in the Mercury News: Paranoia, stupidity and greed ganging up on the public. “So it comes as no shock that the owners of information and entertainment are trying to protect their own potentially untenable business models. They’ve persuaded their legislative pets in Congress to pass ill-considered laws. They’re busy erecting technological barriers to their customer’s choice and well-being. Law and technology are combining to carve away your rights in favor of the owners’ control.”

, it gets crazier. You think that broadcasters can’t possibly be proposing what I suggested? Consider the following scenario: “Sitcom X” is a 22 minute show, and along with specific ads, the whole thing is a copyright owned by station Y. By turning on your TV to the program, you (immediately?) agree to watch the whole presentation of that program – those are the terms of service you have agreed to by tuning in to the channel.

Now, it’s 10 minutes later. You have to go to the bathroom. Hang on! According to the owner of the copyright you just agreed to, according to your contract, you must watch the entire show. Following the reasoning of the broadcasters (or the head end suppliers, since not all of them actually broadcast anything), you can’t go to the bathroom – that is in violation of the copyright.

If you think I’m nuts, here you go (from an Inside interview with Jamie Kellner, Chair and CEO of Turner Broadcasting):

JK: Because of the ad skips…. It’s theft. Your contract with the network when you get the show is you’re going to watch the spots. Otherwise you couldn’t get the show on an ad-supported basis. Any time you skip a commercial or watch the button you’re actually stealing the programming.
CW: What if you have to go to the bathroom or get up to get a Coke?

JK: I guess there’s a certain amount of tolerance for going to the bathroom.

Kellner says straight out that it’s a crime, in his view, for TV viewers to go to the bathroom during a program. They’ll tolerate it, but it’s a crime nonetheless.

about the order to SonicBlue (a digital TV recorder outfit) to track ReplayTV users’ viewing choices. The idea behind the order is to give the media companies who are suing SonicBlue more information. Sort of a high-tech discovery process, really, on the principle that both parties in a trial should have access to legitimate evidence.

I’m missing a fundamental concept though. What does the question of whether or not a viewer looks at ads or not have to do with copyright? I can’t see any connection between them. If I buy a book, no one can force me to read the whole thing. If I buy a magazine, no one can force me NOT to draw moustaches on all the models faces with my (copyright-circumventing) Sharpie.

For copyright to be an issue, then, takes three steps, all extremely tenuous. First of all, it would seem to me, networks have to successfully argue that a program with the specific ads they show, when they show them, together forms one copyright (or, I guess, an anthology). Second, that in every TV program there are implied terms of service that we viewers automatically agree to each time we turn on the box. And third, that the network (or whoever controls the head end) can force those who agree to the terms of service embedded in a program to watch the entire program from beginning to end.

Eric Flint has written an interesting article about the effects of free downloads on sales, specifically, sales of his books. It’s not a large enough sample size to be that meaningful, but nevertheless it’s interesting. Flint writes, “Let me begin by posing a simple question. Does anyone have any real evidence that having material available for free online-whether legitimately or through piracy-has actually caused any financial harm to any author?”

: RFC 3271 – The Internet is for Everyone. It’s a little disappointing that he only implies that the content control sought by the record companies and Valenti and others is “against” the spirit of the Internet rather than taking a clear position on the issue. To focus exclusively or even mainly on the “government control” bogeyman is a little beside the point in 2002, no? Didn’t they learn anything from the 1996-97 experience, from the smokescreen called the CDA?