Rent my DVR
posted September 27th 2005 6:10PM
This is the kind of stuff that warms social hackers' hearts and gives "content providers" ulcers — Rent my DVR is an online marketplace for buying and selling TV programming. Buyers can scan online listings of available shows and download them via a proprietary P2P application for about 25 cents a pop. Providers in turn receive a 25 cent payment for delivering shows. Developer of the service Micke Langberg is mum about the technical details, which leaves us wondering how things like codecs and compression methods are coordinated, where the show guide data comes from, and why he's so adamant about his app not using BitTorrent under the hood. He's also glib about other understandable questions of the legal variety, claiming it's "exactly the same thing as asking your neighbor to record a TV show for you." Well, there's some truth in that, though we doubt anyone who persists in selling content for a living will see it quite that way. Luckily in the meantime, thanks to ye olde interwebs, we all now have lots and loooots of neighbors to record our shows for us.
It stops being the same as having your neighbor record shows for you the moment money has to change hands.
OK, this has been ongoing for YEARS for free at www.poopli.com. I agree with previous poster, once someone tries to charge for the files/shows, they are getting away from fair-use rights. Poopli only works with ReplayTVs, which was one selling point for me. And it's not a True P2P people are used to, where you browse and download. You have to request, the person has to physically send to your unit and you have to physically accept the sent show. Much like getting a tape from a neighbor, and with macrovision encoding, you can't send pay-per-view and such shows...
Not true #1. It's akin to asking your neighbor to record a show in exchange for some banana bread; exchanging goods (or a shiny new quarter in this case) for services.
Not necessarily... You are allowed to charge for shareware because it takes up your resources to share it. You can't charge for the software, but you can charge for the floppy and copying fees (aka handling). In this case, you're not charging for the shows, you are paying for the person's handling fees (aka the hassel of recording the show for you).
Sounds pretty legit (legally speaking). I'm gonna try it out and report back. Hopefully someone will record Scrubs for me tonight. I love that show.
ReplayTV users already have something similar, it's called Poopli. No money changes hands. I think that's why the TV Industry has stayed away from it.
I think this will draw too much attention because of the money exchage. The lawyers will be sicced on this no matter if it's legal or not. Nothing like a good lawsuit to bog everything down.
http://www.poopli.com
Other than the costof running the website I don't see why people who post tv shows should getanything. And bit torrent is the best way to do it. I think that money changing hands is the first step towards prompting a crackdown. Which will prompt some sort of compromise in the form of a iTunes for tv.
1. You can't sell someone else's property. Accepting food as compensation doesn't change anything. Neither does making it a small amount and claiming it's just reimbursement for handling expenses.
2. This site seems to be trying to leverage the "fair use privilege" to make a video Napster, but it ain't gonna fly. Mass distribution is not a subset of personal use. This site has blatantly crossed the line.
It's worth noting, I think, that "services" like this are the EXACT reason we now have to deal with draconian DRM schemes.
Thanks, guys.
Just about everything that's broadcast on TV becomes available on BitTorrent virtually immediately (often even before the initial broadcast). The $.25 isn't going to an actual content provider...where's the incentive to pay some guy to download his file when you can download the same file for free elsewhere with comparable legality?
I just came up with this idea last night! someone is stealing my ideas, going into a timemachine, developing and then implimenting them the very next day I think of them. it's a conspiracy!!!!
#3 - Your understanding of basic law is 0.
I tried it today with "Veronica Mars", and it's just a bittorrent client ...
2 minutes after the show appeared on the torrent networks, the rentmyDVR client started downloading.
Analyzing the TCP/IP traffic clearly showed it was using the bittorrent protocol. (Including the fact that your pc is also uploading to a bunch of people ...)
Clever guy, though, earning some money with such a simple trick !
Maybe if I'm REALLY busy and can't spare the 2 minutes to pick up the torrent myself, they can have my 20 cents. (But then again, if I'm that busy, how on earth am I going to find the time to watch the show ! )