TiVo: you can only innovate if the NFL and MPAA say so

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TiVo: you can only innovate if the NFL and MPAA say so

Today's Washington Post carries a jaw-dropping article about TiVo's latest fight [via waxy]. Tivo ToGo was announced at CES in January of this year, with a planned Fall release, but if the Movie Industry and the NFL get their way, it will never see the light of day.

What is most shocking about the objections is that TiVo ToGo is an already crippled version of something TiVo hackers and users of software PVRs like Windows Media Center and Snapstream have been doing for years now. See that huge ugly plastic dongle pictured in the upper right? That's your user "key" that makes sure only your TiVo programs can play on your PC or laptop. I haven't seen or tested this functionality out, but I'm sure those programs are encrypted to the point that they are unplayable on any device that doesn't also have the hardware key plugged in. I wouldn't be surprised if the video format is a proprietary one as well. TiVo is also talking about adding a show swapping feature, which is great news, but you will have a limit of ten other devices that you can share with (ReplayTV used to let you swap with an unlimited amount of other users, which got them sued until they went bankrupt and removed it).

Simply put, compared to how Microsoft's offerings work, and a slew of small software packages for the PC and Mac that record TV, the TiVo ToGo feature is a crippled lockbox. You won't be sharing shows on Kazaa anytime soon with TiVo ToGo features.

The NFL and MPAA are attacking both the show extraction feature, claiming it will allow programs to propigate online, and the show sharing features, claiming TiVo owners will share them with more than their friends. Their nightmare scenario is that maybe, possibly, someday someone you don't know might ask for a copy of an obscure program you happened to have recorded and saved. Oh, the horror of it all!

For no other reason than it points out how insane this is, here are some priceless quotes:

TiVo was one of 13 companies that asked the FCC for approval, arguing that its copy-protection system met the requirements. The Motion Picture Association of America, Hollywood's lobbying arm, and the NFL then filed objections to TiVo's plan.

First off, how much does is suck that TiVo can't just think of new features and build them, but they have to ask for permission from the FCC? Can't a company innovate without asking everyone if it is ok first? Also, why is the MPAA and NFL going after TiVo when Microsoft's Media Center Edition allows you to not only share your programs with other PCs and laptops, but it also spawned an entire market for portable TV devices like this one? Where were the movie industry goons when those products were announced and released?

This other quote puts a light on how screwed up the NFL is:

The NFL, meanwhile, is concerned that a user could send a copy of a game to someone in another time zone, where the game is blacked out.

Only the NFL would go so far out of their way to make sure their most ardent fans can't see the football games they want to see.

I sincerely hope TiVo weathers this legal storm, the products are already loaded with enough protection to keep the movie industry's worst fears from taking place, though I suspect if the show sharing features get into TiVo, the maximum number of shareable devices will most likely be something like 3 other boxes instead of 10.

by Matt Haughey July 22, 2004 in News

Comments

What short-sighted idiots. Hmmmm - take advantage of the leading PVR company's willingness to provide a severely limited form of show copying/sharing that will satisfy many if not most end users OR prevent the limited form of copying/sharing and instead focus the attention of end-users on more open-ended sharing options over which you have no control. The stupidity of entertainment industry executives never ceases to amaze me.

Posted by: AJRitz at Jul 22, 2004 9:17:33 AM

It's my opinion that entertainment conglomerates have always been slow to evolve because they're trying to serve the lowest common denomenator. They want the maximum user penetration with the least amount of effort. Quality and diversification are not so important as market penetration and ease of use.

The problem the entertainment industry has with TIVO and similar evolutions in entertainment technology is the same one that the music folks had with napster. The end users, their customers, are much more adaptive than the corporations. In the world you and I live in, this would mean that those corporations either adapt to provide the products that the public wants, or they die a quick death as smaller more maneuverable and adaptive companies step in to take their place.

It's sad, really. Here they are with companies innovating for them in such a way that they're spelling out what people want. They're doing the hard work and the testing. All the entertaiment idustry needs to do is wake up and find ways to capitalize on that work.

How long exactly have we been talking about "on demand television?" How hard is it to see that expensive subscription model television is not working for people that only watch a handful of programs a year? How hard is it to figure out that programs are never on when you want to see them and that people are unwilling to sit at home with their lifestyle dictated by the guy at corporate who decides when to air their favorit show?

Unfortunately, in our legalistic society, it's much easier for them to just pay for laws to crush the little guys and continue to tell us what we want rather than listen. Perhaps the movie folks will learn from the music folks and after they've sued all the innovators and then swallowed them and the sales numbers continue to fall, then maybe they'll start seriously trying to sell us what we've been asking for all along.

Posted by: JAT at Jul 22, 2004 10:28:25 AM

That is ridiculous to say the least. If it comes into my house, I want to watch on what I want, when I want.

