Turner CEO: "PVR Users Are Thieves" 971
A user writes: "It was bound to happen - 2600.com is reporting that Turner Broadcasting CEO Jamie Kellner is calling PVR users thieves. When asked why personal video recorders are bad for the industry, Keller says 'Because of the ad skips.... It's theft. Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to watch the spots. Otherwise you couldn't get the show on an ad-supported basis. Any time you skip a commercial or watch the button you're actually stealing the programming.' Since when have we made contracts with the broadcasters for watching their content? More of the 2600 article can be found here."
Karma Whoring: Link to Full Interview (Score:1, Informative)
*cough* posting anonymous because... well.. you know.
-spectecjr
Ad Detecting VCRs (Score:5, Informative)
After a quick Google I found an example of such device, being the Hitachi VT-FX880E that has a feature called Commercial Advantage. I am not sure how effective it is but his a snippet taken from a review [homecinemachoice.com]
If the FX880 were a computer Commercial Advantage would be described as its killer app. What it actually reflects is Hitachi ingeniously tackling the old problem of getting rid of the ads from programmes recorded from commercial TV stations. There have been attempts to do this almost from the dawn of the VCR but most have attempted to blank out the ads completely. What Commercial Advantage cleverly does is detect when an ad break starts, automatically kicks into fast forward and then drops back to normal speed when the programme resumes, all without you having to lift a finger.
It does this by detecting a signal that is sent at the beginning of each ad break which effectively returns a network to local programming so ads for that region can be shown. A signal at the end of the break marks network programming restarting and the end of the Commercial Advantage option. As with all good ideas it is deceptively simple but not without its faults. In our tests of the feature we found CA kicking in at the start of local TV promo spots (trailers, etc) that run before the advertisements themselves. Even so, it's a great idea and a genuinely useful one.
He can suck my ass. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:The future of TV and commercials (Score:5, Informative)
So what they said was that the reason you made the copy made a difference in whether you needed permission or not. They said, quite reasonably, that if the reason you made the copy was to watch it later, that was cool, and you don't need the permisison of the studio. Because this was ruled a fair use, it meant the VCR was not an illegal device, the way the studios wanted it to be. It has other uses, such as recording Mr. Rogers. Mr. Rogers, a big believer in sharing, came into the court and said he didn't mind if people taped his shows. Again, this meant to the court that the VCR must be legal.
That created a good standard that said that even though you could make infringing copies of movies with the VCR, it was still legal as a device because you could also do totally legal things with it. All good news.
The bad news comes when you read why they said it was OK to time-shift. Back in 1978, studies showed few people fast forwarded over commercials. No surprise, it was a pain to do it with a 1978 model VCR. Thus, the court said, people are just watching the shows at other times, and still seeing the commercials, so what are you studios complaining about? This box is getting you more viewers.
But if the court had decided that those viewers were skipping the commercials, they might have not ruled the same way. With newer tech, the story could have been different. The vote was only 5 to 4 -- just one judge changing his mind and the VCR would have been illegal, along with a lot of other tech.
And yes, leading the dissenters was our current chief justice.
Nobody knows how the modern court would rule. But you can't take out protection for automatic commercial skip from the older decision.
Of course, going to the bathroom during a live show doesn't have anything to do with copying, so it doesn't even come up. The law is all about copying, not about the commercials. Normally you can't copy at all, other than for the fair uses. The court said watching it later was a fair use. More recently, a lower court ruled that watching it on another device is a fair use too.
(This was a bit of an expansion of what fair use is, since most of the time it referred to republishing, not personal copying.)
The fight to protect technology will not be an easy one, unfortunately. This decision is more narrow than we might hope. However, the current court is a pretty good free speech court, and we have hope that they will approve free speech arguments.
Re:Thieves is a little strong, but... (Score:3, Informative)
If adverts no longer work then stop using them. There is plenty of scope for product placement in TV and of course, they could just cut wages. Besides, big media makes too much money already, I fail to see how profits falling from astronomical to simply extravagent will stop people making TV.
Here in the UK actors are paid a fraction of what the major US stars earn. Often they earn in a year what a similar US star will take home every episode. At least then they can stay a bit truer to their roots.
Of course we also have 6 TV channels, and many radio stations with no adverts paid for by the TV licence fee, which is currently a little over £9 per household per month.
