Public Airwaves, Private Content
February 18th, 2005 | by Mike G |http://slashdot.org/comme…59&cid=11709630
An excellent point was brought up on Boing Boing today about a post on Slashdot. The Television Industry is concerned about viewers recording shows and are putting a stop to it in a number of ways. Sometimes they strong arm DVR producers, or convince the manufactures of DVR devices to cripple features… and of course they are lobbying hard for the broadcast flag.
This post, made by “alexwcovington” in the Slashdot discussion of the fact that Brits lead the world in downloading TV shows, is a really pithy piece of advice that TV execs everywhere would do well to heed:
Sorry if I’m stating the obvious, but it’s television. Signals broadcast through the air. Sorry to burst the bubbles of the folks in Hollywood, but you can’t control the genie if you’re throwing it out of the bottle at the speed of light. Accept the fact that people have the right to record their television shows, and don’t complain when they trade them.
But what is interesting is that, at least for network television, they are using our airwaves. You know, the ones that we as a people license to them via the FCC? If they broadcast a television show into my house and over my airwaves, don’t I have the right to do what I want with that data?
Perhaps threatening to pull licenses from each of the affiliates of a given network, like NBC would get their attention that we are not messing around. The gravy train is over, guys. You can continue to make a profit, but no more gouging. Cope.