Posted by: Mark Mascolino at Jul 22, 2004 11:03:54 AM

Hey Matt - I left my commments about this here: http://www.rklau.com/tins/archives/2004/07/22/nfl_doesnt_want_me_to_use_tivo.php; I left a voicemail with Peter Brickman, senior director of operations and technology for the NFL (call (212) 450-2000, the NFL switchboard).

Posted by: Rick Klau at Jul 22, 2004 12:48:10 PM

What's especially frustrating is that the horse isn't just out of the barn on this, it's happily munching clover in a field two counties over. Virtually any TV show of any significance is already online being shared as soon as it's aired, thanks to completely legal technology anyone can buy off the shelf at Best Buy or CompUSA. Even if TiVo ToGo was wide open and let you do unrestricted video extraction, it wouldn't make this situation any "worse" for the content owners -- it's not possible for it to be *made* any "worse"! They would actually be *better* off if they endorsed a TiVo ToGo-like system that put some limitations on where the video files can go -- ultimately by restricting these perfectly-reasonable capabilities they just drive more and more people to get the same functionality via the P2P nets.

Posted by: Ernie Longmire at Jul 22, 2004 1:04:38 PM

Ernie - I made essentially that point to Peter Brickman (guy from NFL; he called me back) and it didn't carry any water with him. They can't fight BitTorrent or Kazaa, but they *can* fight TiVo. So TiVo ends up paying the price for being accountable, while the renegade (and illegal) file swapping services go on their merry way, making the problem worse. I agree that the NFL would be better off by endorsing an improvement over the wild west that digital content currently is. Fact is, the content owners just don't have a good alternative, nor do they need one. Until they start seeing revenue drops by *not* embracing these technologies, they won't act. That's why I'll be cancelling my subscription to Sunday Ticket, with a promise that I'll renew if they embrace TiVo to Go.

Posted by: Rick Klau at Jul 22, 2004 1:25:58 PM

Quick comment. Due to customer comments, dongles are no longer in the picture.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=2020445&highlight=dongle#post2020445

Posted by: Dan at Jul 22, 2004 2:33:01 PM

But Brickman seems to forget that TiVo isn't the only "legal" recording source that is capable of show trading. Is the NFL going to sue Microsoft over Media Center PC's? They can record shows and they have handheld devices that should hit the streets any day now (if they haven't already) that allows a user to take their Media Center PC recordings with them. Is the NFL going to sue every PC TV card maker that allows PC's to record television shows and save them as .mpg files?

Singling out TiVo is just nonsensical. Of all of the above, TiVo is the ONLY vendor that has offered to work to limit the distributability of recorded content. Yet TiVo is also the only vendor that the NFL has singled out for attack.

Finally, NFL blackout rules are an archaic left-over from when most NFL teams filled their stands primarily with single game ticket purchases. Now, almost every NFL team's in-stadium audience is composed primarily of season-ticket holders. There's even a good argument that the blackout rules constitute an illegal restraint of trade by a monopoly. So far, they've gotten around that argument by calling the blackout rules merely part of the contractual arrangement between the NFL and the broadcasters. But the one thing the USFL case DID succeed at was proving that the NFL is a monopoly and is subject to federal antitrust law. I can think of no clearer example of the NFL exercising monopolistic control of the market, in violation of federal antitrust law, then dictating to broadcast stations that there are certain games that they will not be permitted to broadcast (despite the ready availability of the feed for the game) and preventing consumers from seeing ANY game when the hometown team fails to seel out, regardless of the fact that another network is broadcasting another game in other markets at the same time (here I'm talking only about situations where NBC and FOX both have games slotted for broadcast, NBC has the hometown team, but cannot show the game because it's not sold out, and FOX is also prohibited from broadcasting a game in the time slot in that market). The NFL has effectively tied the broadcasting contracts to the sale of tickets in each stadium, which is probably an example of illegal tying of one product to another by a monopoly company.

Posted by: AJRitz at Jul 23, 2004 9:28:33 AM

So strong is the antitrust violation here, (see Dan's points above)that the NFL may well have no choice but to simply set its 1947 Blackout rule aside.

Not just that, but there's an argument to be made that with all these near billion dollar stadiums being built with public money, that by accepting such funds (directly or indirectly) -- a contract exists between the NFL and these various public entities; whereby, a jurisdiction exceeds its legislative powers by agreeing to such blackout rules. In other words, no public entity has the authority to waive a fundamental public right for TV access.
Bottom line: All it takes it just one market to be busted and it'll all come down.

Posted by: BrianE at Aug 16, 2004 8:26:59 AM

eu quero o tivo togo

Posted by: audisio at Jan 5, 2005 8:29:25 AM

TiVo: you can only innovate if the NFL and MPAA say so

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