up and make popcorn during the commercials.
First of all, this was a damn good article, one of the most thoughtful and thorough ones I've read in a long, long time.
Second of all, non-U.S. citizens aren't safe. The RIAA and MPAA are pushing our government to force other countries to sign their digital freedoms away in trade agreements and treaties. The article specifically deals with this issue.
Remember, the guy who released deCSS was arrested for breaking no Norweigian law. The Pirate Bay guys have had their equipment seized for breaking no Swedish law. The point is that just as the U.S. flexes its military muscles in places like Iraq, it flexes its corporate muscles in countries such as the one that you call home, wherever that may be. And as weird and hard as it may be to believe, I'm 100% sure that the government in your country is just as capable of doing the same really boneheaded stupid things that the U.S. government has done given the right (*ahem*) incentives.
So no, this is not a problem unique to the United States. Yes, the U.S. may be the worst of the lot, and yes, a lot of this foolishness has arisen primarily because of corrupt greedy U.S. organizations who don't give a flip about consumers there or anywhere else, but if you believe nothing else, believe this: This idiocy will reach you in your supposedly safe and comfortable home country unless you are vigilant and active about stopping it.
Some people think that protecting copyrights on music, literature and film is more important than technological innovation, and that technological capabilities should not be allowed to dictate how society and the marketplace deal with music, literature and films. Some people think that democracy should determine protection for intellectual property, regardless of what technology might be capable of doing with it. Otherwise technocrats will have the power to rule over and damage art, culture and literature. I'm a computer geek who is also a musician and I think this is a valid point of view.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesnt DMCA apply to US buisnesses only?
Seems to me the perfect way to get around this bullshit is to start the company in europe.
I dont recall that shipping or selling equipment that voids the DMCA is somehow an offence, so the company could export it's products to the US market too. The company is not a US company and thus shouldnt be subject to its laws. I dont know about import regulations however.
This is somewhat different, than lets say, selling a FM band radio transmitter. I know you have the FCC (I think its the FCC anyway, IANAAmerican) cracking down on kids that get the more powerfull "illegal" kind of FM transmiters to screw with neighbours radios or start their own pirate radio stations and whatnot. Ofcourse this was more popular a decade ago. (I seem to remember a movie by this story, something with that kid who was in "Cuffs", cant remember the title).
Anyway, my point is, for DMCA to be enforced on companies is fine, but where's the regulation that disallows selling equipment that violates the DMCA? I see it beeing perfectly legal to sell equipment that violates DMCA, but since the equipment can't be held liable, and the company/maker from another country (like any country in europe, except france since it's not really a country) isn't subject to the DMCA, where's the [...] problem?
Unless martial law is instated, where homes get regular visits from armed **AA forces making sure nobody in the house in using entertainment products "illegally", they will never win.
Biggest reason, the younger generation doesn't give a damn about supposed Intellectual Property and it's ilk. Just yesterday, I was speaking with my nephews at the request of my sister to talk to them about not downloading songs from the Internet. My nephews don't think anything is wrong with it. They don't care about law or who makes what money (and they're certainly old enough to understand). They know they just want to hear what the latest song that their friends are listening too. Then they give me this excuse "everybody at school is doing it".
Personally, I don't care if they copy music. They will eventually get old enough to pay for it if they choose. And I am way out of the demographic the **AA cares about. I can live just fine without their oppressive views on how the public should enjoy entertainment. Besides, people will eventually wise up and go to more live events.
When the was phone passed back to my sister I told her, "Unless you want a potential lawsuit on your hands from the RIAA, ban the computer from the kids. Because unless you're will to control their Internet time (she's not technically savvy at all), they will download music wihout any concern for potential consequences."
Of course I know that won't happen and they will continue to copy music and get the idea that entertainment they want right now they can download from the Internet. Eventually, enough of these younger generation kids will get into powerful influencial positions in the government and start to change the laws.
Personally, I am for a much more rapid way of changing things. Massive coordinated attacks on the entertainment heads who are ripping the public off. Not just financially, but culturally as well. Well that's certainly illegal and it won't accomplish anything anyway. I sure do dream about it some days though. Those assholes in the entertainment business make my blood boil.
The world has changed enough for the artists to promote their work themselves. It is easy enough these days. For the ones that don't to, let them find any of the new small numerous promoting companies that will do it for them.
Funding lobby organisations (i.e. to buy lobby politicians)? Voting differently? Sending letters, phoning them? Rioting?
Forget it. It doesn't work. One thing works: stop buying and suffocate them. They are nothing without money. Money gave them power, no money, no power.
There's a mountain of evidence anyone could easily understand about how MPAA and RIAA make our life worse and are detrimental to our society.
We need people with marketing experience to help us pick out the major pain points MPAA/RIAA have created in the last years and bring them to the society in an easy to understand manner.
We need to spread the information to the casual folks so they know, and stop funding MPAA/RIAA, by not buying their products. We have to clearly point out the companies behind MPAA/RIAA, they should not be left anonymous.
I'm willing to participate if someone can organise a campaign with web dev/graphics & print design. Yup, I'm actually willing to do something. Anyone else?
