This is just a cop out. If you were recording for a customer's "personal use", why would the law have a problem with this? Does the law say WHERE that recording has to actually exist? Or WHO does that recording for the personal customer? Could not the customer's personal recording be in the "cloud" for example, with a specific software identifier. The model being: I chose on the icetv website what to record. Ice TV records it for me. Then adds a specific personal identifier exclusive to me, and I simply download the recorded file at my convenience when I want to view it. I wouldn't care if I could only view it once. You could have it self delete after that, to please the "authorities" if you want. All I care about is 100% guaranteed viewability of what I want "recorded". At the moment this just doesn't exist.
The problem for us is that as you point out there is much room for "interpretation", it could be that you are correct and that the court would side with us, but there is every chance that they would not.
When we started this company 6 years ago within 6 months of opening the door we were taken to court by Channel Nine, that case took 4 years to resolve ending up in the High Court and costing millions to mount a defense. There is no way that we would take a risk of being litigated against by the networks again, we know they keep a very close eye on us and would be happy to drag us to court again.
What you call a "cop out", we call avoiding unnecessary risk to the business.
We know of two companies currently pursuing exactly the model you propose and so far they are struggling to generate any serious consumer interest. So not only would we be at a serious risk of litigation we would be doing so for a feature that is unlikely to improve our subscription take up rate significantly.
Our gut feeling within the office is that if either of these two companies begin to generate any revenue and gain any sort of mindshare the hammer will fall on them from the networks.
As you say DVR's and VCR recorders have been in existence for decades, effectively against the law. Yet this didn't stop the makers and public from embracing them. Since when should the law be the ONLY factor that dictates the adoption and efficient delivery of technology. If all companies thought like that, we would never have had the internet, computers, facebook, ebay, itunes and the ipod...and probably TV itself....
In an ideal world technology would be unconstrained by commercial/legal factors, unfortunately this is not the case.
There doesn't seem to be any problem with our National broadcaster (and therefore the Commonwealth Government) effectively breaking the very law that they set up and you describe RIGHT NOW. With iView. There is nothing stopping me viewing the same ABC file over and over again. In my house. On the road. On my iphone. Anywhere. So where is the difference with me viewing a file in the same way that I ask YOU to record for me?
The ABC are the copyright holders of their own content and are free to deliver it any way they like, iView is nothing like a PVR (even a network one such as you envisage).
So we have the ABC breaking the law. And you say IceTv "can't"......If you guys don't get the balls to take them on, you won't HAVE a business model when catchup TV takes on. You won't even have a business! So what are you waiting for? Hire some very smart lawyers. And get going. Because what you are doing right now just doesn't cut it any more....Catchup TV is 100% effective. Your service is not....
As above the ABC is not breaking copyright by distributing their own content using their own application, this is also true for the commercial catchup TV services.
As far as IceTV having the balls to take on the networks our record stands for itself, our landmark case against Nine has made history and changed the way copyright is interpreted with regards to compilations of "facts", Telstra have had their previous win against Desktop Marketing over the copyright in the white pages brought into question as well as the TAB having rights to some sporting results.
It is prudent to pick your battles in a situation like this, the right to independently compile a TV guide was crucial to the business while a network DVR is not (at this time).
We also have a different take on the catchup TV question, we believe that a good PVR precludes the need for catchup TV services rather than the other way around.
Having said that we are amendable to working with catchup TV services to provide more options to our customers, we are about giving users control over their viewing habits.