Wed, September 14, 2005
Cory Doctorow is an alarmist shit—1:38 PM
PVRblog noted recently that the latest version of the TiVo OS incorporates Macrovision copy protection features (something we already knew was coming). These features threaten to destroy much of the beauty of the TiVo experience, but in the particular case mentioned, they only showed up because a local Fox affiliate had accidentally flagged a couple of syndicated reruns with the Macrovision tool. To date, no one – not even "on demand" content providers – has used the "do not copy" flag.
I noted this with a link yesterday, adding as a caption the most reasonable response one could have after sifting through all the evidence in the post at PVRblog: "Worth regarding warily." All signs indicate that nothing evil is afoot, but the potential for serious trouble exists, so I say: keep an eye on it.
Not so over at Boing Boing. They ran the following incendiary diatribe, focusing on the worst-case scenario and ignoring many important details: "TiVo won't save certain shows or allow moving them". This is true in the sense that one guy's TiVo won't save two certain shows, but it completely overstates the issue in order to cause greater alarm, and I detest that from the Bush Administration but doubly so when it's regarding something important like TiVo.
I wouldn't be going off all half-cocked about this, either, if they hadn't done it before: read the daring John Gruber's excellent analysis of Doctorow's huffy arrogant blow-up ("I'm burning off my Apple tattoo!") over the mere possibility of TPM technology in the new Intel-based Macs. (It doesn't matter if you don't know what TPM is; I barely do, even after reading Gruber's insightful explanation. The point is: Doctorow is an alarmist shit.)
