May 02, 2002

Now I'm a thief???

Posted by Scott at 10:25 AM

There's a reference/discussion in slashdot that starts out as follows:

Turner CEO: "PVR Users Are Thieves"


Television |
Posted by timothy on Thursday May 02, @04:11AM

from the they'll-burn-with-the-library-and-museum-goers dept.

mrbrown1602 writes: "It was bound to happen - 2600.com is reporting that Turner Broadcasting CEO Jamie Kellner is calling PVR users thieves. When asked why personal video recorders are bad for the industry, Keller says 'Because of the ad skips.... It's theft. Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to watch the spots. Otherwise you couldn't get the show on an ad-supported basis. Any time you skip a commercial or watch the button you're actually stealing the programming.' Since when have we made contracts with the broadcasters for watching their content? More of the 2600 article can be found here."
So now that I have a TiVo brand PVR, which is basically a VCR that's much easier to use, now I'm a thief! Why now? When I programmed my VCR, I would typically fast forward through commercials. It's just so simple now with a TiVo that even Claire is a pro at it.

The scarier story was a discussion of how wireless cash registers in stores may be exposing your credit card. Thieves with wireless sniffers were sitting outside a BestBuy parking lot extracting the credit card numbers as they were being swiped through the cash registers. If the people who sell technology can't be trusted to use the encryption technology available, should we be buying stuff from them?

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