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.'"

I wonder why Tivo ignored the flag

[bleh-of-the-huns]

Last I checked... Tivo supports the broadcast flag as well, yet those of us (I have 2) with Tivo's had no issues... So I guess the question is, why is Tivo ignoring the broadcast flag (not that I am complaining mind you, I hate the broadcast flag), but I am curious..

Remote controlled PR-disaster

[YeeHaW_Jelte]

Sooo, it seems Microsoft has set itself up for a PR disaster and given the remote control to any content-provider that knows how to use the broadcast flags.

There is no better way to illustrate what restrictions DRM will have on the users day-to-day life, and Vista users will not like these demonstrations of Microsofts built-in Big Brother TM.

Re:Reminds me of ...

[mvdwege]

It would help the argument a lot if people would stop posting the link to Peter Gutman's first paper. He already has acknowledged that some facts were based on pre-release versions of Vista, and Microsoft trial-balloons.

The newer slideshow [cypherpunks.to] addresses much the same issues, without the minor holes the MS astroturfers can use to misdirect attention away from the main points.

Mart

Re:How fast will a hack appear for this ?

[sm62704]

In fact I would be surprised that the hack is already out there

It is, the fix is here [ubuntu.com].

Re:I wonder why Tivo ignored the flag

[rasper99]

From what I remember the way Tivo series 2 works with the broadcast flag is that it will record it but you can't use Tivo2go to transfer the recording to your computer.

You can watch it on the Tivo all you want but that is all you can do with it. If you look at the information about a program recorded with the broadcast flag it should tell you that.

I believe I recorded a show with a broadcast flag a long time ago and it said that. Guess I'll have to record one of these shows just to double check.

Not sure what the Tivo series 3 and Tivo HD do with it. Should be the same.

Re:I wonder why Tivo ignored the flag

[Anonymous Coward]

"They've imposed restrictions way beyond what the law requires." -- Wrong and ignorant.

Microsoft has to program for more then one country you know. There is a wide range a laws and regulations that end up going into the media center programming - and yes, some of the programming will bleed over into the American version.

In Canada we see shows being blocked from recording using that flag all the time. Yes, its ok for a broadcaster here to stop us from recording a program.

I'm not saying i agree with it, but it's not as if Microsoft was screwing around with Americans just because they wanted to be a jerk.

I would put more blame on the broadcaster for playing around with the flag when they shouldn't.

In the meantime... Microsoft should release a patch that stops the DRM for those in America. It won't happen, but hey.

NBC and Microsoft pattern

[theurge14]

15 July 1996: Microsoft and NBC form MSNBC.
31 Aug 2007: NBC pulls all content from iTunes Store.
6 May 2008: NBC puts content on Zune Store.
Now: NBC has Microsoft block Windows Media Center from recording certain shows.

What other wonderful developments can we expect?

As for #1

[theurge14]

Here [fastmac.com] is a good place to start.

Re:Nothing to see here

[Svartalf]

That's not analogous. This was there to preclude copying content provided by the cartels via video tape. There's no MacroVision over the air waves (until now, that is...) and hasn't been for years. The GP poster wasn't stating that DRM hasn't been around or that an otherwise completely legit tool for cleaning up the video on dodgy VHS-C and Beta camcorder tapes would strip out the MacroVision crap. What he was referring to was the DRM that just got applied that precludes even RECORDING OTA television that just got inflicted on MS customers- something they've been able to do since the first consumer VCRs came out.

Malice vs Incompetence

[FurtiveGlancer]

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence. Apologies to Nick Diamos [quoteworld.org]. So the proposed FCC rule was not enacted. At least M$ was leaning forward on something.

Re:Nothing to see here

[digitalaudiorock]

Actually, Mythtv is pretty easy to set up now

Especially for those in the U.S. who are only using an antenna and target their system for digital only as I did (which of course is all there will be after 2/2009). An all digital mythtv system for OTA is really slick and straight forward. The backend process just writes the mpeg ts directly to disk with no encoding and virtually no CPU (unless you auto-flag commercials...which is soooo cool by the way). I have three pcHDTV tuners in a Dell 4600 for my backend machine and it records three HD shows at once (even while watching a fouth previously recorded show from the frontend) without a hitch. The $20/year for schedulesdirect.org listings will be the best $20 you've ever spent...those folks did an awesome job.

Just bear in mind that the CPU requirements for playing HD on the frontend are pretty high....2.8 or 3 Ghz at least. You also need a lot of disk for the 6+ GB/hour of HD mpeg.

For anyone with a decent amount of linux experience it's not difficult on any decent distro. My frontend and backend are both Gentoo, and frankly I think it's ideal, as it's easy to build a system with only what's needed for myth and nothing more.

Oh yea...and this whole thing with M$ and the broadcast flag...I can't believe they're enforcing a rule that was struck down my the courts at the expense of their customers...that's pretty amazing even for them.

