Consumers want control over their own PVR content

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TV providers facilitate remote deleting of recorded TV shows when you cancel your subscription. The revision of the Norwegian Copyright Act must give consumers control over their own PVR content.

Publisert: 30.08.2010 11:17

By Thomas Nortvedt, Head of Section Digital Services, feature article in Aftenposten 28 August

Earlier this summer the FCC gave the U.S. film industry permission to delete and restrict access to content on private PVR boxes.

At the same time, the Consumer Council received a complaint from a Norwegian TV viewer. After having terminated his subscription for a TV channel, all his recorded content from the channel was removed from the PVR box.

The Consumer Council is concerned about the fact that television providers give themselves access to their customers PVR box in order to delete and restrict content that is obtained legally.

As with other technologies, there is a steady revolution going on with the TV platform. This revolution comes with the promise of both better image quality and more personalised TV services.

The introduction of the Personal Video Recorder (PVR) has brought significant benefits to the consumer. But it turns out that the video recorder isn’t necessarily as personal as it seemed. Content you have recorded can be easily edited, controlled or deleted from the outside, without prior information or warning. While we are spending more and more money on TV services, the right to freely use legal content is more limited than before. What then, does the promised, so-called digital added value provide the consumers?

With a VCR anyone could record anything from any channel. The recording could be viewed anywhere and at anytime. This is not the case with today's PVR boxes.

If a TV provider showed up at your door ten years ago to pick up your TV recordings, you would probably close the door on him. Now you do not even recognize that you have had uninvited guests in your living room: removing recorded TV series or adding other limitations of your content.

The Consumer Council has been in dialogue with some TV channels that understand the viewers' frustration, and has promised to no longer meet the requirements of the rights holders to delete the customers’ recordings. But such content providers are exceptions.

The Ministry of Culture has a golden opportunity to ensure the Norwegian consumer’s part in the technological TV revolution. Through the revision of the Copyright Act, the Minister of Culture Anniken Huitfeldt can secure clear and mandatory regulation for Norwegian consumers’ private use of their recorded TV.

An updated intellectual property act will give back control to the TV viewers over their own TV recordings - and not least show that Norway is in the forefront when it comes to allowing all parties to take part in the technological development.

"The Consumer Council is concerned about the fact that television providers give themselves access to their customers PVR box in order to delete and restrict content that is obtained legally. " (Foto: )