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UK Leads in TV Show Downloading
dirutz writes "Britain has emerged as the world's biggest market for downloading pirated TV, with Australia being the second and the U.S. sitting at third. Among the top pirated TV shows, '24' ranks the first. 'The Simpsons,' 'Enterprise,' 'Stargate SG-1' and 'Battlestar Galactica' are also among the top hitters." 'Pirated' seems a strong word, at least for watching those programs which have been beamed (unencrypted) through my body. Where can I pay a quarter per show for moderate-quality, sanctioned torrent files?
Can I call it????
(sigh)
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
I don't think they will ever sell shows for that cheap because DVD sales are becoming very popular for TV. Why would you pay 30 dollars for season 2 of family guy when you could download the whole season for 5 bucks?
I think he is primarily bemoaning the fact that he is willing to pay, yet no one is willing to sell to him. The networks wouldn't even need money, just leaving the commercials in would make it as lucrative for them as the real thing. And they could even track viewership more easily.
The really stupid thing is that the networks are missing out on the holy grail here: targeted TV advertising. Imagine if you were getting your high-quality, sanctioned downloads (still via Bittorrent) seeded by the network itself. The particular file you got contained commercials that matched your user profile for likes, dislikes, etc. Heck, even just matching your sex would nearly double the productivity of the commercials for advertisers. Getting 5 million men to watch a Playtex ad nets an advertiser $0.
Call it wrong all you want, but some people require laws that make sense.
Two points for the idiot to consider:
1. The networks won't allow a middleman. Where have you been for the last 10 years?
2. The geeks are getting exactly what they want. The networks aren't. Guess being a suite isn't so great, eh?
1. It's 'sense' not 'sence'
2. It's 'lousy' not 'lausy'
3. So Spitting Image's utter lack of subtlety is somehow 'better' than Little Britain? Wouldn't the better comparison (given the political content of Spitting Image) be Spitting Image and Brass Eye, or Dead Ringers? Or The Day Today?
Define 'The British Sense Of Humour' before you harp on about its extinction, please. For me, the epitome of that has been summed up by the word 'dryness'*. Spitting Image was anything but dry, and as such could be classed as an anomaly. The new generation has taken 'dry' and added 'disturbing', to its credit. Take League Of Gentlemen for instance. Dry and disturbing.
It's evolved, but I don't know you you equate this to extinction, exactly.
* Add absurdity if you like, for example much Monty Python, but absurdity is a comedy universal, IMO.
Screw you all! I'm off to the pub
Well, in the U.S. due to the DMCA, you can lend your friend a VCR recording of a TV show but not a DVD recording of a TV show, because the DVD recording is digital.
Basically, what people do on the internet could be considered "fair use", but since so many people can transfer so many high-quality format recordings, those who pushed the DMCA forward decided that fair use had become too much of a good thing in the digital world, and put a stop to it.
There's good arguments on both sides. It's not wrong to view a TV show without commercials, but it would be unfair if a good TV show had 10 million viewers but only 200,000 saw the commercials. It's a matter of degree. Bittorrent is more dangerous to networks if lots of people use it than if few do.
Personally, I think it's more wrong to go after someone who downloads last night's episode of Lost than to download last night's episode of Lost, regardless of the "but it's THEIR show" argument. Yes, it's their show, but that doesn't give them carte blanche to do whatever they want to anyone who sees that show in a manner they don't approve of.
'Pirated' seems a strong word, at least for watching those programs which have been beamed (unencrypted) through my body.
No, 'pirated' doesn't refer to recording them, it refers to posting them on the Internet for anybody to download. I would think the difference was obvious.
The standard meaning of the word is "distributing copyrighted material without permission" (for instance, here). Regardless of your position on this issue, you have to agree that the definition applies here.
And yes, it's a strong word. It's a newspaper headline. What do you expect?
Java: the bastard demon spawn of C++ and Ada
Timothy is the internet's TBS.
Am I the only one who loves finding ads on an old tape? The ads are kind of annoying now, but if you look back in 5 years they will be entertainment.
Doesn't really make sense, and the reason for that is two fold.
One, the networks would make no money off of ads posted in those rips online. If anything, the ad providers would be annoyed at the fact that their ad is in pirated works.
