Philips Patents Technology to Force Ad Viewing

An anonymous reader writes "According to New Scientist, Philips has filed a patent for technology to force viewers to watch the ads in a program. Basically they plan to add extra flags to the Multimedia Home Platform that would stop controls from working until the ads are finished." From the article: "Philips' patent acknowledges that this may be 'greatly resented by viewers' who could initially think their equipment has gone wrong. So it suggests the new system could throw up a warning on screen when it is enforcing advert viewing. The patent also suggests that the system could offer viewers the chance to pay a fee interactively to go back to skipping adverts."

Also in the works...

[conner_bw (120497)]

...Is a patent for "paying us because we say so" and another for "a device that cuts out your eyelids" said one Phillips executive as he vanished in a cloud of his own vomit.

Well...

[StevenHenderson (806391)]

Philips' patent acknowledges that this may be 'greatly resented by viewers'

Hard to resent something you will never buy.

Re:Well...

[Cheapy (809643)]

Oh sure, you won't resent it at all since you'll never buy it.

But what about the masses?

Re:Well...

[Captain Splendid (673276)]

This is Slashdot. Fuck the masses!

Cue Simpsons episode

[Spy der Mann (805235)]

Remember the episode where Marge asks for the tv producers to ban Itchy and Scratchy?

Suddenly all the kids "wake up" like the Awakenings movie, and begin playing outside.

_IF_ this product is "successfully" imposed on the people, we'll see more and more people go away from the TV into the internet / books / games / radio / whatever.

Gotta get me one of those

[DrSkwid (118965)]

A TV that won't let me turn it off when it catches fire sounds great !

next up?

[by Anonymous Coward]

a tv that realizes you've gotten up to get a sandwich and replays the commercials when you return.

MY GOD, THIS IS PROGRESS?!!?

yes, amazing how far we've come...

[MrFebtober (922100)]

...Anybody remember those Magnavox TVs that actually detected when a commercial was playing and attenuated the volume to make them less annoying? I believe it detected the audio compression technique that commercials use to seem louder than the actual program or something like that. Now that was technology for the consumer.

make money fast

[v1 (525388)]

Just start a lottery, where the winner gets to beat the piss out of the guy who thought of "forced advertisement".

A sure winner.

clockwork tv chair

[(chubbstar) (963218)]

the next step is to simply have metallic arms come out of your chair, pin your arms down, peel your eyeballs open, and moisturize those pupils for 3 minutes.

Re:clockwork tv chair

[owlstead (636356)]

Yes, with "Ludwig van" music playing all the time.

Well look on the bright side...

[roadrash608 (542600)]

...if they patent this, then nobody *else* will do it, and than we can all just go and not buy Philips TVs.

Re:Well look on the bright side...

[TERdON (862570)]

...if they patent this, then nobody *else* will do it, and than we can all just go and not buy Philips TVs.

Unless Philips decides to license its new patent to all the other manufacturers...

Re:Well look on the bright side...

[product byproduct (628318)]

In summary:

• Patents are wrong.
  
• This technology is wrong.
  
• Two wrongs make a right.

Re:Well look on the bright side...

[myowntrueself (607117)]

Two wrongs make a right is like saying "two lefts make a right"
They don't. Two lefts means you're going backwards.

So what you are saying, and let me make absolutely certain that I understand your reasoning here, you are saying that *three* wrongs make a right?

Nice job!

[shut_up_man (450725)]

My desire to buy a Philips product ever again in my lifetime just plummetted to zero. Nice work, marketing department!

Target Market?

[NatteringNabob (829042)]

Just off the top of my head, it seems unlikely that consumers are going to come beating on Phillips door to get this marvelous new invention, but I guess they can always sell it to cable companies for incorporation in set top boxes so the consumer doesn't get a choice. And I suppose that eventually, they can 'persuade' somebody to introduce legislation to require TV's to include this 'feature'. It wouldn't be the first time.

offensive

[Yahweh Doesn't Exist (906833)]

I hate the forced adverts on DVD. what pisses me off even more is when they aren't even advertising products, they're just forcing me to watch their "copying DVDs is piracy and is the same as mugguing someone so don't do it" bullshit. on a DVD I've just fucking bought anyway.

stuff like this, like computer game protection, just makes it easier as well as cheaper to get things illegally.

Re:offensive

[cgenman (325138)]

You know, if you just pirate the movie you can skip the adverts.

Hmm... There should be some lesson in there about giving consumers more for their money, but as far as I can tell that just means more adverts.

