Google Patent Proposes $2 Fee To Skip Commercials 434
theodp writes "A day after Google debuted its new Google TV website, the USPTO issued U.S. Patent No. 7,806,329 to the search giant for its Targeted Video Advertising invention. Among other things, the patent proposes having viewers take 5-10 minutes to 'fill out a consumer survey and perhaps to provide additional information such as a mailing address survey before starting the program' to avoid having to watch 10 minutes of commercials. 'As another alternative,' the patent continues, 'the broadcaster may offer the users an option to pay $2 (such as through a micro-payment system, such as GBuy) to exchange for skipping all commercials.' More from the patent: 'The system may allow a user to skip all of the promotions that they want to skip, but may also require the user to fully watch at least four promotions before the program will continue. Likewise, the system may require the user to follow activities that generate a certain amount of advertising revenue or advertising points (e.g., that may correspond directly or indirectly to advertising revenues) before the program will continue.'"
Greed (Score:5, Insightful)
To me, at this point, commercials are greed. We already pay subscription (cable or otherwise), and most movies/TV shows use product placement among other things to supplement the cost. What really gets me is that now movies have 10 minutes of commercials before them. Did I really just pay $10 to watch 10 minutes of commercials before the 15 minutes of movie trailers? It's odd that only a few years ago, the movie/theatre business made a nice profit without having these commercials, yet now they cannot live without them.
I hope in time commercial-less media is the norm.
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I hope in time commercial-less media is the norm.
I guess you haven't seen Demolition Man, have you?
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Not in a while, but I did watch "The Glades" earlier this week and noticed that every computer monitor (including laptop lids) has a huge Windows logo. It's a shame that they don't have Linux logos, as they've been caught using a GNOME desktop. [omgubuntu.co.uk]
Re:Greed (Score:5, Insightful)
What really gets me is that now movies have 10 minutes of commercials before them. Did I really just pay $10 to watch 10 minutes of commercials before the 15 minutes of movie trailers?
Go somewhere else then, seriously. Most often it's the small, independent, or even budget theaters that actual treat their patrons nicely. Even in the relatively small town I live in there is at least one budget theater that promises no commercials, less than 10 minutes of previews, and (as they love to point out as often as possible) real butter on the popcorn. And the manager actually knows the regulars, gives out free tickets and popcorn before the start of many movies, apologizes in person if something is wrong, and actually tries to make the whole experience enjoyable. And all for less than half the price of going to one of the big name theaters. Ok, sure, you won't get to see new releases opening weekend, but how often can you really not wait an extra month or two before you see a movie?
Alamo Drafthouse (Score:5, Informative)
Case in point: The Alamo Drafthouse [drafthouse.com]. They play first run movies (as well as cult films and other such), serve food and alcohol, and have actual pre-show video entertainment (not commercials). If a movie isn't playing at the Drafthouse, I generally don't bother going. It's not worth putting up with general obnoxiousness of the large corporate theater chains like Cinemark.
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Case in point: The Alamo Drafthouse [drafthouse.com]. They play first run movies (as well as cult films and other such), serve food and alcohol, and have actual pre-show video entertainment (not commercials). If a movie isn't playing at the Drafthouse, I generally don't bother going. It's not worth putting up with general obnoxiousness of the large corporate theater chains like Cinemark.
Good point. Portland, OR has the McMenamin's establishments that operate in a very similar manner. I reckon that most major cities have something similar. The clientele is more polite (don't insist on texting and annoying every patron behind them) , the menu is far superior, and there's good beer. What's not to like?
Even the small town I lived in a few years ago had a small, locally owned theater that offered an experience that was superior in every way to the multiplex chains that have so fucked up the ci
Re:Greed (Score:5, Insightful)
I think at this point, society is seriously messed up. If we have to pay to avoid being monitored and hit with sales pitches, then the world of advertising must be either so desparate or so avaricious, that it's lost all reason. It's tantamount to a protection racket where people pay not to be hassled. And you'd think that if you were an advertiser, your target audience would be the ones that could afford not to see your ads, no?
