Thursday, September 15, 2005

TiVo won't save certain shows or allow moving them

I don't have, nor have I ever had TiVo. We have a DVR from Comcast, and it's like the greatest thing ever. It really is something everyone should have. Anyway, if I was a TiVo customer, I'd be pretty pissed off about these new limits. How can you be sure that you won't come home one day to watch some great show you've been looking forward to, only to discover that TiVo wouldn't record it for you AT ALL, because the copyright holder doesn't want you to? I see a lot of problems with this.

Not that I have anything against copyright holders having control over their content, but at some point, they need to live in reality. Restrictions like this are not going to make their content less available, because people can always record it with some non-TiVo restricted device, like a capture card to the computer, a DVD recorder, or even that technological marvel, the VCR. All these restrictions really do is piss off customers and encourage the piracy that these people are always whining about. I've always thought that if something is readily available illegaly, then the copyright holder should really try to make it just as easy to obtain legitimately. Otherwise, the restriction just seems artificial, and therefore clearly doesn't consider the customer at all. Copyright holders shouldn't be worried about how to best restrict their content, they should be worried about how to best make it available to customers. Maybe then they would stop looking at their customers as the enemy and realize that if people are obtaining their content illegaly, it means that they want that content, which should be a good thing for them.

Link via skortchaser's journal

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3 comments:

MDC said...

"I've always thought that if something is readily available illegaly, then the copyright holder should really try to make it just as easy to obtain legitimately."
My sentiments exactly. Also, I wonder how many programs that don't allow TiVo were "strongly encouraged" by companies frustrated that their advertising dollars were wasted because their commercials are skipped.

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