The Slippery Slope of Cablevision's On-Demand Plans

[Chris Gohlke]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.com.com/Cablevision+sued+over+on-demand+plans/2100-1041_3-6076828.html?tag=nefd.top' target='_blank'>http://news.com.com/Cablevision+sued+over+on-demand+plans/2100-1041_3-6076828.html?tag=nefd.top</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Four Hollywood studios and the three major television networks have filed a copyright suit seeking to prevent Cablevision Systems from launching an "on-demand" service that aims to replace the living room digital video recorder. The suit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, says Cablevision would run afoul of copyright law with its plan to allow subscribers to store and play back TV programs through computer servers controlled by the cable TV operator. By contrast, conventional digital video recorder (DVR) devices sold by such companies as TiVo let viewers store programs on individual hard drives built into their own home set-top boxes. Individual consumers have long been free to record TV shows, movies and music for personal use. But Cablevision's so-called Network DVR service has raised objections from some content providers who say it puts control over their material into the hands of another company that has not paid for or licensed it. "Cablevision is actually copying, storing and retransmitting it," said Kori Bernard, a spokeswoman for studio industry group the Motion Picture Association of America. "A commercial entity can't establish a for-profit, on-demand service without authorization from copyright owners whose content is used on that service.""</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/logo.gif" /> <br /><br />On the surface, this seems just like Tivo except for a matter of distance. Instead of recording the show and retransmitting it 10 feet, it is being retransmitted for many miles. The article even points out that each user has their own dedicated space which seems to indicate that they would be storing a copy of the show for each person that records it rather than just one master copy. It would be much cooler if they just pooled all the copies and just saved one copy for everyone. Why you ask? Because then, the next logical step (which is the slippery slope that I think the content producers are afraid of) would be for them to allow you to watch things that you did not choose to record and from there comes the step of their just recording everything and allowing you to watch anything that has ever aired.

[bcries]

That would be cool... and broadcasters should think about new advertising models, like inserting new, timely commercials into whatever old reruns you're watching. For that matter, a bit of metadata and Google adsense-ish alogrythms could automatically show commercials on each commercial break that relate directly to the previous scene. For example, dude in sitcom wakes up and brushes teeth... toothpaste ad follows. Next logical step, to out-wit the DVR commercial skipping, is to place mini ads directly on the screen while you're watching the show. Annoyng, but that's where the slope leads.

It's interesting that the Hollywood studios and networks are objecting based on "for-profit" redistribution of copyright material... ostensibly, this wouldn't stop a non-profit "digital co-operative" from forming. I wonder how many neighbours would have to combine their resources to buy the server space to house a rolling digital archive of stored television shows? And how large would they have to be before they received a wholesale satellite access rate, like unto a small-town cable provider?

Hmm... instead of dreaming of new services Cablevision can sell to us at a huge profit, maybe we might get those services faster and cheaper by forming non-profits ourselves.