[NTLUG:Discuss] BitTorrent and TV shows

[Burton Strauss]

The Sony Betamax case made it clear that it is legal to time-shift and
record over-the-air programs for your own use.

There are other provisions in US law that allow some limited sharing.  Key
word is limited.  If you can share with 'family', what does that mean?
Brother/Sister?  Parents??  36th cousin?? (we're all cousins at some
distance). If it's friends, how good a friend?  The person you just met in a
chat room??  Or your best friend of 30 years??

As for the flag - there's no way to charge for free TV if you watch it off
the air.  To encrypt the picture would break every TV in the US.  Beyond
that?  Well, with 90%+ of households using some non-OTA form of TV it's not
a huge issue at the FCC level.

But - the interesting question - Will TV change because of PVRs?

Sure - it already has.  You are simply privileged to be living at a point in
time where experimentation rules - as the industry tries to adjust to a new
world order.  It's Darwin on Madison Ave. - some concepts live, others
die...  Some days you are the Grasshopper others the Ant.

Remember web banner ads?  In your face and bigger and bigger every day?
Research showed it annoyed more people than it attracted and most banners
have retreated to modest sizes.  And banner ad rates are in the toilet.

Listen to KERA on the Web.  The program begins with a 15s 'commercial'.  It
tells you that they have to pay to simulcast, suggests you contribute and
tells you it will disconnect after an hour.  New media, new ways of getting
a brand in your face.

Watch, for example, TLC's Trading Spaces.  During the first years the label
on the cans of paint was carefully obscured with black paint.  Now, they
make a point of it being Home Depot paint.  That concept - interstitial ads
- is the industry reaction to people skipping commercials (regardless of how
you do it, PVRs just make it easier).  Skip our ad?  Fine - but you're going
to get 22m of exposure to us anyway...

If it turns out that the whole program is a significant positive 'brand
awareness' experience for HD, do you want to bet that in a few years you'll
be able to go to the HD web site and get any episode you want streamed back
to you?? "Courtesy of Home Depot"?  With the ads replaced by content
relative to you?  "Sure, we would love to show you this episode.
Afterwards, you can even see expanded coverage of how they installed that
XYZ brand laminate floor, purchased at the Home Depot".

Watch Airline! - Almost every episode has at least one person screaming "I'm
never going to fly your <bleep />ing airline again!".  But Southwest LOVES
it.  Why?  I guess because you usually sympathize with the SWA employee, not
the id10t who showed up 2 minutes AFTER flight time.  Are there commercials
broadcast during the program?  Sure, but I skip them.  But the show itself -
that's 22 minutes of pushing the SWA brand into my face.  And I go out of my
way to grab new episodes on the TiVo.

TiVo has announced that they will be selling screen space when you fast
forward.  You'll still be able to skip a commercial, but there will be a
block of advert inserted into the middle of the picture.  They already sell
'enhanced ads' - while the TV is playing the real ad, you can press a button
and schedule the recording of a longer ad (5m say) on a product that
interests you.  They say this has been HUGELY successful.

-----Burton




-----Original Message-----
From: discuss-bounces at ntlug.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at ntlug.org] On Behalf
Of tr_data1
Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2004 10:09 AM
To: Discuss at ntlug.org
Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] BitTorrent and TV shows

I created this as a sep. topic in hopes that they both get answered.
Another idea of getting the TV shows part of my HDTV wishes is with
BitTorrent (or such). What's the scoop on that? I did a brief search on that
and some of the things I read seem to imply that it might not be legal to
get your TV shows this way.

This seems odd to me. Lets say I downloaded a TV show that aired yesterday
(that I missed). What's illegal about that? How is it any different,
legally, than using a PVR to record it when it aired? In any case, my guess
is that it would become quite illegal after July 2005 because such files
would get around the broadcast flag.

IMHO, I think that the broadcast flag will quickly become a means for the TV
networks to charge for what is currently free. It'll be under the excuss of
"excessive expenses" and/or commercials not very useful anymore because
everybody skips them.
=TR=


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