Henry Jenkins takes a deeper look for the MIT Technology Review into the implications of viewers’ “contracts” with programmers to watch advertising as part of the deal:
Treating Viewers As Criminals.

…I stumbled across the recent comments of Turner Broadcasting System CEO Jaimie Kellner, who asserted that television viewers who skipped commercials using their digital video recorders were guilty of “stealing” broadcast content. Kellner told an industry trade press reporter that “Your contract with the network when you get the show is you’re going to watch the spots.” He conceded that there may be a historic loophole allowing us to take short breaks to go to the bathroom but otherwise, we are expected to be at our post, doing our duties, watching every commercial, and presumably, though he never said it, buying every product.

Kellner’s intemperate rhetoric is, alas, characteristic of the ways that the media industry increasingly thinks about, talks about, and addresses its consumers in the post-Napster era. Napster may

Here’s another gem from Dan Gillmore:
Paranoia, stupidity and greed ganging up on the public.

Dear Reader:

If you are reading this column in the newspaper, but did not read every article and look at every advertisement in previous sections, stop now. You must go back and look at all of that material before continuing with this column.

If you are reading this column on the Web and did not go to the newspaper’s home page first, stop now. Go to the home page and navigate through whatever sequence of links our page designers have created to reach this page, and don’t you dare fail to look at the ads.

Ridiculous? Of course.

Tell that to the dinosaurs at some major media and entertainment companies. They insist they have the right to tell you precisely how you may use their products…

The law also is still somewhat unsettled when it comes to hard-disk video recorders, also known as personal video recorders or PVRs. But Hollywood is in attack mode against one of the most innovative home products in years, SonicBlue’s Replay machine, and the entertainment industry’s anger at these devices is growing.

Jamie Kellner, head of Turner Broadcasting, part of the AOL Time Warner conglomerate, told the newsweekly CableWorld that you are a thief if you use one of a PVR’s best features — skipping commercials.

“Your contract with the network when you get the show is you’re going to watch the spots,” he said. “Otherwise you couldn’t get the show on an ad-supported basis.”

Whenever you fail to watch a commercial, he added, “you’re actually stealing the programming.”

It gets better. When the interviewer asked whether it’s OK to go to the bathroom or get a soft drink out of the refrigerator, Kellner replied, “ I guess there’s a certain amount of tolerance for going to the bathroom.”

What a relief. At least AOL Time Warner doesn’t believe we should be chained to the sofa when we watch one of its old movies.

Here’s the letter I sent to Gateway:

Dear Mr. Waitt,
CEO
Gateway Computers, Inc.,

Thanks for your company’s recent digital music website launch.

I am a teacher and computer consultant that will be recommending Gateway products to my students and clientele in the future because you guys were the first company to take a stand on these issues — and that really means a lot to me.

Thanks,

Lisa Rein
lisarein@finetuning.com

http://www.finetuning.com

If you agree with Gateway’s position on Digital Music, perhaps you’ll take five minutes to write write at letter to Gateway’s CEO to say “thank you”:

Ted Waitt, CEO
Gateway, Inc.
14303 Gateway Pl.
Poway, CA
92064

or send an e-mail:
c/o corporate.communications@gateway.com

Finally! A technology company that is willing to stand up for its future!

Gateway has launched a great new campaign to help educate consumers about their rights in the digital marketplace and help educate lawmakers about the dangers of attempting to regulate innovation.

Thanks Gateway — for standing up for all of us!
(And for putting an advertising budget behind it!)

Here’s a quote from the Your Personal Rights & Responsibilities as an MP3 User section of the new Gateway Digital Music Website:

Gateway believes:

• You have the right to make copies for your own use of any CD you’ve purchased legally — so you can listen to it in different locations and have a backup if something happens to your original copy.

• You have the right to enjoy legally acquired music in any format you want — like converting CD tracks to MP3 files to take with you on a portable or car MP3 player.

• You have the right to download music from the Internet that you’ve paid for or that’s been made available for download by the artist or record label.

Some content distributors want the government to regulate your ability to do these things. There’s even a bill before the U.S. Senate that would force the technology industry to implement anti-piracy technology that could prevent all digital copying – even copying that’s legal today under U.S. copyright laws.

If this concerns you, it’s time to protect these rights. Take action. Write your senator and congressman.

Get more information at www.digitalconsumer.org, www.digmedia.org, or www.hrrc.org. Let’s protect our right to legally use technology to improve the quality of life.

Kevin Kelley takes a shot at providing some examples of how music might be sold in the future, now that simple copies of songs are basically “free.”

See the NY Times article:
Where Music Will Be Coming From.