Jenny Levine: Digital Video

Entertainment Industry's Copyright Right Puts Consumers in Cross Hairs "The studios and TV networks are also whining about the feature that lets users fast-forward through commercials or skip them entirely. The entertainment companies are understandably worried about this trend, but so what? My employer would like you to read the paper all the way through and at least glance at every advertisement, but the fact that you don't have to is one of the reader-friendly pieces of the transaction." [Dan Gillmor's eJournal]

Hear, hear! More from Dan about the latest lawsuits against Tivo and SonicBlue (the folks that make ReplayTVs). It's a great summation of how ludicrous these lawsuits are, so it's a good printout for the uninitiated. Here's why it will matter to them (and you and me):

"Why should you care if you can't make a copy of a CD to play in your car? Because the industry's attack is much wider. Your rights are intertwined with scholarship, with the public commons of knowledge that the owners of information want to close off. The damage will be far-reaching if they succeed."

Besides the fair use, First Amendment, and criminal prosecution issues surrounding all of this, there is one other thing libraries can take away from this whole debacle, and that is the lesson of not placing barriers in the way of what your users want. Work with them, not against them. It will only alienate your users, and they won't come back.

Hollywood's Latest Attack on Customers "If Hollywood and the big television networks had controlled Congress 25 years ago the way they do today, you wouldn't have a fast-forward button on your video-cassette recorder. You wouldn't be allowed to tape a program to watch later. You would be allowed to view TV only the way they chose. Period." [Dan Gillmor's eJournal]

Studios Assail ReplayTV Technology "The suit filed by MGM, Fox, Universal Studios and Orion Pictures goes furthest, arguing that it's illegal to let consumers record and store shows based on the genre, actors or other words in the program description. This claim threatens not just the ReplayTV devices, some copyright experts say, but all recorders like it."

"Unlike VCRs, which require users to record shows by time slot or unique number, PVRs record based on a show's name or program description. Users don't need to know when "Friends" is on. They just need to know the name or a leading actor. Once a program is found, the device can be set to capture it whenever it's on the air."

" 'If a ReplayTV customer can simply type 'The X-Files' or 'James Bond' and have every episode of 'The X-Files' and every James Bond film recorded in perfect digital form and organized, compiled and stored on the hard drive of his or her ReplayTV 4000 device, it will cause substantial harm to the market for prerecorded DVD, videocassette and other copies of those episodes and films,' the lawsuit states."

"The fundamental question posed by the MGM suit is whether the financial effect on the studios trumped consumers' ability to copy programs for personal use, said Douglas Wood, a New York attorney who specializes in intellectual-property and advertising law. If MGM wins on that point, he said, 'We'd be left with plain old VCRs.' "

"He's not betting on the studios, though, given the Supreme Court's 1984 ruling that consumers could legally record programs for the sake of watching them later. 'What difference does it make how I do it?' Wood said. 'The dilemma is, the technology is turning the business model upside down. But that doesn't mean it's copyright infringement.' " (emphasis is mine) [via bOing bOing]

I'm quoting liberally from this article because the LA Times link will be gone in a few days. This lawsuit just reeks of desperation. Let's file lawsuit after lawsuit and hope one of them sticks. Yeah, like that worked with Napster and file trading. It's like the bully on the playground who goes tattling on someone that outsmarts him, hoping that someone else will take care of the problem because he can't. I'm all for copyright, but you can't stifle progress just to keep making a buck.

I forgot to pass along a link that Bruce sent me explaining why ReplayTV Is Not Another Napster. "SONICblue's Potashner has shown that he has a knack for zoning in on the next big thing. His company's MP3 player has 40% market share and deals with all five major music labels. Isn't it about time the entertainment Establishment stopped wasting time and money trying to use the courts to forestall the future -- and instead embrace the new technology?"

Not only does this article illustrate why I want one of the new ReplayTV 4000s to go with my two older ones, but it hits the nail on the head in terms of the dinosaur broadcasting industry. Just as with Napster, they can start acknowledging the future and working with companies like SonicBlue, or they can stand by and watch helplessly as others jump in to take their place and relegate the bigcos to the backseat.

Rush hates TiVoRush "Rush Limbaugh has been taking too many hits off the paranoia bong and has decided that TiVo is an enemy of free people.... My favorite part is that he picked Hollings to pick on, despite the fact that Fritz is responsible for the SSSCA, and is therefore a Real and True Enemy of Free People and technology." [bOing bOing]

Even though it won't be up for very long, I'll still point to this Chicago Tribune story explaining why the Olympic Games Won't Be Streaming onto the Web. [via Lockergnome] "The IOC's stance is an aberration at a time when sports leagues are increasingly turning to the Web as an alternative --and revenue-generating -- outlet for audio and video. Major league baseball sells subscriptions to a full season of games on Web radio, for example.'There are two main reasons,' said Stephane Kanah, Internet manager for the IOC. 'Today, there is not sufficient bandwidth or quality to show the emotions and to be able to view the competition properly.'"

