Not Content with Blocked Content

The blocking of video services from the big media content owners- CBS, NBC, Fox, ABC, etc… Has become quite a disagreeable thing for me. Mind you, perhaps more in principle than in practice, as I don't really watch these outlets much, considering the quality of most of the offerings. But it does really bug me in terms of principle.

The idea is that they put out a video stream, but they get to choose what you watch it on. If you're watching it on your computer, that's okay. But if you have a device like say a Roku player, or a Boxee to watch thee video streams on your TV, that's a no-no. Well, they own the content, so they have a right to do whatever they please with it, right? Not so fast…

What if you weren't allowed to record TV shows with your VCR? Goodness knows they tried to stop us from doing just that. I often wonder how that trial would have gone if it had been decided today instead of in 1984. And in some places, where Fair Use did not developed, VCRs never became legal, which have led to other legal issues today.

But what if somehow TV stations of old could have prevented you from watching their content based on the brand, size, features, and location of your TV set? Don't try to watch NBC if your TV is over 13"! Or watch your CBS in the living room, but no soap opera in the bedroom! Or how about Fox hates Zenith TVs, so they'll just ban them altogether (who cares, they're only a minimal percentage of viewers anyway!). How would that sit with you?

But this is directly analogous to what these mega-content owners are doing. Sure, they can't tell if you're in the kitchen or bedroom (yet- it's certainly possible with GPS tech these days), but they know most people have small computer screens and relatively large TV screens, the latter which tend to be in the living room, so they are indirectly targeting these attributes.

And frankly, I don't think they have a right to do that. I think you either let the people access your video stream, or you don't, but discriminating on which device they can get it should not even be within the rights of the content holder. Certainly if CBS, NBC, Fox, ABC, and all these other corporations want to make a pay service, that is their right, and I am not suggesting consumers should have all out free access to their content. But that should be tied to a user's account, not his device. And if they opt to offer it for free, it should be free, no matter what the device.

What I am saying is that content offerings should be platform/device agnostic. You should be able to gain access using any device technically capable, as long as it is being offered for free, or you are paying for it. If not, we will go down a route that truly stifles innovation and gives these already huge corporations more bargaining power than they should have. It means they will have the power to renegotiate with every box maker out there for the "privilege" of carrying their content. This is wrong. Go back and try to imagine again what this would have done to Television those first few decades.

It used to be that books were books, readable by anyone with access to them and videos were videos, viewable by anyone with a VCR. Of course, that changed with DVD to an extend with region coding. Before that it began with video games. I mean, people have gotten raided for selling oooh-evil mod-chips that just allow people to play content from other "regions". Now books are increasingly becoming digital, and we have to worry not only about getting the book, but on what device we are allowed to play it.

This artificial fractioning of devices and platforms only serves to give content-owners more power than they have a right to, and us less power to do what we will with that content which we have legitimately bought or accessed. They are content-owners, and they should be worrying about their content (they could certainly get to work on the general quality of the stuff), not what devices people use to access it. In fact, what they should be doing is insuring that as many devices as possible can indeed access their content.

Content need to be free. Not necessarily free as in beer, but free as in free to play on any device. This does not deny the content-owner of his payment. It only increases it, as VHS tape sales increased profits and created a new market for content owners. But to continue down this path of discriminatory content blocking is to wrongly limit consumers in choice, and the market in further innovation.