--- From: "Paczkowski, John" <JPaczkowskiat_private> To: "'declanat_private'" <declanat_private> Subject: SonicBlue ordered to track ReplayTV users' viewing choices Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 10:34:31 -0400 ' morning declan: a bit of news for you from today's merc. A federal magistrate in Los Angeles has ordered SonicBlue to spy on thousands of digital video recorder users -- monitoring every show they record, every commercial they skip and every program they send electronically to a friend. Central District Court Magistrate Charles F. Eick told SonicBlue to gather ``all available information'' about how consumers use the Santa Clara company's latest generation ReplayTV 4000 video recorders, and turn the information over to the film studios and television networks suing it for contributing to copyright infringement. <http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/3186191.htm>http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/3186191.htm take good care, __________________________________________________ John Paczkowski Good Morning Silicon Valley | <http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/business/columnists/gmsv/>http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/business/columnists/gmsv/ SiliconValley.com | <http://www.siliconvalley.com/>http://www.siliconvalley.com ----- Knight Ridder Digital 35 South Market Street San Jose, CA 95113 --- From: "Richard M. Smith" <rmsat_private> To: <declanat_private> Subject: Movie studios and TV networks force SonicBlue to spy on their customers Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 09:37:42 -0400 Hi, The copyright battle between content companies and technology companies hit a new all-time low yesterday in Los Angeles. According to an article in the San Jose Mercury News, a federal judge in Los Angeles, at the request of major movie studios and TV networks, is compelling SonicBlue to spy on the viewing habits of individual ReplayTV customers. SonicBlue doesn't have this type of tracking software today, but was given 60 days by the court to create it and install it on customer ReplayTV boxes using the auto-update feature of the boxes. This move by the court and content companies is exactly the problem I warned about on March 1, 2002 in a piece I did on Senator Hollings's proposed CBDTPA bill. This piece can be found here at my Web site: Anti-piracy technology means more surveillance, less privacy http://www.computerbytesman.com/copyprotect/hollings.htm I hope that everyone who is concerned about the ever expanding misuse of copyright law willing speak out on the dangerous precedent being set here by this court ruling. Hopefully Soniclue will be able to overturned the ruling on appeal. Thanks, Richard M. Smith http://www.ComputerBytesMan.com ============================================================ SonicBlue ordered to track ReplayTV users' viewing choices By Dawn C. Chmielewski Mercury News http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/3186191.htm A federal magistrate in Los Angeles has ordered SonicBlue to spy on thousands of digital video recorder users -- monitoring every show they record, every commercial they skip and every program they send electronically to a friend. Central District Court Magistrate Charles F. Eick told SonicBlue to gather ``all available information'' about how consumers use the Santa Clara company's latest generation ReplayTV 4000 video recorders, and turn the information over to the film studios and television networks suing it for contributing to copyright infringement. .... --- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sign this pro-therapeutic cloning petition: http://www.franklinsociety.org -------------------------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri May 03 2002 - 14:45:50 PDT