TiVo Is at Focus of TV ShowdownFCC decides today how copied programs can b

[papau]

TiVo Is at Focus of TV Showdown
The FCC decides today how copied programs can be used. Hollywood views it as a pivotal issue.
By Jon Healey Times Staff Writer
August 4, 2004

After intense lobbying by Hollywood, the Federal Communications Commission is expected to issue a potentially far-reaching ruling today affecting what television viewers can do with the programs they record.

The stickiest question before the agency is whether people can use a new breed of digital recorders from TiVo Inc. to pipe recorded programs over the Internet from their homes to their offices, hotel rooms, friends' living rooms or beyond.<snip>

The tussle began after the FCC required that digital television equipment guard against the "indiscriminate redistribution" of free TV shows via the Internet. Under this so-called broadcast flag rule, issued last November, manufacturers of digital TVs and recorders must install FCC-approved anti-piracy technologies on models sold after July 1, 2005.

Today's FCC decision will determine which of 13 approaches proposed by consumer-electronics and computer companies meet the new mandate.<snip>

[BlueEyedSon]

1. Link please?

[papau]

2. Link below - sorry :-)

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-tivo4aug04.story

[goju]

3. I cant open the link

My dsl is on the fritz again. I envisioned something like this when I first heard of Tivo. Not unlike when VCR's came out I guess.

[gratuitous]

4. But VCR taping is different . . . ?

I dunno, seems these guys are grasping, trying to hang onto outmoded ideas of holding and ownership in an age when a wad of electrons becomes "art" or "artistic output." People don't mind paying for that wad of electrons, they just don't want to pay $20 for something that can be obtained so easily and flawlessly copied with the push of a button. Look at the 99-cent music downloads: It's a reasonable price (maybe even a tad too low), both sides get what they want (money in exchange for the song), and all the extraneous nonsense (packaging, marketing, floor space on the sales floor) gets cut out.

But let 'em outlaw TIVO. I've got a Sony VAIO. Heh, heh, heh.