Way back when commercials were a chance to take a leak or grab a snack we tollerated them. Some were even entertaining. Now, with greed driving them to 10-12 commercials and breaks every 10 minutes, people have said enough. Knock back the commercial time or people will continue to leave. If you offered programing worth paying for and kept your profits to a reasonable sum, I'd buy it... without commercials. Protecting the outdated, overblown corporation instead of innovating is a recipe for your own demise.
Wow. I'm much more of a fan now... NOT. This is almost as bad as the patent office.
[%] Cingular Ringtones
If you want an improvement, try to get your friends and relatives to play games or surf instead of watching TV during election season. Or support some kind of campaign reform that works better than the Nwahlinz levees.
There's a direct chain of causation: Joe Consumer gets all his info from TV -> Joe Consumer gets all his political info from campaign ads -> politicians need TV time in order to get votes -> politicians need tankerloads of cash to buy TV time -> politicians spend all their time fundraising -> they Owe Favors to the campaign contributors.
Everyone who visits factcheck.org or vote-smart.org is taking a step to weaken big-money lobbyists.
Then I saw this story I could nearly hear Robert Heinlein saying this: There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or a corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years , the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped ,or turned back, for their private benefit.
OTA Television is not encrypted, so there is no reason to avoid television because of DMCA, yet.
Like you'd need another reason to avoid television.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Never read anything by Vonnegut, but I'll look that one up...
Anyway, I have no confidence in PAC's, lobbyist, or letter writing campaigns. They (MPAA members) need to feel some pain.
If you buy a CD, DVD, or go to a movie you are supporting these bastards. Just stop, and tell everyone you know that you've done so.
For myself, until BOTH the DMCA and the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension are repealed, they'll not get a dime from me; I will cost them money at every opportunity. I'm not interested in giving money to PAC's or lobbyist. I'm interested in seeing a real backlash against Hollywood for BRIBING my elected representatives into passing these laws in the first place. Success can be claimed only when Hollywood "itself" cries mercy and asks Congress to repeal these laws.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
One example is ReplayTV's TiVo-like devices which featured sharing capabilities, along with automatic ad skipping; the company was sued to bankruptcy, and the reincarnated device supported neither sharing nor ad skipping.
I don't think SonicBlue actually went into bankruptcy, and its ReplayTV product was purchased by Digital Networks North America Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of D&M Holdings U.S., Inc. They own things like the Denon, Marantz, and Boston Acoustics brands as well as Rio and ReplayTV.
SonicBlue 5000-series models supported internet and local program sharing and both manual (Show/Nav) and automatic commercial skipping as well as a 30-second FF button (QuickSkip). The commercial skipping features navigate between marks which are created at the start and end of commercial advertising blocks that the unit detects and marks at show recording time (it isn't just a simple time skip). Those units still perform as they did when initially purchased.
Current 5500-series models still mark commercial blockss while recording and still fully support both Show/Nav (manual movement between block markers) and QuickSkip, so manual commercial skipping and the 30-second FF is still present, but the automatic commercial skip has been removed. Also, the internet sharing capabilities were removed.
I believe a 5500-series ReplayTV can be made to temporarily regain both automatic commercial skipping and internet sharing capabilities if the disk is reimaged with a 5000-series formatted disk, but I can't personally vouch for that (I own a 5000-series box myself).
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
How to translate this into the US system? Well, let's start with PBS, as that is the only public broadcasting service the US has. To be on-par, PBS would need to eliminate the sponsorship system, eliminate the adverts, get better backing from Government, broaden the content, improve the quality of productions to modern cinematic standards (documentaries shouldn't have the 1930s Pathe Newsreel feel to them), and carry out independent work (history should not be read from a textbook, and news should not be read from AP bulletins).
Next come the existing openly subscriber channels and pay-per-view. These should, really, be reaping the full cost of everything (plus profit) from the material they sell. If they don't, then the material is either grossly undervalued or grossly inferior. People are generally happy to pay for things that are worth the cost to them, so either the pricing is incorrect or the material is. Or both.
Finally, the "free" advert-laden channels. In the end, adverts cost the producers of the advertised material money. This money will end up being added to the cost of goods. Since the cost of material doesn't depend on who is paying for it, this will work out to be comparable to any of the subscriber channel costs. Only, you're paying for it whether you watch those channels or not! It's a tax on goods, going through the corporations rather than through Government, but it's still a tax. Since it is a tax, why not have it collected by the people collecting taxes anyway? It won't change how much you end up paying for your cost of living, but it will add about 15-20 minutes of material to every show, increasing the value of watching them.
(If you're going to pay $X extra because of an invisible sales tax created by advertising, it makes no difference to you in your overall costs if - instead - those same goods were $X cheaper and you had an $X flat tax to cover broadcasting in that area. $X - $X = 0.)
Actually, that's not totally correct. Those in adverts get paid royalties for every time the advert is shown. This costs the advertisers more, which they'll defray by making you pay for it by more expensive goods. This will not be exactly the same as the increase in production costs by making shows 15 minutes longer. In some cases, the cost of the adverts will be more. In other cases, the cost of the shows will be more. You would need to quantify this, to prove conclusively that the BBC model of the license fee would work in these cases. My suspicion is that you'll find that the license fee is indeed the superior model, but in either case, the difference has to be insignificant as none of the other costs for those channels is going to vary.
