[Mikeguy]

That would mean in a situation where there is a proven pattern of misrepresentation by a company, the plaintiff would have no standing to sue. Doesn't really seem logically possible. That's why I say no one really knows, until you ask firms that do this legation, and even get more than one opinion.

Maybe your thinking of Tort Law.

It really turns on, who has standing to sue, and for what. E.g. a shareholder can sue for a company's misrepresentations concerning the company, as that potentially affects the shareholder's ownership of the company and governance rights; but the shareholder couldn't sue on the company's breach of a contract with a consumer (at least, not directly--I wonder if a corporate malfeasance claim could be brought).

(But probably more than enough law for this thread; I apologize to other readers for the detour.)

 

[exdishguy]

It really turns on, who has standing to sue, and for what. E.g. a shareholder can sue for a company's misrepresentations concerning the company, as that potentially affects the shareholder's ownership of the company and governance rights; but the shareholder couldn't sue on the company's breach of a contract with a consumer (at least, not directly--I wonder if a corporate malfeasance claim could be brought).

(But probably more than enough law for this thread; I apologize to other readers for the detour.)

Actually I probably stoked this back up because I was too lazy to read through all the post about class action lawsuits. Joe, sorry dude - I am upset too but there are really no grounds for a lawsuit here. Nada. Even ambulance chasers don't take ALL cases - they only take the ones they know they'll win. I can't imagine any credible law firm engaging in a lawsuit and wasting time and money on this. There is nothing to sue over. I'm pissed that I have spent nothing short of $8k+ over 18+ years buying Tivo gear - always with Lifetime subscriptions - but the EULAs are clear. We have no standing as customers - heck, even if you're a shareholder you probably won't have standing.

Back to the pre-roll ads. I would love to hear more success stories from those that called customer service to opt out. Is it back to the way it performed pre pre-roll....or shall we not call it, PPR?

 

[shannon94188]

Did anyone get "rid of em" yet by calling? I am curious to know what that means once the opt-out takes affect? Do we still see blue spinning wheels or any delay to start playback? Or do they push a firmware drop to us that has pre-roll gutted from it?

Hi there! I got rid of the ads by calling on Saturday. No more blue spinning wheel and programs start playing instantly. I did not need to reboot my box, but maybe it did overnight without my involvement. Lifetime on this Bolt box and been a TiVo owner since 2004 (Toshiba DVD TiVo!)

 

[dswallow]

Considering the near-universal disdain for these pre-roll ads that we see in comments here and on Twitter, I suspect the most effective approach, at least if TiVo weren't letting you just opt out of them by calling, is to organize an active campaign against the advertisers who purchase slots on these pre-roll ads. A visible, vocal, active campaign against them can do wonders with enough participation. But other than making an extremely adverse choice to do this at all, I don't think it has yet reached the point where that is the appropriate way to address this.

 

[exdishguy]

Hi there! I got rid of the ads by calling on Saturday. No more blue spinning wheel and programs start playing instantly. I did not need to reboot my box, but maybe it did overnight without my involvement. Lifetime on this Bolt box and been a TiVo owner since 2004 (Toshiba DVD TiVo!)

That is awesome news! Thank for letting us know. If you don't mind me asking one more favor - could you please check System Info and tell me the software version in its entirety? Just curious. Thx

 

[Davelnlr_]

Can confirm pre-roll ads have been removed from my system after calling Tivo on Sunday.. HOWEVER, the guide ads are stil there. Will call them today. These are extremely annoying, i have memory of where specific channels are, now everything is all dorked up.

Guide ads were one of the reasons I dumped DirecTv and their overpriced DVR/HD/Multiroom package.

 

[MikeLobby]

Wow 50 pages! I last checked the other day and it was only 30! I came back to try and make it 51...

I have really enjoyed my tivos over the years in that they just work and work well. My tivos (now using a Bolt + Mini and a Premiere) are pretty deeply intertwined in my home entertainment system (I even bought a Middle Atlantic custom shelf for the Premiere a year ago) so I won't be removing them just yet. But if ads start showing up in TE3, I will be infuriated. I will use all technical means available to block them. If ads throughout the UI are indeed the future, I will not purchase any new tivo hardware and advise others to do the same.

As for alternatives, i feel the HD homerun based solutions are cool DIY projects, but too spendy in terms of hardware & user tweaking required on top of still needing a subscription of some sort for guide data. Maybe I'll look into Channelmaster DVRs or similar one box solutions. If I find nothing useful, I guess I will eventually just forget about DVRing broadcast TV.

 

[Robert Saunders]

My reason for buying Tivo and paying a monthly service fee was to have a better TV experience than Comcast. Clearly it looks like I will be cancelling my Tivo account and finally use the Comcast STB that was sent to me free with my service. The last thing I am interested in doing is being made to watch commercials, even though their is a bypass, for a product that I pay a monthly service fee. This new change in the Tivo business model has taken the premium quality view that I have had regarding the Tivo product.
My apologies, I didn't read all of the other posts on the topic. I am sure that what I have said has been repeated over-and-over again, so thank you for letting me vent.