Piracy as retaliation

[JudgeFurious (455868)]

Exactly. I buy a lot of DVD's but I also rip a lot of rentals too. Every time I learn of some bullshit scheme like this the numbers rise on the ripping side. As things stand right now I rip a lot of the ones I buy anyway to make "disposable copies" while protecting the originals.

  When I rent a movie and rip it to make a keeper is it stealing? I guess so but I don't really care at this point. They hack away at my rights and in return I hack away at their profits.

  Sure I'm not right but neither are they. They might be "legal" but that doesn't make them right.

Re:offensive

[Yaztromo (655250)]

what pisses me off even more is when they aren't even advertising products, they're just forcing me to watch their "copying DVDs is piracy and is the same as mugguing someone so don't do it" bullshit.

My nieces, who are 4 years old, have a number of childrens DVDs they like to watch (Disney movies and such). These sorts of discs are the absolute WORST for forced advertisements. One of the discs they like to watch (and I forget which one it is) has a 10 MINUTE advertisement for "Madagascar" which can't be skipped.

And do you know what the galling part about this is? They own a copy of Madagascar!. And yet, every time they want to watch this other movie, I have to stand there with my thumb on the fast forward button to get through the advertisement for a movie they already own (you can't skip the track, but at least fast forward works to get through it quicker).

Thank goodness my nieces are generally very well behaved and patient people, and don't seem to mind (or question) the fact that I have to fast forward through these things for them. But still, if you think the DVDs you watch are bad, try pretty much any kids movie. Grrr.

Yaz.

Re:offensive

[back_pages (600753)]

Someone has probably already said this but you can flash the ROM on your DVD player and skip those inane advertisements. It'll also unlock the region encoding and you can play pirated movies from Bangkok or some crap like that, but I've never been interested in that.

Mine was really easy. I had to open the case and read the model of an IC inside it, but most of the time that step is unnecessary. I just hunted the web for the flash program, downloaded it, burned it's contents to a CD, inserted the CD in the DVD player, clicked a menu or two, waited 10 minutes, and that's it.

Now I can skip ANY FLIPPING JUNK they put at the beginnings of the DVD. That stuff drove me completely nuts, plus I found it ethically uncomfortable to cope with it in order to watch the movie I bought. It took me about an hour for the complete project (opening the case, reassembly, searching, burning the CD, and burning the ROM) and it has vastly improved how I enjoy my DVD player.

Just a thought.

Re:offensive

[gstoddart (321705)]

I hate the forced adverts on DVD. what pisses me off even more is when they aren't even advertising products, they're just forcing me to watch their "copying DVDs is piracy and is the same as mugguing someone so don't do it" bullshit.

Well, the original intention of the un-skippable sections was the copyright notice; I can at least understand that.

Using it for ads and trailers is the abuse of the technology, and far more annoying than the 20-30 seconds of copyright notice, which I can live with. Being forced to watch trailers, ads, or anything else drives me insane.

I don't want forced product placement at the front of my movies any more than I'd be willing to accept 'must watch' ads in my TV. I skip over the Kotex and Huggies ads for a reason; no matter how hard they try, I'm not gonna watch American Idol or Survivor; and geriatric products don't interest me yet.

When will they learn that not all ads are relevant to all consumers? The sooner they understand that, unless they've paid me, they have no right to insist I actually watch their ads, the sooner we'll get along. :-P

Wel...

[kryten_nl (863119)]

that's it I'm going back to books.

Poor choice of words

[Braedley (887013)]

"Philips' patent acknowledges that this may be 'greatly resented by viewers'" I don't think resented is a strong enough word. Maybe loathed, but even that, I don't think, is strong enough.

Best Idea Ever!

[byron036 (178130)]

And I am not being facetious. I can't wait for them to start adding flags identifying commercials to TV signals. One day later I bet there is a plugging to MythTV that perfectly edits your recordings to be commercial free.

What with Digital TV lock-ins & broadcast flags I have no intention of ever buying mass market cable equipment again anyway. In the future all of my TV watching will be downloads anyway. This will just make it easier to get commercial free programming.

I hope people buy these TVs like hot cakes, cause I won't.

No honey...

[jfclavette (961511)]

I'm not watching porn ! *Clicks button desperately*

Sid Meier and my money ...

[joe_n_bloe (244407)]

Pretty soon it will be cheaper and less annoying to go see movies in the theater.

I guess I'll have plenty of former TV time to perfect my Civilization IV skills. Or I could write another book.

But Civ IV first.

Philips fails to comprehend the meaning of 'own'

[zzatz (965857)]

When I buy something, I buy it for one very simple purpose: to gain exclusive control over it.