(You asked for an alternative model. You didn't ask for one Americans would stomach. I know perfectly well that even if every household in America saved hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year from a license model, and even if it meant program quality skyrocketted far beyond the wildest imaginings of anyone alive today, you'd be risking an armed uprising before Americans would consider a new overt tax from Government, no matter how covertly they were being taxed by corporations already.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
by the way if u should to a test range rookie fly-by .. thank you.
for ure latest time-space displacment engines from area 51
please let them pass over edisons home
He got rid of a bunch of very obnoxious yes-men in a very satisfying way.
You seem to remember that Canute commanded the tides to stop and have taken that as an example of a ruler out of touch with reality. The folks who think it is their job to stifle technological progress in order to preserve their employer's profits may be disconnected from reality. (However there is more than one reality - I cite the leadership of North Korea, Iran, and Cuba as examples)
But back to the misremembered monarch. In a nutshell, Canute had a bunch of fawning sycophants that irritated the hell out of him. He manuvered them into asserting that he was such a powerful King that he could command the tides to stop and the tides wouild obey him. In the time it takes you to say "Beach Blanket Bondage", he had those little twits staked out on the beach at low tide. He commanded the tides to stop. I do not recall if he sent condolences to the surviving family members or not. More likely he would have had them removed from the gene pool as well - it would be the only prudent thing to do.
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
Once again, using the "print" link at the bottom of the article will give you a very nice, uncluttered, single-page, easy to read layout.
For instance, I can easily imagine news disappearing altogether from TV, with newspapers providing both the in-depth analysis (that there is never room for on TV) and the breaking news online, as it happens, with moving pictures for subscribers.
Actually newspaper readership is declining as well. A few weeks ago I read a study that concluded that the number of people reading newspapers is going down and more people are getting thier news from the internet. And this was just the latest study I read like it, for the past few years I've seen a number of studies saying the same thing. It's way past tyme for media businesses to change the way they do business, that's the free market. Of course many say they support free markets but when it comes down to it they don't, instead they want to keep their place.
FalconShould there be a Law?
There actually are file sharing appliances in the pipeline. They're just not by the small startups. File sharing is a cornerstone of the Blu-Ray spec. You just won't be able to get it for $40 at Target.
Unlike the past, this time consumers probably won't care. They now pay $7,000,000 for condominiums, so why should they care if their Blu-Ray server is $2000?
Tanya Andersen happens to be doing just that:
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/7767
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/6445
It's quite legal to create devices that are compliant with DRM and you can make lots of money that way, too. Why bother making illegalized devices? Where you risk seizure of your equipment, getting locked out of legal trade and you can't really put up some high output low cost production pump.
Why would someone go out of his way to do something illegal when he can make just as much money legally?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Free trade is dead. Welcome to the world of ... well, what exactly? In Communism, The Party decided what's good for you. What do you call a market where the producer, and him alone, dictates what you can and may buy?
What it's called is the Corporate Aristocracy, the very same thing both Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson were against. Writing to John Adams, Thomas Jefferson wrote:
"and provision should be made to prevent its ascendancy. On the question, what is the best provision, you and I differ; but we differ as rational friends, using the free exercise of our own reason, and mutually indulging its errors. You think it best to put the pseudo-aristoi into a separate chamber of legislation [the Senate], where they may be hindered from doing mischief by their coordinate branches, and where, also, they may be a protection to wealth against the agrarian and plundering enterprises of the majority of the people. I think that to give them power in order to prevent them from doing mischief, is arming them for it, and increasing instead of remedying the evil."
FalconShould there be a Law?
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Besides moaning on Slashdot about this topic, I gave $100 to the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 2000. They're a lobby, of a sort. Our lobby. I suppose not "every person who was pissed off about this gave $100," as another poster put it, because by now, we're still wallowing in the fallout from the DCMA.
Last year, I wrote to Senator Dianne Feinstein (apparently the best California lawmaker money can buy, given that she's the progenitor, all or in part, of so much of the anti-consumer legislation we're seeing) and voiced my concerns. I got a boilerplate reply implying my concerns were without merit, and that the preservation of movies and television and recordings were of utmost importance.
So, I'm taking matters into my own hands, inasmuch as I cannot form them into more than tiny fists against the RI- and MPAA hegemonies. I am canceling my digital and premium cable services, reverting back to basic. When a commercial comes on, I already turn down the volume and go to the can. Or go for a snack. I'll be sure to buy my CDs second-hand, and I'm not buying from the iTMS any longer. (For the love of Pete, people, don't rent your music!) I have no plans to buy new video equipment; my 1989 Sony 21" Trinitron will be my last video monitor when it breaks down, because what will I be able to buy other than a DRM-hobbled flatscreen? If I buy HD-DVD or Blu-Ray equipment, it'll only be for computer storage, that is, if the rights I currently enjoy with my computer still exist. If I go to the movies, it'll be at a Century or Camera cinema instead of one belonging to AMC, because AMC sees nothing wrong with foisting commercials on my girlfriend and I after I've paid twenty bucks for us to see a film. And when the fall quarter comes along at my local community college this year, I'm digging my saxophones out of the closet and signing up for concert band. Or perhaps the local non-profit production company's pit orchestra. I probably didn't touch on everything one could do, but, you get the idea.
