Yes, but you also paid more than the person who bought the same-size TiVo back then. About $200 more, and TiVo just happened to be charging $200 for lifetime service back then.
Just because the lifetime service fee didn't show up as a line item on you bill doesn't mean you didn't pay it somewhere else.
GUIDE Plus+ is a product of Gemstar, the same nice people who print TV guide. Their guide data is not free, there's no server filled with standard XML that anybody can connect to.
Basically, RCA pricing in a subscription that's roughly equal to TiVo's lifetime cost into the price of the unit itself.
Sorry guys, no great "free software" advance here to report.
Remember, ReplayTV used to use as a selling point that their devices required no seperate payment for their guide data. However, the price of a ReplayTV was roughly equal to the price of a Tivo plus lifetime service... it wasn't that the guide data was free, it was included with the cost of the purchase. However, they learned that model didn't work very well, so they've now converted to the TiVo pricing model of selling a loss-leader unit and making back the money on service.
More or less, that's what this RCA device is setting up with too. Gemstar's Guide+ service isn't free as in speech. In fact it's not free at all. And when you look at the price tag, it's more or less going to line up right next to the Tivo with lifetime service. The only thing this device is trying to add to the mix is a DVD player... but do you think RCA is really going to let you copy that DVD to the HD? Nope, so there goes the only vaulable feature of a DVD and PVR in the same box.
So RCA's thinking they can use a business model that ReplayTV has already tried and retreated from? This is a product failure in the making.
Tivo used to cost everybody $9.95 a month, but then Tivo got smart and rose the fee for people who are costing them more, and cust it for those costing less.
See, stand-alone Tivos have to get their data over a nightly telephone call, which of course costs Tivo money. Their fees went up to $12.95.
However, DirecTV users actually get most of the data over DirecTV's satellite system. They still need to call in for software updates once in a while, but their calls will always be shorter since they don't need a nightly update of the TV listings. So, Tivo cut their fees to $4.95/mo. In fact, though their partnership with DirecTV people who subscribe to the highest programming package (which is already $72/mo.) don't have to pay extra for Tivo at all. Also, users with multiple DirecTV/Tivo units only have to pay the fee once for all their devices on the same DirecTV account, users with the stand-alone boxes get no multiple unit discounts.
Makes sense that since Tivo would rather people convert to the DirecTV combo units, they'd set the fees up to encurage that behavior.
A screen grab of Connan sitting at his desk with whomever his guest happens to be is not a trademark, it's copyright protected.
NBC wasn't going after people who were using the show logo on their fan sites. In fact, that's not gonna be a legal winner anyway, when you're discussing something, you're allowed to use its trademark logo make it very clear what you're talking about.
They were going after people who were using too much of their copyrighted work. Legally, that's a clear cut winner of a case. However, in the business logic, will shuting down the sites cause the show to lose more than it gains. That's a tough call, does the sites existance cause people to not watch the NBC broadcasts or encurage people to watch the NBC show by catching them up with what they missed on the days they couldn't watch.
It's a tough call... but everybody seems to go to the lawyers first, and never talk to the marketing people about what benefits allowing the infringment to stand might bring. Sometimes there's more to be gained by inaction than going to court.
Sports broadcasts have always been copyrighted. That's been true since the beginning of time. However, sports leagues usually require that the broadcasters who purchase rights allow their footage to be used in limited contexts in by other media outlets.
The result is that you see MLB, NFL, NBA and NHL highlights on SportsCenter and your local nightly newscasts.
Now, take the Olympics. NBC presently has a multi-year deal with the USOC that is very tight on how much Olympic video can be used, and when it can be used. Nobody can air even a small clip from a 2002 Olympic skating routine, even if it's a program being put together by the skater who performed in the first place.
The point? Major sports are still doing just fine in most cases, while the Olympics seems to be suffering from a general lack of interest. Apparently letting highlights be aired on the 11pm news actually helps the popularity of a sporting event...
A lot of businesses now are so desperate to post a profit in the present period, that they are willing to do things that come back to bite them in the long term.
Nobody seems to think of their company as a going concern... a business that's still going to be here next week, next month, or next year. Something that costs you a dollar today but gets you back 25 cents a year for each of the next ten years is usually a good deal, isn't it?
Yes, but right now the owners of intellectual property are making their gut-reaction to sue, rather than first step back and try to figure out whether or not they're actually being harmed.
