back to article TV Now was too good, and that was its downfall

Absent an appeal to the High Court, Optus’ TV Now service infringes copyright. It is not, however, a threat to the whole of the Internet, cloud services – nor even, necessarily, to the use of cloud to record TV. Although there will, indubitably, be people crying doom – and in spite of the victors’ crowing, which includes AFL …

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  1. VoodooForce
    Paris Hilton

    Sorry but

    These sports are funded in part by the broadcast rights they sell. Optus were not paying for this. How can they in any way justify having this as a value add for their customers? Defending optus on technical grounds is a joke.

    Paris because she knows about having content broadcasted without permission or payment

    1. Lemons

      Re: Sorry but

      Paris got paid.

    2. P. Lee
      Mushroom

      Re: Sorry but

      No-one is taking something for nothing here. The sport is getting paid.

      Optus make no pretense to adding value to the sport, in pretty much the same way that your VCR doesn't add value to the sport. Optus was providing a cloud VCR, so you don't need to locate your hardware in your house, where it is subject to power-cuts, mis-configuration etc.

      "The sport" still gets paid for all the users, just as if the users had their own hardware. The issue is that the sport sold the same broadcast rights twice, for TV and for PCs/phones.

      Optus is using TV licenses to allow users to record and play back to phones and PCs - which users are allowed to do by law. Telstra are whinging because they didn't think anyone would use their rights to receive the TV signal and push it to their phones, or outsource the process and Telstra paid for a useless bit of paper.

      "More money for sport" is not an excuse to allow this to continue. The leagues should have just sold the broadcast rights, not try to sell them "for tv" and "for phones", because there is no difference. Both devices are just a computer with a radio link. Phones just allow you to make voice calls as well, which not all TVs allow you to do. The "smarter" ones with Skype even allow you to do that, so the difference comes down to, "do you use AC or DC electricity and how big is your screen?" Its absurd.

      This is just money-grubbing sport and Telstra with a pointless contract. Stop trying to "make markets," at least Optus tried to do something innovative and useful for the consumer.

      I guess we can't have that, can we?

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Sorry but

      Why do people keep grabbing the wrong end of this pineapple?

      Neither technology nor the law exist to guarantee money to sports bodies. Just like any other business, if technology or the law make your business model obsolete you either adapt or quit.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Seems fair

    The judgement seems reasonable. Provided that the TV is streamed by the user to the cloud storage and only then used by that person, it is as legal is if it was done entirely at home.

    TV Now doing the copying is clearly not a case of 'by an individual for personal use'.

  3. flibbertigibbet

    Ye Gods, how many ways can a hair be split

    Jeezz, technology is straining things to breaking point.

    Their Honours have jumped through some heroic loops to put this little train of logic together. I can't help but think is because they know in their heart the drafters of the law did not intend it to wipe out commercial sporting codes, and so they have tried to interpret in a way that doesn't.

    All they've done is delay the inevitable. Anyone with a decent DVR can record these shows now - I do. Surely with the advent of the NBN device as simple as a toaster that can record it and play it to your phone can't be more than a decade away.

    > These sports are funded in part by the broadcast rights they sell. Optus were not paying for this.

    No, but the entity that broadcast the data and have gave it to Optus for free did pay for it. As @P.Lee said, Telstra paid for diddly squat. I am not sure how they managed to convince themselves the footage was worth something after it has been broadcast on free to air.

    1. Francis Boyle Silver badge

      Re: Ye Gods, how many ways can a hair be split

      You may call it splitting hairs. I call it the precise application of the law. It's what judges are paid to do. And in the end it protects us all.

      1. Francis Boyle Silver badge

        Or to put it another way

        would you trust a coder who thought that bothering to use the static keyword was "splitting hairs". like programming the law is about getting the rules right at the start so everyone can follow them without getting any nasty surprises.

  4. Dr. Mouse
    FAIL

    I think this is absurd

    I have set up this kind of service at home. Basically, I had a MythTV box, and all recordings were then available to me on any device (through a little custom jiggerypokery).

    From what I have seen, they were providing this service but hosted in the "cloud". How can this be illegal? They may have added features the majority wouldn't have had access to, but that is just a feature of their site. In no way do I see that this is any more than providing a service which allows an individual to record something for their own personal use and play it back on the device of their choice.

    If the law currently prohibits this, the law needs changing.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I think this is absurd

      To me it reads like the court got pressured to return the "right" verdict. Protect business profits over the actual Law.

      Like you say it is possible for an individual to put together the same service by themselves. There is *no* carrier grade requirement. But it is not easy. So much so that I have not done it. I have an IceTV enabled PVR at home. Putting together MythTV (including storage), transcoder, and remote access portal is just "too much work" even for a tachie.

  5. Michael Kean
    Happy

    It could be done, one on one...

    The Raspberry Pi is a $25 US 'computer'

    http://www.raspberrypi.org/

    Add a USB tuner, an antenna, a flash drive, and a little software; and you've got yourself a net-connected PVR that uses very little power.

    If regulations mean that Optus has to be technically inefficient in building a one-for-one system; I dare say it could be done at a reasonable price.

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