If enough people did all that, perhaps those such as Jamie Kellner (he of the infamous not-watching-commercials-is-stealing quote) or Thomas Hesse ("Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?") would have no alternative but to rent themselves out as urinals.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, write technology blogs.
I later heard that the charge to Comcast went to a dollar per month per subscribing home.
Is it enough money to fund an entire network without 'commercial break' advertising? Probably not, unless all those people take cuts in pay (or their operation gets outsourced).
Which to me, is an entirely viable solution. The pay scales in the TV and movie industries tend to be pretty high....
As far as OTA distribution goes, I think that is a dinosaur marketing scheme that deserves to become extinct. If technology hastens this extinction - great. I certainly object to Congress passing laws to guarantee these bozos their rents.
The business model of television is based on blind advertising - interrupting as many people as possible, with the hope that *some* are not annoyed, but instead buy. Please let me illustrate by analogy.
Imagine a freeway, where every ten minutes, you go through a toll booth, where they stop you, tell you you smell bad or have ring-around-the-collar, and ask: "would you like to buy some deodorant? Soap? Your teeth are yellow too. We have whiteners."
For some strange reason, this is drives people away from the freeway, and toward private airplanes.
At the heart of the RIAA and MPAA lobbying is the demand by the toll-booth industry that private airplanes be forced to land every ten minutes and go through the toll-booth. Those toll booths made good money, and the tool-booth industry has a right to it.
From their point of view, people should have no right to bypass the toll booth, to bypass the insults to their cleanliness or beauty, to bypass the 'opportunity' to shell out some cash.
It seems to me there are three business models working here: OTA (charging advertisers 100%), Cable / Satellite TV (charging customers 25%, charging advertisers 75%), and subscription services (Pay-per-view, iTunes, XM Radio) (charging customers 100%).
For streaming media, only subscription services make long term financial sense to me.
"Broadcast" means not knowing your audience. Anything that shifts the cost to advertisers to subsidize consumers to choose broadcasts has made the fundamental mistake of disconnecting the money paid (to advertise) from the results.
It may work today, but (barring Congressional action) in twenty years it will appear as ignorant as junk faxes.
"The most sensible request of government we make is not, "Do something!" But "Quit it!"
You can boycott the companies that are promoting those luddite acts or vote against Reps and Senators, that are on their payroll:
"In an attempt to put an end to all that, Hollywood has drafted the Digital Transition Content Security Act, introduced as H.R. 4569 in December 2005 by Reps. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) and John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.). This legislation, better known as the Analog Hole Bill, would impose a design mandate on any "analog video input device that converts into digital form an analog video signal.""
The RIAA is urging the FCC and Congress to impose design restrictions on any future HD Radio recorders to stave off a successful new mutation: a digital hard disk recorder that allows easy and flexible archiving of radio broadcasts. As similar devices have appeared for satellite radio, the recording industry has also begun pushing for legislation to restrict them, such as S. 2644, the Platform Equity and Remedies for Rights Holders in Music (PERFORM) Act of 2006, introduced by Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Cal.).
Hollywood lobbyists actually convinced the FCC to impose broadcast flag regulations in 2003, but a U.S. Court of Appeals found that the Commission lacked the authority to regulate the internal workings of televisions. Hollywood is now asking Congress to give the FCC that legal authority by passing the Audio Broadcast Flag Licensing Act of 2006, sponsored by Rep. Michael Ferguson (R-N.J.)."
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Yes, but only in Spanish, I'm afraid.
? CAT=39094&TEXTO=4827507
http://www.lavozdegalicia.es/buscavoz/noticia.jsp
Under "pure" capitalism one could make DVR's that can copy and network up the wazoo. The court system would not be part of it. Plus, who says we *should* have pure capitalism? We are supposed to be a democracy, and voters GRANT companies the privilage to conduct trade. In the old days, local governments had much more control over companies. Big companies have since bought themselves more power over the years with little or no direct approval by voters. Large companies like Monsanto and Intel have way too much political power.
There used to be such a thing as a corporate charter. A state government would issue a corporate charter to a corportation but only to inprove the common good or public welfare. But with corporations buying politicans these concepts have fallen by the wayside. Also making things bad a Supreme Court had to rule making corporate personhood legal which is obviously false.
FalconShould there be a Law?
if you go to thepiratebay, you'll see that the title says "The Police Bay", and the front image has the hollywood letters being attacked by the pirate ship's cannon, YARRRRRrrrr :)
You can no longer buy ReplayTV devices new, they only exist on the second hand market.
And yes, you can induce a 5500 machine to get 5000 level features, but you need a proxy server to "protect" it from the ReplayTV servers upgrading the software.
That said, ReplayTV + poopli rules. I never miss an episode of a show due to power failure or conflicts with other shows.
