Wait - recording the IP stream would violate copyright law? No . . . for the same reasons that VCR and DVR time shifting don't.
Yes, illegal, since the IP streams are protected specifically to preclude recording.
This isn't just revenue enhancement - it's a legal obligation: Licensing for streaming (recording not permitted) is separate from licensing for broadcast (which can be recorded/time-shifted). You're simply incorrect. The time-shifting provisions you refer to pertain
only to broadcast.
That said, if the cable cos and content providers get their way, doing so would probably be a DMCA violation because it would potentially require cracking the decryption to record it rather than stream the content.
All of what you say here is not only already the case, but has been since 1996.
I could argue that the most efficient way of distributing video content is OTA.
Except it isn't. Using OTA for terrestrial viewing is, incontrovertibly, wasteful of bandwidth. Indeed, even for serving mobile stations, it would be substantially more efficient to structure service similar to switched digital video, with the mobile station signaling which service it wants to receive, its
local cell site placing that service on one of a few frequencies it has available, which could be shared if there happen to be more than one mobile station wanting that service at the same time.
Certainly everything else seems to be going wireless these days.
Not for efficiency. Specifically for convenience.
The whole concept of streaming "linear TV" instead of broadcasting it may indeed be primarily a way for the industry to circumvent court precedents that allow us to record content, which has been determined to not violate copyright laws as long as it's for our private use. I hope the courts will understand and catch up.
If you change from broadcast to streaming, you are choosing to switch from the means by which time-shifting is protected to the means by which
it is not.
I hope television consumers "will understand and catch up".
I don't have to like it, and more importantly, neither do you. The world doesn't revolve around us as consumers, but is a balancing of the needs of all parties, including consumers and suppliers. You "want it all". Tough. Get over it. Not just because it is the (current) law, but because everything returns to steady state eventually. If the laws change allowing time-shifting of streaming, then guess what: We'll have advertising overlays on-screen at all times, or some other similarly-invasive mechanism - because the people paying for the production of television series, the advertisers, are not going to give over the millions upon millions of dollars they give now, without getting the value from doing so that they get today, that value being the affecting of consumer purchasing behaviors.
And even if you don't believe people should have the right to skip commercials, would you allow the simple convenience of QuickMode in your brave new world?
Evidently you haven't done much streaming. During many streaming feeds, today, all forms of fast forward are blocked.
No, at that point, the industry would have succeeded in perverting the system.
Ridiculous. Just because it doesn't kowtow to your demands as a consumer they're evil? What self-ratifying nonsense. The "system" (American consumer markets) is based on charging for products and services based on customer
perceived value, not how much customers wish they could pay.
That is demonstrably false, both Europe and Asia have competitive HSI markets and unlimited data is the norm.
That is demonstrably false, both Europe and Asia have highly regulated HSI markets.
Regulation has nothing to do with it
False.
We've had these discussions here and on other television-related fora for several decades. There is always the indignant consumerists insisting that the world is going to change and suddenly service providers are going to sacrifice their profit in the interest of providing a consumerist nirvana. It never happens. Time after time after time, things return to steady state, the offerings and pricing adjusting to environmental changes and then settling back to the industry exacting from consumers compensation based on how much value the consumer derives from the offerings. That's not going to change without a wholesale scuttling of the American economic system.