What’s happening to TiVo?  The PVR blog has some disturbing reports from TiVo users.  Apparently a new copy protection measure might be in place with TiVo’s new 7.2 OS.  A red flag icon may represent copy protected material that can be deleted from your PVR after a certain date.  There are also reports that the new TiVo OS isn’t letting certain material be copied to the user’s computer.  The news is being echoed in message boards across the web as well.

I’ve long derided TiVo as the premium PVR, unnecessary sort of bourgeois way to get your recordings.  But hey, as a dedicated service you should be sure that you’re getting the best players made and most feature rich PVR experience.  However the crackdown on copy protection isn’t a good way to please the old customer base.  There real concern here is that if TiVo is cracking down can the Satellite and Cable companies own PVR’s be far behind?  Not likely.  What about content protection?  Who decides what’s protected and what’s not?  I’d like to know what shows aren’t going to be copy protected, it seems to me if this kind of control gets levied against PVR users it constitutes a breech of “Sony Corp vs Uinversal City Studios”.  Sure TiVo has a right to place whatever restrictions it wants and to voluntarily cooperate with content protection wishes of the studios.  But, we’ve earned our right to time shift viewable content in the courts.  Time will tell if this isn’t just one of those big unfounded internet rumors or if there is something behind it so a wait and see attitude is prudent.  Until TiVo clarifies this issue I’d think twice about signing up.