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Television Media Technology

Hollywood and NFL Fight TiVo 344

Posted by michael from the because-they-hate-you dept.
An anonymous reader writes "MSNBC/Washington Post is reporting that the NFL and tinseltown have asked the FCC to stop TiVo from expanding its service to include the ability to transfer recordings to PC's and other remote devices. TiVo says the system is secure. I say its source code will end up on the box. You do the math."
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Hollywood and NFL Fight TiVo More

Hollywood and NFL Fight TiVo

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  • Go ReplayTV! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Noksagt ( 69097 ) on Thursday July 22, 2004 @11:14AM (#9770416) Homepage
    Without the mindshare and press of Tivo, ReplayTV has sported this feature for a long time. Ownere preemptively filed suit to make sure they could legally use show-sharing.
    • This could set a standard that the FCC/NFL can't fight.

    • Re:Go ReplayTV! (Score:5, Informative)

      by The Lynxpro ( 657990 ) <lynxpro@@@gmail...com> on Thursday July 22, 2004 @11:30AM (#9770645)
      "Without the mindshare and press of Tivo, ReplayTV has sported this feature for a long time. Ownere preemptively filed suit to make sure they could legally use show-sharing."

      Yes, and that's also the feature that bankrupted SonicBlue. Replay is now on its third corporate parent thanks to the failure of branding, simplicity, etc. that TiVo captured. TiVo has 1.6 million subscribers; how many does Replay have? The last time I heard, Replay peaked at 200k. And the only person I know that owns one is Brentano on G4TechTV's "The Screen Savers." And TiVo and Replay have both been on the market roughly the same amount of years.

      • SonicBlue had loads of debt prior to ever purchasing ReplayTV. While the lawsuit certainly was an additional expense, SB was more a victim of its own expansion then a lawsuit.
      • To be fair, SonicBlue was fighting legal battles over the Rio and was competing across several lines of multimedia devices. If any suit hurt them, it was probably the patent suit with TiVo.

        In any case, you are correct that ReplayTV hasn't had smooth times. Yes, TiVo has more customers. Over half of them come from DirectTiVo deals. DirecTV will cut this tie to TiVo, so who knows what will happen to them then.

        ReplayTV should have had the foresight to adopt a partner in this way--about half of all PVR su
    • Good to see a replayTV plug as the first real post. I have been enjoying the ability to archive shows on my PC from my ReplayTV and being able to stream between the two for well over a year now. I was using a friend's TiVo a little while ago and the whole setup seemed a little bare. Where was the ethernet connection? Where was the free software to archive, edit, and stream shows? I'm not bashing TiVo (I think it has a great interface and some other capabilities that ReplayTV doesn't have... yet), but I
    • for real flexibility:
      tivo-alike software [www.sage.tv]
      mpeg2 encoding tuner [hauppauge.com]
      yeilding a highly customizable tivo-alike system and fully portable files. I liked my first one so much, im now putting together a third box
    • The only thing that made ReplayTV good was real commercial skipping. You would watch a show and it would jump from the fade out to the fade in, like watching a TV show on DVD. That feature was removed after SonicBlue sold Replay. I owned the 4500, the last unit with commercial skip. The user interface was pretty basic and did some quirky things. It also had a built in network adapter, something even the new Tivos don't have. I own a 40 hr Series 2 Tivo now and I miss commercial skip, but Tivo is a sup
      • The 4500 series were not the last to offer commercial skip. The 5000 series had it as well. 5500s do not, but they have "Show|Nav." Rather than enabling commercial skip for a whole show, you press one button to jump past one set of commercials using the same algorithm as "Commercial Advance" used.

        The TiVo has a better user interface, but I don't find my ReplayTV 5040 to be "quirky" at all & appreciate several features it has that the TiVo lacks.