Yeah, it's easy to say "this is gonna cost us sales" in the short term, but sometimes letting the "violation" slide actually turns out to create interest in the orignal work or offshoot projects.
This isn't to say all copyright violations should be ignored, but that copyright holders should at least perform a reality check before going forward with the suit, because sometimes a winner in court can be a loser in the long run.
What the lawyer won't tell them, because he has no way of knowing, is how much good can come to the company by allowing Person 1 to continue uninterrupted, or perhaps even with the encuragement of the company.
It's the lawyer's duty to warn the company of what can go wrong legally, but somebody should call marketing and PR to to find out what can go wrong if they do go forward with the lawsuits.
Sometimes, the business benefits more from Person 1's actions are so much greater that the risk of Person 2 should be accepted, and dealt with when Person 2 comes forward.
Lawyers are very good at telling you when you can and cannot sue, and what the likelyhood of winning would be.
But what they can't tell you is if you should be suing. See, they have a vested interest, they're selling their services and if you don't sue, you don't need their services as much.
The article's solution is right... the business people have to consider whether or not to take legal action as a business decision before a lawsuit can go forward.
TiVo has always had a cool relationship with its hackers. They encurage hacking activities, and even included unsupported backdoors in their software that often let hackers walk right in to what they want access to.
However, there are limits to this. Particularly, when it comes to extracting the video files out of the units onto PCs. Simply put, if that hack was to be widespread, that'd cause TiVo some headaches with the TV industry, and they really don't want that. So, some people have tried, but but they have found plenty of roadblocks in their path, and they're frowned upon by the general TiVo hacking community. Another clear no-no is any hack that allows users to bypass paying their monthly fee to TiVo, since that'd be a direct threat to the company's business model.
TiVo's basically practicing what the article suggests, allow users to extend the capabilities of your product, and sometimes even recognize those users and incorperate what they found into the product. However, when the users stray into the territory where their hacks harm the business, that's when they call in the attack lawyers. In the end, hackers are allowed to do their thing, but kept in the box right where the company wants themm too.
The thing is, Congress must actually close the loophole. They can't pass a "bill of attainder" that specifically names the company or people involved in the tax shelter scheme.
This is what's in dispute here. Google claims their change was against all who do what SearchKing does, SearchKing claims the change was specifically against them.
Shouldn't a quick look at the formula be able to answer that question?
As far as regulating how they decide page rank, it's about as likely, and about as important, as regulating what you eat every day.
Ever hear of the FDA? Yeah, the government restricts what can and cannot be sold to us as food, and requires that food labels contain information about nutritional content so that people can make informed decisions as to whether or not to eat it.
Appearing to have and actually having is two very different things. Appearing to have intergrity when actually not causes bad things. See also: Enron, Worldcom.
Google has the right to call SearchKing a scumbag... but that's not what they're doing. The They claim PageRank is purely mechanical and isn't specifically tainted against anybody. If this is true, they just need to submit their formula for a private review and SearchKing's claim goes away very quickly.
We have no way of knowing that the new york times does not alter their reporting to suit their advertisers. Do too! We very clearly can tell who advertises in the NY Times, and we can also count the number of times they use certain words or write artices for or against a certain view. They can be then compared to other newspapers from other publishers.
We have no way of knowing that slashdot's moderation system is not somehow keyed to a secret agenda. There is evidence that the editors strip people of the ability to moderate without ANY PUBLIC SCRUTINY WHATSOEVER! (Gasp!) Slashdot never claimed to be fair.
Consumer Reports could have a vendetta against General Electric and GE would be basically screwed. There is no government watchdog. Except for the fact that consumer reports conducts scientific tests, and discloses the way they conduct them. If you wanted to, and had the time and money, you could duplicate their tests to check their validity. If GE were to suspect a bias, I'm sure they'd be able to get a trustworthy research lab to prove that fair tests don't match CR's results.
Google has a right to set up their formula whatever way they want to, but they should not claim that their formula involves no human judgements on individual sites if it does not. And if it doesn't, why can't they submit PageRank to a court-selected expert for review?
But Google doesn't claim PageRank to be an expression of their opinion. PageRank is a hard-to-bias formula that, in their opinion, is the best way to sort web pages.
If they are making human decisions about what's a good or a bad webpage, then they should be disclosing that fact on their site.
