i've never seen a network honcho get so famous, so fast (check out the "Related Links" sidebar). i guess that's what happens when you equate skipping commercials with theft (at least he didn't call it un-American).

perhaps they'll replace the "CNN" logo on the bottom-right of your TV screen with a little Kellner-head saying "I'm Watching You".

Big Content moves from triumph to triumph. fresh from declaring the fast-forward button an aid to theft, the cartel has gotten a federal court magistrate to order ReplayTV-maker SonicBlue to rat out their users.

the studios suing SonicBlue want to know what programs ReplayTV users are watching, what commercials they skip, and what programs are sent to ReplayTV-using friends, and they want the data to be keyed to unique user IDs. neither the federal court nor Big Content are allowing users to opt out of this little study.

"It's an incredible invasion of privacy,'' said Fred von Lohmann, an intellectual property expert for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "But second -- and equally important -- [this] is what the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others have been saying was going to happen now for some time. Basically, under the guise of copyright laws, courts are going to be put in a position of telling technology companies how to build their products.''