I just read a couple of recent articles asking if stealing TV content is okay.

Both the Editors Weblog and CNN wrote an article about stealing TV content.
I think that Lindsay Berrigan and Adam Lashinsky need to take a quick look at the definition of stealing.

From what I know and the dictionary says, stealing is:
To take (the property of another) without right or permission.

The articles describe how Jason Hirschhorn mentioned that traditional media, particularly broadcast networks, need to stop being so uptight about consumers grabbing their content and posting it on other sites. What’s needed is for content owners to “track and monetize”.

Jason doesn,t say anything about stealing the content. We all know there have been DVRs around for years that save TV content to a hard drive. This is not stealing, if it was then TiVo would have gone out of business years ago.

If they want to be accurate, they should say something like Jason did, about people distributing content they don’t own to the public.
We all know that most TV content isn’t owned by the viewer, it is owned by the publisher or provider.

The provider or publisher just allows certain things to be done with their content.

These news articles are probably just trying to get more readers by posting eye-catching headlines. But, these type of things are not what the online video community or proponents of sharing need.

Before we get into the debate of whether or not sharing TV content is legal, inevitable or the direction content owners should go.
We need to start defining it properly.

This is an example of how headline grabbers can ruin or confuse issues.
I will be posting my comments on Jason’s remarks in my next blog post, but felt that this issue needed a comment of it’s own.