Tuesday, April 22, 2003
Great Reading
Check out the Bakersfield Californian's stories on the Lords of Bakersfield. It reads like the West Coast's version of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Fascinating stuff.
And yet several weeks ago Jamie Kellner, CEO of Turner Broadcasting, said, "Anytime you skip a commercial, you're actually stealing the programming." When asked whether it was also a copyright violation for viewers to go to the bathroom during commercial breaks, Kellner conceded, "There's a certain amount of tolerance for going to the bathroom."-The San Francisco Bay Guardian
How absurd is that? The article quoted dates back to June 2002, but the lawsuit it references is still going on. Craig Newmark of Craiglist.org and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are suing a gaggle of networks for the "right" to skip commercials via devices like ReplayTV. Sonic Blue, the creators of ReplayTV, were sued by the same networks who claimed, "the DVR violates copyright laws because it can automatically bypass commercials and transmit copies of programs to other ReplayTV 4000 owners."
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