Best thing is 24 currently being shown on BBC2. Each show is supposed to show the passing of one hour of the day yeah? But each show is only 45 minutes long because we have no adverts. Ha Ha! we get 33% more drama for our money.
Re:Ad Detecting VCRs (Score:5, Informative)
so this vcr would not work today. and digital cable channels dont use old-fashoned touch tone based Cue tones but a 3rd digital audio carrier sent on the sattelite feed that is fed directly to the ad insertion equipment and is never a part of the signal that leaves the cable TV headend.
The ONLY way you are going to detect and remove commercials is with a luminance level detector and a type of "AI" to watch a few of the shows and determine the approximation of the ad-break times and then work on assumptions. AD's are 30 and 60 seconds in length and breaks are from 2 to 4 minutes in length with Turner networks averaging 8 minutes or more. (UPN does 10 I swear!)
Re:Contract with the networks (Score:2, Informative)
Valid not just for TNT and US.
I hardly watch more then one film a month nowdays. The rest can be obtained on DVDs and the bbc news site contains more information than their news programs anyway.
Re:disgusting (Score:5, Informative)
That statement is slightly incorrect. Networks advertising revenue is based not only on how many people watch a show, but also on the what advertisers are willing to pay to show ads to each viewer. For example, Anheuser-Busch will pay a lot more per viewer to have Budweiser ads shown during an ESPN hockey game than during Oprah Winfrey's show because the two target audiences are different. If technology makes it easier for viewers to skip advertisements, then it can be expected that the advertiser's perecieved value for TV spots will drop, assuming the audience size does not grow. This is a reasonable assumption to make since if even fewer people now than before are viewing an ad, then fewer new sales can be expected as a result of a given television ad campaign. Thus networks will experience a drop in revenue because of this.
On the other hand, calling the user of PVR's theives will not do these networks any good, and risks further alienating people from these outlets' programming. Technology changes: they need to deal with it, and I believe most will do so in the long run. IMO, the pay cable channels like HBO and Showtime have the right idea: produce top-notch, ad-free programming and air popular movies long before any other television outlet (beside PPV), and people will gladly pay $12-15 a month for your product. If a similar premium service came out that aired sports in a similar fashion at a similar price, then I would cancel all of my other basic cable channels in a heartbeat and be happy with over-the-air and two premium services for ~$30/month that I will watch on a nightly basis. Unfortunately, the rules of American sports make explicit allowances for TV timeouts and the like, so a premium ESPN doesn't seem possible for the near future.
Of course there's a contradiction in the article.. (Score:3, Informative)
CW: Have you had any pressure from advertisers?
JK: Our business is so much better this year than it was last year--it's remarkable. Rates are higher.
Doesn't this pretty much nullify and credibility in the whining about how people who skip through ads are hurting the industry? What's very annoying is that they don't "get it": when I'm fast forwarding through the ads, either on the VCR or PVR, I'm scanning to know when to let go of the FF button. I'm paying MORE attention to the ad (albeit in time-compressed space) than I probably would be in real-time.
For example:
"Ad, ugh, where's the remote, , car ad, tampon ad, Miss Cleo, whoa what's that? check out ad, back to fast forward, grow more hair ad, lose unwanted hair ad, Miss Cleo, dog food ad, ad that made no sense and I doubt I'd do better in real-time, Jordan's Furniture ad - stop hafta watch, FF again, car ad, stop for Dean's Home Furniture ad? I doubt it!, Miss Cleo, back to program...
There's probably MORE brand name recognition among VCR/PVR users than the people who have to suffer through real-time ads. If I were in advertising, I'd definitely do a study on this - actually I'd exploit it by making an ad that looks great while fast-forwarded (or one that mimics it in real-time - you'd get 60 seconds of content in 30 seconds!)
Re:Other Crimes (Score:2, Informative)
You should check out this 2600 story [inside.com]. They interview the guy, and he answers that question. There's also a link to this article at the very top of this discussion. I think this discussion might have been intended for people who had read the article, but I'm not sure.
How does my mitsubishi VCR do it then? (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know if it's the same technology but here's what it does: records the show, and after it's stopped (or powered off by the sat receiver) the VCR travels back through the tape and marks the commercials. It may not be using cue tones, but whatever it is (alien mind-rays?) it's worked perfectly every time I've recorded anything. On UPN, FOX, TLC, WB, ABC, etc.