3 comments

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  Randolph Miller

  3 years ago

  I don't agree that TiVo should get in trouble for letting it's customers convert their TV shows into a different video file format so they can be viewed on the iPod. We're talking about people who had legal access to the show (on broadcast or cable) and made a copy and now just want to watch that show on a portable player. They're basically charging for a video file conversion service on a per show basis. If someone amassed a huge library of TV shows legally on the Betamax tapes and just realized they want to switch to VHS or DVD, I don't see why it would be a big deal for a company to do the conversion for them. Yes, the company would have to charge money. That's what computers are designed to do: convert from CD to hard drive and network card to the printer and so on. A computer is really just a digital photocopier. There's nothing wrong with that.
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  Tim

  3 years ago

  Randolph: I agree that there's nothing wrong with TiVo allowing its customers to convert their legally-recorded video to other formats. What I object to is the monopoly on that functionality that's created by the DMCA--a monopoly whose profits go to TiVo, not to the owners of the copyrighted content that's being converted. If it weren't for the DMCA, TiVo wouldn't be able to charge very much money for this service because you would be able to download conversion utilities made by other vendors for free. TiVo's profits on this product are going to be entirely due to the monopoly created by the DMCA. And given that TiVo hasn't produced any of the content in question, I don't see any reason why they should be given monopoly profits by copyright law.
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  2 years ago

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