I don't think it's even the advertising companies that are to blame. Well they are, because they pay for all this, but ultimately they're just driven by the investors with quarterly whips to increase profits higher and higher. It's the market analysts (or whatever they're called these days) who keep offering them this magic ticket whereby the wonderful technique of stripping everyone of the last dregs of their privacy, will connect each seller with an untapped market of people who desparately want their product. They mine every last drop of data they can from us and then try to flog their services to the product manufacturers saying "look - we know who'll buy your goods. Pay ussssss."
Advertising long since stopped being about companies trying to make money off the public. Advertising is now about advertisers trying to make money off the companies.
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I think at this point, society is seriously messed up.
lol how do you know when your life is too good? When you think advertising before you get entertained means society is seriously messed up.
Seriously, this is messed up society [indiatalkies.com], and so is this [bilerico.com], but having your entertainment delayed is not.
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Nothing like a self-righteous lecture to make you feel better, huh?
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I don't watch TV (aaarhhh!), I use adblock, and most of the stuff I subsribe to comes with only a few ads. My phone is not listed for telemarketers. And on my mailbox, there's a "no advertising, please" sticker.
Life is good. At least in that respect.
(I still get hassled a bit by pushy salespeople in the streets, though. I'm just waiting for the Norwegian law enforcement to become so inefficent that I can punch them without risking getting hassled by the Man. And the public space is filled with advertising.)
Greed, but not local greed (Score:2)
The studios get between 80 and 90% of the admission charge for first run movies for the first 2 weeks of the engagement. The ratio reverses beginning in the 3rd week.
I'm not saying it's in the direct interest of the studios to churn out trash with no "legs", but I am saying that churning out trash with no "legs" really hurts the bottom line of the exhibitors.
I was a cinema manager while the massive commercial reel became the norm, and in order to protect the exhibitors' bottom line, every major chain compl
Re:Greed (Score:4, Funny)
I haven't been in a regular big movie theater in probably 7-8 years - the damned effort of having to take a bath and get dressed drove me away. Bittorrent is easier. Download at night and watch tomorrow.
Re:Greed (Score:4, Funny)
Netflix has solved the problem for me, but there is still the tedium of selecting which DVDs I want, and the hardship of making the trek to the mailbox...
yea.. what's your take on Boeing's charge (Score:3, Informative)
'cause a 777 STARTS at $205 million
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_777 [wikipedia.org]
Re:Greed (Score:4, Insightful)
do they want me to get things from bit torrent?
I haven't had cable television in over a year. I got tired of all the infomercial crap.
I don't think that I will be paying for a show with comercials.
I think that it will be a cold day in hell that I pay $2 extra for one without.
Just how much do they think that television is worth?
Not gonna do it. no thanks.
now you will have to excuse me, I have some Dexter to watch...
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You can.
Get a Satellite dish and receiver that is supported by them and buy your channel subscription. Buddy does it with his C band dish.
He pays for $110 a YEAR for 38 premium channels from Starz, HBO and Cinemax.
It's been this way for decades.
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That is wholly untrue though. Most unfortunately so.
Your logic is sound. The problem is that you think backing "them" into a corner will cause them to act rationally since they have no choice left. The reality is the crazy bastards pull out a nuclear bomb, and with eyes twitching, their faces contorted in rage and madness, consign the rest of us to o
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Did you inquire what a movie ticket would cost for a showing without ads or trailers? Probably more than $10.
"It's odd that only a few years ago, the movie/theatre business made a nice profit without having these commercials, yet now they cannot live without them."
Nothing ever changes, never. Costs never go up. Revenue never goes down. There are no alternative to a movie theater and never will be.
Re:Greed (Score:5, Informative)
Today, the theaters themselves are the ones who get paid off of pre-movie advertising -- that's on top of vast mark-ups on concession items. Meanwhile, ticket costs have tripled in the last 15 years, and movie studios are making record profits [torrentfreak.com] -- particularly given that there are additional revenue streams like product placement, DVD sales/rental, fees from TV, etc.
So no, ticket costs without showing ads would certainly not be more that $10. In fact, pre-movie ads are almost entirely unrelated to ticket prices.
Re:Greed (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm over 40 and have not been to a movie theater in probably 5 years. maybe even more.
I would not even weep if all the movie 'theaters' went out of business tomorrow.
when businesses get that greedy and evil, the sooner they fade away the better.
the unpleasantness of being in the theater and being overcharged at every step turns me off so I choose not to go there.
