I saw something scary on the second-level info screen of my Tivo tonight:
Due to the policy set by the copyright holder, this recording:
Cannot be transferred to VCR, DVD, or any other media device. For more information, visit www.tivo.com/copyprotection.
One of the horsemen of the apocalyse predicted to ride in with digital and HDTV was the ability of enforce Digital Rights Management (DRM) all the way down the wire into your living room. In actuality, it’s not the Tivo enforcing this, but the CableCard from your friendly local cable monopoly.
The principle of it bothers me more than the practical implications. With 300 hours of storage, I’m not terribly concerned with offloading programs, and despite (unknowningly) having had this on two Tivos going back 4 years, it’s never been a problem.
I’ll even concede that some of the restrictions are reasonable. Since I’m already paying for content and the Tivo hardware, though, I expect to be able to record it and timeshift it as I wish, two freedoms that can be taken away by this scheme.
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