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Microsoft Acknowledges NBC's Wish is Its Command
theodp writes "Responding to questions about why some users of Windows Vista Media Center were prevented from recording the NBC Universal TV shows 'American Gladiator' and 'Medium,' Microsoft has acknowledged that Windows Media Centers will block users from recording TV shows at the request of a broadcaster. 'Microsoft included technologies in Windows based on rules set forth by the (Federal Communications Commission),' wrote a Microsoft spokeswoman, apparently referring to an FCC proposal that the courts struck down in 2005. 'Microsoft has put the requirements of broadcasters above what consumers want,' said the EFF's Danny O'Brien. 'They've imposed restrictions way beyond what the law requires. Customers need to know who Microsoft is listening to and how that affects their equipment. Right now, the only way customers know what Microsoft has agreed to is when the technology they've bought suddenly stops working. Microsoft needs to come clean and tell its customers what deals it has made.'"
shows just who the real "customer" here is... not you... you are the product, delivered to the media conglomerates...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
This is great news. Look, Microsoft has a vendor first / user second approach. The more stupid shit like this they do the more the users will catch on that they are simply taken for granted.
What is it with Microsoft and the word "technologies"?
Heeding a fucking bit is "technologies"?
[Clicks fingers] Oh, sorry, that's marketdoublespeak to hide the fact that they're selling stuff that takes its orders from someone other than the customer who bought it.
I don't think so. People are not so apathetic as you seem to think. They will take notice as soon as it impacts on their ability and their freedom to do things they have been able to do since they bought their first VCR recorder 25 years ago.
Microsoft has been putting too much faith into its monopoly position. The more people this affects, the more people WILL move to alternative systems, and the more those alternative systems will improve.
DRM will never survive.
BS I call it. They've been doing it for YEARS and still customers go like sheep.
You seriously underestimate powers of monopoly and lack of knowledge of substitutes.
Sorry.
Microsoft has never been about the customer. Microsoft will gladly screw over their customers to get a few bucks or gain marketshare.
Here's an old but great example. Back when Win95 was released you could not natively use long file names with 16-bit apps. However, there was a product called "Name-It!" which did allow that function. In other words it was possible and quite easy to enable the function, but Microsoft chose NOT to implement it. Why? Because long file names was a well liked feature among customers and denying it to customers would give incentive to upgrade to new 32-bit programs.
Another great example is Messenger, the chat program not the service. Microsoft originally made it nearly impossible to get rid of. Even if you edited your sysoc.inf file and uninstalled Messenger, it'll suddenly come back. Even if you deleted the subfolder under Program Files, it would mysteriously come back. Obviously Microsoft considered its chat war against AOL more important than ease of use for its customers.
And of course there's product activation. We were told it was to stop piracy, but that was bull-shit. You can easy obtain pirated copies of XP and Vista. Let's face it, if piracy has been decreased, then why is Vista Microsoft's most expensive OS? Why aren't they passing the savings back to us? Clearly product activation is not stopping piracy at all. Once again, the real purpose of product activation is to screw over the paying customer who wants to install the OS he paid for on both of his systems.
And lets not forget how Microsoft's Office products are constantly screwing with file formats to make the later versions incompatible with earlier versions. Once again, this is NOT done to make it easier for paying customers. It's merely leverage to get those customer paying again and again.
It'd be really hard to be passionate for Microsoft's products. It's hard to be passionate for anything that nickel and dimes you at every turn. That treats you like a criminal. And sees you merely as a cash cow to be milked at every chance.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Let's see, how many different competing sources of videos are there today? And NBC thinks it's got the best ones out there and wants to restrict their dissemination with the broadcast flag?
I don't really care if Vista respects the flag or not. NBC, by putting it in the stream, thwarts its use, legitimate or not. In the YouTube/Tube world, they have *so* scratched themselves off the list.
Let's see-- was that good for marketshare, branding, asset value, shareholder value, or compennsation? Hullo?
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
The majority of the proles will bitch and complain, but they will still come home to Daddy - in this case, Microsoft - when it comes time to upgrade.
The handful of people with enough brains to see this sort of shit coming aren't suffering.
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
Actually, Mythtv is pretty easy to set up now, if you use one of the distro versions (knoppmyth, mythdora or mythbuntu).
I add a nice pchdtv video card, which does not detect the broadcast flag, and I have nothing to worry about. Plus, I can burn dvd's of my recordings, and many other things.
Windows media center has a number of problems, and crashes too. However, because it is windows, people ignore it. Myth is just as stable. And can be tested before buying (since mythbuntu at least has a livecd)
They remembered who their customers were perhaps?
"Because we are not employing at entry level, offshoring will kill our industry stone dead."
Has anyone using Tivo ever been able to go back to regular TV? If they took a look at the viewing habits of Tivo-ed users, they would be forced to remove the flag if Tivo had enforced it.
Ever since I got Tivo, I *never* watch programs in real-time. If I can't record it, I am not watching it.
As long as there is analog out, I'll be able to record my favorite shows. Just retarded you have to go through all that.
Is it really any surprise MSFT puts business interests ahead of user interests? It's been that way a long time.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Most likely because no Tivo users in the affected broadcast area bothered to complain or have seen this often enough that they're busy pursuing the only effective resolution -- complaining to their cable company and/or local broadcaster.
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=390326&highlight=broadcast+flag/
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=385828&highlight=broadcast+flag/
There are too many steps along the broadcast path where a stupid user can accidentally reset the flag and they unfortunately do so far too often.
None of the alarm-ringing "articles" on this have offered reason to believe that NBC-qua-NBC set this flag vs. it having been set by a local affiliate station or local cable provider.
FURTHERMORE, the CNet reporters have failed to understand the distinction between the broadcast flag the FCC was not allowed to impose and the broadcast flag that CableLabs is allowed to impose on anybody making a system capable of using a CableCard (which both Tivo and MS do).
It's not worth it for some. Keeping up on whats what in recording hardware and maintaining a MythTV box are less fun then working on some other geek hobby. Tivo is reasonably priced and works well. Also with Tivo you can get several, one for each member of the family, for less then additional MythTV boxes.
Fair supposition but I think the answer is the same reason many Slashdotters (myself included) have Macs - they have an intuitive UI and for the most part Just Work(TM). I have had a TiVo for six years now and have always found the ease of use in searching programs, setting up "Season Passes" and finding related programs to be better than any other DVR I have tried. My wife also finds it much more usable than the alternatives and we both a have a "if it isn't broke, don't fix it" attitude towards the setup.
It doesn't mean I won't put together a MythTV box someday, but given how little of my time I think TV is worth (and my time is in shorter supply than my money), TiVo works pretty nicely for me. Your mileage, of course, may vary...
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