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"The Scene", I seem to remember, was a made for torrent series. Also downloaded hundres of thousands of times. But kind of fizzled out at the end and the group that made it seems to have vanished. Is this the future of television? Not so far!

Who pays them now? these H4x0rZ just do it for fun. Didn't you watch The Scene (season 1)

I would be amazingly suprised at any /.ers who don't know xkcd. It would just be.. wrong.

One site I'd recommend though is The Scene. It's a nerdy-soap-opera-type-thing. Pretty damned fun.

If it's not worth looking at then why do people care if there is DRM on it, or why do people continue to make and distribute unauthorized copies?

If "Welcome to The Scene" has shown anything it's that the general mentality of the sources in The Scene is that being first to distribute something makes you the best. Regardless of whether someone wants it or not, having it first is what matters.

I think it's that mentality that drives most piracy - especially when it comes to getting something out before it's "out."

It's the people that download it that decide whether or not it's crap.

• Kahvi Collective -- ambient / electronic / chillout; 700 tracks, all free as in beer, mix of ogg and mp3 (much of the archive is available in both). This free music is the only stuff I've insisted on paying for in the past year :P
• The Scene had some great backing music; each episode has links to artists' sites, which tend to have more of the same, for free. I can't seem to find season 1 though, and season 2 sucked :(
• scene.org (a different scene to the one above) has a huge archive of demoscene music; typically electronic / dance

I'm sure there must be more huge archives of free music, and genres other than electronic; anybody know of any?

Maybe he's thinking about pirates like in "The Scene" http://www.welcometothescene.com/ where one time they were trying to beat other pirates to a "Release" and then suddenly a technical glitch wiped all their files from the server.

People get a lot of their experience these days from watching movies. Software companies test the final version before releasing it, surely movie production companies do the same

Well who wants to watch Hoolywood movies anyways? I have been watching more and more foreign content, even with subtitles, there's is lot a of good content produced.
Maybe if we're lucky MS and DRM associates will have financial troubles; I can see a future where people (me and others) will pay for content from independents that are fine with you burning it to DVD. Maybe a bunch of new creative media companies will come out of all this mess. I already download and watch a free shows such as http://welcometothescene.com/.
I can see a future in the same vein as podcasts for videos (probably some of it is already there). Just ask radio stations if they like podcasts? In a way they've had to comply!

The geek inside me always took 'The Scene' a little too seriously - but I don't regret it, it was more enthusiasm than social life replacement on my personal behalf so I can live with my past.

They saw the video
http://www.welcometothescene.com/

For those that want to see a sort of drama about this whole piracy bit try
http://www.welcometothescene.com/


Free and entertaining.

I believe it's Sony who are the secret backers of http://www.welcometothescene.com/. It's a downloadable (via bittorrent) show about a movie pirate who digs himself further into trouble.

The makers of the series refute that:
http://usa.welcometothescene.com/newsletter.txt

An interesting drama-type thing from the view of the criminals is The Scene; the first 9 episodes in a torrent are here. They seem slow to release though; one wonders how it can take 3-4 weeks to record 20 minutes of desktop screenshots...

Recently I ran across the link for The Scene, http://www.welcometothescene.com/ Yeah, I know I'm a bit slow on some things and this has been out for some time (9 episodes already available with #10 coming out very soon) It is a "made for the Internet series" whose storyline revolves around this very topic, distributing pirated movies. Available by bittorrent. Check it out.

The bad thing about P2P television (and all other open-source, non-profit things) is that there isn't any motivation. They're not getting paid for this or anything (besides the weak amount of money they make off of mugs, t-shirts, and paypal donations), so why keep taking time out of their schedule to make it? http://www.welcometothescene.com/, however, comes out with episodes every couple of weeks. If everything were that consistent, i'm sure more people would watch p2p television.

It would look something like this.

Everytime I go to this web site, http://www.welcometothescene.com/sponsors, random *.exe files show up on my OSX desktop. Files like c4chzgbd.exe or pny4xfm.exe. They disapear if I click on them or the desktop.

I have seen these files on a friends Windows machine and have tried in vain to remove them all but they always pop backup, while I am trying to remove them, named something else. Used all the Spyware removal programs too.

