New technology that forces viewrs to watch commercials.

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
They never learn.



The time has come to overthrow the MPAA!



Ditto the cable companies and all other media providers that are too dense to get it. How many of you DVR owners are prepared to pay an additional fee to get your device to do what you bought it for in the first place? Which of you are ready to be barred from flipping to another show during a commercial break?



Yesterday, technology freed us from commercials. Tomorrow, technology binds us to them. As for today, I say we fight. Commercial broadcasts must go the way of the dinosaur. I am starting to believe that mass pirating of broadcast media is the only way to get their attention. I don't really have any solutions. I am just royally pissed off!



There will be a combination pity party and whine fest at my house in the center of Pissville square. It is on the corner of Rant Blvd. and Rave St. See you there.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 67
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Mac Voyer

    They never learn.



    The time has come to overthrow the MPAA!



    Ditto the cable companies and all other media providers that are too dense to get it. How many of you DVR owners are prepared to pay an additional fee to get your device to do what you bought it for in the first place? Which of you are ready to be barred from flipping to another show during a commercial break?



    Yesterday, technology freed us from commercials. Tomorrow, technology binds us to them. As for today, I say we fight. Commercial broadcasts must go the way of the dinosaur. I am starting to believe that mass pirating of broadcast media is the only way to get their attention. I don't really have any solutions. I am just royally pissed off!



    There will be a combination pity party and whine fest at my house in the center of Pissville square. It is on the corner of Rant Blvd. and Rave St. See you there.






    The only possible way I will ever possibly agree with this is if it means you dont have to pay a cable subscription or anything like that ie TV becomes free.



    But if the want to make us pay for the privelidge of fastforwarding comercials ontop of our cable subscription then **** them.



    stu
  • Reply 2 of 67
    This is the biggest load of crap I've ever seen. What's next? You can't mute the TV while it's showing advertisements? It will be a sad sad day if this ever ends up in my living room.



    Quote:

    "The invention gives viewers a choice to watch an entire movie with or without ads. You need both options in order to make that happen."



    The sad thing is we already have that option. The only thing this invention could be used for is to make me pay more for what I already have.
  • Reply 3 of 67
    Next: Technology that stops you from getting up from your seat during commercials.
  • Reply 4 of 67
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,437member
    I'm not worried. Television is on a thin thread with me anyways. I could and would drop cable like a bad habit if they even made a cursory movement towards something like this.
  • Reply 5 of 67
    splinemodelsplinemodel Posts: 7,311member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Mac Voyer

    They never learn.



    The time has come to overthrow the MPAA!





    Take it easy. It is actually illegal to fast-forward through advertisements. It has always been, even well before the DMCA was even a thought in someone's mind. In the 80's Sony fought a huge court battle over the legalities of the VCR, the result of which helped solidify what is "personal fair use" of copyrighted materials.



    Anyway, ads aren't all that bad since they pay for the costs of Television program production. If you want all TV to be done on a pay-per-view basis, then sure, it makes sense to get all worked up about this stuff. Personally, I'd rather pay nothing and sit through the ads. I'll admit, though, that I'm weird: I appreciate the educational value of ads. There are times where I have a problem that is solved by the product in some ad, which I wouldn't have otherwise known about. That anecodote, however, is not something I wish to debate over, since it's not my intention to make my pro-ad stance a matter of one person's valuation of the advertisements themselves versus another's.
  • Reply 6 of 67
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Splinemodel

    It is actually illegal to fast-forward through advertisements. It has always been, even well before the DMCA was even a thought in someone's mind.



    Care to cite a source on that?
  • Reply 7 of 67
    mac voyermac voyer Posts: 1,295member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Splinemodel

    Take it easy. It is actually illegal to fast-forward through advertisements.



    What dat u say?



    Please tell me how fast forwarding through material that was legally recorded on a legally purchased machine on a legally acquired media (tape or disk) that I personally own and using in my own home is illegal? Forgive the poor sentence structure but you have got to be joking. Please provide a single shred of evidence for this that does not come from Sony's wet dreams.
  • Reply 8 of 67
    Time-shifting programming (recording for viewing at an alternate time) is generally considered acceptable usage of VCR technology. IIRC, this is the standard that Sony agreed to for early VCR/copyright lawsuits.