  • Too Hard to Regulate (Score:5, Insightful)

    by artlu ( 265391 ) <artlu@art[ ]net ['lu.' in gap]> on Thursday July 22, 2004 @11:15AM (#9770423) Homepage Journal
    If the FCC/NFL is that parnoid about TIVO then they would also have to requisitiona ll video card manufacturers to not include video inputs on their cards. I would assume that most of the information going to computers and then torrent sites are coming from video in cards and not TIVO. On the other hand, I definitely feel bad for advertisers because TIVO could potential hurt their effectiveness, and ads make the world go around. No ads. No Slashdot.

    GroupShares Inc. [groupshares.com] - A Free and Interactive Stock Market Community

    • Re:Too Hard to Regulate (Score:5, Interesting)

      by tomhudson ( 43916 ) <barbara.hudson@b ... com minus distro> on Thursday July 22, 2004 @11:23AM (#9770549) Journal
      Interestingly enough, the same story mentions a bill that codifies into law your right to kill off objectional material. Maybe objectionable material can include, for example, advertising to minors.
      Meanwhile, yesterday, the House Judiciary Committee approved a bill that would significantly broaden user rights. The bill would exempt from copyright law technologies enabling users to zap objectionable parts of shows and movies so the programming can be viewed by children.
    • Poor slashdot, I havent been seeing their ads for a loong time. :|
      • running adblock with mozilla as well?

        it does screw up some sites, but hey I think it's worth it. Then again I absolutely hate ads, on tv i change channels, in a paper they go right to the trash, online, I block them whenever possible.
    • [i]On the other hand, I definitely feel bad for advertisers because TIVO could potential hurt their effectiveness, and ads make the world go around. No ads. No Slashdot.[/i]

      I have an idea. Make us want to watch the ads...then we won't filter them.

      The problem with advertising today is that so much effort is put into placing them in areas where we you can't not look at them. Rather, if they hired some genius writers, and didn't run a commercial for 6 months, we might rather enjoy watching commercials.
      • I have an idea. Make us want to watch the ads...then we won't filter them.

        The constant mortgage refinancing ads and that miserable series of Lowe's commercials with that caterwauling nonsensical background noise are enough to make a person weep.

        At this point, I'm not sure people would ever want to watch commercials. Commercials are so irritating and so redundant (and such depressing unrealistic commentaries on wanton consumerism) that it is exhausting to try and listen to the radio or watch television.
      • I have an idea. Make us want to watch the ads...then we won't filter them.

        Essentially, this is the difference between spam and requested advertising. There are some commercials I want to see, but rarely. If commercials had more content and better presentation, then people would be more inclined to watch them.

        A large part of the problem is volume--advertisers pay huge sums of money for a 30 second spot so that some moron can get paid a million dollars an episode. We soak up that cost at the register. But

    • Like the RIAA the NFL isn't interested in STOPPING piracy or copying, but simply making it non-trivial. SO they go after TIVO and Kazaa, but ignore video cards and FTP/NNTP. WHy? because it's counterproductive to sue NVIDIA/ATI or Worldnet/AOL. So they are wisely(?) picking only battles where they can achieve a public win. And they are picking battles where they can stop the "average" consumer from making the copies. Remember the Betamax decision?? they can't afford another one. so they can only go af
    • No ads. No Slashdot.

      Slashdot has ads?!
    • There is TV in the UK and they don't have commercials. How about HBO? or any other pay channel. If people weren't so fucking cheap we'd have a lot better content with channels for children, those for adults and those with more racy adult content. Land of the Free is the biggest fucking lie I've ever heard.
    • Remember the RIAA wants DRM installed on EVERYTHING digital, even the a/d converter in your soundcard .... so going after tv cards next would not be out of character for the 'media giants'..
    • The TIVO gives the advertisers the ability to send the ads to people who actually give a shit about what they're selling, and people who don't fast forward through their style of ad. If they would just get their shit together, they could end up creating much more effective ads (by knowing what people watch & don't watch), hitting their target market (meaning you & I just don't see ads for stupid crap), and selling more stuff with less ad time to people who actually want their stuff.

