Wired has a great article about the threat Digital Television poses to current digital recorders like Tivo and ReplayTV. As someone planning on buying a Tivo as soon as I can afford one, I read the article with extreme interest. Afterwards, I found myself muttering and ranting under my breath for a while. Some people never learn.
Hollywood is freaking out again about copy protection. They’re afraid that the perfect signal quality of digital TV plus high-speed digital recording will equal rampant piracy. Their solution: withhold their content unless they’re allowed to control your hardware.
“If Hollywood gets its way, recording won’t be as easy as it is today. Jack Valenti, the head of the Motion Picture Association of America, has said that without proper security measures, the industry won’t allow its movies to be broadcast. The reason: Digital signals create perfect copies that won’t degrade. Executives fear they would deliver perfect copies to millions of viewers.
The Federal Communications Commission is considering a proposal that would allow cable companies to turn off the firewire port.
Such a measure would keep people from recording their favorite shows, said Jenny Miller, a spokeswoman with the Consumer Electronics Association, something manufacturers have steadfastly refused to do.
‘If you talk to anyone on the manufacturing side, we are trying to work with the studios so that people can get high definition television with their recorders,’ Miller said. ‘But it’s getting to the point that you can’t even take a show you tape over to your friend’s house.’
Cable companies say they have no intention of ever restricting the port, they just want to be able to show blockbuster movies. That puts them at the mercy of the studios.”
Just so we’re clear on the subject, if I can’t time-shift my favorite shows, I’ll just stop watching TV altogether. I’m a busy guy. My schedule in Agenda Fusion is generally packed solid from 5 am to 10 pm every day, including weekends. I may like Friends, but for three Thursdays out of the month, I have somewhere else to be in the evening than at home watching TV. If I couldn’t record it, I wouldn’t see it. Period.
The MPAA (and the other content conglomerates) need to wake up and realize that no one needs their content. They traffic in entertainment, a luxury. If they make it too difficult for people to partake of that luxury, they won’t and they’ll take their dollars elsewhere.
I pay $72 a month for digital cable, and even that is more than I should probably be spending right now. Go ahead, give me a reason to cancel. I’ve got lots of books to read. More than that, I have a life of my own.
Mark My Words: The content industries in America are going to get so blinded by their relentless pursuit for perfect protection that they’re going to find it. They’re going to lock down their content so well, in fact, that in addition to the pirates being unable to access their content, paying customers won’t either. And without customers, how long can they stay in business?
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