But let's post the last paragraph on that page too: "Integrity Google's complex, automated methods make human tampering with our results extremely difficult. And though we do run relevant ads above and next to our results, Google does not sell placement within the results themselves (i.e., no one can buy a higher PageRank). A Google search is an easy, honest and objective way to find high-quality websites with information relevant to your search."
They claim that their formula is intentionally tamper-resistant, but is fair to all. SearchKing is claiming that PageRank contains something that downgrades any page that mentions them intentionally.
Sounds like the way to answer that question is to have somebody open up the black box and see what's inside...
Google's complex, automated methods make human tampering with our results extremely difficult. And though we do run relevant ads above and next to our results, Google does not sell placement within the results themselves (i.e., no one can buy a higher PageRank). A Google search is an easy, honest and objective way to find high-quality websites with information relevant to your search."
They claim to be "honest and objective"... inserting a bias of their own would be contrary to that.
The PageRank values assigned by Google are not susceptible to being proved true or false by objective evidence
Unfortunately, that's false. The PageRank values can be hand computed simply by using the PageRank formula, finding out the true values the objective variables are, and then a little algebra. The only thing that prevents SearchKing from doing that is the fact that they don't know the formula...
Oh boy, Google's playing with fire now. Assuming this case makes it to discovery, SearchKing could claim that the PageRank formula is material evidence, and try to get a subpeona for it. At that point, Google would be on the defensive... they don't want PageRank published, or even in the hands of SearchKing. Anybody wanna sign up to be the court-approved mediator?
I think what needs to be regulated here is the "black box" formula that is PageRank. We don't know what exactly pleases PageRank and what upsets it, we just know that links to a page is a main factor but not all of the mix.
I don't think we want the exact definition of PageRank to be made public... that'd make it far too easy for SearchKing-like sites to make PageRank useless by designing sites to bias the formula. However, I think some referee needs to be monitoring Google's movements so that they cannot making under-the-table changes to the formula while claiming their not. Google claims that they don't let sponsors pay to influence their PageRank system, but what way do we have to confirm that's true?
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, but you also paid more than the person who bought the same-size TiVo back then. About $200 more, and TiVo just happened to be charging $200 for lifetime service back then.
Just because the lifetime service fee didn't show up as a line item on you bill doesn't mean you didn't pay it somewhere else.
Tight DVD/PVR integration. You really think RCA is gonna let you record to the hard disk?
The publisher of TV Guide is Gemstar. The maker of GUIDE Plus+ is Gemstar.
/. summary.
GIODE Plus+ is free... another case of a bad
GUIDE Plus+ is a product of Gemstar, the same nice people who print TV guide. Their guide data is not free, there's no server filled with standard XML that anybody can connect to.
Basically, RCA pricing in a subscription that's roughly equal to TiVo's lifetime cost into the price of the unit itself.
Sorry guys, no great "free software" advance here to report.
Remember, ReplayTV used to use as a selling point that their devices required no seperate payment for their guide data. However, the price of a ReplayTV was roughly equal to the price of a Tivo plus lifetime service... it wasn't that the guide data was free, it was included with the cost of the purchase. However, they learned that model didn't work very well, so they've now converted to the TiVo pricing model of selling a loss-leader unit and making back the money on service.
More or less, that's what this RCA device is setting up with too. Gemstar's Guide+ service isn't free as in speech. In fact it's not free at all. And when you look at the price tag, it's more or less going to line up right next to the Tivo with lifetime service. The only thing this device is trying to add to the mix is a DVD player... but do you think RCA is really going to let you copy that DVD to the HD? Nope, so there goes the only vaulable feature of a DVD and PVR in the same box.
So RCA's thinking they can use a business model that ReplayTV has already tried and retreated from? This is a product failure in the making.
Tivo used to cost everybody $9.95 a month, but then Tivo got smart and rose the fee for people who are costing them more, and cust it for those costing less.
See, stand-alone Tivos have to get their data over a nightly telephone call, which of course costs Tivo money. Their fees went up to $12.95.
However, DirecTV users actually get most of the data over DirecTV's satellite system. They still need to call in for software updates once in a while, but their calls will always be shorter since they don't need a nightly update of the TV listings. So, Tivo cut their fees to $4.95/mo. In fact, though their partnership with DirecTV people who subscribe to the highest programming package (which is already $72/mo.) don't have to pay extra for Tivo at all. Also, users with multiple DirecTV/Tivo units only have to pay the fee once for all their devices on the same DirecTV account, users with the stand-alone boxes get no multiple unit discounts.