I rent movies at home all the time. 1000% better experience. the fact that my screen is 32" wide does not bother me in the least! any movie that -needs- a big scream and jet plane level sound is too weak on its content to hold my interest for very long, anyway. being in the comfort of home trumps all 'benefits' of what the theaters give.
let this model die. it had a good run but its not needed anymore.
Re:Greed (Score:4, Informative)
I hope in time commercial-less media is the norm.
In glorious soviet UK, we have four major TV channels [bbc.co.uk] (and minor channels, national and local radio stations) without commercials. This costs £145 per year [tvlicensing.co.uk] ($230, or ~$20 per month). In fact, the radio channels and website can be used for free, you pay if you have a TV (although I wonder if this will change in the future).
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The ads are what make up the difference. Which is why channels which don't have commercials end up being completely commercial as in HSN, pledge drives as in PBS or subscription based as in HBO.
It's a bit like sports t
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There are plenty of commercials on PBS, they just happen to be between programs, rather than interrupting them.
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It's stuff like this that causes me to torrent TV shows. I play plenty for TV, including a cable subscription, but I'm not going to spend 60 minutes watching 42 minutes of content with 18 minutes of advertising (30% advertising time!), as well as watching it when they want me to. Just isn't going to happen. I watch live TV for background noise nowadays, when I don't care in particular what I'm going to watch, or if I feel like something not on my download list. And for those movies that have some compel
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greed runs deep.
take a made-for-tv sitcom. it gets fully paid for (at least it had to in the old days) by BEING on tv that one time. any money over that is gravy. what do they do, now? they release that same content on dvd and charge you again.
when I see people post deals on the various coupons' sites and say 'wow, such and such a tv show is being released on dvd for $x off!' I fail to get excited and, in fact, get angry. the 'gimme generation' fails to see what they are funding and more importantly, w
Re:Greed (Score:5, Informative)
The whole commercial thing goes back a long way. Television used to be free, over the air. Consumers were promised that paying for cable would keep the content commercial-free. Then the media companies got greedy, and stuck advertising in there anyway... It's not like we have much of an alternative.
I don't watch shows until around 15 minutes after they come on, so that I can start at the beginning and fast forward through the commercials.
Re:Greed (Score:5, Informative)
The whole commercial thing goes back a long way. Television used to be free, over the air. Consumers were promised that paying for cable would keep the content commercial-free.
No we weren't. This is looking at the past with rose tinted lenses. A few channels may have been SOLD as commercial free, but that's not why we bought it.
My TV had 13 buttons on it, I could program them and tune them to 13 radio frequencies. What cable offered was 32 channels, all without snow/noise and I wouldn't have to maintain an aerial on top of my house. I was USED to commercials on most of those stations I received (not 13, I think I could receive about 3 on a good day) But I was sold on the fact that I wouldn't have to bother with an antenna, it would always be clear, and I'd get a lot more. Prism and HBO were big selling points.
(As an aside, boy I miss that TV. After it was 13 or so years old, My little sister once tried to get the cartoon characters out and tossed a rock at it. Slight crack in the center we got used to. 13 years after THAT it finally gave up the ghost in a rather ghostlike fashion by shooting blue plasma out the back)
But back on topic, I don't ever remember being sold on no commercials except on channels like HBO.
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Well, there goes my "Fast Forward" button (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well, there goes my "Fast Forward" button (Score:5, Interesting)
My freedom is in the form of pirated TV shows and movies, if you won't let me pay for and download them (I'm in Sweden and the choices for US TV shows are pretty much nill) legally then I'll just get them for free without commercials. I'm not waiting several months just for the privilege of commercials and subtitles made by some college student who doesn't understand what he or she is translating...
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Latest Google Patent (Score:2)
For a device that gently applies pressure to the users throat, and increases it the more he holds down FF.
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Oh, they'll still have a fast forward button, but you have to enter your credit card number every time you want to use it.
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Absolutely Evil. (Score:2)
That about sums it up. Who have they been hiring lately?
I can only hope they're trying to patent this so no one else can do it, then they just sit on it never using it.
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Yeah, no kidding. Fill out a survey before I can watch TV? Pay them for the privilege to not watch commercials? Generate a certain amount of ad revenue?
