But that would still violate Fair Use. If I used a DVR to record content directly off a TV broadcast so I could watch it on my way to work while riding the train, my right to do that is covered by Fair Use (not withstanding the afore mentioned conflicts in case law). So, again, we come back to the issue of how to distinguish between legal content and pirated content. And the answer is that there is no real way to do so.
And, ripping DVDs is not entirely illegal either, by the way. Case law on this point is not settled yet.
I don't think content providers can violate fair use. Users have the right to use content fairly, but the providers don't need to make that easy. That why DAT and DVD were locked down, like other technologies before and since.
That's what I meant by "not entirely" legal-- there's a conflict in law that, for the time being, is being enforced in favor of content providers. Eventually someone will need to have the balls to risk taking it to the Supreme Court, but for now Mac The Ripper is being kept off reputable sites. Content providers also seem loathe to have the status quo tested-- they seem to back down when users look willing to fight.
If things keep following their current track, the precedent may well be RIAA v Apple.
there is a reason i put FREE in quotes. i'm not saying it literally is FREE. i am simply emphasizing that the broadcast coming to my home was ORIGINALLY paid for by advertisers. those advertisers entered a contract where they made a cost/benefit analysis of how much that ad would cost as it related to how much exposure their product would get.
my recording a show and watching it later at its most basic element deprives them of nothing. IF I WERE TO ILLEGALLY DOWNLOAD IT FROM ONLINE then you would be correct in that. only a small fraction of programs are actually re-aired, and when they are, they are aired at different times which means a whole different set of advertisers will be covering the cost of the broadcast. if you are suggesting that the ad paying for the show that ran today is suppose to cover the cost of re-airing it later, then that means it should run commercial free when it does re-air. you're trying to make it more complicated than it really is.
i could be wrong here, but DVDs, reruns, syndication are not thoroughly considered like that on the frontend. you don't enter a horse in the race while it's still in the womb, you make sure it can walk first. a very large precentage of shows just don't make it and go by the wayside. to suggest that the broadcasters were counting on DVD sales, syndication, action figures, before they even knew whether the public would like it, i think would be a reach. they'll make sure they can cover the costs up front, anything later on will be more money in the pockets.
its an Action-Reaction business. something is broadcast, then there is an ad to difer the cost and hopefully to also generate a profit for the broadcaster. what i think you are mixing into the equation is the ADDITIONAL sources of revenue that the broadcasters now have at their disposal.
those are, DVD, online download, ON-Demand viewing (like Comcast or Pay-per-view). what is happening now is NBC has been trying to generate additional revenue by providing their content AGAIN through one of these other sources. they chose to do that through ITMS, no one made them. every penny they make through a sale on ITMS is almost literally profit for them since the ORIGINAL cost of broadcast and creation of the show was covered by the advertisers when it first aired.
NBC obviously feels they should be and can be making more off these additional methods, like ITMS, and is trying to squeeze it a little more. that's fine. it's a free market and it's their intellectual property. they can sell it for whatever price and through whatever source they want. in the end though the consumer will decide just how successful this strategy will be. NBC is obviously leaving all options open, since the fine print on HULU says that they reserve the right to charge for any number of scenerios in the future.
again, not pointed at any one person (on this forum), but i just don't see why NBCs decision should have any negative reflection an Apple. "technically" Apple is at the same level as Comcast or any other content provider. if they don't want to do business with NBC on the terms that NBC is asking then they have that right. last i checked, Apple is not the one here trying to raise prices on the content on their site that people are buying, NBC is. no matter how NBC wants to explain it, Apple is simply saying "not here you won't".
lastly, if you don't know the part the FTC plays in the context for which i stated, maybe you should research it. we were discussing PRICE FIXING by Apple through retailers. and the FTC is a consumer protection element of the government, who would find great interest in such behaviour by Apple, if that were in fact occuring.
TV shows, like any other product, are budgeted based on all projected revenue. When a company manufactures a product, a lot of effort is put into figuring out what the return on investment will be. What the expected revenue versus R&D, cost to manufacture, cost of support, etc. The same will be true for media content. There is certainly a model for what they expect the long term revenue outlook to be. It's never exact, but it's estimated.
That's why they run pilots, and market studies.
It's also the revenue from current products that fund future ventures. Advertisers are going to be reluctant to put a lot of money into untested programming, and they certainly won't be paying before the product is aired, so the first season is filmed based on revenues from existing products.
Then there are the knock-on effects of declining viewership. Advertisers pay to have people see the ads, and if Nielsen tells them less people are watching, they pay less.
My point being that piracy does not need to involve commercial sale to deprive the content provider of income, which is how I read the posts by yourself and MikeTheC. There are all kinds of grey areas here, such as time shifted viewing where the viewer can essentially skip commercials themselves if they choose to. The courts have ruled that recording the program and then viewing it is legal, even if the advertiser loses exposure because of it. I believe they've also ruled against technologies that permit a recorder to automatically remove the commercials. What isn't a grey area is downloading content from a P2P with the advertisements stripped and viewing it in lieu of the original broadcast-- the broadcaster is losing income, or will be when they figure out how to track it better.
This, by the way, is the reason P2Ps are seen as a way of making a statement to the networks. If they didn't deprive them of income, they wouldn't be much of a threat.
As far as price fixing goes, I might suggest you do some research on that yourself... "Price fixing" is a term of art and doesn't necessarily mean what the words themselves appear to. Price fixing is collusion among competitors. You are perfectly welcome to set the price of sale on your own products and control your own distribution channel, if you feel that is in your best interest. Most manufacturers don't do that because they feel that if their resellers reduce cost by reducing their margins, it will result in greater sales. Apple feels differently. They wouldn't allow subsidies of the iPhone because they thought it "devalued" their product.
If Apple and Microsoft agreed to set prices on the iPod and Zune to be the same (or the same relative to each other), that would be price fixing. It's anti-competitive.
