Do you talk T(i)V(o)? (or: The Free TiVo Agreement!)
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
Henry Jenkins has a fascinating post over at Technology Review discussing the recently-made-legal sharing of files between two TiVO digital TV recording devices in the US. Jenkins points out:
a discussion of a recent FCC decision which cleared the way for Tivo, the digital recorder folks, to offer a new service --TivoToGo -- which allows one to transfer digitally recorded content from your Tivo machine across the internet to your pc or to another Tivo. The service comes with plenty of hardware to make it difficult for the content to be shared with family or friends, let alone the general public, but it does represent a real convience for folks like me who travel and want to catch up with their favorite shows.However, given the no-doubt-soon-to-be-law free trade agreement, if I was dedicated enough, couldn't I use this service in Australia? Say I have a friend in the US, who would happily let me connect a TiVo up in their house. Then I purchased a second TiVo and set it up in Australia. Surely, then, I could use the interconnectivity of the two to legitimately download/watch TV in Australia that I had recorded legally in the US? Then the delay time between US and Australian broadcast wouldn't matter anyway and I could enjoy the web without the massive spoiler-awareness I sometimes have to bring to online forums/fandoms. Of course, channel 7 would be pretty stuffed because with immediate US release times of Alias, I'd never have to watch them again! So, the FTA sucks in many, many ways, but fully legal US-TiVO-to-go(-to-Australia) sounds like something that has to be legal if the FTA is approved! :) Every FTA has a silver lining!
[Posted by Unknown] [12:06 pm]
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