My amazing wife - Artist, Author, Philosopher - Laurie M
Seems more like the death of the entertainment industry. They've tried to bottle up the public's ability to make LEGAL copies of movies, songs etc...so now that they have done it, they want to cram crap down our throats. Bad movies, bad records.....the industy is in a "slump" not from piracy, but from the CRAP they produce.
The democrats?
It was the Clintonites who sold us off to their Hollywood friends.
The republicans?
What? They dont know how to get their palms greased?
This idea that both parties are somehow different is amusing.
Almost like the chinese who truly believe in the party.
We each have our own cherished mythologies.
Right now!
Instead of intrusive adverts have product placement like Friends and Sex in the City. Its much more effective, less intrusive and means that piracy is beneficial as its just more eyeballs.
Adverts annoy - product placement and you wanna drink what the stars drink, etc.
Surely Madison Avenue can come up with a few other ideas.
If the networks can no longer count on people watching at least some ads, how are they to pay for content?
Somehow, the local PBS station seems to provide content without a lot of commercials. Granted, it's not the same type of content that is on the major networks but then their budget is a lot smaller.
Besides, if the worry is about the advertisers being upset and not wanting to pay for the ads, exactly how much ad revenue do they pay for on those DVDs of prior seasons? Doesn't that take the ad revenue away from the local stations because of the lost revenue stream on reruns?
Seems the major networks want it both ways. They want to keep me from removing content but want to remove content from downstream providers.
Anyway, it seems it should be Pepsi who is upset. 24 doesn't and Fox don't own the content of the commercial, Pepsi does. And if Pepsi is upset, how is my fast forwarding or commercial editing any different than my getting up and leaving the room while the commercial plays?
American Idol came up with a novel idea. Have commercials that people wanted to see. The final commercial just before the show would return would be a Ford commercial with the contestants on it. People tuned in to it because it was tied into the show. Maybe if the networks and vendors treated the commercials as something of value to the viewer then people wouldn't want to skip past them.
Why is it their licenses to broadcast on the PUBLIC airwaves keeps getting a rubber stamp renewal? Are their offerings really that good, does the news they spew out really inform? Maybe we should just lobby to get these current networks off the air, to be replaced with new ones that might be more people friendly anyway and more honest? Their news is 3/4ths government propoganda, the rest industry propoganda for the most part. Their "shows" are pithy drivel designed as carriers so that some big business can make profits. Where is the "of the public benefit" angle at, I am not seeing it..
Here's a thought, it shouldn't be carved in stone that ANY profits are guaranteed to them by the FCC rubber stamp process. How about call it a night for them, they have had generations of sucking at the public teat to make money, how about we just tell them to go away and spend what they already made? Where is it in the constitution that industry x,y,z are guaranteed profits? IF the licensing process was truly fair, wouldn't it be nice to actually see the word NO applied to them once in awhile? Maybe they might get ordered to have no more than 5 minutes an hour commercials instead of 20% like they do now? I know I get told NO by the FCC if I try to get a commercial very low watt simple radio station, an assigned AM or FM freq, you have to be a multi millionaire to pull that off today, yet for some reason the big TV networks always seem to get renewed, and clear channel is allowed to suck up a HUGE chnk of the avaialble radio freqs. Why is that again, why are they guranteed access and profits? I know I have complained for years about their so called "public news coverage" that functions as an arm of crooked government and big business. How about the last presidential elections when the public airwaves news broadcasters would not insist on the credible larger third party candidates being on the stage with the D and R doofuses? How is that in the public interest all the time? And I know hundreds of thousands of other people have complained too, yet..always rubber stamped back into the guaranteed profits zone by the FCC "public servants".
Screw 'em, let someone else have a crack at it, they should just be denied renewal, they have been running a decades long lock down of the public airwaves. They want to be guaranteed *millionaires*, to hell with that noise. Let some other comapnies try some shows where they might be content with jst making a living, not being leeches off the public airwaves to maintain their millionaire status. Katie Couric is worth 15 million a year??? For WHAT? Because her network gets a rubber stamped guaranteed renewal for their "license"? Multiply that by all the other network "stars" and show "stars" and execs and crap like that in that "industry" and THAT is why we have SO MANY commercials that people WANT to skip them, it became an onerous gouging exploitation experience a long time ago and it need to END.
You keep chips in the fridge?
By that I mean we should support an industry that does not include ridiculous law as part of a revenue generating scheme.
That's why I like things like blip.tv, youtube, etc. It's mostly all original content and on blip, you can set your licensing rights on your videos.
Same with music. Support independent musicians. What we need to do is turn the TV's adn radios off. Use the computer to find music and video that isn't encumbered. Show the industry how badly we can hurt them using legal means.
But the fair use standard drives me crazy. For example, I've got an extensive library of music on 33rpm and 45rpm vinyl that I've been converting to digital form so I can put it on my mp3 player etc. But by the technical definition, I'm violating the law.
It looks as though our congress critters might be getting a clue though. This might be good news.