Makes sense that since Tivo would rather people convert to the DirecTV combo units, they'd set the fees up to encurage that behavior.
A screen grab of Connan sitting at his desk with whomever his guest happens to be is not a trademark, it's copyright protected.
NBC wasn't going after people who were using the show logo on their fan sites. In fact, that's not gonna be a legal winner anyway, when you're discussing something, you're allowed to use its trademark logo make it very clear what you're talking about.
They were going after people who were using too much of their copyrighted work. Legally, that's a clear cut winner of a case. However, in the business logic, will shuting down the sites cause the show to lose more than it gains. That's a tough call, does the sites existance cause people to not watch the NBC broadcasts or encurage people to watch the NBC show by catching them up with what they missed on the days they couldn't watch.
It's a tough call... but everybody seems to go to the lawyers first, and never talk to the marketing people about what benefits allowing the infringment to stand might bring. Sometimes there's more to be gained by inaction than going to court.
Yeah, but this is the first time the economy has gone down since the CD was the primary method of transfering recorded music.
All forms of entertainment always slump in a down economy.
Sports broadcasts have always been copyrighted. That's been true since the beginning of time. However, sports leagues usually require that the broadcasters who purchase rights allow their footage to be used in limited contexts in by other media outlets.
The result is that you see MLB, NFL, NBA and NHL highlights on SportsCenter and your local nightly newscasts.
Now, take the Olympics. NBC presently has a multi-year deal with the USOC that is very tight on how much Olympic video can be used, and when it can be used. Nobody can air even a small clip from a 2002 Olympic skating routine, even if it's a program being put together by the skater who performed in the first place.
The point? Major sports are still doing just fine in most cases, while the Olympics seems to be suffering from a general lack of interest. Apparently letting highlights be aired on the 11pm news actually helps the popularity of a sporting event...
A lot of businesses now are so desperate to post a profit in the present period, that they are willing to do things that come back to bite them in the long term.
Nobody seems to think of their company as a going concern... a business that's still going to be here next week, next month, or next year. Something that costs you a dollar today but gets you back 25 cents a year for each of the next ten years is usually a good deal, isn't it?
Yes, but right now the owners of intellectual property are making their gut-reaction to sue, rather than first step back and try to figure out whether or not they're actually being harmed.
Yeah, it's easy to say "this is gonna cost us sales" in the short term, but sometimes letting the "violation" slide actually turns out to create interest in the orignal work or offshoot projects.
This isn't to say all copyright violations should be ignored, but that copyright holders should at least perform a reality check before going forward with the suit, because sometimes a winner in court can be a loser in the long run.
You don't hear Weird Al getting sued
Weird Al has always asked for permission first...
What the lawyer won't tell them, because he has no way of knowing, is how much good can come to the company by allowing Person 1 to continue uninterrupted, or perhaps even with the encuragement of the company.
It's the lawyer's duty to warn the company of what can go wrong legally, but somebody should call marketing and PR to to find out what can go wrong if they do go forward with the lawsuits.
Sometimes, the business benefits more from Person 1's actions are so much greater that the risk of Person 2 should be accepted, and dealt with when Person 2 comes forward.
Lawyers are very good at telling you when you can and cannot sue, and what the likelyhood of winning would be.
But what they can't tell you is if you should be suing. See, they have a vested interest, they're selling their services and if you don't sue, you don't need their services as much.
The article's solution is right... the business people have to consider whether or not to take legal action as a business decision before a lawsuit can go forward.
TiVo has always had a cool relationship with its hackers. They encurage hacking activities, and even included unsupported backdoors in their software that often let hackers walk right in to what they want access to.
However, there are limits to this. Particularly, when it comes to extracting the video files out of the units onto PCs. Simply put, if that hack was to be widespread, that'd cause TiVo some headaches with the TV industry, and they really don't want that. So, some people have tried, but but they have found plenty of roadblocks in their path, and they're frowned upon by the general TiVo hacking community. Another clear no-no is any hack that allows users to bypass paying their monthly fee to TiVo, since that'd be a direct threat to the company's business model.
TiVo's basically practicing what the article suggests, allow users to extend the capabilities of your product, and sometimes even recognize those users and incorperate what they found into the product. However, when the users stray into the territory where their hacks harm the business, that's when they call in the attack lawyers. In the end, hackers are allowed to do their thing, but kept in the box right where the company wants themm too.
