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NBC Activates Broadcast Flag
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "NBC activated the 'broadcast flag' on a number of shows this week, ranging from American Gladiator to Medium, which prevented compliant programs like Windows Media Center from recording them. The matter is being 'looked into,' but that doesn't tell us whether it was an accident or a ploy to see how outraged viewers would be at being stripped of the time-shifting rights they've enjoyed ever since Sony v. Universal. Just in case it's the latter, it wouldn't hurt to let them know what you think."
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
That seems like a rather large mistake to make. If it was mistake, it's the kind someone might get fired for (especially after attention from slashdot).
"It seems the flag only triggered copy protection measures in Vista, as one of our staffers with a DirecTV HD DVR recorded Gladiators as usual, and a TiVo spokesperson told CNet that the company had not received any complaints."
:)
Well well, another reason NOT to use Vista MCE. If you simply ignore a broadcast flag this only annoys people who pay for commercial software. I, on the other hand, couldbuild a MythTV box without any problems whatsoever
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
Use non-compliant software. Or software you (or someone for you) can make non-compliant.
If you use software you have no control over it just suits you right to get shafted once in a while by it.
Vote with your money.
Tell the advertisers for those program that you're really currious about their support NBC in using the broadcast flag. Not only did you get the opportunity to miss that program, but you didn't get to see any of the ads for their company promoting their products, sales, events, or anything else they were interested in letting you know about.
Believe me, word will get back to NBC that it's not to their advantage to follow such tactics.
You never know...
People still watch TV?
Dammy
Unless it's Heroes, it's not worth watching anyway. Tell NBC what you think by... oh, I don't know... NOT WATCHING? Just tell NBC that you're "going green," they'll understand.
This brings up what I think is the biggest potential for unfair use of DRM: restrictions that are built into the technology and acknowledged by fine print in the user agreement, but not enforced until after millions of consumers have already purchased the product.
There's nothing new about this. You can waste an awful lot of time reading contracts and discovering that you've agreed to obnoxious things... and that there's not an awful lot you can do about it because all the competitors have similar contracts... and that, surprise, surprise, the employee behind the car rental counter is not interested in striking out clauses and negotiating contracts with an individual customer with a line behind him.
What's new is the potential for cheap, automatic, mechanical enforcement at some later date.... and the consumer's inability to know the company's real intentions.
When you buy something with unenforced DRM you are truly buying a pig in a poke.
The free market can't operate in the absence of the buyer having reasonable information on what they're buying. In the case of unenforced DRM, that means not just the theoretical existence of restrictions, it means that companies should be required to disclose a policy on their intentions for future enforcement... a policy that must be included in the contract for the contract to be valid, and one which they can be held to in the future.
It should be use-it-or-lose-it. A company that fails to use automated restrictions for a long period of time, and has failed to disclose clearly its intention of using them in the future, ought to right to enforce them.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Perhaps they're testing to generate articles like this. Then they get a nice shopping list of products that don't enforce the flag. They know they have to address each of them before setting the flag on everything, all the time. That way people have no escape. So be vocal, the content distributors need this information so they can lock up their content.
I guess it depends on whether you're a cynic like me, or an optimist that thinks corporations really care.
It's a good thing I still have my trusty old VCR. Of course it's not like I'm actually going to watch gladiators anyway. But if I wanted to record it I'd use good old VHS!!!!
---- "Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"
It amazes me that people think that shows are the reason for the existence of TV stations, when really the whole broadcast system depends on hooking in enough people in order to get them to watch the commercials.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
To quote an often stated phrase:
- "Banning guns doesn't stop criminals from owning guns."
- Using DRM doesn't stop criminals from owning illegal copies.
Illegal ownerships still continues amongst the criminals who know how to circumvent the law/crack the code, so all you've accomplished is piss-off your legitimate customers.
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
Probably wont be a popular thing to say but back in the VCR days the stakes were a lot lower than they are today. It didn't matter so much back then because the tape of the show inherently couldn't travel very far and there was inherent pain in stripping out or fast forwarding through the commercials, to they were mostly for fair use.
In the digital and Internet age, most people might record for fairly benign fair use purposes, but some people are going to record, strip the commercials, put the shows on the Internet and undermine the business model under which TV networks currently function.
Me personally I'm not sure I can think of any content NBC produces I would actually want to watch or record, let alone post on the Internet, its not like they have a Daily Show or Colbert report. To counter my own argument John Stewart and Stephen Colbert seem to do OK encouraging free Internet trafficking in their shows but thats because their shows are A. wildly popular and B. cheap to produce.
Here is a question for all the Slashdot crowd that want all their media freed from the man. Do you want to watch content that actually costs a lot to produce, you know with writers, actors, sets. This would mean pretty much anything beyond game shows and reality TV. If so how do you expect the producers to pay for them? The options are pretty limited. One model depends on you watchings ads, and unfortunately its fairly rare for people to actually want to watch ads outside of the Super Bowl. If you let people strip the ads at a wholesale level the model doesn't work. Are you willing to pay a subscription fee for all content? Some people will pay for some content, its just wont work for most people and most content. What else is there? Shows which sucker you into voting or calling in for prizes and charge you on your phone bill? Do you want to just watch content mostly produced for free on YouTube, kind of entertaining and weird, but not exactly compelling drama?
