I.P. thanks for the response. You are correct. I definitely meant Food Network. I'd love nothing more than to cut the cord immediately but I know I'll catch some static for it. I agree that it's more entertainment than education (I'd rather spend the time actually cooking instead of watching someone else construct a meal made with exotic ingredients that are completely irrelevant to my daily diet. Anyways, if I could at least access some basic network channels like PBS etc, that would be nice.
Anyways, it sounds like you are pretty plugged into the IT world. I was not aware of the six strikes thing you mentioned. It sounds so futuristic. Although my version of a utopian world involves much more openness and sharing of information but that's another topic altogether. I'm curious though, if a user watches a video on a site like youtube is the burden now placed on that person to be sure the video is not copyrighted? It seems like this would be difficult to know what's "okay" to watch versus what's copyrighted and therefore subject to sanctions. I find this somewhat troubling also because it's also discourages people from sharing their WiFi. Of course this benefits the cell phone companies who would love to sell you a data plan which you may or may not need if there was free wifi available everywhere you went.
Yup yup... like I said, TV Fool should be able to help you out figuring out if any form of antenna for local broadcasts would be usable or not, which will hopefully take care of local broadcast networks. If every channel's coming up 2-edge diffraction or tropospheric propagation under 35 feet, you'd likely be best served with a proper and professional external antenna install if it'd be worth it... talk with a few of your neighbors who have antennas hoisted to find out what sort of reception they're getting.
Failing that, PBS does stream most of their national content, and sometimes you'll get lucky with your local network or indie stations who'll sometimes at least simulcast their news programming online. Beyond that, most major networks (excluding most CBS prime-time content and the syndication stations like Ion and MyNetwork TV) usually have their show available for streaming online. Syndicated and daytime content's hard to find, though. Depending on whether you're doing cable or DSL for your broadband, it might be worth just sticking with at least the basic local station package (should be under $15 a month bundled with cable internet). There's also Dish Network's locals only with or without their Welcome Pack for around the same money, but that seems a bit extreme to get television on the wrong side of a mountain using a geosync satellite farther from you than the stations themselves.
And yes, I'm pretty wired into the tech community, amongst other things. I also sympathize with much of what you consider to be a humanistic Utopian ideal. (Kind of an easy assumption given what I mostly post about and on around here.) The Copyright Alerts System (CAS, or Six Strikes system) is going to be an absolute charlie foxtrot for a multitude of reasons, and given how messy copyright law has gotten, those are all excellent concerns and questions that have no solid answers yet. This all partly ties into the concerns I expressed about pirating cable TV in another thread here, trying to keep your nose clean doing the right thing, etc. I know that the
CAS technically only states that uploading is infringing for now, but these sorts of things have a habit of greatly growing in scope once in place to the detriment of the users, especially when the people running the show has the sort of mindset that considers something as basic as a hyperlink being piracy. This country's lost touch with the whole innocence until proven guilty idea, the DMCA's Safe Harbor provision is under attack, and prosecutors have all but forgotten the entire common law notion of
mens rea in light of these gigantic, winding, vague laws that have come in under Title 18 and all these large corporations bending the law to serve their own purposes... combine that with a general populous that's selfish and only out for their own pleasure and personal gain due to the trappings of hedonism and damn the consequences, you can start to see where things might get, well, you know. The less you deliberately do that could be viewed as truly wrongful and destructive behavior by your fellow man, the less likely you might run afoul of this winding and easily corrupted labyrinth.
I could do a long and winding dissertation about how all this ties into mustachianism, certain facets of minimalism and stoicism, general and responsible living, faith and belief in a higher power, the relevance and importance of Torah in both Judaism and Christianity, but this really isn't the thread
for that. I just bring it up as food for thought that's mildly relevant to the topic as people cutting their entertainment cord frequently aren't cutting what they've determined is dang near worthless entertainment and might "bend" the rules to continue to get stuff that's not being provided through official channels. If entertainment's not worth spending the money on to watch it through the official channels on a regular basis at any price, is it really worth a potential rap sheet or a protracted legal battle, even if the statistical odds are in your favor to potentially get away with it
right now in a system that never forgets what you've done? It's flotsam, a distraction, not a necessity of life... and as such, doesn't really warrant the risk taking.