Re:Damned either way

[Wylfing]

The American people in 1776 would have happily followed the English herders if it were not for a very few well financed and abled revolutionaries.

I had to point out that this is incorrect, in both its substance and conclusion. The common chatter in pubs for nearly a decade leading up to 1776 was that the "sheep" (as you want to call them) -- i.e., the common people -- were ready to take up arms to expel the British presence in the colonies. This was in no small part due to the quartering of British troops in private American homes, and the attendant problems of having a large standing army permanently hanging out in American cities without an enemy to fight.

The lesson here is not that people will do what they're told. Just the opposite. If you push enough people for a long enough time, you build an undercurrent of resentment that will eventually manifest in a dramatic way. Put another way, get off your goddamn elitist high horse about how the unwashed masses are idiotic sheep. People are not as dumb or as docile as you want to believe.

try reading documents instead of burning them

[Anonymous Coward]

(apologies for the bad Indy joke)

I don't know how your post got modded to "5, Insightful" when it should have been "0, Flamebait".

Read a little and learn something Informative, junior:

The terms http://www.cablelabs.com/udcp/downloads/DFAST_Tech_License.pdf/ [cablelabs.com] of just one of the licenses necessary for selling a Uni-Directional Cable Product (better known to you as "CableCard support") requires the vendors to obey these copy-control flags (including the flag that says not to make even an initial recording). TivoHD and Tivo Series 3 recorders as well as newer versions of Windows Media Center support CableCards and thus are contractually obligated to obey this flag even when the station or cable company screwed up and mis-set it; MythTV does not support CableCards and that is why it ignores the flags. Tivo Series 2 recorders do not support CableCards and, accordingly, continue pay no attention to the flags because there is no contractual obligation for them to do so.

This was not a result of MS stepping on end-users or Tivo having been paid off by broadcasters. This is a result of the FCC giving a broadcast-industry group final authority over the licenses a DVR needs to support digital-cable.

Re:Then Douglas Adams was talking crap

[bri2000]

Come off it, every channel "advertises" what programmes are coming up next/soon. The real difference with the BBC is that there are far fewer ads - e.g. absolutely none in the middle of programmes.

1. They don't need ads between the programmes. There are now BBC programmes which are basically nothing more than adverts (e.g. the Saturday evening reality shows which are nothing more than promotion for Andrew Lloyd-Webber's latest musical abomination).

2. BBC radio has adopted the format of 45-60 seconds of ads every two records. These are actually even more irritating than the ads on commercial radio as they repeat the same ones endlessly - which, if you're off work and have the radio on all day, slowly drives you insane (and these include ads for other BBC channels, not just the particular radio station). I understand that this has been done to make it easier for paid adverts to be dropped in for people listening on-line outside the UK, which is the eventual goal.

Re:Blaming Microsoft?

[UnknowingFool]

While the broadcast flag is certainly not a required thing to honor, it is something the content providers wanted and something that doesn't really negatively affect consumers unless the content provider wishes so.

I guess you didn't RTFA or at least the summary. Consumers are already negatively affected when they are blocked from recording their shows from NBC. For some TV programs, there may be re-runs. For live TV shows, there may be no way to record them again.

The fact of the matter is: It's not up to Microsoft to decide for you NOR the content provider. Microsoft can't tell the content provider "screw you" because you want to skip by some commercials on TV.

It is up to MS whether or not to honor the broadcast flag. They have chosen to do so while Tivo does not. MythTV does not. The United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has already ruled that the FCC could not force manufacturers to adhere to it.

Without support for DRM in Windows, we wouldn't have the ability to watch things such as blu-ray. This will become more important as the drives become cheaper and people start loading them up in their HTPC setups.

Huh? Blu-ray has nothing to do with Windows. In fact, MS went against Blu-ray for HD-DVD. However, the point of the article is that MS is taking away the rights of consumer to record broadcast programs and play them back.

That said, let's look at the law here. You have no "constitutional" rights in the US to do whatever you want with whatever you want. You have no "rights" to download, store, digitally alter media produced by someone else if they don't want you to.

Again, this article is about people not being able to record their favorite programs on their Media Center. This is not about file sharing. You do not have rights to alter the media, however, you do have a right to record and store it. In Sony v. Universal [wikipedia.org], the Supreme Court ruled that consumers can record whole programs and watch them later (called time-shifting).

Being a Grammar Nazi today, I guess

[TechForensics]

You mean TOE the line, not TOW the line-- as in keep your toes on the line, not as in be sure you tow it from place to place.

Sorry but I love English and it bugs me to see it mangled.

Re:Blaming Microsoft?

[magamiako1]

Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417 (1984)[1], also known as the "Betamax case", was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States which ruled that the making of individual copies of complete television shows for purposes of time-shifting does not constitute copyright infringement, but is fair use.