- Congress fixes the law and closes the loophole;
The thing is, Congress must actually close the loophole. They can't pass a "bill of attainder" that specifically names the company or people involved in the tax shelter scheme.
This is what's in dispute here. Google claims their change was against all who do what SearchKing does, SearchKing claims the change was specifically against them.
Shouldn't a quick look at the formula be able to answer that question?
As far as regulating how they decide page rank, it's about as likely, and about as important, as regulating what you eat every day.
Ever hear of the FDA? Yeah, the government restricts what can and cannot be sold to us as food, and requires that food labels contain information about nutritional content so that people can make informed decisions as to whether or not to eat it.
They appear have a lot of integrity
Appearing to have and actually having is two very different things. Appearing to have intergrity when actually not causes bad things. See also: Enron, Worldcom.
Google has the right to call SearchKing a scumbag... but that's not what they're doing. The
They claim PageRank is purely mechanical and isn't specifically tainted against anybody. If this is true, they just need to submit their formula for a private review and SearchKing's claim goes away very quickly.
We have no way of knowing that the new york times does not alter their reporting to suit their advertisers.
Do too! We very clearly can tell who advertises in the NY Times, and we can also count the number of times they use certain words or write artices for or against a certain view. They can be then compared to other newspapers from other publishers.
We have no way of knowing that slashdot's moderation system is not somehow keyed to a secret agenda. There is evidence that the editors strip people of the ability to moderate without ANY PUBLIC SCRUTINY WHATSOEVER! (Gasp!)
Slashdot never claimed to be fair.
Consumer Reports could have a vendetta against General Electric and GE would be basically screwed. There is no government watchdog.
Except for the fact that consumer reports conducts scientific tests, and discloses the way they conduct them. If you wanted to, and had the time and money, you could duplicate their tests to check their validity. If GE were to suspect a bias, I'm sure they'd be able to get a trustworthy research lab to prove that fair tests don't match CR's results.
Google has a right to set up their formula whatever way they want to, but they should not claim that their formula involves no human judgements on individual sites if it does not. And if it doesn't, why can't they submit PageRank to a court-selected expert for review?
But Google doesn't claim PageRank to be an expression of their opinion. PageRank is a hard-to-bias formula that, in their opinion, is the best way to sort web pages.
If they are making human decisions about what's a good or a bad webpage, then they should be disclosing that fact on their site.
But let's post the last paragraph on that page too:
"Integrity
Google's complex, automated methods make human tampering with our results extremely difficult. And though we do run relevant ads above and next to our results, Google does not sell placement within the results themselves (i.e., no one can buy a higher PageRank). A Google search is an easy, honest and objective way to find high-quality websites with information relevant to your search."
They claim that their formula is intentionally tamper-resistant, but is fair to all. SearchKing is claiming that PageRank contains something that downgrades any page that mentions them intentionally.
Sounds like the way to answer that question is to have somebody open up the black box and see what's inside...
From the page http://www.google.com/technology/index.html
"Integrity
Google's complex, automated methods make human tampering with our results extremely difficult. And though we do run relevant ads above and next to our results, Google does not sell placement within the results themselves (i.e., no one can buy a higher PageRank). A Google search is an easy, honest and objective way to find high-quality websites with information relevant to your search."
They claim to be "honest and objective"... inserting a bias of their own would be contrary to that.
The PageRank values assigned by Google are not susceptible to being proved true or false by objective evidence
Unfortunately, that's false. The PageRank values can be hand computed simply by using the PageRank formula, finding out the true values the objective variables are, and then a little algebra. The only thing that prevents SearchKing from doing that is the fact that they don't know the formula...
Oh boy, Google's playing with fire now. Assuming this case makes it to discovery, SearchKing could claim that the PageRank formula is material evidence, and try to get a subpeona for it. At that point, Google would be on the defensive... they don't want PageRank published, or even in the hands of SearchKing. Anybody wanna sign up to be the court-approved mediator?
I think what needs to be regulated here is the "black box" formula that is PageRank. We don't know what exactly pleases PageRank and what upsets it, we just know that links to a page is a main factor but not all of the mix.
I don't think we want the exact definition of PageRank to be made public... that'd make it far too easy for SearchKing-like sites to make PageRank useless by designing sites to bias the formula. However, I think some referee needs to be monitoring Google's movements so that they cannot making under-the-table changes to the formula while claiming their not. Google claims that they don't let sponsors pay to influence their PageRank system, but what way do we have to confirm that's true?