If Philips wants to keep control over a TV or other device, that's fine. Give it to me, loan it to me, and I can accept that the owner keeps control over it - and I'm not the owner. But we have a technical term for selling property without turning over control, and that term is 'Fraud'.

When I sold my previous home, I surrendered control over it to the new owner. I no longer control how that house is used, who may come and go, and which TV shows may be watched in the living room.

It looks like Philips wants to pretend to sell me a device, while keeping control over it. That's not a sale, and presenting it as one is a clear case of fraud.

Use it in reverse, to SKIP ads

[sakusha (441986)]

Phillips was just not thinking clearly when they invented this. There will be a flag at the start of commercials, and another at the end, to tell the anti-skip system when to activate. Just how long do you think it will be before someone figures out how to use the flags to start and stop the fast-forward button? This system of flags would be just as effective at automatically skipping ads.

Re:Use it in reverse, to SKIP ads

[philsuth (161088)]

If I were the network I'd set the ad lockout bit occasionally during the real program for a few seconds, preferably at critical stages of the action. That'd prevent anyone using it for automatically stripping ads.

Your rights are going away

[suv4x4 (956391)]

- No ripping to a PC; excuse: piracy.
- No shooting of copyrighted objects with a camera; excuse: piracy.
- No open formats such as mp3; excuse: piracy.
- No skipping ads and copyright ads on DVD's or TV; excuse: piracy.
- Fetch your seearch history and habits from search engines; excuse: piracy/child porn/terrorism.
- Back door on cryptographic solutions for the government; excuse: piracy/child porn/terrorism.
- Storing your e-mail and traffic for later review by the authorities; excuse: piracy/child porn/terrorism.

We're looking for further excuses to install RFID chips under your skin, and electric zappers to control your actions, stay tuned.

Finally

[Mr. Freeman (933986)]

This is what I see happening:

- The companies that sell these devices leave out the part about them forcing you to watch commercials.
- A huge amount of people buy them.
- Less than a month later, customers get pissed off at the company and return the devices to wherever they bought them.

After loosing tons of money over this, the companies finally realise that they have to listen to consumers.

Of course, this would only happen in a perfect world. Something is bound to come up that will prevent people from receiving refunds or something of that matter.

brilliant

[ChrisGilliard (913445)]

This idea goes exactly against what successful companies like Google and Overture are doing. This will totally turn off consumers to anyone who implements this. Good luck.

So much for surfing.

[theJML (911853)]

Philips suggests adding flags to commercial breaks to stop a viewer from changing channels until the adverts are over.

So I'm surfing through channels, click, don't want that, click, nope, click, nope, click, nope, click ADVERTISEMENT and I'm stuck. I have to watch the add according to this until it's over and then i can go back to surfing to find out there's nothing on. Now THAT will suck.

Prior art.

[edunbar93 (141167)]

And I quote:

"Where I was taken to, brothers was like no cinnie I ever viddied before. I was bound up in a straightjacket and my gulliver was strapped to a headrest with like wires running away from it. Then they clamped like lodlocks on my eyes so that I could not shut them, no matter how hard I tried."

Sorry guys. This has already been done by the guys who made A Clockwork Orange, circa 1971.

Re:OK fine

[iotaborg (167569)]

You clearly have not read the patent. There was something about chains, locks, and first born children in there.

Another patent will prevent this

[sgant (178166)]

I don't think you get it. You're FORCED to watch the advertisements.

Part of this system will be eye-instruments similar to the ones used in A Clockwork Orange that keep the lids of your eyes fully open and staring directly into the screen. There will be no way of skipping the ads nor averting your eyes away from the ads.

Of course, for a small fee you can avoid all of this.

Text of On-Screen Warning

[by Anonymous Coward]

So it suggests the new system could throw up a warning on screen when it is enforcing advert viewing.

"Warning: Phillips electronics engineers are clueless asspirates. Their marketing weasels are worse. While you're watching this shit, they're busy thinking up the next stupid-ass idea."

The patent also suggests that the system could offer viewers the chance to pay a fee interactively to go back to skipping adverts.

Also known as extortion.

Re:Another patent will prevent this

[mdfst13 (664665)]

"Of course, for a small fee you can avoid all of this."

Did anyone else read that and think about what idiots they are? Offering ad free versions for a fee completely undercuts their advertising market. Think about it. Who pays money not to watch ads: people who are willing to spend money for convenience. Who watches the ads instead: people who are willing to accept inconvenience in return for cheapness. Which group of people makes a better advertising market?

The people advertisers want to reach are the people who have disposable income and part with it easily. The exact people who do not see the ads in this scenario.

