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[i]Back in 1979, years before anyone had heard of Napster, the copyright debate of the day centred on that very thing – the potentially disruptive technology of videotapes.
In a U.S. courtroom that year, the Sony Betamax was under fire for what was already being called time-shifting – taping a TV program to watch at a later time. One person who took the stand in defence of time-shifting, surprisingly, was childhood icon Mister Rogers.
At the time, Mister Rogers’ Neighbourhood was watched by some 3-million families a day. Should those viewers be allowed to make copies of Neighbourhood, and other shows, on their new videotape recorders, he was asked?
Mister Rogers’ answer was an emphatic, yes.
“I have always felt that with the advent of all of this new technology that allows people to tape the Neighbourhood off-the-air ... that they then become much more active in the programming of their family’s television life,â€
TIme shifting is an obsolete concept. It takes the position that consumers are going to continue to get television via 'channels' which stream pre-programmed shows to your television. Things like Netflix and itunes are already changing that paradigm and the television companies should have known it was coming for a while now. At least ten years ago I remember hearing about China Central Television talking about how they see themselves becoming the equivalent of a digital library, where people choose what they want when they want it from the archive.
Peer 2 Peer is something entirely more revolutionary and the 1979 equivalent is tape trees... http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mleone/gdead/faq/tape-trees.html
I wonder what Mister Rogers who have had to say about those.
And as a Presbyterian minister, he was a man of principle. He wouldn't have said or done anything that would have compromised his many well established Christian values.
ginacanadiangrl wrote:
I don't disagree with the conclusion in Mr. Rogers' case, but by this argument, bishops would never molest children.