[opendtv] Re: TV Technology: The VCR Fades to Black
- From: Craig Birkmaier <brewmastercraig@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2016 17:49:10 -0400
On Aug 27, 2016, at 1:25 AM, Manfredi, Albert E <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Craig Birkmaier wrote:
I fail to see any connection with Title II
It's simple, Craig. Technology provided consumers with a cost-effective way
to watch TV on their own schedule, rather than on the schedule determined by
someone else. But the content owners, in that case, were hell bent to negate
what technology had accomplished, for their own self-interests.
Lucky for consumers, the courts told the nay-sayers to pound sand.
Did you ever study the Betamax case and the arguments advanced by the Hollywood
copyright owners Bert?
Time shifting had little to do with it. The case was brought by Universal
Studios; they did not own a broadcast network at the time, but their television
studio arm did produce many shows that they sold to the networks.
Their concern was that people could easily make copies of these shows and sell
them - kinda the precursor to how the music industry reacted to Napster.
From Wikipedia:
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Valenti became notorious for his
flamboyant attacks on the Sony Betamax Video Cassette Recorder (VCR), which
the MPAA feared would devastate the movie industry. He famously told a
congressional panel in 1982, "I say to you that the VCR is to the American
film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman
home alone."[11] Despite Valenti's prediction, the home video market
ultimately came to be the mainstay of movie studio revenues throughout the
1980s and 1990s.
None of this has ANY relationship to "Net Neutrality, " or to the decision to
regulate broadband under Title II.
Similarly, technology provided us with the Internet, making content available
not just from one monopolistic head-end gatekeeper, or a handful of local
broadcast stations limited by RF spectrum, but from a virtually unlimited
number of sources. And wouldn't you know it, special interests got up in arms
about that too, preferring to maintain total control over what TV people can
watch.
Really? What have the "special interests" done to block Internet access and
maintain total control over what TV people can watch?
Warning, this is a loaded question!
Please keep in mind that there have been virtually ZERO net neutrality
violations...EVER.
Yet your concerns may be well founded. The content congloms are in complete
control over the distribution of their content via the Internet, and have made
huge profits selling library content to new SVOD services like Netflix and
Amazon Prime Video. And now they are moving the legacy MVPD bundles to the
Internet.
The music industry did go after individuals who used Napster to make illegal
copies of music. And they did sue to shut Napster down for much the same
concerns as those put forward in the Betamax case. But in that case there was
no "fair use" to protect.
And for the record, there are not unlimited sources for. Entertainment TV via
the Internet. You can count the economically viable entertainment streaming
sites on the fingers of your hands.
Lucky for consumers, the courts told those nay-sayers to pound sand as well.
Neutrality of the Internet.
Subject to appeal.
Your distorted view of reality, because you continue to make yourself
dependent on the one gatekeeper. If you moved away from that one gatekeeper,
you would realize that the congloms have already adopted other distribution
schemes.
I'm still waiting for a service that lets me get the content I want. The new
Dish Flex Pack bundles are a step in the right direction, but I still must buy
a bunch of stuff I don't want and the savings are minimal. At this point there
is no MVPD service available via the Internet that offers what I want.
No need to take the congloms to court. The marketplace has already made them
change their ways. Your predictions that your "the bundle" would never break
up was proven wrong, only days after you made it.
The bundles are still there Bert. The ONLY change has been the Dish Sling
experiment, and it does not come close to offering the networks I want.
I do agree that there is a little competitive pressure now, but this has as
much to do with changes in the way we consume content (on demand) as it does
with any real changes in the bundles. TVE is growing rapidly, expanding the
value delivered by the MVPD bundles, while at the same time devaluing hundreds
of channels of reruns that fill up the MVPD systems.
The result will be something like the new offer from Dish. A much smaller
bundle of core channels, with the ability to customize the service with smaller
bundles.
Bottom line, the content congloms have managed this transition well. And Net a
Neutrality has nothing to do with their success.
Regards
Craig
Bert
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