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Time on "Pirates of Primetime"
binarydreams writes "Time has a pretty decent article on the capturing and trading of television shows on the Internet. The author gives a very good description of the capturing process, the people who enjoy the results, the future of PVR (focusing on the Replay 4000) and why the TV and movie industries are scared."
This is just more of the TV industry coming to grips
with what happened to the music industry. But it's
important that the mainstream learns about it.
...it pried open a Pandora's jewel box: Last year CD sales declined for the first time in a decade.
it would be interesting to see the % fall in this versus the general economic downturn. otherwise its a meaningless statement.
I am against pirating stuff en-masse (i.e. Napster, posting on websites). One-off trading shouldn't be a big concern to the content holders. If I tape a show and give it to a friend, yes, that's illegal, but it's essentially insignificant because it's usually more trouble than its worth, its uncommon, and its a drop in the bucket. I doubt I'd ever be prosecuted for loaning a copy of Star Trek that was just on yesterday to a friend who forgot to tape it.
However, the prevalence of trading shows that there is a demand for this stuff. Why not make it available for sale? Who says that shows need to be off-the-air for a couple of years before they're made available? Who says that only the most popular shows should be made available?
Why isn't the distribution process streamlined so that printing 5000 DVDs for the 5000 people who want to see "Cop Rock" is still profitable?
There are plenty of TV shows that I would gladly purchase on DVD. I was happy to see "Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 1" on DVD -- not because I want to buy it, but because I'm hoping that means that shows like "Kojak, Season 1" make it.
I suspect that the media companies are at a crossroads. Do they sell their content and possibly ruin the repeat-TV market, or do they hold it close and risk people trading it among themselves?
Ralph Slate
Its not always possible to get a cable hookup to college Dorm room....I know it wasn't where I went to school...so just what the hell are those people supposed to do...
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
The lawyers have to prove that this is markedly different from trading video-taped shows. Aside from 1 factor (the greater distribution breadth), I don't see how it is.
So the question they've got to answer is: why is digital media different from analog (i.e. tape) media?
Like I said, should be interesting....
IMO, there are two types of people who trade tv shows:
1. People who have already seen the show and want to view it again at a later date. These people have already seen the ads from the commercial sponsers from the first airing.
2. People who are the fan base of the show. These people archive the episodes for their own enjoyment. These people also probably view the shows during their original airing rather than waiting for the show to appear somewhere over the internet.
Both populations of people have probably seen the original airing of the program with the commericals in place. The only valid concern I can think of from the TV industry is that sponsers may not pay for ads during reruns of a particular show if viewers already have copies of it to watch. But how many of us sit down to watch a rerun of a episode we have already seen? Unless it rocked, most of us I imagine probably end up surfing the TV during breaks anyways. Reruns really only serve the population of people who didn't see the episode in the original airing. It seems to me that the industry wants to keep this population away from recorded TV shows.
Hey, thanks for all the crap.
~jeff
As someone else noted, in the current scheme of television production and distribution, we the viewers are NOT the customer. We are the product that is harvested, packaged, and delivered to the real customer: the advertisers.
Once you understand that, the rest makes perfect sense.
I don't know what the figures are for the studios, but I did see a comment in a UK PC magazine once that to produce the same content without any advertising at all would increase the shelf price from £5 to £25. Quite a hike. Would you be prepared to see your cable/satellite bill go up by the same percentage just to lose the adverts? Plus the additional amount to cover the costs of those who say stuff it and cancel their subscriptions?
I'm guessing that for the majority of viewers the answer will be a resounding "NO WAY!"
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Just my point. And to add to that (I'm .nl too), not only do we get to see stuff *way* later than say, the US; but we're kept in the dark about *if* we ever see it, and when. I know, it's about local (in our case national) tv-stations buying the shows from in this case Paramount.
But how come they can't buy it at the same time it gets shown in the US? Star Trek in all its forms has al large fanbase here (Voyager is even shown on primetime, which is quite unusual for a sci-fi series here), Enterprise would surely attract enough viewers to satisfy the advertisers. It's because of ancient behaviour like this people start trading tv-shows in the first place. The tech is there to show us Europeans things that happen on the other side of the globe in no-time. But no, they can't do that with tv-series. If at times like these the US entertainment industry holds on to ancient principles, I have no objection to people doing some trading of tv-shows online.
The TV networks should be flattered that anyone would want to "pirate" their crap.