Doesn't mean they have to allow you to do it, it just means that they can't use the courts to prevent you from doing so. This case also protects device manufacturers.

Again, it doesn't mean that the content producers and device manufacturers can't work together to come up with something if they choose. This is clearly what Microsoft has done.

So if you don't like it, use a Tivo and that's that. I don't see what the whining is for.

Re:Damned either way

[Mr. Beatdown]

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

--Margaret Mead

Re:I wonder why Tivo ignored the flag

[gfxguy]

I'd have marked you up if I had points.

I'm definitely a nerd. With two kids. As an example of why I don't have an extra four or six hours to tinker, I spent last Saturday afternoon at a Pokemon tournament (can't stand Pokemon myself); in the morning I took one of them to his martial arts class. Sunday was food shopping and yard work. That's life as a dad, and I wouldn't have it any other way... but I don't have copious amounts of nerd time.

So, in other words, while I love tinkering, sometimes I just need stuff that works out of the box.

I get the same reaction from using Ubuntu instead of one of the other distributions, or switching to Windows for some applications... I'm sorry, I need stuff that works for me. That's all there is to it.

But to go back on topic, if ever the Tivo stopped recording shows I liked, I'd take the time out to build a Myth box, no doubt. Face it, as I mentioned, I don't even get to watch much TV, so when I do it's a bit more important to me that I get what I want.

Re:I wonder why Tivo ignored the flag

[gnick]

I think using something like MythTv or Tivo is a massive waste of time because you still have to deal with the commercials.

I use BeyondTV at home. The commercials are still recorded, but they're detected pretty robustly ~5-10 minutes after the program finishes recording. They show up in a different color in the progress bar when it's displayed and it's a single button press to skip each set.

I would add

[Brain-Fu]

Microsoft's products are primarily information products. Windows, Office, etc. Microsoft, therefore, benefits from the institution of information control, including well-enforced Intellectual Property laws and business practices.

So, Microsoft indirectly benefits from "playing ball," even if the information product in question isn't one of their own.

Re:I wonder why Tivo ignored the flag

[mkraft]

TiVo doesn't support the OTA antenna broadcast flag. TiVo does support the DRM flags for cable, but that is required in order to become a cableCARD certified device. On a side note, it is also illegal for a cable company to set DRM for a rebroadcast OTA channel.

As far as the TiVo is concerned though cable and OTA antenna are completely separate and have nothing to do with each other. OTA channels can always be recorded on a TiVo.

BBC pretend adverts ..

[rs232]

"The BBC is in the business to deliver TV programmes to people"

May true once, but lately it's been in the habit of regularly interrupting programs with pretend adverts for programs on its other channels. It's news has also gone the way of Faux News especially since X/XX. No attempt at analysis just various supposedly independent commentators regurgitating the official line.

"International police agency Interpol says Colombian officials did not tamper with computers which they claim provide proof [bbc.co.uk] Venezuela financed Farc rebels"

Re:I wonder why Tivo ignored the flag

[Locutus]

They remembered who their customers were perhaps?

Exactly and Microsoft's customers are content providers. It is often thought that PC purchasers are their customers but they are just the pawns since the mid 90s when Microsoft locked in the PC desktop OEMs to Windows. They only a couple of billion a year keeping that lockin and have for a few years now tried to use those pawns to extract revenue from advertisers who rely on content. Microsoft is not yet a content provider so they must satisfy they large content providers.

Tivo still makes most of their money from subscriptions and does not have a monopoly position safety-net to rely on. Therefore, customers keep them in business and the customers are the users. Microsoft plays a different game.

LoB

Re:I wonder why Tivo ignored the flag

[wc_paladin]

I think using something like MythTv or Tivo is a massive waste of time because you still have to deal with the commercials.

mythtv scans for commercials and automatically skips them. It's pretty accurate, only every once in a while do I see a commercial in a recording, and I never get false positives.

Re:Don't fool youreself

[Enigma2175]

No one, not Jobs, not Gates and not Shuttleworth is going to do a perp walk so you can record shows.

That's the crux of the issue. The broadcast flag IS NOT THE LAW. The FCC did make a rule requiring it but the US Court of Appeals ruled that the FCC did not have the authority to make such a rule and struck it down. Nobody is going to have to do a perp walk for not implementing the flag even if they are asked. Most likely what happened is that MS made a deal with the networks to recognize the flag. They don't have to, but they WANT to.

Re:I wonder why Tivo ignored the flag

[gfxguy]

No, I'm still a nerd. My wife will attest to that. I still build and upgrade my own systems. Instead of trying to build a myth box, though, I wired my house (wireless wasn't cutting it for me). Each kids has their own computer built from old parts obtained as I upgraded my computer. So... it's not that I don't nerd out, but I gotta pick and choose.

Re:I wonder why Tivo ignored the flag

[Vaticus]

I remember hearing something about one written complaint is worth or equates to twenty to thirty unhappy customers.