• TV Networks Say You're Breaking The Law When You Skip Commercials
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[QUOTE]Television networks are having a busy month trying to stamp out new TV-watching technology, including telling a court that skipping a commercial while watching a recorded show is illegal. Yesterday, Fox, NBC, and CBS all sued Dish Network over its digital video recorder with automatic commercial-skipping. The same networks, plus ABC, Univision, and PBS, are gearing up for a May 30 hearing in their cases against Aereo, a New York startup bringing local broadcast TV to the Internet. EFF and Public Knowledge filed an amicus brief supporting Aereo this week. The suits against Dish are a response to the "Hopper" DVR and its "Auto Hop" feature, which automatically skips over commercials. According to the networks' complaints, the Hopper automatically records eight days' worth of prime time programming on the four major networks that subscribers can play back on request. Beginning a few hours after the broadcast, viewers can choose to watch a program sans ads. These suits are yet another in a long and ignominious series of lawsuits by content owners seeking to control the features of personal electronic devices, and to capture for themselves the value of new technologies no matter who invents them. We've seen this movie before. Most directly, the Dish suits look like a replay of the 2002 suit against DVR maker ReplayTV. The networks sued ReplayTV for copyright infringement based on another automated commercial-skip feature. They claimed that viewers were infringing copyright when they skipped ads during playback, that skipping "robs the advertisers," and that ReplayTV should be responsible. EFF argued then, and in a later suit on behalf of Replay's customers, that choosing not to watch ads during playback is pretty far from being a violation of federal law. Unfortunately, the cost of the suit drove ReplayTV out of business before the court could rule on the networks' wacky theory. Fast forward ten years. The networks are accusing Dish of "inducing" copyright infringement. That's a legal theory first created in the record labels' case against peer-to-peer software maker Grokster. The problem for the networks is that a technology maker, service, or other middleman can't be held liable for inducing copyright infringement unless their customers are actually infringing. And that means the networks will have to convince a judge that people who record a TV show, and later decide to skip over the commercials during playback, are violating federal law. Dish is fighting back hard, filing its own lawsuit in New York to have its devices ruled legal. Hopefully, the courts won't turn millions of American commercial-skippers into lawbreakers. [/QUOTE] [URL="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/05/tv-networks-say-youre-breaking-law-when-you-skip-commercials"]https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/05/tv-networks-say-youre-breaking-law-when-you-skip-commercials[/URL] Really hard trying to pick a post icon for this one...good lord. I had a ReplayTV back in the day and it was pretty cool.
[thumb]http://urbanext.illinois.edu/baby/images/babycrying.jpg[/thumb] I guess they could lose money from commercial skipping? but it's here to stay, [B]deal with it.[/B]
Some of the channels here have 15min long commercial breaks. I'd rather die in a hail of fire by the police trying to arrest me for skipping commercials than spending 15mins looking at the same thing over and over again.
[QUOTE=dass;36088635]Some of the channels here have 15min long commercial breaks. I'd rather die in a hail of fire by the police trying to arrest me for skipping commercials than spending 15mins looking at the same thing over and over again.[/QUOTE] at least many commercials are OK. I've seen a few really funny/good commercials. So at least you sometimes get some really good stuff :v: I haven't watched TV in years though, are they that bad? Don't tell me, most of them are for penis pills...
commercials is one of the reasons i don't watch TV and because theres nothing ever good on
[quote]including telling a court that skipping a commercial while watching a recorded show is illegal.[/quote] In order for something to be illegal, there first has to be a law which actually makes it illegal. There are no laws even in existence that make circumventing or completely blocking in the first place advertisements of any sort, whether they be on television or here on the Internet, illegal. This is case is retarded, and these companies that are seriously trying to peddle this horseshit in court are obviously stuffed full of greedy fucks. [QUOTE=Ermac20;36088674]commercials is one of the reasons i don't watch TV and [b]because theres nothing ever good on[/b][/QUOTE] Don't you want to watch Swamp People and Ancient Aliens on History Channel? What about a five-hour marathon of Border Wars on National Geographic, or a three-hour marathon of CSI Miami on AMC? Comedy Central's rerunning Super Troopers again for the millionth time.:v:
If there is anything I want to watch on TV: I record it and watch it later so I don't have to watch those fucking adverts
This better get thrown out of court.