My PVR already allows me to do this for free. I can guarantee that as soon as my TV watching will enforce that I watch commercials or pay to skip them, I will simply cancel my TV subscript
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Wow, way to apologise for this kind of thing.
I just download TV via torrent with the commercials already cut out. If that means the shows stop being made, oh well, I'll move on to other entertainment.
At this point I feel adversarial towards the distributors and producers of TV content. They just take and take and take. Fine, I played along for years but not anymore. Now I'm going to actively subvert their revenue stream just to fuck with them.
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Evil? really? yeah, here is an option, you don't have to do it but if it adds value for you then you can opt in.
Yeah, freaking evil~
Re:Absolutely Evil. (Score:5, Insightful)
Before everyone gets crazy... (Score:4, Insightful)
We can still go grab a beer and fix a sandwich up during commercials. Don't freak out. Just do something else.
Re:Before everyone gets crazy... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well Sure, If That Covers the Costs (Score:2)
Right.... until they start adding commercials to books as electronic readers start becoming more mainstream. You won't be able to turn the page until you sit through this 15 second commercial that the publisher figures might interest you based on the content of the book.
And if your choice is watching that with not having to pay for the book versus shelling out the usual $20 for the book ... I might actually opt for that.
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Re:Well Sure, If That Covers the Costs (Score:4, Insightful)
i worry you'll sit through commercials AFTER paying for the book, just like cable.
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Right.... until they start adding commercials to books as electronic readers start becoming more mainstream.
So stick to paper books -- you know, the ones with pages. And get them from the library.
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Remember...
We can still go grab a beer and fix a sandwich up during commercials. Don't freak out. Just do something else.
Not really - from the summary it sounds like it actually requires some interaction from the user. Can't answer a question about the product it just showed you an ad for? That's okay, I'm sure they'll be happy to show it to you again so you can pass the required quiz before watching your show.
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Wow... so they want to turn commercials into something resembling a pop quiz from high school?
Unless every commercial is specifically tailored to each and every individual so that the person viewing it has enough interest in the product that they would be *guaranteed* to pay attention to it, that has about as much chance of succeeding as promoting that people stop having sex so that the population doesn't keep growing.
The mute button works great. (Score:2)
Give it a try. You won't believe the difference it makes.
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Better idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Google is the "king" of targeted ads...so why not do the same thing with Google TV? If I'm watching an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, I obviously will not give a shit about life insurance...but a video game? Sure. I'll sit through an advertisement for that. Unless it's one of those lame Gamestop machinima commercials...
This seems like a strange direction for Google to take...what with their algorithms used for serving up ads online, one would think they would utilize something similar for their TV service...I despise advertisements, but I'll tolerate them if it's relevant to what I'm watching.
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Remember, if they have to advertise on TV, it probably sucks.
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Re:Better idea (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't want to refinance my house. I don't want to find relationships online. I don't want to find old classmates. I don't want to earn money by signing up for free trials. Even though I don't want these things, I see these ads a lot.
I like videogames and boardgames. I like anime. I like paintball. I like cooking. I already go out of my way to learn about new products and discounts in these areas.
I would love to surrender information about my interests in order to replace the ads I don't care about with ads that I do care about. I'm fine with the idea that they need to make money somehow, and I'm willing to sell them my attention if they talk to me about products that I agree to myself, 'Yeah, I might have wanted that'. Give me an internet radio style thumbs-up / thumbs-down button for the ads, including a 'Never show me an ad for this product again'.
OMG (Score:3, Insightful)
If there was ever a situation that deserved writing scripts that control a video player, this is it.
Script #1: Fill in the customer survery with bogus-but-valid-looking info.
Script #2: During commercials, cut off the video player's access to the screen and audio output, and instead have the computer present either silence or some alternative form of entertainment (music, etc.)
$2 (Score:2)
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One hour of TV programming is 40 minutes of content and 20 minutes of ads. If Google charges $2/10 minutes of ads, its actually twice the price per episode.
$2 ?? (Score:2)
I'm not going to pay ANYTHING to skip the commercials. I use my DVR to record programs, then watch them "later" (at least 30 minutes later) so that I can fast forward past the commercials.
