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TiVo file sharing?
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Posted by: MrCollect

This will be controversial, and probably illegal, but just wondering....

Do you think TiVo will be able to add file sharing to their list of benefits?

Let's say you (somehow) missed the latest episode of "Sex in the City", but your neighbor recorded it on their TiVo.
Couldn't the neighbor upload it to your TiVo via a file sharing program?
I'm sure there are technological issues preventing it right now, not to mention ethical and copyright issues (like, I don't subscribe to HBO).

Anyone want to comment? Thanks!

Posted by: futerfas

This is done by replay TV, and that's one of the reasons they got sued. Plus, it can take a very long time to transfer, even over broadband.

Jake

Posted by: comtech5

I'll never be fully satisfied with TiVo until we can share video files outside the home at the push of a TiVo button. I just don't understand why Hollywood objects to file sharing and archiving. I'd be willing to pay $1 per show transfer, I think that would be a fair trade and maybe then Hollywood would go along with it.

Posted by: Andrew McRory

It's not about money. Copyright is NEVER about money. It's about control.

-a

Posted by: dmdeane

quote:
Originally posted by Andrew McRory
It's not about money. Copyright is NEVER about money. It's about control.

-a

Absolutely correct. Of course, with control comes money, but the point of control is not just money, since arguably a loosening of control can often lead to more money (think of the history of the VCR and video rentals, for instance), but, rather, the predictability of future revenue which comes with absolute control of use and distribution, and also control means the ability to prevent the establishment of future competition; in other words, to lock down the market to a single cartel or group of "insider", established "players" who effectively control the market in question.

Economists call this tendency towards using law and special government enabled privileges for the purposes of establishing a predictable future revenue steam as "rent-seeking behavior". The laws and customs of medieval feudalism, which assured the local lords of constant income from rent and services-in-kind from serfs or peasants, is a classic example of "rent-seeking behavior" but any time a business or industry goes to government for special laws designed to "protect" its business model, that is also an example of "rent-seeking behavior". Control means knowing that your present powers and revenues will not be threatened; it is an attempt to ensure predictability and like its medieval predecessor, it is probably not going to work in the long run.

Don't expect TiVo to do anything like ReplayTV did, as long as the current legal climate in regards to copyrights continues. TiVo can't afford the legal costs. You can still burn VCDs, DVDs, or copy to tape, so the old fashioned methods of show sharing are not going to go away.

Posted by: Dennis Wilkinson

quote:
Originally posted by comtech5
I'll never be fully satisfied with TiVo until we can share video files outside the home at the push of a TiVo button.

Then the odds are you'll never be fully satisfied with TiVo, especially given the legislative environment these days.

quote:
I just don't understand why Hollywood objects to file sharing and archiving.

While I feel that archiving broadcast for personal use could reasonably called "fair use", I don't understand why people believe that file sharing would be. After all, "Hollywood" did foot the bill (they paid the writers, the cast, the crew, bought or rented the sets, costumes, a, paid for distribution, et cetera.) That, to me, pretty strongly implies that they own that which they paid t produce, and should be the ones to profit from it if people enjoy it (and conversely, to lose money on it if no one is interested in it.) File sharing is directly counter to that.

It's pretty easy to say "well, Hollywood is huge and rich, they don't need my few dollars anyway", but copyright protects small authors as well as large ones (in many instances, it protects the small authors from Hollywood -- that big studio needs to pay to base a movie on that little self-published book that they liked so much.)

Do copyright (and trademark, and patent) laws need to be updated to reflect the changing technologies today? Probably -- and what doesn't happen in legislature will happen in the courts. Does that mean we should just throw them all out and put everything in the public domain? Of course not. The biggest issue, and it's not one I have any clue how to solve, is that currently-available technology makes some copyright law virtually impossible to enforce. It's not as if you have to own your own printing press to mass-duplicate something these days.

