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Was the New Dr. Who Leaked on Purpose?
Static-MT writes "The pilot episode of the BBC's highly anticipated new Doctor Who series may have been intentionally leaked onto file-sharing networks to generate buzz, a source who instructed the network on viral advertising told Wired News."
Bailey said although he didn't have definite knowledge the leak was official, the quality of the episode is highly suspicious. If it were an unofficial leak, it would likely be of poor quality, he said.
The BBC denied any part in the distribution of the episode.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Let's hope this is the beginning of a trend. Between this "leak" and the Battlestar Galactica episode available on the Sci-Fi website for free, maybe television stations just get the "net" better than the RIAA and MPAA.
.. but since its not being broadcast in my market, I'll have to look for .torrents for future episodes, instead.
c'mon BBC, fully convert to the Internet already, dang!!
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
The pilot episode would garner the most ratings in the overnight to judge a success? (How many series "die" after the first episode from a poor showing). So if you leak the pilot, theoretically it doesn't get watched as much so you blow the "hook" to keep viewers coming back to the time slot next week.
Nothing too shocking about this.
Looks like the big boys are finally catching on to the benefits of free samples of this sort (see also the free Battlestar Galactica episode).
Yeah, but if the BBC was distributing this file would as many people have downloaded it? I downloaded because it was "leaked" and I am sure many others are in the same boat as me.
[SIG] Far better to be thought a fool then to post on
The right thing would be to work out some way of charging you guys in the US for it, or making a timely release on DVD. Given that those of us in the UK have paid for the production via our TV Licence.
Part of the reason the BBC is still investigating ways of broadcasting everything online is that they need to figure out a way to limit access to those who've actually put something back into the BBC.
The BBC doesn't have domestic advertising, so they and I could care less about the "leak" because they've NOT LOST A PENNY because of it. On the other hand, they've got a lot of publicity and perhaps boosted the international market for the program.
Why is this even a story? Surely the suprise would be if the BBC hadn't leaked it?
Seriously, if it was leaked intentionally, it's a brilliant move. Think of the buzz it's generated, with all the news stories about it and internet user chatter. I live in the states and would probably not have even known there was a new series, and now I'm looking forward to seeing it eventuallly... you can't buy that kind of PR.
Not that I expect CBC themselves ever advocated the action (if they know who did it, the guy is certainly out of a job and probably facing copyright infringement charges). But anyways, I had heard somewhere that the source of the leak was traceable to CBC.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
And the BBC needs to advertise Dr. Who because...? ...because the previous series was cancelled due to miserably low ratings, and the 1999 telemovie tanked for the exact same reason?
(Well okay, the movie also sucked.)
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
Calling the BBC a "government organisation" is simplified to the point of innaccuracy.
I'm sorry, I don't think this should be marked insightful.
1) I think this concern is entirely premature and a little crazy. First, you have to make the assumption that a studio would intentionally leak an episode of their show to generate buzz. I think that is entirely possible, especially given that the unique nature of the BBC. And the SciFi channel is openly showing episodes of Battlestar Galactica on their website in order to try to gin up interest in later episodes, so secretly releasing one isn't too big a jump. However, you then have to make the assumption, and this is the leap, that the companies would then allow somebody to get prosecuted for doing exactly what the wanted and enabled them to do. There would be huge PR and/or legal costs to both the company and the organization that pressed the charges (assuming there is one) to face the choice of perjuring themselves or revealing they released it themselves.
Short answer: assume it is all illegal unless you get it directly from the producer/distributor. Is it really the episode of Dr. Who that is going to put you away?
2) I think maybe you intended this one to follow 3), because otherwise it doesn't make sense. Of course, it still doesn't make sense. Why would pirate groups want to flag their releases as illegal? Why make it that much easier for them to be filtered out? Wouldn't they try to make them seem as legitimate as possible?
3) I think you are missing the whole point of viral marketing. The point is that you don't know it is marketing. It comes to you through otherwise normal social interaction. It starts with a hot chick at a bar, someone on the street, or a spray-painted tag and is suppose to generate positive word-of-mouth. Or something like that. Tagging it as marketing would defeat the whole point. Then you might as well put it on your site like the Battlestar episodes.
4) Again, you are missing the point of viral marketing. It isn't supposed to look like a suit created it. It is supposed to look like this show is just so cool that some dedicated fan risked his life to get a copy and now wants to share it with the rest of the world because it is so cool. "I have never encoded a video before, but my friend works as a computer tech for a production studio that just finished work on the first episode of the new Dr. Who series and it is just so cool, I just knew other diehard fans like me would love it!"
The Blair Witch Project was famously promoted by creating bogus info sites, detailing the "legend" of the Blair Witch.
In an interesting stroke of genius a Japanese film director went about the process the other way around. He wanted to make a film about teenagers, and had a very rough idea for a story involving a group of teenagers and their pop idol whose music they all listen to and obsess over. So he set up a fan site for a purely fictional artist, including discussion boards which were suitably seeded. The resulting discussions were then used to shape the final film, and a lot of the dialog from the discussion boards actually appears in the film (the teenagers in the film, of course, meet and interact on internet fan sites).
The resulting film, if you ever get the chance, is well worth seeing. It's called "All About Lily Chou Chou", and is a very perceptive study of youth not only in Japan, but the world over. Note, also, that a track from the Kill Bill Vol. 1 soundtrack is credited to the entirely fictional artist "Lily Chou Chou" who was created solely for the film (the track is from the soundtrack to "All About Lily Chou Chou").
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
People who watch the pilot and hate it would do exactly the same thing when it came on TV, so we're talking about microscopic advertising dollars lost here. (How much can you sell ads for for a pilot anyway?)
All the other stuff is good. The novelty, at least at first, generates buzz. In fact, you can generate buzz before a network commits, which puts you in a much better bargaining position. (And, before the contract with the network is signed, it's much easier, legally, to distribute it.)
And you can keep it out there, to suck people into buying DVDs and watching reruns and whatnot.
Now, with the BBC, it's a little different, but the BBC wants Americans to watch its shows also...it can then sell them BBC America, and reruns to air on various PBS stations, and DVDs...
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
It's a lot larger than medical conferences. Have you walked up a busy street in New York? Did you see that hip looking guy talking into his cellphone about the album he happens to be holding up in his cellphone hand? Dimes to dollars there is nobody on the other end of the line. See those two people standing out front of that otherwise deserted italian resturant on a busy corner, eating and talking about how good the food is? Come back in 30 minutes, they'll probably still be there. Ever had a really cute, friendly girl walk up to you in a club and ask you to buy her a Michelob?
Live people placements are getting quite common. When I was between jobs during the bust I did a little work with one. I wasn't involved in the live placement part: I was explicitly corporate whoring. But they did have lots of jobs if you wanted to be hip and approachably pretty and get people to buy you a specific drink, or to shout into your phone on a busy street about how good such and such is, or to be huddled around some store and generate buzz.
Of course, in LA you have professional "friends"... People you hire to come to parties and pretend they know you, to seed the mood and really get everyone dancing. We don't have that much here. We do have paid people to mingle and dance in the clubs, though that's been going on for years.
The ______ Agenda