You're willfully missing the point. It's not popularity that makes money for the networks, it's advertising, which online pirates strip out, or VHS/DVD purchases, which *probably* aren't being made.
Unlike MP3 swapping, there's a HUGE difference between watching a quarter-screen pixelated copy of a show and seeing it on my 32" television, but that's clearly not a big deal for many viewers, and in any case, it WILL change as technology and bandwidth progresses.
The networks are losing money on this, and that's why they're upset. They don't care if you watch it, they only care if you watch it with the commercials in.
Absolutely. The media companies still have their heads in the sand, they need to wake up and see that the world's a small place now.
If they persist with region locks, and big time lags/price differences between regions they should expect people to bypass them and chip their DVD players and download the TV episodes they can't get.
My wife is American and I'm English, we've lived on both continents and either way one of us is downloading stuff - I'd happily pay a per episode fee to do it legally - of course I'd want to be able to keep the episode on disc or tape until it's released on DVD so streaming's not what I'm after.
I echo what others have said above, Napster happened because the music industry didn't step up to the plate with a solution of it's own. The TV networks (many of the same companies) are repeating the error.
There is a big difference between the TV industry and the music industry...the Supreme Court of the United States has affirmed our right to time shift televised content.
This means that as soon as a television station airs a program, I have the legal right to record that program to watch it at a different time or to watch it multiple times. So look at it these case situations:
A) Me pressing the record button on VCR to record content that will later be transmitted by coaxial cable to be viewed on my TV set = legal (Betamax decision)
B) Me pressing the record button on PVR to record content that will later be transmitted by coaxial cable to be viewed on my TV set = just as legal. If the courts did not see any distinction between existing media formats (Beta vs. VHS) then likewise there should be no distinction between media characteristics (magnetic tape vs. magnetic platters)
C) My friend pressing the record button on VCR to record content that will later be transmitted by coaxial cable to be viewed on my TV set = just as legal. Again, the courts did not specify that timeshifting only applied to the person making the recording. Otherwise how could sons setup the family VCR to record Days of Our Lives for technophobic mom? It's simple to see how it makes no difference who presses the button, the result is the same.
D) My friend pressing the record button on PVR to record content that will later be transmitted by coaxial cable to be viewed on my TV set = just as legal...combining case B and C.
E) My friend pressing the record button on PVR to record content that will later be transmitted by coaxial cable to be viewed on my monitor = just as legal...again the courts made no requirement for viewing device, whether tuner-ready television or single-channel monitor.
F) My friend pressing the record button on PVR to record content that will later be transmitted by CAT-5 cable to be viewed on my monitor = JUST AS LEGAL!...because yet again the courts made no requirement for trasmitting cable. Coaxial, Audio/Video, CAT-5, it's all the same as far as its purpose is concerned.
So working a step at a time from A (which we know is legal) it is trivial to show that F (what the article is talking about) is just as legal.
Now, I admit the issue is a little grey on pay-per-view and premium channels. I don't know if those things existed back in 1980 when the Betamax decision was written. But, even so, if I can go next door to watch HBO on my friend's TV, why can't I timeshift that same content to a time I'm in the comfort of my own home? Maybe my friend has HBO but I have the better TV/stereo? Again, these would be cases the courts could have mentioned but didn't.
The Internet changes nothing. My friends and I were recording shows for each other in high school back when Internet cost your $10/hour. The only difference the Internet makes is it becomes much more efficient...which is what progress is supposed to do.
- JoeShmoe
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-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
IMO, there are two types of people who trade tv shows
...and a third: people who don't get the channels, or can't rent or afford to buy the DVDs, but want to watch the shows all their friends are raving about.
Don't pretend that third group doesn't exist. The article mentions "Sex in the City" and "Friends," but if you go online you don't have to look far to find shows and movies that are only available in recorded format. People wouldn't be swapping ripped copies of anime imports or "Shrek" -- not available on TV but expensive on tape/DVD -- if that was the case.
Um, maybe I'm just terminally dense, but...
If I tape a show with my VCR that's legal right.
If I run the TV signal though my Digital capture card and write it to CD-R that's legal too, right.
If I tape my daughters favorite show for her, because she has to work and give her the tape
when she gets home, that's legal.
If I run the TV signal though my Digital capture card and write it to CD-R and give her the CD-R when she gets home that's legal too, right.
