Instead of a cable company-provided DVR, Leon uses a TiVo. It gives him greater flexibility, since he can transfer programs to his backup hard drives to free up space, then transfer the programs back when he is woefully short on entertainment. Only the cable networks and Time Warner Cable don’t want us to be able to do this. Where Leon lives, every program that’s not on one of the over-the-air broadcast networks is copy-protected. He can’t copy any of these shows to his backup drives. It’s as if it were 1990, and every time Leon ejected a recorded TV program from his VCR, a cable company employee stormed through the door, confiscated it, unspooled the tape, and set it on fire. Only less labor-intensive. [More]
