[mythtv-users] Broadcast Flag Article mentions MythTV and quotes Issac

Risto Treksler risto at elkhornbanff.ca
Thu Mar 3 18:28:56 UTC 2005


On Thursday 03 March 2005 10:01 am, Allan Stirling wrote:
> Matt Grommes wrote:
> > Yes, thank you. The willingness people have to just cave to anything the
> > media industry says is very disheartening. We need to have some common
> > sense about these things and not just allow industry to dictate the
> > features and uses we're "allowed" to have.
>
> Following this to absurdity, if what you are stating is legal, only one
> person in the US would have to subscribe to each of the available
> channels. They could then share out all the programs with their friends,
> who could share out to their friends.

*puts on tinfoil hat*

Let's put it this way, it's no more illegal to lend a copy of a Buffy tape to 
your friend, than it is for you to lend a copy of your LOTR DVD, or even 
something like a sweater that you bought.

The idea is that consumers have a fair use clause in the law, so that they can 
make a copy, and use it "fairly". ie. "do with it, what you can do with 
anything else you bought"

This quickly becomes a question of "what is for sale"
ie "what is the product" and "who are the consumers"

The consumers and the networks are operating under two completely different 
sets of assumptions here.

1)Lending Buffy to your friend, like you can lend any other DVD,
implies that the copy of Buffy was the product and it was sold to you by the 
networks, and that you paid for it by watching ads or paying for cable or 
whatever.

2)Not being able to lend Buffy to your friend implies that 
you were the product, and you were sold to the advertisers by the networks, 
and that the advertisers paid large amounts of MONEY to the networks, for 
their "product" -- you.

People see that the shows have ads in them.
To the advertisers and the networks the ads have shows interjected.

Something has to be done about this mentality, 
in order to defeat the broadcast flag.
People have to reassert them as consumers in the broadcast model.

The masses have to realize that the broadcast flag entails legalized 
exploitation of consumers, but i am afraid, as is the author of this article, 
that since their future "rights" are in question, they won't until it's too 
late.

*ducks*


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