TiVo, ReplayTV Agree to Limits 325
Grump writes "This story reports that 'The makers of TiVo and ReplayTV digital video recorders have agreed to limit how long consumers can keep pay-for-view movies stored on future versions of the VCR-like devices.' Is this fair, or erosion of more fair-use rights?"
Bastards.. (Score:5, Interesting)
These two competitors have agreed on a completely arbitrary limit for recording PPV shows. Why? Think about it: the PVR market is growing. Rather than focusing on new features for the consumer (ie: "We offer 1.5 times the PPV time-limit over our competitor.") they've come to an agreement that is good for no one but themselves. There's no way in hell that they just decided to do this, the entire agreement has the fetid stink of collusion.
Take control, this is yet another reason to dump TV entirely and download what you want to watch.
Sorry, it's Friday, I'm in RantMode and I have First Damn Post.
Re:Hrm... (Score:4, Interesting)
Why not? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Hrm... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Why not? (Score:3, Interesting)
If you dislike the terms of the agreement, you are more than welcome to purchase your own copy of the movie and watch it whenever and however many times you wish.
Blockbuster leases you tapes. They don't sell them to you (well, at least the rentals)
What they're trying to prevent... (Score:5, Interesting)
Therefore, a TiVo really doesn't have the legally established right to have a "Save Until I Delete" feature. Current TiVo devices offer that "green ball" as a keep-forever setting, but that's really in the gray area that we've never seen any court rulings about how legal that is.
So, another chip off the "fair use" tree has fallen away from us, but this wasn't really one that was well established to begin with. At least this is also a dent in the "broadcast flag" that might have marked PPV movies as being in a no-DVR-zone...
Re:You do realize thats their perogitive right? (Score:4, Interesting)
But the distribution methods are not theirs, this is why they are lobbying to control both content & distribution.
Take baseball, aired on public tv, they block home games, so the content owners can try to make more money, when in fact they are sponsered by the public (for the stadium) and agree to air games.
Regulations worth both ways, there is no reason you have to give content providers a gold ruler, and make everyone else measure up.
If they don't want to follow our standards, they can keep their content off tv. Works both ways.
Pulleeez (Score:3, Interesting)
In this particular instance, I agree with what they're doing - you paid a certain price to watch a movie for a certain period of time. If you want to record it, go buy a copy and record a backup for your own personal use (TM).
Mark
Re:TiVo Limits (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:You do realize thats their perogitive right? (Score:4, Interesting)
Physical property can be transferred from one person to another. If I give you something physical, I do not have it anymore. If I give you some creative work or idea, I can still give it to others, and I have not lost anything. The idea of "property" does not transfer completely from physical objects to ideas. After understanding these differences, we can now discuss the current legal and economic situation of physical security versus security of intellectual property.
It is my right to protect my physical property through physical security. There are laws which punish those who would violate my physical security, because they will be depriving me of my right to my own property.
Bring this over to intellectual property, and you see that the model no longer fits. It is my right to protect my intellectual property through technical or other security. There are laws which punish those who would violate security on intellectual property, because (???) why? The owner hasn't lost anything but some "right to profit" which is not codified anywhere.
I do not have the right to profit from a flawed business model. The owner of some content wishes to prevent me from doing something which I could do legally, if his security was not in place. When I break his security, the only law I have broken is the "no breaking security" law. This is not equivalent to trespassing or theft, because no crime is being committed, besides "breaking the DMCA."
In the world of physical security, it is illegal to pick the lock on someone else's door without permission, because it serves no legal purpose. Whether you are going to steal from their house or not is immaterial, because there is no other valid reason to pick their lock. In the world of intellectual property, it is now illegal to "pick the lock" on a "protected" file, IN SPITE OF the fact that there are many legal uses, including exercise of my fair use rights.
Copyright in this country was fought bitterly until the idea of fair use rights were created as well. Many years later, the companies with their found copyright powers want to remove our fair use rights through technical security, and expect laws to prevent us from "picking the locks." Do you see my point?
The only loss to the author is the ability to charge me extra for something which I should be allowed to do anyway.
ok, it's time for a "IANAL" rant... (Score:2, Interesting)
usage rights and... Re:The Divx Road (Score:3, Interesting)
on a "purchased video," which really is a purchased piece of media with a little licensed artwork on the label and case and a licensed video production embedded in its code, you have a limited right of personal viewing without any rights for re-release or commercial or non-profit showing to groups. some laws appear to create the right to make a backup copy, and there has been some litigation over this. there is no explicit right to watch it over and over and over again in perpetuity, but an implicit right that as long as it holds up, you could watch the thing as often and as repetively as you personally want for personal enjoyment.
it looks like any other distribution method is trying to renege on the implicit right to review the work any time, any number of times.
so let the marketplace vote. the standard DVD and CD are just fine as they are for me, and if they do some sort of retro-fsckup in new players, I also have several 16mm projectors, and I will go back to a different analog technology if I have to make some sort of pissy personal point about how many times I can watch an old 16mm print bought off eBay or at a garage sale.
I personally think as the limited and locked parts of the story become clear, the limited and locked methods of distribution will crap out like DiVX-original (there is a digital stream out there called "divx" now, probably just to piss off the moneygrubbers at circuit city who were big into the "dies next month" project.
Re:It depends, I suppose (Score:3, Interesting)
I once tried to transfer an old VHS tape (commercial) to DVD with the DVD recorder and obviously it didn't work. Copy protection stepped in and "saved the day" for the MPAA or I might have gone on to become a hard core movie pirate and caused the collapse of the a major studio or two. Obviously the same thing would happen if I tried to copy a commercial DVD like that. Are PPV movies also protected in this manner? If they are then a DVD recorder's no help but if they aren't then it sounds like it might be an option.
I just don't know. Anybody?
Re:Porn.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Where instead of having the details of their perversions held at a local store, they can enjoy the false anonymity of not having to leave home to indulge them and have their taste for scat fetish bestiality S&M videos entered in a nationwide database with every rewind noted for future reference. Brilliant.