Seth Schoen uses the changes TiVo have embraced (ie drm) as a platform to explore the convergence of computers and consumer electronics devices, on Dave Farber's interesting people list.

"the smart cards and set-top boxes would decrypt the programming as it came into
your house and verify that you were authorized to receive it. But
then they would encrypt it again in order to enforce _copyright
holder_ policies about what you could do with it after you had
received it. That re-encryption makes the new generation of pay
TV services (after you've paid for them) different from free TV
services because the pay TV services can be subject to additional
controls after the point of lawful reception.

The FCC was asked to ban this re-encryption -- in a sense, to limit
the use of encryption under the 1996 Act to making sure that you
initially pay for pay TV, not to controlling what you do with it
afterward. In a decision in 2000, the Commission declined to do
this...


This decision was unfortunate in its implications because it vastly
increased the potential leverage that movie studios would have over
technology companies. If the FCC had forbidden re-encryption of
pay TV programming, companies like TiVo would not need to negotiate
with movie studios (or broadcast groups) in order to get lawful access
to pay TV...

And TiVo has chosen to do exactly that...

Of course, that negotiation has come at a corresponding cost: TiVo
implements digital rights management, takes steps (to date not very
strong steps) to control reverse engineering and aftermark
modifications, and generally implements a lot of restrictions on
recorded programming...

TiVo customers are obviously happy enough with this strategy that they
keep buying TiVos in large numbers, although there is a devoted
community of "TiVo hacking" enthusiasts who learn how to add
functionality to their TiVos -- and they have a very complicated
relationship with these restrictions...

There is an alternative -- if you only want to receive unencrypted
TV (free-to-air terrestrial broadcasting and basic-tier cable in
the U.S., and possibly these plus certain types of pay TV in Europe).
You can use a personal computer as a PVR by putting one or more TV
cards inside. Then you can run software that turns the PC into a PVR.
One of the most impressive programs along these lines is an open
source package called MythTV

http://www.mythtv.org/

which has already implemented functionality competitive with TiVo's
PVR functionality, plus features that TiVo won't touch...

The major movie
studios have persuaded the FCC to change the rules for unencrypted
digital television to apply DRM there, in the "broadcast flag" or
"digital broadcast content protection" proceeding. (That's why I
say that the FCC is unlikely to change the DRM requirement for
cable TV!) The result is that the equipment that makes a program
like MythTV work with U.S. digital television will be illegal to
manufacture here from July 1, 2005. If you want to use something
like MythTV for digital TV in the future, your best bet is to buy
the equipment before then. MythTV works well with the pcHDTV
HD-3000 card, which is finally shipping:

http://www.pchdtv.com/ ...

I would not get so worked up about any one action that TiVo takes.
We know their strategy, and it involves co-operating with movie
studios to impose restrictions on end users. The reasons why they
do this are not mysterious. If you want to criticize TiVo -- and
that's fine with me! -- the right place to start is much earlier in
the company's history.

But if you actually want to opt out of the DRM game, it seems to
me that the thing to do is to spread the remaining unrestricted
technologies as far and wide as possible while they're still legal...

I've often thought of writing an essay called "converging up,
converging down?" about the ambiguity of the "convergence" ideal.
PCs and consumer electronics (CE) devices have very different
characteristics -- beyond just the technical differences, veering
into cultural differences -- even though today they are usually
made out of the same chips. Among other things, PCs in the past
were friendlier to user innovation and third party innovation; you
could teach them to do more. CE devices in the past were much more
single-function and fixed-function, and upgrades (if available)
typically had to be provided by the manufacturer. Ultimately PCs
were much more under end user control and CE devices much more
under the manuacturer's control. Movie studios have appreciated
this distinction; they have better, older, and closer relationships
with the CE industries than with the PC industries...

If these device families actually do "converge", on whose terms
will they converge? Will the PC grow more like a DVD player (or
a TiVo), or will the PVR and cell phone grow more like PCs? And,
since "being like a PC" or "being like a CE box" is not just a
single dimension, in _which ways_ will they become more like one
another? Which particular characteristics will each now imitate...

In terms of end user control, there is an opportunity for CE devices
to converge up (enhancing customers' control) and a risk of PC
devices converging down (eroding it). I think the world the
entertainment companies have built is providing exactly the wrong
incentive at every point as this question is worked out."

Spread unrestricted technologies as far and wide as possible whilst they are still legal? Now where have I heard that before? Well Charles Nesson at the Berkman Center has taken this position the introduction of controls to the Internet - the message being don't waste your energy complaining about those terrible entities introducing restrictions for their own ends but rather get on with using the Net creatively and demonstrating to the world what potential it has.