      It's another ca

  • Don't need a Tivo.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jsimon12 ( 207119 ) on Thursday July 22, 2004 @11:16AM (#9770444) Homepage
    Last time I checked "Computer Enthusiasts" didn't need a Tivo to capture TV shows and share them. Not to mention the fact that time-shifting is legal. What is next, garrote survivors [theonion.com] suing companies that make wire?
    • Not to mention the fact that time-shifting is legal.
      The Sony Betamax case (which established this) said nothing of space-shifting or media-shifting, which is what some are concerned about.
  • Jesse Ventura would have never opposed the free sharing of information. Down with the NFL. http://www.officialxfl.com

  • If not for Tivo.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dark Paladin ( 116525 ) * <jhummel&johnhummel,net> on Thursday July 22, 2004 @11:18AM (#9770465) Homepage
    Millions of people wouldn't have known what Janet Jackson's left breast looked like.

    I only know because I was out of the room during the halftime show, missed it, had no idea what occured, then within hours had various friends of mine with PVR's sending me the files via email.

    And all I could think as I looked at them was "Eh - my wife's are better. And probably more real."

  • Amazing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Thursday July 22, 2004 @11:19AM (#9770480) Journal

    With each new iteration of technology, new features get added to media. Witness VCR -> DVD. Each time, the media fight it and try to gain control. So far, they have always lost. and when doing so, it turns out that the new features actually helped the media companies , not hurt them. And in spite of a long history of being wrong about it each and every single time, they still wish to try and control it. Insanity at its best.

    It remains to be seen how many politicians have been bought.

  • to another registered machine in a different time zone where the game is blacked out? It's like they're just opening the barn doors and letting the horses run free? Where's the concern for the poor copyright holders rights? This will bankrupt the NFL and Hollywood in short order (if we assume that a over 50 decades qualifies as short order).

  • Too bad, so sad (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If TiVo makes advertisers' business model obsolete, that's just too bad. Find another way to make money. They're already putting more "ads" into the shows to counter this.
    • "If TiVo makes advertisers' business model obsolete, that's just too bad. Find another way to make money. They're already putting more "ads" into the shows to counter this."

      I was reminded of this ("ads" in television programming) with this week's episode of *Nip/Tuck* on the FX Network. One character mentioned XM Satellite by brand name. XM sponsored the season premiere of the show this season commercial-free.

      • Ford did something like that for 24 (3rd season). In exchange for "the new Ford-whatever" (y'know, "only one truck earned the right") being used in the show all over the place, with very prominent grille-logos, they gave 24 enough money to do the premiere adless. That, plus Ford got 3-4 minutes at the beginning and end to do a (pretty darn entertaining) short film.
    • Exactly. Look at how blatant product placement has gotten in the last few years.

      I didn't know what Nokia's theme sounded like until I started watching Alias.

      Besides, I frankly couldn't care less at this point if Network TV went belly up because no watches the ads anymore. Its all reality TV shit at this point. Just about the only decent TV left anymore is on Cable and mostly of it on premium cable you have to pay for.

      So the NFL and the like could cry me a river. I just don't care, and while they don't r

  • OK, so this is a faff but...
    1. Add in a network card (I bought a Cachecard - have a look at 9thtee.com I believe)
    2. Telnet in and install vserver
    3. That's it - connect to vserver using mplayer or I believe vlc and you've got streamed recordings. Identifying the recording number is awkward, but not if you install TivoWeb or TivoWeb Plus

    No links to provide - do a few searches for the above software with 'Tivo' included in the search and you should find something.

    Cheers,
    Ian

  • They have no idea how many people are going to become pissed off just because the media companies want to protect their income streams.
    When your parents / grandparents / non-technically savive friends & family can do something as simple as record a TV program because of 'broadcast flags' and the like then Congress will hear from the masses in the most unpleasent way possible.
    • When your parents / grandparents / non-technically savive friends & family can do something as simple as record a TV program because of 'broadcast flags' and the like then Congress will hear from the masses in the most unpleasent way possible.

