The Challenges and Rewards of 'Place-Shifting' 125
Grooves writes "Ars Technica has an insightful look at the challenges facing place-shifting. The article talks about new European legislation that could require broadcast licensing for all place-shifting devices, and they review some of the fair use problems in the US and how they could hurt innovation." From the article: "A few cables here, a few networking adjustments there, and you can use a product like the Slingbox or the software-based Orb to watch your TV (or TiVo, or DVD player) from just about anywhere you can get a network connection, be it your office, your hotel room, or the other side of the planet. Yet what makes place-shifting devices so powerful also makes them appear very dangerous to established entertainment and media companies."
Solution (Score:1, Insightful)
Stop watching television. It works fine for me. I have no stake, whatsoever, in the outcome of issues like this. If you don't like the way something is, stop supporting it, directly or indirectly. (ala Walmart, McDonalds, Cable companies that still pipe advertising after you already pay, etc.)
Why care?
Challenges indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
"When companies who don't exactly charge "minor fees" for high-speed mobile bandwidth start locking out high-bandwidth applications just so they can sell their own limited video entertainment options, something is seriously wrong."
Amen to that. These same clowns want a tiered Internet, too. Is it any wonder?
Video online is already proving to be the next big thing (think about the sitcom that was reborn via YouTube). I shudder at what idiocy the MPAA has in mind for the future.
Location Location Location (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems to me that the concern here should be with the potential for people to store the data streams that are being broadcast (like a tivo located on your LAN) rather than the "place-shifting". Seriously, what is the difference between me watching a show in my bedroom v. living room and between my house and my laptop when working from a hotel with a broadband connection. If I am paying for the service I should be able to enjoy it where it is convenient and comfortable for me to do so.
Re:Old Media is dead (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you, perhaps, live in the same legal climate as your TV watching neighors?
KFG
Re:Location Location Location (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, that has also been illegal since cable TV has been around (one of the reasons that there are limited anti-tamper devices on cable pedestals). The cable co. provides service to an address, and displaying that signal at an additional address was stealing cable (which is what they are concerned about here). They also wanted you to pay for each TV, which mostly went away as TVs became 'cable-ready', but now that they have migrated most of their base to digital cable, you need a box for every TV again, and they can bump up the revenue stream (which is why you'll never see them really thrilled about CableCard).
We can talk until we're blue in the face about should be this or that, but until the political and legal clout of the content /distribution industry is broken, we are going to be stuck with what is.
The problem isnt you (Score:2, Insightful)
That is all Big Brother is worried about... that and screwing the common citizen out of a few more bucks, but that's another rant altogether.
Re:governments trying to control information (Score:2, Insightful)
Until you run out of food.
KFG
Re:Solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, sure. Most revenue for any given channel comes from advertising, they barely get anything from your cable fee. I think the portion they get from the cableco only pays for the uplink costs.
Re:Solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Once they successfully enforce such regimes for Films and Music, they will move on to EVERYTHING else.
They've already got numbnut consumers buying into the idea that DVD's and CD's all come with an implied licence. They can easily extend that to books.
Re:naive argument. (Score:2, Insightful)
They tried to make reading DVDs impossible without an authorized player. The encryption was broken and DVDs can be read in computers through unlicensed software, the fact that this did not catch on (widespread) in the U.S. is due to the low price of DVD players. Most people will pay for something thats easy to use and cheap, rather than steal it through complex technical means that requires a degree of computer know-how. If the price of DVD players was $5000 and DVDs cost $200 dollars, you would see a huge change in the way people reacted to it, hence the large piracy in 3rd world countries that aren't able to enjoy the same luxuries on as large scale as the United States.
3rd world countries are also more relaxed towards piracy. This may be because they don't have companies that produce the products that are being stolen and don't have lots of money in reserve to higher lawyers to prosecute pirates. The fact that you are sticking it the the U.S is always a bonus in the eyes of other nations.
In the end, you can legislate all you want on boxes like slingbox or DVD players, but you can't enforce it once it goes to the software world. If people want it bad enough, they will get it by hook or by crook.
Re:Old Media is dead (Score:3, Insightful)
In the case of online distribution, etc. it ends up being cheaper for them to go with the flow than all this stupid fighting.
It was the same way with cassette.
It was the same way with VHS.
Why is THIS any different- it was cheaper for them to capitulate and go with the new tech that torched off
old business models (because those two items above changed everything for the players just like the stuff
is doing now...). Of course, they fought it kicking and screaming, if memory serves (Jack Valenti was referring
to Cassette to being like Jack the Ripper back in the days of cassette...). It doesn't surprise me at all
that they're being stupid, yet again, about all of this. I just wish they were poorer like they were back
in earlier times- now they've got more cash to do more damage over a longer period of time before they
realize that they're wasting money and resources- and burning up mindshare (brand recognition- Sony, for example,
is not looking too rosy to anyone right now over DRM debacles...) capital at an alarming rate.