Using Firefox under OSX I am surprised to see these popping up on my desktop. I have seen these before from other web sites. I have closed the browser and returned to The Sceen web site three times. All three times a *.exe shows up on the desktop.

It's a dangerous world out there. Lions and tigers and bears! Spyware, trojans and viri! Oh MY!

You Windows and Explorer users out there may want to scan your hard drives and wash your hands after visiting this web site.

Just to add more info to this...
If we do a whois on welcometothescene.com, we find that it was registered by the Jun Group. Doing a simple google search turns up <a href="http://www.dcia.info/News/newsletter_2004-12 -06.htm">http://dcia.info/News/newsletter_2004-12- 06.htm</a>

<karmawhore>
A DCIA Member made industry history last week by premiering the first-of-its-kind original peer-to-peer (P2P) video program series entitled "The Scene."

While other major entertainment industry representatives continued various actions around the world intended to curtail online file sharing, Jun Group took an enormous step forward in the commercial development of this exciting distribution channel.

Like theatrical motion pictures, broadcast television shows, and most recently cable programming, mass media outlets for video content have been able to mark the beginnings of their coming of age with the debuts of their first original made-for-the-medium content.

According to Jun Group president and show co-creator Mitchell Reichgut, "Most content that's available online was originally created for another medium. We created 'The Scene' specifically for file sharers. It's meant to be viewed on the computer."

On November 30th, Jun Group launched this first-ever TV-style series specifically for the global file-sharing community. "The Scene's" protagonist, Brian Sandro, is a fictional young NYU student who also happens to be one of the world's most avid file-swappers.

Sandro's desktop is at the heart of his social life, and viewers get to experience the online "Scene" just as he does - via Web cams, secret chat rooms, private websites, instant messages, and e-mails.

"The Scene" is financed entirely by sponsorships, which themselves exemplify the cutting-edge of creativity. Sandro visits the official website for the extreme sports equipment company that is one of its charter advertisers. He also listens to music on his computer and checks out the bands' websites - as college students typically do.

What makes the show most unique is the fact that it is being distributed solely through the P2P community. "File sharers have made it very clear that this is their preferred method of consuming content," Mitchell said. "We are the first ones who have found a way to truly meet that demand."

He added that the file-sharing audience is a highly desirable demographic of affluent and largely male young adults. Businesses pay for placement based on the number of people who are inspired by the show to visit a sponsor, which is both quantifiable and verifiable.

"Our sponsors will only be paying for the people who download the show or the people we drive to their websites," he noted. "They won't have to rely on outdated ratings systems."

There's no reason to copy-protect the shows, Mitchell said, because the whole idea is for people to copy and share them so that advertisers reach the highest possible number of consumers.

Executives at show sponsor Freebord phoned Jun Group two hours after the premiere to report that their website was "being swamped with traffic." Similarly, the website (http://welcometothescene.com/) that Jun Group created to promote the show temporarily went down due to the overwhelming amount of traffic it was receiving.

It's clear that hundreds of thousands of people downloaded the show in first few hours after its release. "The Scene" is now out on P2P, and on IRC, Usenet, and public FTPs - with no strings attached.

"The Scene" represents Jun Group's latest foray into file sharing. In 2003, the company released five files from Kevin Martin and the Hiwatts, a band featuring the former lead singer of Candlebox, on behalf of YooHoo Chocolate Drink.

The music was downloaded more than two million times over a four-week period, and helped YooHoo achieve the largest spi