Being *forced* to sit through advertising (I'm looking at the websites that MAKE you watch a video before you see content -- especially Discovery.com -- where you get a 1-2 minute clip then a 30 second commercial) makes me not want the product being advertised. They actually cause me to NOT buy or use the service..
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>>I use my DVR to record programs, then watch them "later" (at least 30 minutes later)
Actually, if there's 22 minutes of commercials per hour, you only have to wait 11 minutes before starting your 30-minute program to ensure you can skip all the commercials. Actually, seeing as some of those 11 minutes of commercials will come right at the end of the 30-minute segment, you could start a bit earlier.
If I can start watching Caprica 38 minutes sooner (1-hour show), then I'll do it! :)
Just an Example Amount (Score:5, Insightful)
The real question is: how is this any different than someone forking over a couple bucks to watch the latest Futurama episode on iTunes?
You can call it "skipping commercials" or you can call it "selling the right to view content once" or whatever the hell you want. But it all comes down to you reimbursing the broadcasters for their content--which has traditionally been done through advertising. I'm surprised this is invoking so much ire from the Slashdot crowd.
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It is also important to note that nobody has ever had a guarantee that their advertising would reach people or be watched. It represents a potential audience, but has never been a guarantee -- it certainly doesn't confer an obligation to me.
The day that commercials become an obligation is the day
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I will do my level best to avoid any service which attempts to show me commercials. Right now I'm having off and on problems viewing Youtube in Chrome due to ad-blocking and the like (seems to work every time I clear the cache and such.) With that said, this just doesn't seem worth being upset about.
I think it is a foregone conclusion that sooner or later the majority of programming will not even be delivered via broadcast (whether OTA or down a wire, as in CATV or possible next-generation replacements whic
The sad state we are in (Score:2)
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Are you completely unaware of all the other stuff the use the money they get from advertising for? The programs? the RnD?
They exist BECAUSE they peddle adverts.
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Patent? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is $2 too much? (Score:5, Informative)
I looked at current advertising costs [tvb.org] to see whether $2/episode is justified. Right now advertisers pay about 3.3 cents to put an ad in the face of a 25-54 year-old adult during a prime-time show. In an hour-long show, there are about sixteen minutes of non-program material, though some of that is promotions for other shows and local advertising. Let's say that ten minutes of every prime-time hour includes national advertising. That means advertisers are willing pay about thirty cents per show; two dollars seems like gouging in comparison.
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Add up all the shows you watch in your household, and you could easily spend several thousand dollars a year to get rid of commercials. Ridiculous! Just get up and go to the bathroom, grab a sandwich or drink, of mute the TV and talk to a live person during commercials.
See the world's largest pump project being build. http://www.faribanksmorseispumped.com/ [faribanksm...pumped.com]
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Commercials aren't 60 seconds long. Try doubling that cost to at least $0.66/hour, assuming your other numbers are correct.
Actually, I think there's more like 22 minutes of advertising time per hour = 44 x 30sec commercials = 44 * $0.033 = $1.45/hour. That's not so far off their $2.
However, I am taking the other approach: I'm going to patent boycotting Google TV, and/or any other medium where ads are blocked. I already avoid DVD's with unskippable content, by ripping them for my AppleTV first... I paid
Sounds good to me (Score:2)
I'd gladly pay a couple of bucks to watch TV without commercials. I could use a variety of technological solutions to remove the commercials, but I'd rather pay a small sum, avoid the commercials, and still financially support the programs I enjoy.
This sounds a lot... (Score:2)
... like Google is actually bending to the whim of the content providers, rather than forcing this on users themselves. After all, YouTube is free, and has ads at the bottom of the video (which you can click to remove), as well as the occasional 10 second ad before the main event. I don't believe this is *Google* being "evil"!
After all, wasn't it the music industry that forced Apple in to adopting DRM..? (or is that just what Apple would have us believe?)
An ideal would be:
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
You can't patent a business process (Score:2)
A business process, like pure math, and like pure software is not patentable in many jurisdictions. What is being described here is a BUSINESS PROCESS, and lacks key patentability criteria under current patent law.
Whoever came up with this patent doesn't understand IP.
It probably won't get approved.
It certainly won't get approved world-wide.
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It's not a business process that they got a patent for, it's the technological means for one method of implementing such a business practice. The same practice, accomplished by means other than what the patent describes, would be non-infringing.