      Parents/ grandparents / non-tecnically savvy friends & family have already learned to deal with the fact that they can't copy from a DVD onto video tape. My bet is they will learn to live with the broadcast flag too.
      • Ah, but DVD are differet than TV- You CAN watch a DVD when you want to, but if you want to watch Friends, you have to either (1) Program the VCR / PVP to record it for you, (2) watch it live, (3) get a copy from a friend / co-worker who did record it, or (4) wait for the DVD collection.
  • They are just paranoid. They forgot their tin foil hats. It's like recording it on your vcr. They are just worried about distribution. With my upstream I would never try to upload a 2+ hour video.
  • Football is boring enough as it is, but who in their right mind would ever try to share it online AFTER the game is over?! And worse, who would be afraid of that happening?! Where's the lucrative market in old football games.
    • I would like to replay the Joe Thiesmann leg fracture, though (over and over and over...)
    • The article makes it look like the NFL is concerned mostly with viewers overriding blackout rules. For those who don't know, if a broadcast station is within X miles of a stadium, a game is being played in that stadium that day, and the game is not sold out (I think that 85% of capacity is concidered sold out) then that broacast affiliate cannot air the game. This is called a blackout and the idea is that people who really want to see the game will need to go to the stadium to see it. Only after the stad
    • Well, I would.

      To begin with you would actually need to be a football fan. Since you start off with "Football is boring enough as it is" I think it's safe to assume that you're not one. Obviously this precludes any ability to see the point of recording football games (not that there's anything wrong with that of course).

      I live in Houston Texas. I'm a football fan and in 2002 the Houston Texans began playing. I've recorded every game and every off season I make about 100-120 copies for other Texans fan
  • The HoR is working on legislation that will authorize the use of players that filter objectionable content. While many /.ers see this as censorship, others view it a gaining the right to consume media in a way that is more Free.

  • It's Capitalism. Get over it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LehiNephi ( 695428 ) on Thursday July 22, 2004 @11:22AM (#9770537) Journal
    TiVo, with its associated abundance of convenient features, is merely the response of a free market to a real demand. Keep in mind these facts:

    1.) People like certain shows, so they buy a TV.
    2.) These shows are only shown on cable, so people subscribe to a cable service.
    3.) People can't always watch those shows when the shows are broadcast, so they buy a VCR.
    4.) People (in general) don't want to watch commercials, so they buy a TiVo.(I'm not saying that it's the only reason people buy it, it's just one)

    With each step, the monetary expense increases. But consumers consider it worth the money. One major problem I see here, however, is that cable channels (in the beginning) were commercial-free. They were paid for by the subscription fees. Now, not only do you have to pay the cable company more than ever to watch the same shows, you now have a third of your time wasted by commercials.

    This is why TiVo is becoming more popular. It's convenient. Someone needs to explain that term to the RIAA and MPAA.
    • If it wasn't for the TiVo, I wouldn't watch most of the TV that I do watch. Why? Well, I am never home when that stuff is on. In fact, I don't own the TiVo- my friend does (it's a ReplayTV, but same difference.) I watch the shows at his house (in fact another friend of mine gets the shows off of the ReplayTV and watches them on his laptop.)

      It does allow a real shift in how TV is watched that will eventually change the meaning of time on TV. Sure, "prime time" will still be valuable for live shows, but if e
      • To me, TV has become an activity I can pursue when/if I want to. "What's on TV" means "What's on Tivo?"

        Simply skipping commercials isn't what it's about; in fact, I sometimes forget what I'm watching is on Tivo and not live, and I end up watching :30 or so of a commercial break before "Duh, I can FF it".