Ahem. Again, feel free to laugh that they would even be quoted saying this.

" 'And most importantly, in order to protect our broadcasters' rights, especially those who are not broadcasting the games live ... we have restricted live videos until there is a technology that allows us to restrict access to videos [geographically].' "

Ding, ding, ding - it's all about the money.

"If viewers can get their fill of bobsledding or snowboarding races from a Web site, ratings and advertising revenue will drop. Broadcasters will bid less for the rights to the next Olympics, generating less money for the Games."

Isn't that a contradiction? Are they saying that it's possible for me to get my fill of bobsledding over the Web, but wait, not the "emotions," so I can't really get me fill. Right? Er. Um. I'm confused. Like you didn't see this coming: IOC = not shifted.

$1 films spook Hollywood. "Like Napster before it, the site is more than just an everyday pirate Web site: It's a commercial video-on-demand service that's comprehensive and easy to use. And it works. With the studios' film services still in development, that's a dangerous combination of features....'There's a law of diminishing returns in terms of pursuing and prosecuting these things overseas,' said Aram Sinnreich, a Jupiter Media Metrix analyst. 'It's a lamentable situation for studios, but I think the best thing they can do is develop their own legal alternative to draw people.' " [at News.com]

Here's an article about the impact of the Movie88 streaming video site in Taiwan that I mentioned a few days ago. Notice that the MPAA folks talk about taking the site down, while the JMM guy recognizes that the studios have to grow the grass on their own side of the fence instead. When are they going to "get it" and shift? Probably too late. Shhh - did you hear that? It was the roar of a dinosaur.

Tivo: Super Britney Replays Ruled "While millions of Americans watched the annual pro football championship, TiVo was monitoring the viewing habits of 10,000 of its 280,000 subscribers. The leading maker of digital video recorders used its technology to analyze which football plays or TV ads its subscribers chose to view again or to see in slow motion. TiVo viewers did more instant replays of Super Bowl commercials than of the game itself, and the Pepsi ads featuring Spears were the MVP, said John Ghashghai, TiVo's director of audience research.... When gathering customer marketing research, TiVo says it does not link viewer data to names, gender or age, only into one big database that can identify users by ZIP code." [in Wired News]

Two questions. First, did Tivo users know they were being tracked? Second, did ReplayTV do this? My guess is "no, not really" to the first question, and "no, probably not" to the second. Tivo is explicitly trying to woo over the TV networks and advertisers (I'm sure sharing of market research is in their license agreement), while SonicBlue (the company that owns ReplayTV now) is more focused on the consumer. Does anybody have a definitive answer?

Will we see this kind of tracking technology in eBooks? Counts sent to the publisher for which pages a user bookmarks, which passages are highlighted, how many times a quote is used?

Let Your PC Turbocharge Your TV: Personal video recorders such as TiVo cost a lot; why not build one yourself? [in BusinessWeek]
"My conclusion: It will cost you a little more than $200, a free evening or weekend, and--geek alert--the guts to open up your computer and tinker a bit to install the special video card. It's easier than you think. If you're still intimidated, I'll suggest a couple of ways to get around it."

The television industry is running scared [in The Boston Globe]
"Adding TiVo-like capabilities to a PC allows for a variety of paradigm-busting applications. Say you've got multiple computers in your home, all networked together. The SnapStream software contains a built-in network server, so you can watch a recorded program on any PC in the house. Suppose you own a palm-top computer that runs Microsoft's Pocket PC operating system. You can download a SnapStream video and watch it during the morning commute."

Ouch. BusinessWeek has an article detailing how to add digital video recorder technology (also known as personal video recorders) to your PC, complete with recommendations for video cards. This link comes from the comments in a Slashdot post called The Napsterization of TV that itself points to a Boston Globe article about SnapStream recording software and what it may mean for digitization of televised content. To paraphrase one of the commenters in the Slashdot article, if you're reading about this in BW and TBL, it's time for the bigco folks to wake up and figure out how to work with these technologies, not against them.

(Almost) Free Movies On-Line... Sorta "See the latest movies on the net? Its possible - apparently the law in Taiwan says that for a movie to be protected by copyright law one has to apply for such protection within a month after the opening in the theaters. This rarely happens and as a consequence movie88 has opened a virtual movieplex: See any of their films for 1 dollar. The movie is streamed in a format that doesn't allow you to save it on the harddrive, but for that 1 dollar you can view it anytime and as much as you like for 3 days." [via Slashdot]

It's amazing how many movies are available here. Check it out now, though, because as the Slashdot post notes, it probably won't be up for long.