[QUOTE=J!NX;36088645]at least many commercials are OK. I've seen a few really funny/good commercials. So at least you sometimes get some really good stuff :v: I haven't watched TV in years though, are they that bad? Don't tell me, most of them are for penis pills...[/QUOTE] Its not the fact that they are good or bad. They are just 15mins long. You're watching a movie, it goes to commercial break, and then it only comes back up after said 15mins. Although, it depends on the channel. We got 4 main channels, and only 2 do that to its full potential. The channels themselves are already bad, the commercials make you pull your hair off from all the time wasted and annoying repeated bullshit you see.
I guess I'm the only one who isn't bothered by commercials. :v:
[QUOTE=Ermac20;36088674]commercials is one of the reasons i don't watch TV and because theres nothing ever good on[/QUOTE] I haven't had a TV hooked up in my room for years.
[video=youtube;RATEoDH9WiY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RATEoDH9WiY[/video] let them come
I take it that we're also breaking the law by going to make a cup of tea when the commercials are on? Also, I'd hate to have to put up with US tv, you're able to guess where there would be an ad break, and it seems that you have something stupid like one every 10 mins. We generally have to put up with one every 15 mins or so. Having ads on cable / sky is irritating enough as is - you're paying a fair amount for a load more channels, yet still have to put up with them trying to scrounge more money.
Dont have this, but does this make it also illegal when I'm watching TV and rather than watch the ads I go to the bathroom, and get a snack, and anything else I could reasonably do rather than just sit there bored out of my mind for 10 minute commercial breaks that seem to pop up ever 5 minutes of show I watch?
I bought a TIVO specifically because I could skip ads. I'll be damned before I stop skipping them.
I like how we paid for their offered 999 channels, but everything over 150 is pay per view. And then I really liked how suddenly they decided to replay commercials, right after the same commercial just aired. And then I especially liked how they began making my commercial breaks more often, drawing out 25 minute shows to an hour long. And then the real zinger was that when the show came back on after all the time of waiting and looking for something proper, I realized that it was another retarded reality TV show that ended by giving us an answer that three seconds of proper thinking could have solved. And from that day I decided that videogames were probably the better way to go. Or drawing. Or writing. Or reading or just fucking anything besides watching the absolute rubbish that they try to force feed into my retinas. No sir, I don't want to watch another episode of fucking King of Queens, I understand that the entire show is based around a man trying not to get in trouble with his overbearing wife. Aliens/big foot/chupacabra/dinosaurs/monsters don't exist. Nostradomas was a smart con-man that realized that people were retarded enough to pay money to hear about something that will happen after they're gone. Just be more communicative with your wife and every single problem would be solved. Why are you being payed to go onto a ship and fish, when you could just as easily simply go into a business that doesn't try to specifically kill you? Don't act tough and mysterious- you chose this job. And, to finally solve the major problem of every single tv show's plot: If you don't think it's safe, then it's probably a busted myth. Otherwise, try not to die so much.
Sometimes commercial breaks are so annoying or so long that I forget what I'm watching in the first place.
I hit the cancel button, I knew something like this would happen
[QUOTE=dass;36088635]Some of the channels here have 15min long commercial breaks. I'd rather die in a hail of fire by the police trying to arrest me for skipping commercials than spending 15mins looking at the same thing over and over again.[/QUOTE] What? Whereabouts do you live? [editline]26th May 2012[/editline] also BBC fuck yeah
Lol so what's next? They tell us we can't get up off the couch or look away while commercials are playing?
then advertisement companies shit their pants when they realise the bbc has no adverts
TV is awful. It's like, oh shit, there are shitty reality shows in between my commercials!
Fuck the police
The only commercial I actually don't mind is technically an infomercial and it is the original Magic Bullet Blender infommercial. For some reason I would actually get excited about that commercial when it would come on. Then they stopped running and started running that ridiculous Baby Bullet thing.
I always mute the tv when a commercial is on anyways, tv commercials are completely noneffective on me except for the SuperBowl and the Olympics.
The good commercials died with Billy Mays.
Who cares? Just record all the shows you wanna watch, and watch them later and fast forward through the commercials
I've never been bothered by commercials because I've never been able to skip them If I did have something that could, I would probably get spoiled by it and never be able to take them again.
[QUOTE=IMA SHAARK;36089177]TV is awful. It's like, oh shit, there are shitty reality shows in between my commercials![/QUOTE] Nice title
[QUOTE=Negrul1;36089108]What? Whereabouts do you live? [editline]26th May 2012[/editline] also BBC fuck yeah[/QUOTE] Portugal. Where every show is a rip off of other shows except they are 1000x worse because the hosts are horrible dicks trying to be funny.
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