Plans to charge for recording TV

[Pain_Man]

Full webpage: http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/5981.cfm

 

 

The relevent portion:

 

Ultimately, content owners would love to see a scheme where you can watch a TV show, but you must pay few cents for recording it. And most likely you could only watch the recorded show only a specified number of times. And transferring to other devices would cost few cents more, etc.

 

 

Like I've been saying for years: The real purpose Rights Destruction Technology (aka "DRM" or "copy protection") has NOTHING to do with piracy or file sharing. NOTHING!

 

"Content Owner" and "consumer." Now, which is which?

 

It's all about money and control and money and money and money. Oh yeah, and control.

 

And money.

 

The "Bill bill"--Lord Gates of Redmond gave away more information than he ever intended when he floated that trial balloon of the "Bill bill"; [paraphrase] "Everyone will get their phone, their computing, their internet, the cell, the telelvision content, everything throught Microsoft for one low, monthly fee."

 

Hypocritical, lying bastards. Why not just have the balls to say, "We own this stuff and since it ain't required for life or health, we're going to squeeze anyone who wants to watch, listen or record it. And we're creating technologies as tough as possible to make sure the concept of 'consumer choice' vanishes like sanity at a Democratic National Convention. HAH! 'Mr and Mrs Average Knucklehead' we're going to get every last stinkin' penny out of you!"

 

One keeps hoping that the vast majority of people will wake up one day and decide, "We don't need these assholes. Humans survived for 200,000 years without 'digital entertainment.' Fuck it. We don't need this shit or the assholes that own it."

 

Fuck em ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!

[Kenadjian]

One keeps hoping that the vast majority of people will wake up one day and decide, "We don't need these assholes. Humans survived for 200,000 years without 'digital entertainment.' Fuck it. We don't need this shit or the assholes that own it."

No argument from me on this point.

[dbminter]

The funniest part of the whole thing, IMO, has been to look at the history of Sony. Sony helped to create the widely accepted mass market home video demand with Betamax. Hollywood tried to step in and curtail home video recording because they saw not a potential to release their vaults to the home market, but saw, instead, people taping the edited versions of their movies off of TV for a cheaper price. Sony cared about consumer rights then because it had a stake in them: if people lost the ability to record at home, then, Sony couldn't sell home video recorders. Now, notice how a simple thing like changing from an entirely hardware centric business to a combination hardware and content owner makes. When Sony started gobbling up movie studios left and right with acquisitions like Columbia, Tri-Star, etc. Sony suddenly lost the desire to make sure consumers could do things. Why? Because the market had been, instead, won by a competitor: VHS. Sony didn't want to lose the gravy train it had basically started, so, it covered both bases.

 

 

Notice how Sony, after losing the VCR Format Wars, made sure, basically, there would be no format war with recordable DVD by making drives that were dual format? Also note how the Playstation was not just a proprietary video game system but also a CD player. And how the PS 2 was not only a proprietary video game system, but, also a CD player, player of the proprietary video game format from the previous generation, AND a DVD player. BUT, the real change comes when Sony is suddenly a combination provider for both hardware and content. This leads to the most incredible shift of all: after fighting so hard to get users to be able to record TV in their homes, because they had a stake in it through sales of the device to let you do it, Sony develops ARCOSS because it has the media side to it now.

 

 

It's a variant on the sell the printers cheap, but, charge through the nose in perpetuity for the ink cartridges needed to run them. Hence why something dumb like claiming the DMCA meant people couldn't use cartridge refill systems because they added circuits to "check" things like ink levels, etc. when they were added in just to use the DMCA as a means to prevent anyone from selling an alternative to their money chain scheme. Sony suddenly didn't care about a user's right to make a backup of a DVD they bought from Sony because Sony would like to just sell you a 2nd one later. Sony sure didn't care about copying DVD's when they SOLD the hardware that enabled it. One of the reasons, I believe, why they got out of the manufacturing of the DRU line and just rebadged LiteOn drives to do it. Because Sony could still profit from the sales of the devices but have the "moral" high ground that they didn't make it.

 

 

I had one other really fantastic point, but, I lost it.

[dbminter]

Also, technically, it's only buried deep inside Afterdawn because the article is over a year old. However, a little more alarming was this recent story:

 

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/7523.cfm

 

"U.S. Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) has snuck the dreaded and condemned "broadcast flag" into a bill on Net Neutrality. It is worth mentioning that the same guy previously rejected Broadcast Flags for radio. The broadcast flag clause would allow "the FCC to establish a broadcast flag to allow TV stations to protect digital content from Internet piracy." Previous attempts to bring about the Broadcast Flag have been highly criticised, and for good reason."

[lfcrule1972]

Jesus I can't help feeling that what is happening in the US will be here soon too !

[dbminter]

We here have to hope not, because, soon, you guys in the UK will be the only way we can get digital TV shows.

 

 

I am curious for shows like Doctor Who. I mean, does Sci-Fi Channel show it in digital, as the various BBC's did/do?

[lfcrule1972]

I don't know db - I only watch the Dr Who's on the BBC, we Sky+ so the kids can watch them again until they are <cough> available on DVD from a nice bloke I know....