... than anybody at any of the **AAs. C'mon, look at the record. We broke CSS. We've hacked every supposedly-DRM'ed product known to man. And we WILL do it again, because (a) we're smarter than the **AA's and their lawyers, and (b) the engineers who're building the new stuff want to do the same things we do, so they're most likely going to either do an intentionally half-assed job on the DRM (the only explaination for CSS), or build in back doors (can you say, Apex AD-300A? I thought you could!).
Look at all the fair-use stuff we can do now that the **AA's don't want us to do. I'm not even talking about mass sharing of copyrighted content. I'm talking about:
Through Poopli, I've freely shared files with (actually mostly from) other ReplayTV users. Thanks to the DealDatabase community, I was later able to hack my HD Tivo for video extraction. This morning I extracted the HBO HD version of "Episode III"--which I paid for, via the subscription fee, and I am legally free to record for my own use--to my computer, and I've got it archived on a couple of backup media. I've now got a better copy of that movie than I can buy on DVD, and there's not a blessed thing anybody at the MPAA can ever do about it. I'm building a library of HD shows (editing out every single commercial) and movies in Divx for my home server (all either recorded from free broadcast, satellite channels that I pay for, or DVDs that I've bought), and again, there's not a thing anybody at any misbegotten buggy-whip trade association can ever do about it.
We already know the new encryption routines they're building into the HD disc formats can be broken; it's just a matter of when enough hardware is in enough smart hands.
They can toss around as much money at politicians as they like, but in the end, we're always going to beat them. Because we're smarter than they are. And what's really funny is, they know it.
I beg to differ: unbridled anger is a primary (perhaps the primary) change maker.
For example, politics, in general -- some of the time, the nice sensible, sensitive and highly-educated people in the middle come up with happy, consensus driven solutions. When that doesn't work, the hordes/mobs/masses/proletariat/dotters/boston-tea- party types get angry, and if there are enough of them, and they are angry enough, they strangle the king and/or queen with the entrails of the high priest(ess). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution.
Having established the primarly role of unbridled anger in change, I would like to add that Slashdot is a perfect place to enleash a bit of (perferrably well articulated) rage -- minimal damage to infrastructure, no beheadings (I'm thinking France, not Iraq), and everybody forgets all about it after about five minutes anyway.
And getting back to topic at hand, it's lovely to see that this is an issue that (some) people still get hot and bothered about. That means that bright, uncompromising people will continue to attempt to create and deliver technology that consumers can actually use and enjoy -- instead of the DRM-enslaved stuff that amounts to this http://www.mustardweb.org/mustardpics/issue3/pileo fshit.gif (my compliments to the artists/copyright holder of this graphic, BTW).
Some content provider would skip all these layers of transmission and try to sell content directly to the customer for a fee with no ads. As iTunes showed, if it is possible for the customers to buy exactly what they want, they will buy rather than steal or pirate. If you have broadband you can get 151 Gb [1] of data streamed in per week, that is 34 hours of DVD quality video. That is more than enough video for most families. Cancel cable, save 40 to 60 $/month, pay it directly to the content authors, get shows with no commercial breaks that get downloaded to the family hard-disk, which you can watch when it is convenient...
Suddenly the content providers would be listening to YOU! Not to some suit in the network HQ. Not to the advertisers. Not to FCC and its rules. The cost of entry to this market would be minimal. They dont need huge broadcast towers and such things. They will do what it takes to retain you as a customer. Think how HBO produced less number of shows with higher quality compared to the broadcast networks and ate their lunch. This would be likely scenario for the households with decent disposable income. These nimble small players will cherry pick them out of the general market.
The households at the low end of the income spectrum will be stuck with ad supported broadcast TV. Once the purchasing power of the broadcast TV watching population erodes, the ad revenue also will diminish. They will have more ads, worse quality shows and will eventually become irrelevant.
It could happen. What would prevent such a scenario from unfolding?
[1] For a 2 Mbps connection 7x24x3600x2.0e06 bits=151Gb.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
By contributing to their opponents you increase the possibility of them being defeated, and at least the pol-buying reset/restarted.
As an uninvolved one-issue third party it's immaterial whether these beings do or not a good job for their district.
Pols that have crossed single issue constituencies, say AIPAC, have seen their privates removed before they knew what hit them.
For the moment, DRM and all of its related ridiculousness is the concern of geeks.
:)
Hear that? it's the sound of HDCP coming down the road.
Can't wait for it to wake everyone up.
"You mean that $3k TV I bought 2 years ago is worthless now?"
So far any non-geeks I've tried to explain it to don't quite "get it".
Lets see how happy they are with the status quo once that fuzzy garbage shows up on thier new high-rez screens.
Ad skipping remains perfectly legal. No one is forced to own a television in the first place. I don't see the point in getting all hung up over removing the mind control substance from a meal that was never very nutricious in the first place. Once a month I go to my local video store, rent five movies for a week for $10. I can barely *find* five movies a month worth watching. With some help from my pickiest friends I have another five movies on deck.
n ightmare/t _guys_in_the_room/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gaza_strip/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10005064-darwins_
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/syriana/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/enron_the_smartes
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mondovino/
Seems to be a common theme here: some of these might be a little depressing. There's the problem. Most people who moan about skipping the ads aren't prepared to go all the way.