The other thing that they continue to miss is that studies show that people have better retention of commercials through which they fast forward. Why? Because they actually watch them to see when the show comes back! By contrast, people who leave the commercials play tend to ignore the TV during the commercials (talk to others in the room; get up for a snack or bathroom break; etc.).

Disabling fast forward during commercials is a stupid idea. The only result of this change would be a bunch of people with MythTV or a gray market commercial skipper getting perfect commercial skip.

Re:Still fine by me

[ClickOnThis (137803)]

It seems likely that we have until the patent expires before non-Phillips products can use this technology without paying licensing fees. :-) Also means no open source implementations for about 17 years...

We might not have to wait nearly that long before some insane law gets passed that mandates technology like this. Perhaps through some kind of back-handed method like a rider on an appropriations bill (can you say "broadcast flag?") or by bundling it with some kind of legislated DMCA control built into the players.

Far-fetched? Maybe. But six-odd years ago, who'd have thought we'd see DMCA at all? Remember: DMCA is not about protecting copyright, it's about controlling access and I think we have yet to see all of the ways that content providers would like to use that control.

Re:Still fine by me

[Fareq (688769)]

Since it's the Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1998, I'd say that 6 years ago we had a pretty good idea!

(yes, I know that wasn't helpful)

Re:Still fine by me

[slashname3 (739398)]

I would acutally welcome such flags in programs. It will make it so much easier to detect and autoskip commercials in mythtv. Right now it is about 80% accurate in skipping commercials using the methods available. With actual flags in the broadcast this will be 100% effective. Very cool!

Re:Still fine by me

[Kadin2048 (468275)]

You should get modded up -- that's actually an interesting way of using the flags. If Philips has a patent on using the flags to force viewing of commercials, maybe somebody else will use the same flags to skip them? That wouldn't infringe on the patent, would it?

Of course, they'll probably only ever roll out such flags inside an end-to-end DRMed; a Roman orgy that makes HDMI look like a wet dream by comparison. You'd only be able to view the media on an approved platform, and the approved platform would then be forced to use Philips "no skipping" features. (I propose the system be given the brand name "MindRape(TM)" -- think that'll fly with the focus groups?)

I do think though that implementing a feature like this would push average consumers towards pirated or illegally flashed equipment faster than anything else. Let's face it, Joe Consumer doesn't give a shit about playing HD content on Linux and probably won't own one of the early HDTV sets without HDMI ... but skipping commercials? Now that's a feature worth trolling through some shady businesses in Chinatown for. Why? Because it's something you can easily show off. You and your beer buddies are sitting around watching the game you TiVoed the day before; a commercial comes on and everyone groans...but with a sly wink you pick up the remote and--wham!--back to the game. That's a hell of a lot more impressive than "look, I can play imported anime!" or "I can play weird subtitled French porn!" to most people, I'll bet.

Yes, it's sad when FF-ing through commercials is something that people will be able to get a slightly deviant thrill out of doing, like running a red light on a deserted street at night, but I think that's the future we're hurtling towards.

Re:Still fine by me

[technothrasher (689062)]

They could overlap the ad flags for a random few seconds into the programming on each end of the ad block.

That wouldn't help them really. You could still use the current methods of commercial detection. The flag would still signal you that a commercial is definitely coming up within the next few seconds or so, and greatly increase the hit/miss ratio of the algorithms.

Re:Still fine by me

[by Anonymous Coward]

Are you Canadian by any chance?

Re:Fine by me.

[antarctican (301636)]

When ads are on I go read articles on /.

I used to hit mute and do the same (or read email) until I got my MythTV box. I couldn't live without it - watching ads and tv in real time, how archaic.

Actually, this article gives me a better idea, which as probably been thought of before, but it's new for me! Let's start thinking up technologies (like not being able to skip commercials) which we reeeeeally would hate to see come to market. Then let's patent it, and not license the patents. If these media companies can use the law to limit fair use, then I think we should use the law to limit their anti-consumer techologies. We could then make money on the side when they try to implement these techologies by suing them for infringment.

Re:Fine by me.

[TubeSteak (669689)]

You can't get an advertising message accross very well without the audio component

A bunch of anti-drug ads (back in the day) had no audio.

The idea was that the ad would get dealers'/druggies attention because they're used to hearing the TV running in the background.

In advertising, sometimes anything you can do to set yourself apart from everyone else is a good thing.

Re:Fine by me.

[Carthag (643047)]

I really like the companies that set themselves apart by not showing any ads. I can't remember what they're called though. ;)

Re:Changing the Channel

[jZnat (793348)]

Which is why people like Sirius or iPods: commercial free. Hey, there's a concept that works! No ads + pay for content = happy customers + profit.