Plus, those ads are targetted at a specific location. Each local channel of CBS/FOX/ABC/ETC has different ads for the exact same show. The advertisers in New York don't want their ads to be seen all over the US, so including commercials in online rips could potentially turn away prospective advertisers.
Secondly, the people posting the rips online, and most of the people watching them, don't care about their network making money. If they did, they would watch the show when it came on. Removing ads from the online rips makes the release groups look better and the leechers happier.
It's pointless to keep commercials in online rips.
Maybe we could make a movement where we write and film our own shows and license them such that everyone is free to modify and redistribute them. It's not like DV cameras cost a lot of money (no more than a computer) and everyone has video editing software these days, and our desktop machines are good enough to do tv quality CG (movie quality if we use distributed networks). Where's the Free (as in freedom) Tv?
How we know is more important than what we know.
It isn't if you turn off the TV and turn on the radio. There is much humour on BBC Radio 4. I've been in paroxysms of laughter from some of the stuff they have on. Trouble is I was driving at the time...
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Okay, we all are aware that this story is a dup of a previous one, well everyone except the individual that allowed this story to make it to the slashdot front page again, so I would like to take a moment to change the topic and voice my gripe about cable television and the utter stupidity of the entire situation in general.
Why is it that the public at large is expected to foot the bill for cable television for the luxury of watching programming that includes commercials? Television networks as well as your cable company make tons of money on the advertising that goes into television programs. The only reason the networks are able to charge as much as they do for the commercials is because people watch the programming.
It seems to me that if someone pays to receive television channels (many of which can be received for free over the air) via cable or satellite they should be able to receive programming that does not include commercials at all. For example if I can watch FOX using an antenna for free what value am I getting by paying to get that identical programming with commercials over a cable line? Compare it to viewing content on a website for free with ads or opting to buy a subscription to view the content without ads, much like you can on slashdot. Now channels like HBO that do not include commercials I can see paying for because they are offering me original commercial free content, something I can not get otherwise.
There is certainly a market for commercial free programming as can be shown by the popularity of subscription based DVRs such as Tivo. Sure people like watching their favorite programs at their convenience, but really a large part of it is being able to do so without the commercials.
To put it simply, I am of the opinion that basic cable should be provided to everyone without cost because the ad content has already generated more than enough revenue to cover the cost of distribution. The cable companies also generate ad review by selling local commercial spots into the programming. The cable companies should be able to pass on their costs to the networks rather than the general public because the networks could not possibly charge the advertisers as much as they do without the viewers the cable companies provide.
Offering at least basic cable for free would greatly increase the potential number of viewers which would in turn allow the networks and cable companies to charge more for their advertisement spots. Compare it to the way that print ads are sold where the cost is based on total distribution; higher distribution equals higher revenue per ad sold. Television viewership is down greatly and I would suspect that this trend will continue unless something new and innovative is given a chance.
Another thing I would really like to see happen would be for the cable companies to allow you to pick the programming you would like to receive. There are only 10 to 20 channels at most I would be interested in watching if I did have cable. Perhaps I could warm up a little to paying a nominal amount, say less than $20 per month including all taxes, if I were able to hand pick which channels I could receive and at least a fair number of those would have to be commercial free (such as HBO).
-- Just my $0.02 worth...
Isnt it odd how almost the entire top-list is sci-fi which lacks distribution in a lot of places, while there is pretty much no downloading of reality soaps?
Maybe the programming execs should get repeatedly fired for so completely and utterly failing to satisfy demand...
How about making comments down here with the rest of us, where we can reply to them properly and even moderate them?
For that matter, how about checking for dupes before posting a story?
It's official. Most of you are morons.
This is getting to be worse than broadcast TV with all these reruns!
On the plus side, instead of thinking, we can just copy/paste all the +5 comments from the other story and get huge amounts of karma.
For example, here's a comment by Xner: "Thre real reason for rampant TV piracy on this side of the pond is that shows are released a lot later around here, sometimes even YEARS. This does encourage people to take their viewing habits into their own hands." Insightful, eh? I'd mod me up if I were you.
qntm.org
Well, lets think about it this way. If it costs $52 for me to buy a season box set of Stargate, and there are 22 episodes per set, lets call it $2.40 per episode. Then hack off a conservative amount for the old manufacturing and distribution costs and guesstimate that with the new lower costs they could sell them for $1 or $1.50 an episode and maintain their profit margin. Would we pay that?