Gee, you mean legislation pushed by media monopolies to enhance their profit margins by surpressing innovation and Fair Use rights has suppressed innovation? What a surprise. Not.
about how whole classes of devices were eliminated, and how others won't even see the light of day as a result of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Ahh you just need to keep in mind that the whole goal of the DMCA is to enrichen the.. oh wait that's not it.
encourage innovation. Ya that's it. Help make new technologies flourish, like um.. this one they're crushing now.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Well... It occurs to me that if people in free countries that had less restrictive copyright laws were to be innovative and industrious and create these types of devices themselves, it would not be a problem.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Wikileaks, no DNS
Start over: Become a storyteller, or any other kind of performer. If you won't do that, seek out those who will, and support them in the time honored tradition of busking - you like what they do, tip 'em! If not, you can be out of earshot in less than a minute, no harm done.
Take the 90-Day Challenge! http://rwmurker.bodybyvi.com/
In capitalist America, video watches you!
What I do see being killed is the common public knowledge of how their stuff works.
As a nation, we are enforcing ignorance of computer literacy on an entire generation of young people. This, in my mind, is like making it a business practice to write legal documents in Farsi, but make education of the masses of the Farsi scripts illegal. This done, of course, to protect the businessmen's "right" to "encrypt" legal documents so the ignorant public would not be aware of what they are agreeing to.
I am just happy, for now, that the US does not control the world ( yet ), and some countries are embracing a standard technology for their computational infrastructure based on a standard programming language that cannot be legally banned at the stroke of someone's pen.
I would not be surprised at all if I come back a hundred years later via reincarnaton, only to be taught in Chinese that the ancient USA intentionally sentenced an entire generation of young people to computational illiteracy - for a song.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
Then they give me this excuse "everybody at school is doing it".
/Not yours
That sounds suspiciously like a democratic consensus. I hope you beat the wretch and did your best to indoctrinate him with selfishness, greed, slavish devotion to authority figures, and the basic tenets of fascism. No America, you cant have democracy!!
Like whole classes of devices haven't been killed off because of laws before... I can't run down to Wal-Mart and buy a Kevorkian Suicide Machine. This isn't the first and won't be the last.
Ok, lets follow that line of thought. Let's give everyone an auto-skip button. Advertizers that see no return for their investments will move to other forms of advertizing. There will be fewer ads in programs, because there will be fewer people interested in paying for them (this is assuming the networks keep demand and prices up by limiting supply; I'm not entirely sure they are that smart). There will be noticed a few companies that will still THRIVE on their tv adds. These are the companies that actually make good comercials. There are few commercials that I have any desire to see, but some I can enjoy.
Ponder this, why do people watch the super bowl? While answering that, think about the day after. How many people mention the game itself at all besides the final score. How many people mention the comercials (and sometimes describe them in detail)
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
A truly fire and forget, easy to use, GUI driven open source solution is the only thing that can beat this.
And then someone needs to start selling Mini GTX mediacenter "ready" boxes with supported graphics cards.
(Everything *but* the offending software). Of course, BitTorrent and a link to the torrent file would
be preinstalled...
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
You don't want your future to be full of crippleware and DRM implants that doesn't let you blink durng comercials then don't buy into those products.
People are nuts for ipods, but for a few bucks less they can buy a very nice PDA that does everything an ipod does and a whole lot more, include not getting easily scratched.
Stop buying crippleware that locks you out of 90% of what the technology is capable of. Don't buy Sony or Disney DVD's since both have figured out how to defeat DVD ripping software.
Don't buy online music from the majors unless it is DRM free.
Certainly don't buy into the happy horse shit that is HD-DVD and Blue-ray and send a message that the consumers don't want to be jerked around along with the bastard children that CDR and DVDR media turned out to be. How many formats are there now and how often do you have compatability problems with various players and recorders.
Do rent movies instead of buying them. Quit giving them the extra $16, or aleast trade them around to others. How many times are you really going to watch most movies.
Do buy extra harddrives and rip all your DVD's to them with all the command locked comercials, legal threats, extras (crap) removed
Do insist on companies releasing acurate game demos before you buy and non-restrictive/invasive online activation schemes
Do insist that your hardware belong to you and be general so it can be used to do about anything.
The solution here (and it isn't unique) is simply education. Getting the message out that the evil corporations are taking "your rights" (and they are) is a message that Joe Voter will listen to.
maybe a company could come out with a tivo type thingy that have modules added on, like for instance something that removes the ad's, wouldn't that be nice. just a thought anyways.
Ok, so we all know why this is problem, and that the market won't solve this problem on it's own. So, how about one of the more legally versed nerds/geeks out there do some research and find out what laws they are or could possible be breaking if swung in the right wording. After thats done we the consumers file a class action lawsuit and hit them below the belt..... In their pockets. I mean hell, if they can keep other companies wanted to helps out of business by taking their money why can't we pull a robin hood and take it right back? Or is it a bad idea to stand up for and fight what we think is right anymore? Last I checked the "Nazis" of WWII hadn't become part of our government to come arresting us for thinking something aside from what the government, or those controling the government thought.... But it's just a suggestion.
So many choices, so little tolerance.
