[geeks] Professional. Do Not Attempt.

[Joshua Boyd]

On Wed, Sep 28, 2005 at 11:37:57AM -0400, Phil Stracchino wrote:
> Jeff Cole wrote:
> > On Wed, Sep 28, 2005 at 10:07:58AM -0500, Michael Parson wrote:
> >>Those of us that have stuck with the series1 TiVos are, so far, immune
> >>to the latest bits of evil that TiVo has succumbed to.  They can be had
> >>for fairly cheap on e-bay, etc.
> > 
> > Could someone elaborate on what exactly has transpired? I've been
> > planning on buying a TiVo for awhile, but if there's going to be a
> > problem with the fair use of the programs I record, I'd like to know.
> 
> It has to do with broadcast-flag support in recent versions of TivoOS --
> the broadcast flag being part of the mechanism of Hollywood's end-run
> around the SCOTUS Betamax decision that said "If you have the right to
> watch it, you have the right to record it for your own use."  The
> broadcast flag basically allows the broadcaster to tell your Tivo to
> automatically delete the recording of a flagged show after some
> specified interval or, I believe, not to record certain shows at all.

While the spirit of the TV industry may be the same, this has nothing to
do with the so-called broadcast flag, as it isn't a flag in the
broadcast (which isn't as flexible as what TiVo does anyway), but rather
a flag in the scheduling information that the device downloads from
TiVo.

TiVo initially (and maybe still) said that the new limiting abilities
would be used only for Pay-Per-View stuff, but it seems that they keep
using it for regular OTA broadcasts as well, like the Simpsons to keep
you from storing the episode for than a few days.

The actual broadcast flag that keeps being bandied about doesn't have
anything in it about how long the show may be kept.