Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPod Family, Video
NBC may sue TiVo for PSP and iPod support
I spotted this on both Engadget and PSP Fanboy, but it looks like NBC is "pulling an Apple" by flexing their legal muscles in the hopes of scaring TiVo out of their recent plans to make it easy for people to grab TiVo'ed shows off of their boxes and put them on their iPods and PSPs. NBC seems to want a world where no device works easily with any other device and where everyone must buy multiple copies of their shows for multiple devices, despite the fact that the shows are freely broadcast over the airwaves and are paid for by the commercials that air during them and which the TiVo just so happens to record along with the shows.
In other news, NBC sucks.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Scott Porch said 3:18PM on 11-28-2005
They own the content. It's intellectual property. Get off your high horse.
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HowdyDoody said 3:17PM on 11-28-2005
They really don't have a case: Nov 22nd 2005 http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1892482,00.asp
If they did, they would have already come after Elgato quite some time ago. With EyeTV not only does it export to an iPod playable format, you can fully cut out all commercials too. The next version of the software will make it even easier with an export to "iPod Video" on the drop-down menu instead of having to manually pick MPEG-4.
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Steve M said 7:28PM on 11-28-2005
Scott P:
The supreme courts Fair Use ruling covers this as well. If someone wants to convert a program from their TiVo (or VHS, Beta-max, Sony DVR, 8 track tape recorder) to an iPod (PSP, Computer, Nintendo GameBoy) they have the right to for time-shifting. This has been ruled on over and over again.
What a user cannot do is sell/lease/rent or otherwise provide that content to a third party (meaning your brother-in-law who is too cheap to buy his own recorder.)
NBC is rattlign sabers, but won't win this one.
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Joe said 7:52PM on 11-28-2005
Moreover, since TiVo allows "no transfer" tags, NBC could easily tag the shows that they do not want to be transfered off the TiVo, so there's not even a real conflict.
There's a "no transfer" show on my TiVo now, one that was downloaded from TiVo via the internet - TiVo is positioning themselves to become a content provider via both airwaves *and* the net. NBC simply needs to negotiate a contract for electronic transfer like they would with the iTunes Music Store, so TiVo pays NBC for NBC content that gets downloaded.
Lawyers have no business sense.
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Drew Baron said 9:13PM on 12-02-2005
Regardless of the legal language in the contract that TiVo has with NBC, NBC is once again shooting themselves in the foot for holding back on supplying demand and creating more demand; if they would allow their content to flow more easily, they would likely attract a larger audience to their show, thus increasing the value of their asset instead of being worried about temporary chump change, perhaps.
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