    Some stories have come out recently that would limit DVR/TiVO to a one-or-two-week window (leveraging on the precedent of the time-shifting past, but setting new limits). BBC parks all their shows online for free download for a week after air, then they get pulled and archived.



    I could see a case that fast forwarding the commercials is just another form of timeshifting. I'll watch them later... much later.



    The other solution is to stick to public television... PBS/CBC/BBC/etc. brilliant documentaries and shows like Frontline and Nova, all without commercial break except for the generic 'funded in part by...' at the front and back.



    UK teevee has quite strict prohibitions against product placement, particularly at the BBC (which is supposed to be commercial free as a publicly funded broadcaster). The UK advertising standards folks wouldn't put up with much of the content from US shows (in some cases insisting on a blurring of the offending logos), in other cases calling for full edits of the name.



    Otherwise, the in-episode ads that compose the bulk of almost any Makeover show (home, wardrobe, etc), and the product placement of shows like 24, or even the bloody Price is Right, will become the next battleground.



    I remember the days when shows had generic 'Beer' or 'Catsup' products (before the generic food craze, too).







    </feelsold>
  • Reply 9 of 67
    mac voyermac voyer Posts: 1,295member
    Seems to me that every VCR and DVR I have ever seen or used has a FF button on it. In fact, the best VCR I ever had was made by Sony. Not only that, they had the best remote control I ever used. It also seems to me that Phillips made the first Tivo box. It was a 14 hr. unit. I owned it along with the lifetime subscription. Phillips, along with Tivo, revolutionized time shifting. Phillips is a device manufacturer, not a content producer. Why would they stab their consumer purchasing base in the back and get in bed with the enemy? There has got to be more to the story than what we have.
  • Reply 10 of 67
    brussellbrussell Posts: 9,812member




    "OK, I'll pay the fee! I'll pay the fee!"
  • Reply 11 of 67
    andersanders Posts: 6,523member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by mynamehere

    Next: Technology that stops you from getting up from your seat during commercials.



    This just in: The commercials won´t end until you have bought the products. Next generation televisions will have build in bar code scanners you have to use to prove you have done so.
  • Reply 12 of 67
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,438moderator
    "We just provide the technology. It's up to the broadcaster to decide on how they use the technology"



    and it's up to the consumer if they want to buy the technology. All it takes is for one stupid company to use the technology and their competition to not use it and the stupid company keeps losing customers until they realise it's not a good move so they too stop using the technology.



    I really wouldn't mind advertising as much if advertisers were good at it. When I see those funny TV commercial shows, you see how entertaining ads can be. I can watch a whole hours worth of them. But most of the time these days you just get really stupid ads that are either produced by idiots or deliberately stupid so you remember them.



    What I don't understand is where advertisers get the idea that TV ads are effective. I haven't once seen an ad that has persuaded me to buy something. If I want shampoo, will I buy the kind that some dubbed airhead actress tells me is the best? NO. When I buy stuff, I do my own research (usually online) as to what product suits me best.
  • Reply 13 of 67
    splinemodelsplinemodel Posts: 7,311member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Mac Voyer

    What dat u say?



    Please tell me how fast forwarding through material that was legally recorded on a legally purchased machine on a legally acquired media (tape or disk) that I personally own and using in my own home is illegal? Forgive the poor sentence structure but you have got to be joking. Please provide a single shred of evidence for this that does not come from Sony's wet dreams.




    Sony doesn't care what you do once you buy the VCR. It's the TV networks that care.



    For those who want a source, google something along the lines of "Sony VCR copyright court." OR, for that matter, "Copyright derivative work fast forward." The same issue came up when the TiVo came out, and for this reason TiVo was forced to remove their "advance 30 seconds" feature. The beef is that by fast-forwarding you are creating a "derivative work" of a private, copyrighted product. That is illegal. Sony got off the hook with the VCR because the court(s) found that the VCR had a lot of perfectly-legal value, and that its ability to skirt the law was more of a side-effect rather than a feature.



