I wouldn't have posted the entire article normally but I can't seem to find the actual article at Mercury. Take this for what it's worth, it is a pretty good read.

Posted on Sun, May. 05, 2002
Hollywood, information providers too paranoid
By Dan Gillmor
Mercury News Technology Columnist

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. Consider:

• DVD movies have copyright notices at the beginning, but can disable the fast-forward feature of your DVD player while the notice is on the screen. Studios have also placed commercials at the start with the fast-forward disabled.

• Hollywood and the broadcast television cartel are going to war against the makers of hard-disk video recorders that allow you to skip past commercials. The head of Turner Broadcasting calls it ``theft'' when you, the viewer, decline to watch the ads he wants you to view.

• A major newspaper (not this one) is telling people they may not post hyperlinks to pages on its site other than the home page. The paper says avoiding the home page lets viewers avoid home page advertising.

Chalk up these moves to a combination of paranoia, stupidity and greed. At least the paranoia is understandable.

The Digital Age is roiling traditional business models. Technological change always has that effect, and industries almost always fight revolutions before they adapt to them.

So it comes as no shock that the owners of information and entertainment are trying to protect their own potentially untenable business models. They've persuaded their legislative pets in Congress to pass ill-considered laws. They're busy erecting technological barriers to their customer's choice and well-being. Law and technology are combining to carve away your rights in favor of the owners' control.

Some law remains open to question. For example, the law is not settled when it comes to hyperlinking, though it's widely assumed that someone who posts a Web page is in effect inviting people to link to it. In the case of a newspaper, the notion of disallowing ``deep linking'' -- pointing to a specific article within the site -- is especially peculiar, since the person creating the link is sending customers to the newspaper.

Free referrals apparently don't satisfy the Dallas Morning News, a newspaper in the Belo media empire that has told a site in Dallas it may only link to the newspaper's home page. Here's a safe prediction: This will cost the paper most, if not all, of the traffic it was getting from third parties.

If the law turns out to support such restrictions, it will grossly diminish the Net's utility, not to mention its negative impact on free speech. Can Belo, which relies on the First Amendment to exist, really be this obtuse? Here's another prediction: The company's policy will be changed.

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.

The arrogance of these folks is most obvious in their DVD system. The entertainment cartel puts ``regional coding'' on the disks, a system under which a DVD you buy in the United States won't work in a DVD player bought on other continents. Price fixing, anyone?

Software manipulation lets the cartel members disable controls on our DVD players, too. But the law says that if you do something to re-enable your controls, you might face civil or criminal charges. What a racket.

Come to think of it, maybe I should just stop complaining and join the control-freak party. Maybe I can figure out a way to force you to read my columns in full before you can go on to the next story in the paper or on the Web site, even if you don't like what I've written.

You won't go along with that edict? Good for you. Now consider showing the same independence with the entertainment cartel -- and start by calling your representatives in Congress. The industry is convinced it owns Congress, but you're the one who votes.

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Dan Gillmor's column appears each Sunday, Wednesday and Saturday. Visit Dan's online column, eJournal (www.dangillmor.com). E-mail dgillmor@sjmercury.com; phone (408 ) 920-5016; fax (408 ) 920-5917

So when I flip channels to avoid commercials or just mute the TV when they're on, I'm breaking the law. I say "Screw you pal!", by pal I mean these conglomerates and these huge coroprations! I can't to turn 18, and vote for my senators and stuff!

wow, never would have thought that. i for one, dont like to see ads...but i do like movie previews. i dont consider those ads. heh

holy shit, what a dumbass. i guess every single north american is a thief, since i don't know ONE person who hasn't "skipped" a commerical by CHANGING THE FUCKING CHANNEL!!

I didn't use to be botherd my previews at the movies, but yesterday, when I went to spiderman there was at least 10 movie previews, i swear i was sitting there for a full 30 minutes before the actual movie came on! i guess it seemed even longer because of that 5 minutes of credits before the movie starts, that wasn't that bad, since it had all those cool webs, hehe.

I'M A THIEF!!! I just changed the channel to avoid a tampax commerical! Shit! Sure he lets us go to the bathroom or get a drink, but what if we're dying? can we skip commericals to go dial 911? or is that going too far?

Guess it's time to install the crapper in the living room....I always try to do things legally.....

So does this mean that illegal for me to pretend that no one is home when the Jehoviah's Witness comes a knockin at my door??

Other than the hard drive I don't see the difference between the new PVRs and a conventional VCR. The VSR and all its functions were deamed legal in the MPAA vs. Beta Max trial awile ago, so if a VCR is legal why not these PVRs

And as to Jamie Kellner comments "Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to watch the spots,'' I don't recall signing any contract with "The Network" If by "The Network" he means my cable provider, I looked through my contract and didn't see anything about not being able to use a VCR or not being able to fast forward through commercials.

Unless Jamie Kellner lobbies the American Congress for compulsory monitoring to spy on his customers tv usage I can't see how the hell they ( or anyone else ) can even enforce their stupid ideas that it's illegal to skip commercials. Having said that, they probably spy already. Solution? Don't use the idiot's network. Better still, declare his views a gross misrepresentation of the first amendment or whatever and sue them. After all, if they have so much time on their hands to post such inflammatory comments surely they must be neglecting customers elsewhere???

But by boycotting the service aren't we just giving "The Network" what they want? Giving them the security of knowing that people are doing what they have in mind. It's like giving into a little kid after he has cried for 10 minutes.

Just FYI, its not against the law to skip channels when commercials come on, its just illegal to not tape the commercials when taping a TV program.

My dmusic hyperlink to my artists page doesn't work. It just sends you straight to the Dmusic homepage. Why doesn't that newspaper in Dallas do something like that?

By the way, is that just my hyperlink that doesn't work, or is everybody's like that??

*runs to the living room to stop recording game during commercial*
bwahahahahahhahahaha

viewers choice.. now..

hmph