Must See TV...or Else

June 2002

Are you committing a crime with your VCR? Media companies claim "time-shifting," the home recording of shows to watch later, violates their copyrights, and that fast-forwarding through commercials is theft. According to folks like Jamie Kellner, the CEO of Turner Broadcasting, "Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to watch the spots..." If you skip the ads, "you're actually stealing the programming." I have a hard time believing I'm robbing the K-mart corporation because I don't want to see another Martha Stewart ad. Heck, I'd pay K-mart just to keep Martha out of my life.

And what if you're "busy" in a certain room during commercials? As long as you really have to go, because Kellner advises there's "a certain amount of tolerance for going to the bathroom." Whew, that's a relief! Now I don't feel guilty about missing this evening's 45th showing of Budweiser's "WAZZUP!" ad. After all, it was their product that put me in that room in the first place.

Does anybody remember agreeing to this contract? I don't recall signing anything. They must have gotten me in a weak moment after I was lulled into a mind-numbing trance from accidental exposure to a "Saved By The Bell" rerun. That's the only way I'd willingly submit to a bunch of promos of SUVs, Swiffer Mops and Chia Pets.

Media makers always go Chicken Little whenever there's a new piece of consumer technology, but end up making buckets of cash from it anyway. Back in 1975 BC (Before Cable) Disney and Universal sued Sony over the Betamax, the first VCR, claiming people were stealing shows. Nine years of appeals later, the Supreme Court decided audio and video home taping were legal, and the Mouse House has been a sore loser about it since. If the mediafolk had their way, we'd all have little tags on our remotes that say "Do not push Record under penalty of law."

It seems bizarre nowadays to hear movie companies trying to block the sale of VCRs considering how much they make in video sales. Both Universal and Disney added new wings to their theme parks with what they made on my kids' video collection alone.

Since they can't change the Supreme Court, entertainment companies now want to require electronic devices to come with soft/hard/whateverware to stop consumers from copying any kind of media. The problem is none of it works. Recently, Sony Music coded certain audio CD's that made them unplayable on computers. People quickly figured out they could block the code by drawing around the bottom of the CD with a black magic marker. Listen carefully and you can hear millions of research dollars go "flush" as I color in the edge of my CD with my 99-cent Sharpie Fine Point.

The fact is most of us don't want to steal. We legally copy for convenience. If we had to lead our lives around the TV Guide, we'd all learn to live without "Touched By An Angel" and "Walker, Texas Ranger." Okay, we should learn to live without them anyway because they're lousy shows, but you get what I mean.

Well, I guess if we have a moral obligation to watch commercials, I should try to do my part. I promise when I see a Victoria's Secret commercial on one of my taped shows, I won't hit the fast forward button. I'll watch it all the way through. Every time it comes on. Maybe even rewind it to make sure I didn't miss anything. I wouldn't want to have a guilty conscience, right? At least that's what I told my wife. No, she's not buying it either.

LEGAL STUFF: All content copyright © 1996-2006 Daniel O'Leary. All rights reserved. No unauthorized duplication, publication, or distribution.

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He has previously written online editorials to NJ-shout.com (RIP), Great Society.org, and Songsource.com, among others. He has also been featured in ShoreGuide and AbsoluteWrite.com.

Dan is a current member of the NetWits humorist's collective.

Since his early twenties, Dan's writings have also been prominently featured on the refrigerator in his parents' home. "Sure, they make no sense," Mrs. O'Leary comments, "but we're proud of him -- no matter what everyone else says."