Free network TV is a business model that is failing so desperation on the part of the networks is understandable. It worked when there were three networks, not many other mass market entertainment options and no digital recordings. Now there are so many channels diluting the market, and people are spending more time on the Internet and games. As a result ads don't produce as much revenue, so the networks counter by loading up shows with more and more of them in more obnoxious ways and try harder to force you to watch them. In turn they are annoying people more and more, causing a snowballing effect that will drive down their ratings and their revenue. If the networks allow people to rip the shows, cut the commercials, and post them on the Internet its inevitable more and more people will watch them there instead and further destroy any motivation to produce content in the first place.
@de_machina
I watch BSG on a Hulu stream.
It still sends the message that I prefer to watch things on my schedule rather than a
predefined one. It's a bit more noticable because the lack of a viewer is hard for them to measure, but an additional view on Hulu is easily registered. It's a satisfactory middle ground between watching in real-time and bittorrenting the show and then watching.
I don't mind the 15-30 second ads, I find them a reasonable exchange for my show and I even watch them since they're short enough that it's not worth getting up or doing something else. I just wish they'd stop repeating the same goddamn ad.
That's because Fred Rogers did his job for a *higher* cause: To speak to the children & families. He'd still have done the exact same job, even if they only paid him minimum wage, because it wasn't about greed for him. It was about the message.
For (almost) everyone else in television, it's about greed.
Hence they hate giving anything away for free (like time-shifting).
If someone asked them to "Donate to the children's orphanage" they'd probably ask, "What's in it for me?"
Sad.
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
There's very little worth watching, and what is, is available to watch by the season on DVD. With the key demo, males 18-35, spending more and more time playing GTA IV and Halo, the TV industry would be well-advised to stop poisoning the well. Else, in 10 years' time the only ones watching will be retired Baby Boomers who live on $800 of social security every month.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
The Solution to his problem is simple: MythTV.
Build your own on any spare PC and forget about it.
Don't be surprised if buried in the analogue output circuitry of your digital set top box is a macrovision circuit just itching to be switched on by a hidden flag hidden in some program to mop up the remaining analogue recorders such as yourself! :)
Only thing worth watching on TV is on the Discovery / History channel. That's all I watch when I get someplace with cable. My TV at home is just for DVD's / game systems / windows media center.
TLC used to be good but it's turned into a frickin' reality show channel. (at least they stopped making insert dumb idea here story shows. Baby story, wedding story, ugh. What, we don't know how weddings happen!?)
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
Don't just stop buying and watching, you should also write them and be vocal.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I did as well.
I stopped watching TV about ten years ago. I had spent a year and a half in South Korea on non-stop field exercises in the Army and then was honorably discharged and shipped back to the US. After being away from any TV for so long, I found that I just couldn't stand to sit in front of the box idly staring at it. It really bugged me on a fundamental level to see how it panders to the lowest common denominator of society. I never looked back.
Occasionally a friend will recommend a particularly good show to me, and I might watch it on DVD though. I can honestly count the number of shows on four fingers though that this is true for over a decade.
Babylon 5
Deadwood
Battlestar Galactica (the new one)
Heroes
I didn't quit out of a hatred for the media conglomerates or for any lofty ideal. I quit just because after stepping away for a while, I think you see it for what it really is when you come back.
I was making a point that you can not outlaw or protect what determined people want.
Look at alcohol prohibition. Did it work? No, the people just created underground, black-market speakeasys. How about drug prohibition? Nope, people still get the drugs they want. Gun prohibition? Nope people get their hands on guns for hunting or self-defense. Copy prohibition (DRM)? Nope, people crack the code and get what they want.
THAT was my point.
It's a fruitless and pointless effort to try & block people. You're just wasting your time. They WILL find a way around the obstacle & reach their goal.
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
Wow, good work. Maybe soon you'll be able to rid yourself of theater, novels, poetry, radio, periodicals, video games, board games, essays and albums.
Then you'll be able to focus on what's REALLY important...
The business model is that they (or their affiliates) get to use the airwaves which belong to the people as long as they are deemed to be acting "in the public interest". This allows selling a certain amount of advertising time to pay for operations and just like movie theaters show movies that the studios and not they make money on so that people will come in and buy popcorn, television stations show entertainment so that people are watching when they slip in the ads (which is what makes the ad time worth buying in the first place, an audience). Just like the ads in newspapers and magazines (which cover most of the cost of publishing), some will be ignored and some "consumed".
People who record for time-shifting purposes will fast-forward through the commercials or not as they wish and the advertisers haven't really lost anything because those people were doing something else when the show actually aired. The stations may even benefit because going to your kid's band concert didn't cause you to give up watching "Lost" or "24" on an ongoing basis due to losing track of the storyline because of not being available to watch in real-time that one particular evening.
I find it difficult to believe that many people who are able to use a VCR or DVR for time-shifting will prefer to go to the trouble of searching for and downloading what may or may not be a good quality recording just to avoid having to hit the fast forward button, especially if they have to shell out for extra hardware in order to be able to watch said recording on their television sets instead of on their computer monitors.
If anything undermines the business model under which the networks currently operate, it'll most likely be that people aren't watching because there's something else they'd rather be doing or because the shows just aren't very good.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.