If I don't own a VCR only a video player is it legal to have my friend video tape it for me and give me the tape when he comes in to work? (I catch the show in question, but I have to work during this weeks show)
If instead of a VHS tape, since I don't have even a video tape player he gives it to me on a CD-R. (being a proper geek I do have a computer with a CD-Rom drive) Isn't that the same thing?
If my friend lives in the same apartment with me is that legal? On the next floor? The next building? The next state? The next continent?
Why is it legal for me to tape Enterprise or the Simpsons, but illegal to have my friend in France tape it for me?
Why can I tape a show on my VCR, but if I tape it to CD-R that's a problem?
If the music stations don't want you to record songs off the radio don't air them. If television stations don't want you to tape episodes, then don't air them.
Here's one final quandary.
If I live in a frat house with 200 other guys and we get cable television service for say $50.00 USD a month. It's perfectly legal to hook it up to a large screen television and let as many people as can fit in the room all watch it together. Take that one step further, since in the US the cable company can't charge you per television for service (they are trying to get back to that with digital cable and the required decoder box rentals, that's why they'll hate to see digital cable decoders as ubiquitous as cable ready TV and VCR's), I can legally hook up 100 or more televisions to that one cable line. All legally. The fraternity can tape every episode of a television show and keep them in the television room of the frat house, now potentially thousands of people can watch this show, and we are still legal. So why is trading episodes of a show through the internet suddenly a problem?
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Just my $0.02 (Canadian, before taxes)
"The MPAA counted more than 5,000 locations on the Internet last year where people could download episodes for free."
... as opposed to watching the broadcast for free?
The networks already got their money, and they didn't get it from the viewers. The advertisers paid for the broadcast and there shouldn't be anything more to ask for (unless they want to take the position of cable companies where they charge both the advertier and the viewer). If the networks don't feel like they're getting enough money then they should be talking to the people that actually pay for it, and if the advertisers won't pay any more than that's your problem, not mine.
The shows are being broadcast whether I like them or not. My TV received those broadcasts but either wasn't on or was focused on a different channel at the time. I also have the right to record such broadcasts whether I watch it at the time of recording or not. While it's true that it's copyrighted matieral, giving the networks the ability to control what they themselves distributed to anybody and everybody free of charge is ridiculous. If this keeps up will the networks attempt to have a say in the affairs of TV and VCR manufacturers to "help the networks defend their rights?"
Consumers don't want to play by the network's rules. In a capitalist society it is the network that must adapt to the situation, not the consumer.
Please explain how copying a TV Show is the same as someone hitting me on the back of the head and stealing my wallet? I don't open my wallet up to everyone that walks by and show them the content within it. I keep it inside my coat pocket so it is protected from prying eyes. TV Networks are sending an unencrypted signal through the air and are begging me to pick it up and view it. There is no disclaimer or contract before the show that requires me to view the commercials. If they don't want you to copy the show, the should either encrpyt it or sell it on a media they can control.
Also, does a TV network have a right to control my memory of the show so they can make sure I remember the commercials along with the plot line?
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
In some part of Asia here where even cable don't cover certain shows, especially sci-fi. I mean "woot, no sci-fi channel?" and we have to live with that.
Now that STTNG is on DVD, may be I can buy it over the net or something, remember the show ended in 1994? It's been 8 freaking years! So if I am going to buy Enterprise I have to wait another 8 years and for the rest of the world cable provider finished showing them?
For every black market there exists a big red sign saying "Bad marketing. Huge demand exists but you are missing out of it."
The difference is that you would be fine letting people borrow your tape of a show but if you gave everybody a copy of the show to keep then you would be getting in trouble. When you make a show available online you are allowing millions (not just the hundreds you are talking about) of people to download and keep a copy of the show.
I would also note that if you tried to split your cable signal to 100 TVs you would probably notice some serious degradation unless you use a repeater.
Their only recourse is to own the internet itself and forbid all "servers". Gee, that kind of looks like the new Cox.net Terms of Service. Time/Warner AOL ToS anyone? I suppose the Bells will co-operate if the cable companies keep people from using their bandwith for long distance voice comunications. M$ might make some money collecting extortion fees from various media companies to protect content with the new XP EULA and Digital Rights Denial Patents. Looky there, all the big publishing interests CAN be happy with new technology after all. What a deal, all use of your bandwith is stripped, you computer is a TV.