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The Supreme Court was unwilling to categorically exclude business methods from patent eligibility in Bilski v. Kappos. Each such method has to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis to determine whether the claims are directed to an abstract idea or a patent-eligible method.
Wrong (Score:2)
Look up Business Methods. I would paste the link, but I can't past into a textbox on /. for some reason.
What happened to "Do no evil"? (Score:2)
This sounds like having to sit through a sales pitch at a vacation resort to get free lodging for a night. Thank goodness for the 30 second skip on my TiVO.
Nice try (Score:2)
No, no, and hell no. I'll keep using the Usenet channel. Thanks anyway, google.
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Then you are no ones customer so why would the give a shit about what you think? You only want entertainment for free.
I have a few better ideas, Google: (Score:2)
In short: Screw you Google, and everyone else who keeps "monitizing" the living fuck out of everything. When I watched the movie Idiocracy, I only laughed for the first couple minutes. Then I got a stone-cold feel
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So people who work to make entertainment shouldn't get paid? People who provide a service shouldn't make money?
That's a pretty stupid argument to make about a private company.
Won't work... sorry. (Score:2)
MythTV allows commercial skip for free (Score:2)
Thats' a smart way to do it (Score:2)
Give the consumers the option to pay to remove the commercials.
I like it.
Survey info I use all the time (Score:2)
My simple life (Score:3, Insightful)
I hate the logos that TV stations put in the corner of the screen throughout shows. So I stopped watching TV three years ago.
The high number of adverts in each show was becoming a problem, but the logos annoyed me more. Now, since I've stopped watching TV because of the logos, the adverts don't bother me. Funny that.
When it gets to the point that hour-long shows have half-an-hour of interactive adverts that you MUST watch or they play again, that won't bother me. Because I still won't be watching TV.
I have so much more time to be productive since I quit the tube.
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Cable was invented to be commercial free. That was why people originally paid the premium for all those commercial free channels.
Then came the premium cable channels like HBO, Showtime, etc. For the most part those are commercial free, but if you watch Showtimes "Big Brother" they have commercials through-out that. I can only imagine this will get worse and worse and eventually these premium commercial free channels are littered with them. It's bad enough we get to watch a bunch of movie stars in Entourage
Re:Why, on Earth, is anyone complaining? (Score:4, Insightful)
"Cable was invented to be commercial free."
As much as I share your sentiment, that statement is not true. Cable TV (CATV) was invented to distribute regular broadcasts to areas where private antennas are not feasible.
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More specifically, the Google patent proposes a mechanism by which content providers (who need
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In case you folks haven't noticed, your average "hour long" prime time TV show is about 45-50 minutes, the rest is nothing but commercials.
Try 42 minutes. It's been that way for quite a while now.
Remember back a few years ago when Spike had "Trek Uncut"? It was "uncut" in that Spike was only putting in the amount of ads that was common in the 90s (10 minutes or so?). That means that pretty much EVERY rerun from that era and before that you see on every channel has actual CONTENT cut out to make room for more commercials. Lovely, eh?
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But we already pay for cable/satellite TV... commercials on public airwaves I understand.
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You pay for the benefits of wired access over OTA access (including access to channels that aren't available OTA.) You don't, except for PPV content and premium channels that you purchase, pay for the content you watch. That you pay for with the commercials, just like OTA broadcast.
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Nothing is free? Bullshit. The thing most important to your life is free, the one thing you can't survive two minutes without -- air. Sunsets and sunrises are free, if beauty is worthless why do people pay millions for paintings? Linux is free, Open Office is free, FOSS is free, public domain literature is free, GPL books are free, my journals are free, rain will water your grass for free, unsecured wifi is free, most music is free, and most of all... America is the land of the free!
Money is simply a tool.
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It's also not really that obvious, it's obvious that somebody should provide it, I doubt very much that it's obvious as to how one goes about offering it.
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I came here to ask the same question. How on Earth is this thing patentable? Is any web service now patentable? Could the Twitter guys have patented "system and method for writing 140-character messages via browser"?
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YES
Here's my $2, never show me a commercial again.
It's just a patent... (Score:2)
They haven't actually done this yet. Save your sarcasm for if/when they do.