I’ve come across a flurry of commentary on the fact that apparently TiVo has added content protection allowing a broadcaster to protect any program as it is broadcast. The result of this is:

“[A program] recorded with a red-flag next to it (an icon I’ve never seen before).  When I selected the episode, I got a message to the effect that “the copyright holder prohibited saving the episode past date mm/dd”.  (from PVRBlog)

Read the whole post to see a good explanation and rundown of what apparently is going on.

I’m a TiVo fanatic and truly hope that they survive. It’s a wonderful product which unfortunately is under pressure and from where I sit is at risk.

One other thing. Down lower in the post I see the following self-righteous comment which seems always to be the first refuge of people getting upset about any kind of copy protection:

“It treats all TiVo customers like they are criminals with big scary warnings about what you can and can’t do. “

Boo-hoo. The louder people complain about being treated as criminals. the biggest offenders I suspect they really are. I mean I grant that copy protection or DRM is a pain in the butt, but let’s admit that it’s totally within the right of the publisher. iTunes,

Windows XP, and now TiVo. Boo-hoo.

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