    • They were paid for by the subscription fees. Now, not only do you have to pay the cable company more than ever to watch the same shows, you now have a third of your time wasted by commercials.

      the fault lies in the hands of your local government (franchise fees, or kickbacks to your city hall to do business as a cable company in that city) and the tv networks getting greedy and CHARGING the cable companies to carry that channel.

      yes, USA,TNT and the others CHARGE the cable company money to have that channe

  • Tivo Is Just Legitimizing What's Already Possible (Score:3, Interesting)

    by baudilus ( 665036 ) on Thursday July 22, 2004 @11:24AM (#9770564)
    While I can see why the MPAA and NFL would want to fight Tivo on this, I don't think Tivo is doing anything revolutionary at all. Digitizing content from TV has been possible for several years. If it's illegal with Tivo, then it's illegal with a VCR, a DVD-R, a PC-base PVR, and a host of other ways to get broadcast TV onto the PC. There is no way this can possibly be enforced. Tivo is the target because it is the most popular commercially available PVR, plain and simple. I just don't see Tivo losing this battle.
  • Let's see now, if someone saves "the best" of every football game he watches onto a TiVo, imports them to his computer and makes a neato keen iMovie about "the best of $team", said person will not purchase a hollywood produced best of $team DVD [mysimon.com]. This is a loss of profit to the NFL, so of course they will try and find some way to stop them from doing it, or at least delay them another profit filled year.

    It doesn't matter what merit the lawsuit has, they just need to get TiVo to delay or stop this whole conc

  • Reality to NFL and HOLLY WOULD (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Sfing_ter ( 99478 ) on Thursday July 22, 2004 @11:28AM (#9770627) Homepage Journal
    That ship has sailed.
    The cat is out of the bag.
    The gate is open on the corral.
    Been there, done that.

    Zoidberg: That's why I love Earth. You can do what you want, and no one makes you feel guilty, because no one cares.
    Fry: We're not listening!
    Zoidberg: That's what I'm talking about!

    And frankly, that's it... I have been able to do it with vhs for years, and I will continue to do it with new technology. I have my pvr card so FOAH. I record movies, ppv movies, tv shows et. and it is none of your bizness. I keep what I want.

    I am not listening, I am acting.

    If it comes to my tv it's for my enjoyment period.
    If you don't want me to have it, don't show it.

  • I don't understand the NFL's concerns (Score:5, Interesting)

    by angle_slam ( 623817 ) on Thursday July 22, 2004 @11:29AM (#9770635)
    The NFL, the largest and most popular sport league in the US, is concerned that someone might TiVo a game and send it to someone else. Why? A game is only useful if it is live. Even a 1 hour delay makes the game's value nearly nil.

    There are two reasons a fan would want a TiVo'd game. (1) the game isn't broadcast in their area. E.g., a Steelers fan who lives in Nebraska might not get the Steelers on their TV. The solution: NFL Sunday Ticket. "But that's exclusive to DirecTV?" says the NFL. Well whose fucking fault is that. There are plenty of people who would be willing to pay for NFL Sunday Ticket if it were available through Cable companies. They can't because the greedy NFL signs a multi-billion dollar contract with DirecTV. (I want Sunday Ticket, but my apartment faces north. I can't get DirecTV.)

    (2) the game is blacked out. A Steelers fan might not see the Steelers because the game is blacked out. Actually, the Steelers are a bad example because they haven't been blacked out in 30 years. So let's use the Cardinals. Their home games are never broadcast in Phoenix because they never come close to selling out. The whole purpose of the blackout policy is to force fans to buy tickets to prevent the blackout. It obviously doesn't work because the Cards still only get 30,000 fans per game. So why do they still use this outdated, policy that doesn't work? None of the other major sports black out home game.

    The NFL can end the market for Tivo'd games by merely offering NFL Sunday Ticket to all cable companies and ending the blackout policy that doesn't work.

  • Dammit dammit dammit! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jeblucas ( 560748 ) <jeblucasNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday July 22, 2004 @11:29AM (#9770641) Homepage Journal
    I feel like a sheep. Like I'm just being sheparded around told what to like, how to like it, and how long to like it before have my hindquarters slapped over to the next pasture. "You're done enjoying that NFL game. Go watch this now." Everytime a company comes along and says "hey, we're not trying to screw you, do what you want," a thousand other companies come out of the woodwork to shout them down. This is just part-and-parcel with the following other travesties:
    • VoIP must be stopped! It lets people make phone calls without paying someone [other than the broadband provider]!
    • Making people pay [a fortune] for commercial television. I remember when people thought it was okay to pay for cable because you got things like HBO, which didn't have commercials. HBO still doesn't have commercials, but it's still an extra $12/mo on your $60 cable bill.
    • When did ease-of-use become piracy? I used to make mixtapes for girlfriends. I had the Jerky Boys calls on some umpteenth generation copy of a copy. I don't remember anyone up in arms about this--the Jerky Boys got a movie deal out of that underground phenomenon. Now that I can easily make a share a mix it's illegal?
    Don't give up everyone. Write your Congressperson [house.gov]. Some of you live in Utah [eff.org]. Do something about it [senate.gov].
  • "The NFL, meanwhile, is concerned that a user could send a copy of a game to someone in another time zone, where the game is blacked out."