Kinda sucks life. All I want to do is run my own mail, and share pictures of my two month old girl with my friends and family. No can do, those tools make me a Pirate and endanger the profits of major publishers. I don't watch TV.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
And that is the fundamental problem with the TV networks.
In the 50s and 60s, you watched networks. Just as there were Ford people and there were Chevy people, there were people who watched "NBC" or "CBS" or "ABC".
Today, I don't know anyone who gives a rat's fried patoot what network, nor even what channel, their programming is on. We watch shows, not networks.
And that's why the woman in the article won't pay for HBO. She doesn't want "HBO". She only wants to watch "Sex in the City", and if she could pay $1/month to watch 1 hour of HBO's programming (that is, the new episode of "Sex in the City") a week, she would.
But she can't. Because HBO doesn't work like that. Because the cable system doesn't work like that. The whole notion of "broadcasting" (and this includes "niche channels") is that you fill the pipe 24/7 with content, charge your viewers for all that content, even though they only want one or two shows you offer.
It's not quite the same as the RIAA model of "put one good song on the album, the rest can be filler", because your idea of filler might be my idea of content. (That is, some folks watch highbrow channels for the Shakespeare, others for the war documentaries, still others for the Red Dwarf reruns ;-)
But the practical effect is the same -- an end user buys a subscription to a channel in order to get the hour or two of "good stuff" per week that they care about.
Cable makes it worse, of course, in that underlying technical restrictions have created buyers used to buying "packages" of 10-20 channels at a time in order to get the 2-3 channels that carry the 4-5 shows you watch. It's not like buying a whole CD to get the one song you want, it's like buying a whole box set!
Now comes the 'net - we bypass the high-level middlemen (cable/satellite operators) and the low-level middlemen ("channels") to allow an individual to get the product ("shows") they actually want. In effect, the 'net makes the traditional distribution system ("shows" aggregated onto "channels" and sold in "packages of channels") obsolete.
The woman who says "Fuck that!" and downloads her Sex in the City isn't saying "Fuck copyright".
She's saying "Fuck the dumb distribution system".
While this is peer-to-peer trading, there are several important differences from Napster.
First of all, there really wasn't a large-market device for capturing _broadcast_ music (I've often wondered why, because the number of times I've heard something wonderful on the radio that I won't hear again for months or perhaps EVER has been waaay too many). There was no "time-shifting" argument.
Second of all, most of the available material on Napster was available for purchase. Yes, there were the live/bootleg/rare recordings, which I enjoyed as much as anyone, but I don't think that was the majority. Most of it seemed to be off of ripped CDs.
However, for a lot of the TV shows, there is no medium to rip from. The shows aren't available for purchase.
It's interesting that rather than see this as a great opportunity, TV studios get scared and try to wipe it out. There's quite OBVIOUSLY a market here, and filling it wouldn't be all that hard....
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
Well repeaters and signal boosters are all perfectly legal.
Never said it wasn't. Would make it pretty difficult on apartment buildings if it was.
If I let my friend borrow my tape, and he made a himself a copy and returned it that would be ok then?
Video tapes are kinda fuzzy all around. Just like music tapes there isn't as big of a concern about copying. If you had a digital copy of the show and your friend copied it then you may have a problem.
So the issue, as you see it, isn't the action but the number of people?
First, how I see it is not at issue here. I personally think the whole thing is ridiculous. I am explaining to you the way the industry, and probably the courts, would see it. Please don't believe that any of this is my opinion. Second, of course number makes a difference. Fair use doesn't allow for you sharing with large amounts of people. What is large is up to interpretation.
So I guess the next thing we'll have to do is put a counter on everything in the library. Loaning out that video tape to 100 patrons is ok, but once we hit some magical number (100,000, 1,000,000) it becomes a crime?
Again we are talking about loaning versus copying. The library is not making a copy for you so they are not doing anything "wrong." If I remember correctly it says somewhere on the agreement you fill out to get your library card that you won't make copies.
How is that any different than if 10 people record that episode and "share" it with 1,499,990 "friends" over the internet.
Well this is the fuzzy area when it comes to broadcast TV. If you include the original commercials with the distribution then you probably should be able to squeak by. When it comes to pay channels though you are up a creak without a paddle. Unless you can somehow prove that the only people downloading your file are subscribers to that pay channel you would have a hard time.
Now if you want my opinion on all of this. I think that anything that is broadcast for free should be free to rebroadcast as long as you include the original commercials. Anything that is PayTV should be off limits.