I wasn't saying that recording a show isn't acceptable, im just making a paralel as to why it may be considered similar to downloading.

Who cares, the companies make enough money as it is.

They're all the same. Anyone who tells you one is better then another probably likes doing one and not another.

Actually most TV companies consider that immoral.  A lawsuit was actually won against an earlier DVR company, suggesting that by viewing a show you were agreeing to watch advertisments.

Or something like that.

That's just a matter of valuation though.  Which is the main driver of Piracy.

I could just as eaisly say that I find CDs and MP3's priced excellently and that Videogames are highly overpriced.  Valuation is really nothing but an opinion.

Are you sure that was actually won and not later overturned?

Anyways, yeah, they hate it but there isn't a lot they can do about it.  About the best thing they do now (by their logic, I hate it) is run shows a minute into the next shows timeslot to discourage recording it and watching it later.  If you watch it live, you have to watch commercials.

Also, FaRmLaNd, TV (basic at least) is free.  We don't pay anything because of advertisements so it's free because of them, it's not somehow not free because someone else pays.  You can go into pointless little nit picking like that all day but then we might as well say nothing is free because you can come up with stupid nitpicks like that all day for anything.

No, they just outright won.  It wasn't a DVR though now that I think about it.  It was about DVDs.

They passed a law changing the rule in 2005. 

However if you'd ever fastfowarded or skipped scenes in a DVD before 2005 you were breaking copyright law.

A similar lawsuit was filed against something else too.

"Your contract when you get the show is you're going to watch the spots [advertisements]. … Any time you skip a commercial … you're actually stealing the programming,"

http://web.archive.org/web/20040109123147/http://forbesbest.com/2002/05/03/0503sonicblue_print.html

I actually agree with them.  I mean think about it Twesterm.  If nobody watches the Advertising... people stop advertising.  Shows stop existing.

It's no different then your complaints with piracy.  Skipping all the advertising or watching the shows on non-approved sites like youtube is just as bad as piracy of any kind.

So am I breaking the law if I do what everyone else does that watches live TV and goes to the bathroom and gets food/drink during commercials?

And I remember that retarded DVD fast forwarding thing and it's, well, retarded.  I still skip them whenever I can.

Also, I think a more fun question than the OP posed would be if it's immoral/illegal to use adblock/noScripts and the likes and then go to places like Hulu?

Plenty of people here will say they don't pirate games, movies, or music, but how many people here will say they don't use things like NoScript and AdBlock Plus and deny sites advertising money? 

Adblock, Noscript.  Seems the same no?  I'd say so.  There is one diffrence though.  It protects your computer from virsuses.  If your using Adblock Plus on completly safe sites it is immoral.  On dangerous sites, it's similar to doing something immoral in an act of self defense. 

Still your doing exactly what what pirates do.  Trying to rationalize.  Not really a big deal though, find me someone who isn't hypocritical about something and you've likely just found someone with no set of morals.

Hulu.  No.  Hulu is supported by the actual companies who are there.  Also Hulu does have ads... Also if you actually look at the article there... it actually says that going to the bathroom is a part of breaking the law they have to "bregudginly accpet."

Yeah.  It's actually still immoral, and according to TV companys... illegal.

I hate piracy in all its forms. Piracy is theft, end of, and no attempted justification is acceptable.

I'm not saying I'm perfect, I've pirated a couple of things too and I admit to that. I often watch some American TV programmes online because we can't get some of them here in England.

But I don't particularly feel good that. I know this makes me sound like a hypocrite, but I hate it when people do it habitually. People who download films, music, e-books and other media every day are just killing an industry.