So, turning off your TV set during the ads is theft as well?
What about closing your eyes and covering your ears during the ads? Can I be called a thief for that?
And isn't theft (agains us this time) to put ads in 50% of cable TV time, which we are already paying for?!?!?
Thanks for the audience. I'll be here all the week. Don't forget to tip your waitress.
So say we all
Tivo skips forward like a VCR with ultra-fast fast-forward. You have to control the skipping yourself.
ReplayTVs skipping was a "mode" as in "skip all commercials" (they were using the in-band signaling used by the networks to mark the start and end of a commercial block to their affiliates - put there because the affiliates would then, potentially, replace some/all of those commercials with their own). So, as a ReplayTV user (at least when watching recorded TV) commercials weren't something to skip forward past, but just weren't there - at least in theory, but in practice they almost weren't there...
Of course, this doesn't fix the problem that, even with commercials removed, there isn't a lot on commercial TV worth watching (just my personal value judgment, natch) I'd be willing to pay for the few that I do like to watch - come to think of it, that's exactly what I do: DVD's from NetFlix of things like BSG and Firefly.
I understand that the removal was automatic with ReplayTV and is not with Tivo. My point was in both cases it's piece of cake to skip ads. So I wondered why they got troubles: I guess it has more to do with the commercial programs of the affiliates not being bocked/replaced than merely erasing ads.
:)
As for the technical solution, I wonder how the automatic skipping is done. A friend of mine was working on mplayer/memcoder based software to do that (research in a French university), and there was only one public station in France which used the inband markers. All other stations and especially commercial ones were not using those markers to be sure the ads could not be easily removed. My friend got mixed results and used a set of heurisitcs which detected "blank/cut images" and also a thing that does not exist in the US called "jinggle screens". Those screens are mandatory in France to warn TV watchers when commercials are about to start or stop: basically it's just a scree saying "advertisement" with some music and some channel's logo.
I wonder what is the situation in the US right now. Are those inband commonly used or not?
I tend to agree with you about TV ads. But since I moved to Germany, I tend to watch TV even less (I got some issues with German language) and the local netflix (Amango) aside from being outrageously expensive does not have BSG grrrr!!! I somehow left the US while season 2 was about to start they still don't have season 1 here. I'm a bit pissed off. Needless to say.. And I can't watch Alias either, not even on the web since it detects I have a foreign IP... And last thing, good thing VLC exist, or I would have had to buy a new laptop to read DVDs from Germany because of that zoning crap... Well i have the good beer though
Perhaps this isn't ultimately about money. Maybe it's about maintaining unencumbered access to people's minds via media and the legal means to do that while shutting others out.
There are ways the DMCA can (and likely will) be used to prevent ad-filtering, but that's not what happened with ReplayTV. What ReplayTV did, was not prohibited by the DMCA.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Hollywood needs to go under. Bankrupt. Insolvent. Gone.
e ss Star Wars blockbuster, or some other piece of garbage. "Keep the teeny-boppers coming, they'll slit their wrists to see the effects, the 'cool' one-liners, or the female skin we can get past the rating board. The old fogies will go for the tear-jerkers, and we get to keep buying new Jaguars and more mansions. Keep the money flowing and we'll buy whatever Congressman we need to lock them in."
No movie, TV show, or other inane content they can produce is worth this. They're like the neighborhood crack dealer -- keep everyone addicted to the latest blow-the-universe-up Mission Impossible shoot-fest, the latest computer-farm-the-size-of-Utah-rendered-but-plotl
These people need to go the way of the T-Rex. Nothing is worth this -- whether it's some four-star tear-fest (written by one of their sycophants) or the UTTER CRAP that comes out between Memorial Day and Labor Day every year.
*Nothing* is worth this. Culture has existed for thousands of years before Hollywood existed and it can exist for thousands of years long after they're gone.
Thanks for the link, I saved the page. I don't recall if the ruling you cited is the same I was thinking of, all I recalled was that it was in the 1800s and I thought it involved a railroad but wasn't sure, so I googled and found this:
Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad [1886]
Though the court did not make a ruling on the question of "corporate personhood" (whether 14 th Amendment covered corporations), the decision subsequently was cited as precedent to hold that a private corporation was a "natural person." Justices have since struck down hundreds of local, state and federal laws enacted to protect people from corporate harm based on this illegitimate premise.
I also tried Findlaw, searched for "personhood", and got ten results. None of them had anything to do with corporate personhood. Because my question of whether the USSC ruled to give corporations legal personhood status hasn't been answered guess I'll have to spend more tyme researching it.
FalconShould there be a Law?
"IP" or "content" or whatever you want to call it does NOT live in the free market.
Copyright, patents, and trademarks are all protected by the government in the US. Thus owners of these items are granted a limited monopoly for exploitation of copyrights and patents for a given and specific amount of time.
Therefore, the "free market" rule doesn't apply because copyright and patents are not "the free market". This whole concept is one of the quarks in the US Constitution although it is completely optional for Congress.
Libertas in infinitum
If it works for XM, why not XTV?
Sex in the City actually already does (did) this...Manolo Blahnik shoes is one that comes to mind quickly...