If we're asking them to reduce their profit, that's probably not realistic.
If you're downloading TV shows, you've got to at least be somewhat tech-savvy... but John Windows-User Joe, who doesn't even know the difference between "upload" and "download" (GRAHH!) probably likes the reality shows much better.
So they are catering to demand, just not yours (or that of the part of the population downloading TV).
Omnes stulti sunt.
Excuse me, but I pay my cable bill. I'd like to be able to see some of these shows whenever I want, but don't feel like spending the time/money to encode them. If somebody else did and can share that with me, great! Heck, the simpsons is even still on 'free' air. How can they claim this as piracy? Nobody is trying to sell the stuff for profit (oh yeah, the networks want to overcharge you for the DVDs several years later. I forgot)
Try watching any of the crap on BBC1s Friday line up and say that with a straight face.
British comedy has gone down hill and is now all canned laughter and black people with an old man who's horny, a husband whos horny and a wife who is just there to look after the kids.
The current state of TV is trash at very best, comedy hasn't evolved, it's just got dumber to the point where a brick against the head would work just as well.
Young ones, Bottom, Black Adder, Mr Bean and so many others. Maybe not the most witty of comedies but they sure as hell made you laugh, which is what comedy is about. Not having 5 "parody" shows each week all covering the same thing.
The only decent thing we're making right now is comedic-quizshows. Nevermind the Buzzcocks, QI and this sort of thing. Nothing else we make is even worth it since it's watered down American drivel without the fake accents.
I like muppets.
Would we pay that?
Yes. But only for a DVD. They must realize that a non-hard-copy of their show is worth much less than a burned, physical copy on relatively durable media. The price goes down even further for DRM'ed copies that reduce my ability to do what I want with the files.
Now for the other side of it: you have to realize that they won't offer this in any format you'd find usable. They'll use Windows Media because "everyone has it" or Real because "it's streaming so people have to pay-per-view". They'll inevitably screw something up to make it unusable, which makes it worth about $0.25 to those that will use it. Of course, they can't recoup their costs or match the amount of profit from the hard-copies when they do this, so it'll go away quickly.
IMHO it's not even so much of paying a quarter a show or any price for that matter, to me it's more about simple availability from a continuity standpoint.
Take for instance Stargate SG-1, Atlantis and BSG. I live in Texas where my exposure to decent Sci-Fi is whatever I can get via cable or satellite. It's not even so much that the Sci-Fi channel doesn't air the shows that are seen on UK TV until almost 6 months to a year later - but when they do, they pull this "split-season" crap where they'll show only part of a season, followed by re-runs ad-nauseum, then complete out the season in some stair-step fashion simply to boost ad-revenue dollars.
I'd be happy to not bother downloading if they would simply show some continuity and quit jacking so much with the schedules.
I do purchase the DVD sets when they're available, and even watch them on occasion as I TiVo them all.
The networks would be smart to allow downloads and figure out new ways of revenue generation. And on that same note, I would like to thank PERSONALLY all of those wonderful individuals that post these shows from SkyOne as they are aired in the UK. You guys are the BEST! (and I mean that from the bottom of my heart!)
Never have a philosophy which supports a lack of courage
I'm guessing that, for them to bite - the big production houses would need to know that they could make more money using this model than the current broadcast > DVD > Syndication one.
Remember that the proposed business model does not exist in a vacuum. The current model is endangered by both unauthorized internet distribution and tivo-enabled commercial skipping. Thus, while the current model may end up being sustainable in the long run, it won't be at levels anywhere near as profitable as it is today.
Hollywood is notoroious for trying to put the genie back into the bottle instead of asking it for three wishes, so who knows what it will take to convince them.
it seems like it would still require the establishment of some sort of "network" to really get the word out worldwide.
Agreed, advertising gets both harder and easier. You'll need some kind of central location for people to find out about new productions. Plus, you either need to be really convincing to persuade people to put their money up (although part of the idea is that the money is refunded if the show is not produced) or give away a couple of episodes to hook people - either way costs money and is a risk.
But, on the other side, once established with a few shows bought and paid for, all the released episodes serve as free advertising for the next episode's production costs.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.