    What do time zones have to do with blackout rules? Blackout applies to X distance from the stadium (or is it city, I can't remember). In fact, if NFL wants to keep people from overriding blackout rules, perhaps they should be as stern with DirecTV as they are with TIVO. I have known a couple of bar owners in the NE GA who used to claim the dish was in SC in order to s
  • It's time for hollywood, NFL,RIAA and others to wake up and smell the CPU cycles.
    People want to record TV shows,films and radio broadcasts. Not because they're freeloaders. It's because they like TV and want to watch it again. If you can't accept this and make money off it, then you have a poor business model and deserve to get driven out of business by smarter competetors.

    The mass media have made money for one simple reason. They had a monopoly on the production and distrobution technologies of the media. Only they could afford radio towers, film reels and copying technology. Through this they have also maintained a monopsony over the base talent which they promote. Hence the low signal to noise ratio on TV and radio. Now, thanks to technology, even your average joe sixpack has the technology to copy a TV broadcast of music track. TiVo has given him the power to record the game, the soaps, the news, so he can watch them again. Does this mean we should shut down TiVo so the monopoly can continue?

    HDD based TV recorders. MPAA and NFL want to shut them down because they encourage 'theft' of signals floating around in peoples homes. Nonsense. They just wish to maintain a monopoly over the distribution of their content, so they can jack up the price for their wares.

    They deserve to be driven out of business.

    If you want an example of a company that is using peoples wants and likes to make money out of HDD recorders, look no further than Sky+. [sky.com] Sky actually encourage people to record TV shows and are making a mint off it.

    Put that in your smoke and pipe in NFAA!!! :E
  • that Congress might need to change the law to invalidate a Supreme Court decision that established a key underpinning of fair-use rights, which is that developers of technologies cannot be held responsible for the actions of those who might use them to violate copyright.

    So that means that Gun makers will finally be held liable for how people use their guns?

    What, no?
    • Guns are effectively the only subject of the 2nd amendment. Until and unless communications related electronics are seen as a subject of the 1st amendment, our rights are not going to see the same level of protection. Right now, the legal underpinning for all to many laws controlling such devices is widely seen, in political circles, as being derived only from customary law or just possibly restricted by the 9th amendment. Ultimately, this is about a struggle for the 1st.
  • When will the xxAA's and their buddies like NFL, MLB, etc. realize that the paradigm has already shifted? All they are doing is delay tactics against the inevitable with these innovation inhibiting (illegal) actions. We all have rights to *Fair Use* copies of any media that we've bought so their actions to stop that are illegal, IMO. IP that is broadcast is, again IMO, in the public domain as soon as it leaves the transmitting antenna/cable head-end. It's time for them to shift the efforts they are putting
  • I'm willing to pay per view for all shows I view.
    • I believe television should be like books.
    • I get the right in perpetuity (forever) to re-view any show I purchase, as many times as I wish.
    • I get the right to copy the show as many times as I wish to whatever media I wish.
    • I do not have the right to sell any show.

    In order to make this business model work, the amount of data sent per show should make it prohibitively expensive to keep everything.

    Thus, I pay $0.05 (5 cents) for the 'Ask This Old House' epsiode 1

    • This is similar to my idea about music. I'd be happy to pay approx. 2 cents per song to the copyright owner (the artist, I hope?). I'm willing to spend a total of $1000 to own a library of the 50,000 most popular recordings of all time. That's probably most everything I'd want to listen to ever.

