Stealing TV

Lawmeme has posted the Top Ten New Copyright Crimes, which has coverage of a recent interview “with Jamie Kellner, chairman and CEO of Turner Broadcasting (an AOL Time Warner company)”. He recently made news for this interview for the rather remarkable claim that:

“[Ad skips are] theft. Your contract with the network when you get the show is you’re going to watch the spots. Otherwise you couldn’t get the show on an ad- supported basis. Any time you skip a commercial or watch the button you’re actually stealing the programming.”

The claim clearly isn’t true, but it’s remarkable because this extremely influential figure in media either believes every word he is saying or think that others will believe it. It’s a pretty twisted view of copyright law that’s growing increasingly popular in Hollywood today. It’s clearly not true because you are under no contract with the networks. They broadcast their content, which you pay for if you have cable, or don’t if you have an antenna, and you receive it. They comingle advertising into the content stream in order to sell it. You are under no obligation to watch the ads, just as you are under no obligation to read ads in the subway or read ads in magazines. This is simply a megalomaniacal statement, but one that warrants attention because it reveals the precise lack of respect for our faculties that the media industry holds.

The article has a top ten list of other transgressions likely to be targetted if this one meets with any success, like “Getting into a movie after the previews, but just in time for the main feature”, “Blocking pop-up ads on the Internet” or “Changing radio stations in the car when a commercial comes on”.

Slashdot has some very constructive comments to their article, Turner CEO: “PVR Users Are Thieves”, which point out that broadcasting is done with the mandate of the public, in the form of FCC licenses, which are reviewed every couple of years. The airwaves do not belong to the networks.

Of course, the main reason for this kind of drivel is that the advertisers have probably demanded lower rates than the network’s precious statistics indicate have historically been paid for such and such a time slot, for such and such a demographic…precisely because they realize that there aren’t really that many people watching them. So, with the sky falling, so to speak, instead of coming up with a new revenue stream or ways of guaranteeing eyeballs on the set, the execs turn around and blame the audience, who they expect to bleat and comply, because they have no respect for us whatsoever.