    If you want me to baby-feed you with quotes from the actual court cases, too bad. If you're legitimately curious, the internet is a powerful tool. Hell, you can probably get a definitive answer on the Wikipedia alone.
  • Reply 14 of 67
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Splinemodel

    For those who want a source, google something along the lines of "Sony VCR copyright court." OR, for that matter, "Copyright derivative work fast forward."



    If you want me to baby-feed you with quotes from the actual court cases, too bad. If you're legitimately curious, the internet is a powerful tool. Hell, you can probably get a definitive answer on the Wikipedia alone.




    Ummm...you are being a little wimpy here...you said:



    Quote:

    Originally posted by Splinemodel

    It is actually illegal to fast-forward through advertisements. It has always been, even well before the DMCA was even a thought in someone's mind.



    If you are going to assert something with such certainty, you should be willing to provide the citations rather than send someone on a scavenger hunt.



  • Reply 15 of 67
    splinemodelsplinemodel Posts: 7,311member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Chris Cuilla

    If you are going to assert something with such certainty, you should be willing to provide the citations rather than send someone on a scavenger hunt.



    It's more that I don't really care if you want to know or not. If you don't believe me, it doesn't bother me much because we're dealing with facts and not a matter of my opinion. If I were bringing up the laws of electromagnetism, I'd probably tell you to read a textbook on your own time, just the same.
  • Reply 16 of 67
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Splinemodel

    we're dealing with facts and not a matter of my opinion.



    So you say.



    Whatever.
  • Reply 17 of 67
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Marvin

    I really wouldn't mind advertising as much if advertisers were good at it. When I see those funny TV commercial shows, you see how entertaining ads can be. I can watch a whole hours worth of them. But most of the time these days you just get really stupid ads that are either produced by idiots or deliberately stupid so you remember them.



    The repeats can get fairly tedious as well. You can only watch the same Capital One Ad so many times.
  • Reply 18 of 67
    mac voyermac voyer Posts: 1,295member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Splinemodel

    It's more that I don't really care if you want to know or not. If you don't believe me, it doesn't bother me much because we're dealing with facts and not a matter of my opinion. If I were bringing up the laws of electromagnetism, I'd probably tell you to read a textbook on your own time, just the same.



    I just don't believe that I am breaking the law every time I forward through commercials with my DVR provided by the cable company. No one has ever hinted at or suggested that such activities were illegal. There was no warning label on the box saying that I could only forward through shows and not ads. By the way, I'm not so sure about electromagnetism either now that you mention it.
  • Reply 19 of 67
    chris cuillachris cuilla Posts: 4,825member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Splinemodel

    The beef is that by fast-forwarding you are creating a "derivative work" of a private, copyrighted product.



    That doesn't even pass the "giggle test".



    Fast forwarding does not "create" anything at all (let alone a "derivative work"). Why not changing the volume setting? Rewinding to see a scene again? Pausing to go make popcorn? Fall asleep during the middle and waking towards the end? Closing my eyes during scenes I care to avoid?



    Those are identical types of "derivations" (if you will)...but they derivations of the viewing process. They do not alter the work in any inherent manner.



    If that is the premise that your "fast forwarding through commercials is illegal and always has been" statement is based on...it is a shaky foundation...heck, it isn't even a foundation.



    The manner in which I interact with something does not modify it or create a "derivative work". It may modify my perception or reception or interpretation of it. And if that is illegal, then we're saying that a creator has absolute authority and control over the interpretation of his/her creation. That's dumb. Not very "post-modern" either.



    Now, if I were to take a recorded version, remove the commercials and distribute it (for $ or not)...then you might have a point.
  • Reply 20 of 67
    splinemodelsplinemodel Posts: 7,311member
    Are you the court? No. So your opinion on the legality of this business means little. You continue to mistake me for the source of this litigation, or at least as a supporter of it. Personally, I don't have any problem with people fast forwarding through advertisements, but my opinion doesn't matter here either. This isn't an argument or even a debate: it's me telling you the facts and you denying them obtusely.



    The issue is not whether you think the law is fair, and you've indicated a few times that you find that it's not. The issue is whether an American court found that fast-forwarding can at times be a violation of copyright law. So I suggest that you do that research instead of blathering inconsequentially.
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