MLB Says Slingbox Illegal, CEA Thinks Otherwise

The Tie Guy writes "Sling Media's Slingbox allows consumers to watch and control their home television programs from a remote PC or smartphone — a process called 'placeshifting'. Content owners are typically edgy when it comes to the placeshifting topic. However, most don't view Slingbox as an imminent threat that will destroy the commercial broadcast model. Major League Baseball is going against the grain by saying that Slingbox owners who stream home games while traveling are breaking the law because it allows consumers to circumvent geographical boundaries written in to broadcast deals. This has sparked a huge debate that has the MLB, baseball fans, and the CEA up in arms. CEA President Gary Shapiro doesn't agree, and is coming to the defense of Sling Media and place-shifting in general."

the solution

[jcgf]

I guess I'll just have to quit watching baseball games. Oh wait I find the sport boring and asinine and don't watch it anyways.

Re:Consumer Electronics Association

[Anonymous Coward]

Wikipedia to the rescue! [wikipedia.org]

The abbreviation CEA may refer to:
 
    * California Earthquake Authority
    * California Environmental Associates
    * Cambridge Electron Accelerator
    * Canadian Education Association
    * Carcinoembryonic antigen, a tumor marker for colorectal cancer.
    * Carotid endarterectomy, a surgical procedure involving the carotid artery
 
    * Central Electricity Authority of India
    * Centro de Educación Artística, an arts institute in Mexico City owned by Televisa
    * China Eastern Airlines
    * Christian Evangelistic Assemblies, a Christian organization supporting non-denominational churches
    * Cincinnati Entertainment Awards
    * Collective employment agreement (in collective bargaining)
    * College of Engineering Adoor, An engineering college at Adoor, Kerala affiliated to CUSAT
    * Collie eye anomaly
    * Comité Européen des Assurances, the European insurance and reinsurance federation
    * Consumer Electronics Association
    * Controlled Environment Agriculture
 
    * Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique, French national establishment for nuclear matters
    * Council of Economic Advisors
    * Commodities Exchange Act, one of several pieces of legistation regulating the sale of commodities in the United States under the oversight of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
    * Cultural Experiences Abroad, Study Abroad Programs

I'm partial to "Collie eye anomaly" myself.

*ring*ring*

[UP_Minstrel]

Hey man, its Bob.
(Hi Bob)
Hey, you at home?
(yeah)
You got the game on?
(yeah)
Whats the score?
(can't tell you)
What? C'mon man, you watching it or not?
(yeah, I'm watching it)
Well, tell me what the score is.
(OOoo, hold on....) .....
(Wow, great play)
Who's at bat?
(Can't tell you)
.
.
Ad Nauseum

Seriously. Draw a fucking line. Get a grip. Evolve with the times or die, you broadcast based dinosaurs, instead of fighting ridiculous fucking battles to raise your stock price until you can retire and pull the chord on your goddamn golden parachute.

There's nothing anyone can do with your crap that you haven't now labeled as theft. Oh wait, they can watch it ONCE... but they have to buy a house and a license and agree to a 3 yr service agreement with whatever cable-sludge company holds the monopoly in your broadcast "zone" so they can lay there on the couch with an IV drip in while you rifle their wallets and be bombarded with advertisements for stores 200 miles away as you download "reality" TV into the country's frontal lobes and host talking heads complaining about the declining IQ and productivity of the sheep that you yourselves have helped raise.

Property is theft. Intellectual Property doubly so.

Re:Consumer Electronics Association

[i_like_spam]

CEA actually stands for 'Can't Explain Acronyms', which is a common occurrence on Slashdot.

Re:the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

but, but, but what happens if I have a Tivo connected to a Slingbox? Then I can placeshift...AND timeshift!

*head explodes with copyright violation possibilities*

Re:This is the same thing as DVD region coding

[iamacat]

MLB is using copyright laws to enforce their marketing agreements.

Well then, I am going to use sodomy laws to complain about Microsoft's deceptive marketing practices in regards to security. In both cases, it sounds good, but it's worthless legally. Copyright laws prevent me from making additional copies of the content and distributing them to others. My own copy is only subject to property laws - as MY property that is illegal for MLB or anyone else to muck with.

Silly people who never took physics

[Solandri]

I say that Fair Use lets me both time and place-shift.

You don't have to declare it, it's already been decided. The courts have already determined that Fair Use includes the right to timeshift. However, Special Relativity tells us that time and space are actually the same thing, and your perception of how the two relate to each other depends on your velocity. So timeshifting in one reference frame is placeshifting in another. Ergo if fair use grants us the right to timeshift, it also grants us the right to placeshift. ;)

Re:The MLB?

[pete6677]

It amazes me what people will go through to watch paint drying on TV... oops I mean to watch a baseball game.

Re:You play in our parks..

[X-treme-LLama]

If only my mod points hadn't expired yesterday..

What I do with the airwaves/cable that comes into my home is my own damn business as long as I'm not throwing it up on YT or BT. (And even then, as someone mentioned, you would think they would be grateful ANYONE was watching any more). If I want to timeshift, placeshift, or even print out the individual frames, place them on a wooden coffee table, take a digital photo of that, assemble all of those BACK into an mpeg-4 stream and have THAT 'slung' to my laptop in Tokyo, I can do it.

In many cities with baseball teams local and even state taxes helped to pay for the actual fucking stadiums, not to mention the tax breaks, infrastructure, etc. etc. All for what, so some juiced up guy with tiny balls (ahh 'roid nuts) can run 360 fucking feet (in a bloody circle!) for millions and millions of dollars.. And not all at once either, they get rest stops (unless it's a home run, but in which case he's probably jogging).. It's a pansy ass sport. Ticket prices are insane, concessions are worse, and the only thing more mind-numbing than watching it in the stands is watching it on TV.. (Except when the cards and sox finally won the series.. Hey, what the hell, the sox deserved it and I'm in Missouri.. we cheer the cards because our other team fucking sucks)

I'd start watching again if they made it a contact sport, with no equipment changes. If you hit a homer you get to hit the pitcher in his pitching arm with your bat, and he MUST then pitch out the inning. If you steal a base, boot, err, cleat to head (of the baseman). If you run down the catcher at home plate you get to piss on his face mask--while he is wearing it. And the best one, when the ump makes a bullshit call, every player on the team that got screwed gets to line up and kick him in the nuts. Maybe all the fans in the stadium too, after all baseball 2.0 is all about user generated nut kickings.

Re:The MLB?

[asninn]

Hey, that's not fair - baseball is much more interesting than watching paint dry. In fact, it's almost as good as watching grass grow.