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howi
join:2005-07-27
Mississauga, ON
4 edits | MobiTV mess: my analogy
Folks,
I have posted it in HoFo and compares it with a intriguing movie theatre...
- It is not right that not to pay for the tickets to watch the movies showing at the theatres. I agree.
- At a theatre box office, it has no locked door, no bullet-proof glass window, just a counter in the theatre where the public can access.
- There is an automated machine issuing tickets. Supposedly, only the staffs who are authorized to work at the box office know how to operate the machine and issue the tickets.
- Just for "convenience", that machine is just sitting on the counter and staffs at the box office have a binder right next to the ticket machine. There is a label on the front printed, "moviestixbarcodes".
- One night, as usual, movie goers are lining up for buying their tickets at the box office.
- While waiting in the line, someone has nothing to do but watching the staffs at the box office. Then someone starts seeing something quite routine, repetitive there...
- Before the machine cranks out the tickets, the staff opens the binder, scan for something first. It turns out to be a sheet of paper with different bar codes for different movies.
- While the box office staffs counting change for other movie goers, someone walks up to the counter, opens the binder, scans the codes and picks up the ticket.
- Isn't it strange? The box office staffs looks like they do not see what has just happened or perhaps they thought, "Hmm... Only authorized people know how to operate the ticket machine and can issue the tickets, it is gotta be okay. We trust those people who knows how to use the machine."
- Then someone discuss this matter with the other movie goers about what happens at that theatre. It is just as easy as step 1-2-3! So those movie goers start "self-serving" themselves while others who still have no idea keeps lining up and paying for the tickets.
- Suddenly a manager at the theatre has overheard the discussion and pulls someone to a side... "Stop telling people about it, or I will have your mouth covered by force! That binder is for internal use and we have never said you can get the ticket by yourself like that!"
- Then someone replies, "So we are just talking how your machine works and how the tickets are issued! It is an observable fact and everyone in the line-up long enough would come up with the idea too! It is not my problem for your 'convenient truth' !"
I compares the act of merely observing in the line-up at the box office as like knowing the URL in the first place! To me, if that binder is in the possession of the authorized personnel, the binder would not be put it right at the machine and on the counter, i.e. PLACE BEHIND THE COUNTER!! There would be arrangement and sign telling for internal use. All people would be asked for permission when trying to open the binder or operate the machine. Same thing goes to MobiTV over how they handle that XML file and the rtsp links.
That is what MobiTV trying to claim about... "Oh, you shouldn't even know where we 'hide the binder' in the first place" but ends up putting it at the counter where everyone can see the whole process? The biggest flaw is that the "trust" system... The whole set up is possible to make everyone in the public as AUTHORIZED personnel to gain access to that "binder of bar codes" and in this case the directory of the rtsp links to the streaming contents - No AAA, no token, no security!?
The bottom line is that we either keep things out of sight, or never use it at all! Once you start use it in the public, people start seeing it and discussing it. | |
C DM
join:2002-12-31
| Honestly, that is more complex (and has other extraneous things) than it really is--the analogy about a movie theater with glass walls and/or someone's TV playing with curtains open and people simply looking in from the outside and telling others about it is much simpler and closer to what the "equivalent" is online. Not to mention that the whole thing with HowardForums is more about the part about telling other people about it, rather than about the part of actually watching or getting in anywhere. | |
MyDogHsFleas
Premium
join:2007-08-15
Austin, TX
 ·AT&T U-Verse
 ·AT&T Southwest
| reply to howi
This is a pretty good analogy.
The key point is: strange as it may seem to you, and regardless of how stupid you may think it is, the act of using that binder which is not hidden securely "behind the counter", or telling someone else how to use that binder, is, arguably, a DMCA violation. | |
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