 

[opfreak]

Actually I probably stoked this back up because I was too lazy to read through all the post about class action lawsuits. Joe, sorry dude - I am upset too but there are really no grounds for a lawsuit here. Nada. Even ambulance chasers don't take ALL cases - they only take the ones they know they'll win. I can't imagine any credible law firm engaging in a lawsuit and wasting time and money on this. There is nothing to sue over. I'm pissed that I have spent nothing short of $8k+ over 18+ years buying Tivo gear - always with Lifetime subscriptions - but the EULAs are clear. We have no standing as customers - heck, even if you're a shareholder you probably won't have standing.

Back to the pre-roll ads. I would love to hear more success stories from those that called customer service to opt out. Is it back to the way it performed pre pre-roll....or shall we not call it, PPR?

So you and the other Pro-Tivo Pro-Ad crowd are all lawyers that are 100% sure theres nothing to sue for?
Is there a Tivo check in your inbox to pay for all the cover you are giving them?

 

[John7777]

We have a new Bolt OTA, and as of yet no ads. Maybe if every time there was an ad, we all notify the advertiser, that we will be boycotting the product. They may decide to pull the ad from TIVO. It may not get rid of them all but cut down on the amount. We're still too dependent on TIVO to let this be a deal breaker for us. Plus, when you've already purchased the lifetime, there isn't much leverage to say we're leaving. Sorry if somebody suggested this already, but I didn't want to go through all the posts.

 

[V7Goose]

Yes, it benefits future customers by preventing the company (and others like it) from doing that in the future. It might, for example, deter Comcast from adding pre-roll ads to their DVR or Tivo from adding ads in the middle of the recording. But you're right when you say that it won't benefit existing customers.

No, it DOES benefit ALL customers, including the current ones, if it causes a company to change its behavior and stop doing either illegal or unethical things. A small cash payout to each customer is meaningless, but when all those small pieces of fortune are aggregated together, it WILL cause a losing company and others watching to change behavior.

I am incensed by what Rovi is doing to existing customers in this case, but I do not know if it qualifies for a lawsuit. HOWEVER, if a knowledgeable attorney thinks it does, and is willing to work the case for a percentage of any future judgement (proves he thinks it is a valid case), then I am Absolutely ALL FOR a class action suit.

The idea presented here by some that "It is OK if Rovi screws me if it keeps TiVo in business" is a completely UNACCEPTABLE approach to life in my option. I certainly will miss TiVo (the OLD TiVo - the one that is already gone), but I doubt that I will miss Rovi one bit. They will just serve as another history lesson about what happens to stupid companies.

 

[krkaufman]

Is there a phone number I can call to have all the lawsuit talk removed from my account because those posts are completely ruining my Tivo Community Experience.

Seriously though, not to be a turd in the punch bowl but could that be split off into another thread and leave this one just for the meltdown/approval of ads?

So that'd be a "no," I guess.

 

[exdishguy]

So you and the other Pro-Tivo Pro-Ad crowd are all lawyers that are 100% sure theres nothing to sue for?
Is there a Tivo check in your inbox to pay for all the cover you are giving them?

Pro-Tivo? Nope. Pro protecting my investment in their products? Yup.

Pro-Ad? Nope. You might want to read many of my other posts before spewing such baseless drivel. Cliff Notes: I backrevved to TE3 because I hate the pre-roll ads.

100% sure? I'm talking about probabilities and likelihoods and you're talking absolutes. Of course I'm not 100% certain. This is America after all whereby we can sue for anything. Heck, maybe I'll sue you for not reading all of my posts and being a more informed TCF poster?

A check in my inbox from Tivo? Well now wouldn't that be nice. I hope its in the amount of an even $5,000 in the form of a refund check.

Cover up? Good lord...not even sure how to unpack that one. I'll err on the side of causing you a few nights' sleep and admit to being part of a vast Tivo conspiracy to voice my deep displeasure with pre-roll ads, loss of Live Guide, love of TE3, and to troll their customers that like TE4, thereby undermining their strategic trajectory and market acceptance of that strategy.

 

[pfiagra]

Please stop debating about class action lawsuits. If you are upset and want to file one, go do something about it. Contact a lawyer and when you find one that will take your case, come back here to let those interested know about it.

Endless debate about contract and consumer law by non-lawyers on these boards gives me a headache.

Also, if you’ve already posted how upset you are with this decision by TiVo, the internet has recorded it and will keep it out there for everyone to see. There’s no need to have multiple posts from you about your first world problems.