[Pain_Man]

The funniest part of the whole thing, IMO, has been to look at the history of Sony.

 

 

Not really much else to add to Minty's eloquent, excellent essay there. One direct point: the rumor is that Sony offered the guy who invented the VHS system $50M in cash for the patents so they could eliminate competition to the Betamax before it materialized. Obviously the guy said no or it never happened. (FIFTY MILLION IN CASH thirty years ago?! Are you fucking kidding me? I couldn't have gotten to the bank fast enough.)

 

Then I'll go tangenital.

 

It's a variant on the sell the printers cheap, but, charge through the nose in perpetuity for the ink cartridges needed to run them.

 

This is the oldest trick in the book.

 

Why do fighter jet manufacturers fight so hard to get contracts with governments? So they can sell the planes? No.

 

Money ain't in the planes.

 

It's the spare parts. Once you sell a nation a fighter plane, you've got them locked in for at least twenty years for tens of billions of dollars in spare parts. And since you don't want the airplanes falling apart undearneath the pilots, the parts cost through the ass.

 

Look at the situation with the flinklock musket. You think the real rich guys were the gun makers. Not. Assembly-line gun making didn't begin until the Americans used during the Revolution (we lacked the large number of skilled workers the Brits had, so we were forced to implement the assembly--which, painful as it is to admit, is the idea of a Frenchman, at least the modern version).

 

No, the musketmakers didn't become the richest.

 

The gun powerder makers had the real gig! All that lovely power which the armies were in a huge hurry to fire off vast quantities of and the return to order even vaster quantities.

 

There's a reason why the modern economy was created by war.

 

Armies (and Navys) were the ultimate customers. They buy huge quanities of shit, destroy it, run back buy more.

 

The market economy developed to fill the need to defeat Napoleon or to help him conquer Europe.

 

The civilian economy benefitted second when manufacturers, after peace came in 1815, realized that the same factory processes that made muskets, cannon, block-and-tackle sets could also be used to make flatware, dinner plates, tea kettles, you name it.

 

Destructive as war has been, it has caused most the advances we take for granted in the 20th century.

 

Example: the magnitron in your microwave oven? Just a variation on the radar units the RAF used in WWII to defeat the Krauts in the Battle of Britain.

Edited May 12, 2006 by Pain_Man

[polopony]

it was the same in hospitals both Kodak and Konica just about giving away the hardware for X rays and Cat Scans so they could sell the film, thats the money. HP selling printers so they can sell the ink ,ink comes to about $1200 a gallon when its sold as cartridges

[Pain_Man]

Also, technically, it's only buried deep inside Afterdawn because the article is over a year old. However, a little more alarming was this recent story:

 

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/7523.cfm

 

"U.S. Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) has snuck the dreaded and condemned "broadcast flag" into a bill on Net Neutrality. It is worth mentioning that the same guy previously rejected Broadcast Flags for radio. The broadcast flag clause would allow "the FCC to establish a broadcast flag to allow TV stations to protect digital content from Internet piracy." Previous attempts to bring about the Broadcast Flag have been highly criticised, and for good reason."

 

 

 

If memory serves Stevens is no longer in the Senate. He's been replaced by his daughter. And a Federal judge ruled that the FCC had no authority to mandate the "broadcast flag" bullshit.

[Pain_Man]

Jesus I can't help feeling that what is happening in the US will be here soon too !

 

 

Unfortunately, we are followed for good and for ill.

 

Look at the EU DMCA! It's like the DMCA on steroids, meth and a coke overdose.

Edited May 13, 2006 by Pain_Man

[Pain_Man]

it was the same in hospitals both Kodak and Konica just about giving away the hardware for X rays and Cat Scans so they could sell the film, thats the money. HP selling printers so they can sell the ink ,ink comes to about $1200 a gallon when its sold as cartridges

 

 

Let us not forget McDonalds.

 

Ray Krok bought the restaurant from the McDonald brothers because he'd gotten the distribution rights to the famous "5-at-once-milkshake-machines". He started building restaurants in order to have a place to put the shake machines. (!)

[Pain_Man]

We here have to hope not, because, soon, you guys in the UK will be the only way we can get digital TV shows.

 

 

I am curious for shows like Doctor Who. I mean, does Sci-Fi Channel show it in digital, as the various BBC's did/do?

 

 

Here's something funny.

 

The only way to see Battlestar Galactica in HD is to watch last seasons episodes on Universal's HD channel!

 

SciFi doesn't broadcast in HD, it broadcasts (I know it's cable, the phrase is one of convenience; I guess "transmits" is the proper word?) is SD. It doesn't look very good. Once I got the DVD versions (first season they suckered me into buying the British version; Hah, not this time! The Brit version's disk holders were held together with Scotch tape!

[Pain_Man]

We here have to hope not, because, soon, you guys in the UK will be the only way we can get digital TV shows.

 

 

I am curious for shows like Doctor Who. I mean, does Sci-Fi Channel show it in digital, as the various BBC's did/do?

 

 

Naw. They'll start charging in Britain & Canada too. They'll just charge more because of that monster of economic destruction and unemployment called the VAT.