Thomas Hawk points out why people will keep using Bittorrent: doing things legally runs you smack into the wall, preventing you from watching content that you have legal access to:

So here's one more reason not to buy a TiVo Series 3. CNET's John P. Falcone has an article out about a glitch that prevents you from watching HBO with your TiVo Series 3 when using a JVC receiver.

"But when we moved onto another program--Revenge of the Sith, recorded off of HBO-HD--the screen suddenly went gray, with a TiVo warning emblazoned across the bottom: "Viewing is not permitted using the TiVo Digital Media Recorder. Try another TV input." Several other programs--Empire of the Sun (HDNet Movies), Simone (HBO-HD), and episodes of Battlestar Galactica (Universal HD) all yielded the same result."

The RIAA and MPAA scream about piracy losses, and then they set up stupid situations like this - which pretty much invite you to commit piracy just so that you can see stuff you paid for. What possible end does this achieve? HBO doesn't show ads anyway, so it's not like the time shifting does them any harm. This is just raw stupidity for the sake of raw stupidity.

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