 

[BobCamp1]

No, it DOES benefit ALL customers, including the current ones, if it causes a company to change its behavior and stop doing either illegal or unethical things. A small cash payout to each customer is meaningless, but when all those small pieces of fortune are aggregated together, it WILL cause a losing company and others watching to change behavior.

I am incensed by what Rovi is doing to existing customers in this case, but I do not know if it qualifies for a lawsuit. HOWEVER, if a knowledgeable attorney thinks it does, and is willing to work the case for a percentage of any future judgement (proves he thinks it is a valid case), then I am Absolutely ALL FOR a class action suit.

The idea presented here by some that "It is OK if Rovi screws me if it keeps TiVo in business" is a completely UNACCEPTABLE approach to life in my option. I certainly will miss TiVo (the OLD TiVo - the one that is already gone), but I doubt that I will miss Rovi one bit. They will just serve as another history lesson about what happens to stupid companies.

1. By the time the lawsuit is settled, existing customers are ex-customers. Or the amount is so trivial that nobody cares about it anymore. Or the amount they have to pay doesn't exceed the profit the company made doing the bad activity. I've been involved in class action lawsuits -- I got some pocket change for buying my wife's engagement ring 20 years ago, and yet there's still a monopoly in the diamond market. I got $10 back for buying a DVD-ROM 10 years ago when there was collusion to jack up the prices, but DVD-ROM prices are still the same. I got a small amount of money when DirecTV removed too many channels from my package, but those channels never came back and my monthly rate didn't drop.

2. Rovi is letting existing customers contact technical support and opt out of the ads for free. I don't see how that's a large enough burden to justify a lawsuit. Not all of their customers are affected, including you and me because we're on TE3, so we couldn't join the lawsuit. New customers aren't going to be eligible because they can return the DVR within 30 days if they don't like it.

3. I agree that "It is OK if Rovi screws me if it keeps TiVo in business" is bad, but everybody has and will sign up for that when they buy the service. You will get the good with the bad, and if you don't like it don't buy the service. Actually, existing customers can get rid of the bad with one phone call and just keep the good. And this is not new behavior for Tivo or Rovi -- they've put ads in places others haven't before and I assume they will continue to do so.

It sounded really bad at first, but then the more the details came out the less upset I was about it. I was never surprised about it, in fact I wondered last spring if they would do it once I saw YouTube do it. I'm not happy about it, but it's not the end of the world.

And that's all I'm going to say about a lawsuit.

 

[BobCamp1]

We have a new Bolt OTA, and as of yet no ads. Maybe if every time there was an ad, we all notify the advertiser, that we will be boycotting the product.

Do Boycotts Work? (Ep. 234) - Freakonomics

 

[JoeKustra]

We have a new Bolt OTA, and as of yet no ads. Maybe if every time there was an ad, we all notify the advertiser, that we will be boycotting the product.

Sounds like a good project for FaceBook. Please feel free to go there and try it.

 

[mulscully]

I am truly saddened by what Tivo is doing. I have been a loyal Tivo customer since the early DirecTv Tivo days and even left DirecTv because of their split with Tivo. Unfortunately I do not use any of the streaming capabilities of the Tivo because in my experience all the apps are worst then the ones built into the Smart TVs. I love using the Tivo for OnePasses for my cable but I have the distinct feeling from reading through this thread that my customer desires/needs are getting too misaligned with what Tivo is delivering and it is approaching the breaking point. I am not dropping them yet. But I feel that day is coming real soon. There are more and more streaming services and we find ourselves watching more of them and less cable.

Lou

 

[Joe3]

Fight what's wrong or bend over. I rather fight than catch a social transmitted disease of except nothing and get nothing.

On one hand a few say they are tired hearing the solutions, one the other hand they want to talk about the problem only until it is an acceptable problem, but both their hands are flat and firmly planted on the floor.

 

[Mikeguy]

So you and the other Pro-Tivo Pro-Ad crowd are all lawyers that are 100% sure theres nothing to sue for?
Is there a Tivo check in your inbox to pay for all the cover you are giving them?

With apologies to others for yet further discussion here (please just skip this over), but:

1. That's an unfair post: it's not a bias to express an impartial judgment based on the evaluation of the facts as they exist (the fact that you may not like that judgment does not establish bias)--it's facing reality. 2. The TiVo user agreements say that TiVo may change its service how it wants and when it wants--that seems to be a barrier to a user lawsuit over not liking how TiVo changes its service how it wants and when it wants.* But if you have a logical position and analysis otherwise, please do tell (in a separate thread).

* I can see how this barrier could be overcome in some more extreme circumstances--such as, if TiVo were to change its service simply to eliminate it, or most of its functionality. But a judge likely would find, in that circumstance, that TiVo was not acting in the spirit and intent of the user agreement, but to defeat it. Adding pre-roll ads simply is nowhere near that, as far as I can see.