Just to add more info to this... If we do a whois on welcometothescene.com, we find that it was registered by the Jun Group. Doing a simple google search turns up http://www.dcia.info/News/newsletter_2004-12-06.ht m. A DCIA Member made industry history last week by premiering the first-of-its-kind original peer-to-peer (P2P) video program series entitled "The Scene." While other major entertainment industry representatives continued various actions around the world intended to curtail online file sharing, Jun Group took an enormous step forward in the commercial development of this exciting distribution channel. Like theatrical motion pictures, broadcast television shows, and most recently cable programming, mass media outlets for video content have been able to mark the beginnings of their coming of age with the debuts of their first original made-for-the-medium content. According to Jun Group president and show co-creator Mitchell Reichgut, "Most content that's available online was originally created for another medium. We created 'The Scene' specifically for file sharers. It's meant to be viewed on the computer." On November 30th, Jun Group launched this first-ever TV-style series specifically for the global file-sharing community. "The Scene's" protagonist, Brian Sandro, is a fictional young NYU student who also happens to be one of the world's most avid file-swappers. Sandro's desktop is at the heart of his social life, and viewers get to experience the online "Scene" just as he does - via Web cams, secret chat rooms, private websites, instant messages, and e-mails. "The Scene" is financed entirely by sponsorships, which themselves exemplify the cutting-edge of creativity. Sandro visits the official website for the extreme sports equipment company that is one of its charter advertisers. He also listens to music on his computer and checks out the bands' websites - as college students typically do. What makes the show most unique is the fact that it is being distributed solely through the P2P community. "File sharers have made it very clear that this is their preferred method of consuming content," Mitchell said. "We are the first ones who have found a way to truly meet that demand." He added that the file-sharing audience is a highly desirable demographic of affluent and largely male young adults. Businesses pay for placement based on the number of people who are inspired by the show to visit a sponsor, which is both quantifiable and verifiable. "Our sponsors will only be paying for the people who download the show or the people we drive to their websites," he noted. "They won't have to rely on outdated ratings systems." There's no reason to copy-protect the shows, Mitchell said, because the whole idea is for people to copy and share them so that advertisers reach the highest possible number of consumers. Executives at show sponsor Freebord phoned Jun Group two hours after the premiere to report that their website was "being swamped with traffic." Similarly, the website (http://welcometothescene.com/) that Jun Group created to promote the show temporarily went down due to the overwhelming amount of traffic it was receiving. It's clear that hundreds of thousands of people downloaded the show in first few hours after its release. "The Scene" is now out on P2P, and on IRC, Usenet, and public FTPs - with no strings attached. "The Scene" represents Jun Group's latest foray into file sharing. In 2003, the company released five files from Kevin Martin and the Hiwatts, a band featuring the former lead singer of Candlebox, on behalf of YooHoo Chocolate Drink. The music was downloaded more than two million times over a four-week period, and helped YooHoo achieve the largest spike in website traffic since the inception of its site. Its more recent partnership with rock legend Steve Winwood and the television show Access Hollywood drove over 3 million downloads and well over 200,000 vis

Hey, I wanted to let you know that another group (unrelated to us) has released a hysterical spoof of "The Scene". We saw it earlier today and were howling laughing. You can download it at www.welcometotehscene.com. (Note "teh" instead of "the"). Our own release of Episode 6 is on schedule for March 25th. We'll update you before it comes out. In the meantime, we'd like to ask your help with something: It's about time our show got some attention on Slashdot! If all of us post to www.slashdot.org over the next few days they'll be hard pressed to ignore us - and this new spoof could be excellent fodder to write about! We'll offer the first person who succeeds in getting a story posted about "The Scene" a spot in an upcoming episode (either as one of our characters or yourself!) Please include the following two links in your post: The Scene parody To post, go to: http://slashdot.org/submit.pl Thanks, all! Talk to you soon. Mitchell

Personally, I feel the central point of the entire article (beyond the obvious revealing of the inner-workings of the scene,) was to reveal the POWER of the scene, and its distribution system. Specifically, near the end of the article, the article mentions a company named "JunGroup" that distributed MP3s over P2P, IRC, and FTPs to promote products. Now that consumers actually understand the basics of The Scene, they can begin to accept untraditional business models that utilize the piracy avenues for legitimate distribution. If you look at the JunGroup site, they have a link to their "The Scene" TV series, a TV series about the inner-workings piracy from a desktop perspective, revealing (graphically) the majority of scene practices (both good and bad.)

It's only a matter of time before we have a reality-TV show about this kind of lifestyle. But what the real dummies don't understand is that this is the same culture that has existed for decades.
Sadly, such a thing already exists - http://www.welcometothescene.com/

After watching a few minutes of it, I don't know if I should laugh or shudder.... :D

Take a look at jungroup.com now, they have a link pointing to their "entertainment division" and their latest project "The Scene," a TV show about an NYU student who is the leader of a top movie group in the darknet. After watching the series, it seems that much of the information that is in the darknet article is displayed (graphically) to create a TV drama. Take a look if you're interested.