      And today people are willing to pay (let's say you got 25 hits/CD, at 10$ a pop = 20.000$) way more. Yes, I'd be willing to pay 1/20th for a Ferrari too. Why should they be willing to ask 1/20th? Obviously they're

    • Re:Suggestion for a new business model (Score:4, Insightful)

      by embo ( 133713 ) on Thursday July 22, 2004 @12:11PM (#9771126)
      This is a fantastic idea. And it will never happen. Why? Because no matter how cheap you make it, there will still be people who won't pay a fucking nickel to see the show, and will want to get it for free. And there will always be enough of them to discourage the purveyors of said media from doing something like this.

      The minute you open this up for a nickel a show, there will be free copies of the same thing out on the P2P networks, because people would rather spend the extra time thinking they are getting it for free than they would to take the time to pay the nickel for seeing the show. Say all you want about people being willing to pay for it. There are still going to be enough who aren't, because people, for the most part, suck.
  • Hollywood, the RIAA and others would like to charge you every time you use their content. They would like to charge you for every format of their content.

    The NFL wants to restrict their content. Make you buy expensive satellite service or go to their games live if they haven't sold enough tickets.

    As painful as it sounds, the only way to escape the trap is to stop consuming their content.

  • Boo-frickety-hoo... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Shadow2097 ( 561710 ) <shadow2097@gm a i l . com> on Thursday July 22, 2004 @11:42AM (#9770798)
    From TFA: "The NFL, meanwhile, is concerned that a user could send a copy of a game to someone in another time zone, where the game is blacked out."

    Cry me a freaking river. I'm a huge NFL fan, but as I'm just out of school, I don't have the money to afford to buy tickets for the games. Yet, if the stadium isn't sold out, the home-team TV markets are forbidden from showing the game because if people really wanted to see it, they'd pony up and buy up all the available tickets. Thats the contractual agreement the NFL made with CBS and Fox. So what happens if other people don't want to buy tickets? I'm unable to watch my team play.

    The networks are broadcasting it elsewhere, just not in my area. So if the NFL has a problem with me doing what it takes to LEGALLY acquire game footage, they can go screw themselves. Last I heard, having someone give me a tape of anything broadcast on network television, so long as its not sold for profit, is entirely legal.

    This is me, playing My Heart Bleeds For You on the worlds smallest violin. It looks amazingly similar to my middle finger.

    -Shadow

  • TiVo says the system is secure. I say its source code will end up on the box.

    What? Huh? Guh? Buh? The source code to TiVo's software will wind up on TiVos? Why? They contribute back changes they make to the Linux kernel because it's GPL but the actual TiVo application is closed source. Why would they distribute source to their fixed platform when they can distribute binaries?

    Am I completely misreading this statement?

  • How about a compromise? They can have all of the anti-copying, anti recording, and anti skipping flags they want, BUT only if they agree to a series of measures to widen competition in production and broadcasting and to disallow any stro9ng-arm tactics to get content they don't own flagged.

    Which will people be more exposed to, content they can only watchy in it's approved timeslot with no recording, or the stuff that can be freely passed around?

    Perhaps with unflagged programming benefitting from the 'yo



  • I liked this sitcom better when it was called "RIAA vs. Diamond Multimedia-- Ban the Rio."
  • Get a bill introduced in Congress that all games played in stadiums financed with public money must be broadcast free, without any copying restrictions, sold out or not. Watch the NFL squirm.

  • The organizations fear that computer enthusiasts would capture those programs and begin trading them online in the same way that millions of music files are shared daily, which record companies have said has cut into their profit.

    But "enthusiasts" haven't done that yet on any widespread basis. Nor has a good case been made that music file trading has cut into profits compared with the situation of no file trading.

    The solution is not to hobble the technology (which is what killed DAT in the United States

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"Being against torture ought to be sort of a multipartisan thing." -- Karl Lehenbauer, as amended by Jeff Daiell, a Libertarian

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