ReplayTV Ready To Fight
from the not-backing-down dept
Unlike many other companies that are being forced by the entertainment industry to back down, SonicBlue’s ReplayTV is ready to fight the industry. Whereas companies like Napster and AudioGalaxy tried to negotiate with the entertainment industry to no avail – SonicBlue believes that negotiating isn’t going to work. They’re just going to put out their products and fight for the right for them to exist. As one exec there says, “it’s virtually impossible for the courts to get you to stop selling your product once it’s on the market.” Of course, they have a history of fighting and winning, since this was the same company that put out one of the first MP3-playing devices and had to go to court over that as well.
Comments on “ReplayTV Ready To Fight”
Just more Napster-like justification for theft
The way I see it, SonicBlue is just another Napster, in the sense that it encourages its users to steal, then turns around and tells the affected industries that they need to wake up and change their business models. Who are they to say that? The gall of these companies is amazing. Look, if you’re going to promote a commercial-skipping ‘feature’ in your PVR, you had better be ready for the backlash when ‘free’ TV becomes a thing of the past. Because that is what is going to happen as a result of these types of completely unregulated technologies that allow people to steal content without feeling like thieves.
But the fact is, anyone who uses Kazaa or Morpheus to download copyrighted music files, or anyone who gleefully uses the commercial skipper to avoid seeing an ad, is nothing more than a two-bit thief!
Re: Just more Napster-like justification for theft
While I agree in the case of Napster et al, I think Steve is way off base regarding skipping commercials. Stealing copyrighted music is NOT the same as skipping commercials. Copyright law protects the former, no law that I’m aware of protects the latter. Now, if you want to talk about recording and sending programs using SonicBlue, that’s a different story. If skipping a commercial is theft, then so is not reading every ad in a magazine. If magazines didn’t have ad revenue, the cover price would be $50.00, not $4.50.
Re: Re: Just more Napster-like justification for theft
People have been skiping adds since the invention of the VCR…. Free TV is still here….
Re: Re: Re: Just more Napster-like justification for theft
“Steve” is just a troll and you really shouldn’t bother validating his nonsense by responding to it.
Re: Re: Re:2 ooh, biting assessment!
What a stinging criticism – coming from a loser who calls himself “Trollfinder.” Don’t you have some Morpheus downloads to attend to?
Re: Re: Re:3 Free TV?
Free TV? Ummm, sure some of you can live with an antenna, but for those of us who need cable to exist, there’s no such thing as free TV.
All advertisers really need to do is make good commercials. We were watching some World Cup games on TiVo the other day, and we actually stopped to watch the commercials because they were funny! (now granted someone else had already seen them, in order to warn us they were funny). I mean there are TV specials like “World’s Best Commercials”. There’s clearly a market for them. If the industry is afraid that nobody will watch commercials all they really need to do is get their heads out of their asses and start making good ones.
msykes
Re: Re: Re:3 ooh, biting assessment!
They’re right, though – am I ‘stealing’ by going to the bathroom during commercials? Does the entertainment industry have the right to regulate my body functions? 😉
Re: Just more Napster-like justification for theft
And the person who goes to the bathroom during a TV show? What about those of us who channel surf during commercials?
How are they thieves?
You’re wrong on a very simple point: what SonicBlue and others are doing is providing customers with a service they want. That’s good business. What the entertainment industry is trying to do is block people from doing what they’d like to do. That’s bad business, and it’s going to bite them.
What’s funny is that people with shortsighted views like yours said the same thing about the VCR killing movies and television… and, instead they revitalized the industry.
New technologies come along all the time. It’s the job of a good business to adapt to the changing environment. What you’re saying is that the entertainment industry (unlike EVERY other industry) has a fundamental right to their business model. I think that’s more dangerous. Because, the end result is that the entertainment industry has no incentive to change, no incentive to compete and no incentive to actually offer their own consumers what they want. That’s how industries die.
You say that the entertainment industry will die if these technologies continue. I argue that the reverse is true. If we stifle these technologies in the US, customers *will* go elsewhere. If the entertainment industry continues to do what it can to annoy its own users – SOMEONE ELSE will come in and offer consumers what they want (almost definitely from outside the country).
Hardly anything new...
I’ve got a [30 second FF] commercial skip button on my VCR’s purchased some 6 years ago…