Posted by: dmdeane

It would be easier to accept reasonable limitations on the use of copyrighted material, if the copyright holders were not trying to eliminate fair use rights, de jure and de facto, and if they had not effectively made their copyrights perpetual by the simple expedient of increasing the length of copyright whenever it threatened to move "their" copyrighted material into the public domain. This defeats the very purpose for which copyrights were established in the first place.

Posted by: Dennis Wilkinson

Ah, yes. Disney -- the "take advantage of the public domain and return nothing to it" company.

Part of the issue is that "fair use" isn't completely defined by legal statute but is left subject to interpretation by the courts. The large copyright holders like those represented by the RIAA and companies like Disney are lobbying to have fair use defined to their advantage (and to consumers disadvantage.) That leaves it to interested private parties to counter those efforts by doing things like writing their representatives in Congress and the Senate.

But that still doesn't mean that file sharing a la Napster/Gnutella/eMule/etc. would fall into a reasonable definition of fair use, and the greater the number of people doing such file sharing is far more likely to buttress the arguments of the copyright holders in the eyes of lawmakers than to help the cause of people seeking reasonable definitions of fair use. This is clear judging by some of the ridiculous, knee-jerk reactions already happening (like the "let's make it allowable to try to destroy the hardware of someone who might be sharing files, and forget that sticky 'due-process' thing while we're at it" silliness.)

In other words, if you care about fair use rights, make sure those that represent you in the lawmaking process know you care, too. Just try to remember that it's fair use (for both the copyright holder and the consumer.)

Posted by: aadam101

The thing I never quite understood about this is that TV shows are free. Well sort of. I understand the music industries position on file sharing. If you can get it for free then why would you buy it? I get that.

However, a TV show doesn't really cost anything to view. (Yes I know you have to pay your cable/satellite bill) When you share the file you would be sharing the commercials too (assuming that PVR users watch them.) It could actually be beneficial to television because you may get viewers you wouldn't have gotten otherwise. Can you imagine how this would screw up the already screwed up Nielsen System??

On the other hand I'm sure networks like HBO and Showtime would have huge problems with this as well as cable and satellite companies.

Posted by: Dennis Wilkinson

quote:
Originally posted by aadam101
The thing I never quite understood about this is that TV shows are free.

This is back to the control issue, really. The way copyright law works, there is a difference between free and public domain. Just because something is free doesn't mean it's "unencumbered." Something in the public domain is -- you can do pretty much whatever you want with it.

Compare it to free software, which is also protected by copyright law. This is in many ways more free than broadcast television, but that still doesn't mean you can do anything you want with it. The LGPL and GPL put some very strict rules on how the software may be used, how derivative works may be used and just how "open" those derivatives must be. Build an application using source code that's licensed under GPL, and you're obligated to release your source under the GPL as well.

Back to TV, sure, you can watch the original broadcast for free, and I think it's reasonable to expect that you can save a copy of that for your own personal use if you're equipped to do so (for "time-shifting" certainly, possibly even for "archival".) Your friend down the road could do the same thing. But there isn't much else that you could do with that recording, legally, since you don't hold the copyright. You certainly can't make copies of it (possibly except for a "backup"), even if you're giving them away. It's not even 100% certain that you could give your only copy to someone else. That "right to copy" isn't yours.

The image gets cloudier with pay-per-view and subcription TV services like HBO and Showtime, since you have to enter into a subscription arrangement to receive the programming, and such an agreement could potentially further limit what you're permitted to do with the programming.

And again, what makes this all so fuzzy is that it's not all spelled out in the law, which means that any conflicts over what is really "fair use" between the copyright holder and others need to be resolved in the courts. Some of the things that we might think of as reasonably fair use don't have any legal precendent to back them up (like archiving for personal use) and some do (like manufacturing machines that record arbitrary video sources including broadcast.)

(The "but the copies would have the commercials too" argument doesn't really fly. Think back just a few years ago to all the dot-com ads that were running. I'm sure there were a few TV shows that, if you had archived them, contained ads only for products or services that no longer exist.)