Slashdot Mirror
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?
... that they're now beating out the UK as well!
...that this show is a repeat.
Lousy cheap networks.
You're doing it wrong.
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?
OK, I'm just going to start submitting whatever story I see on the front page. A delay of a couple of hours for a duplicate story seems to be the going rate.
Damn those pesky terrorists
Microsoft's parent's primer to computer slang
speaking from AU, I'm glad that the UK folks made it available - I never would have been able to see such an excellent series otherwise.
The networks here don't give a damn about the viewers and seem to change a show's timeslot every five minutes. Who's got the time to chase the network around to see the shows they want? At least this way I get to see the show on my terms.
Can't I record an episode of the simpson with my vcr?
Yup. Delayed viewing. Explicitely permitted by law.
If yes, can my friends borrow the tape from me? Can I do that
Possibly. IANAL but it probably comes under fair use.
If yes, what if I have 1000 friends? is it still legal?
Then you're pushing your luck. Fair use takes into account various factors, including impact on the market. Letting a few friends see a copy is unlikely to have a huge effect on the market. It may result in a lost 'sale' (or rather fewer viewers resulting in lower revenue)for the broadcasters, but the effect will be small. Sharing with 1000 people is a lot more likely to have an effect. But you are limited here. It will take a long time to lend it to 1000 people. At the minimum, if only one person watches it at a time, it will be difficult for all of them to see it within a month.
If yes, can I use bitorrent to share the video??
No.
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.
Because Battlestar Galactica was aired on Sky 1, a satellite channel. The minimum subscription, last I checked, was £13.50 a month ($25) for the most basic package which includes it.
In addition, there's plenty of places that can't install a satellite dish (or install cable), such as rental properties or blocks of flats under tenancy agreements.
Even of the small percentage of the population (about 15% I think) who can watch Sky, some people may not have been around when it was broadcast, and downloading it is better than using tape, and simpler than ripping the ads yourself.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
Hardly surprising
Take ST:VOY for example, the last episode finally aired on 9 last month, you could buy/rent the tape in Australia quite a few years ago and TV execs wonder why no one watches their networks anymore
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.
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.