British TV Station Offers Downloads

Richard W.M. Jones writes "Remember how the British just love to download TV? Well, British terestrial TV channel five has announced that it will become the first to offer TV programmes to download legally. Except that they don't quite seem to get it yet. They are offering here some videos from this car programme which apparently didn't quite make it to air, for the princely sum of £1.50 (about $3), in DRM'd WMV 10 format (mplayer plays them fine). Still, it's a start, and it looks like they're just testing the water. Hopefully they won't take the lack of response as 'proof' that there's no demand. There's more about this at the BBC's website."

Comments

"They don't get it"

[Dancin_Santa]

They are trying to sell ice to Eskimos! Sand to scorpions! Dentistry to Britons!

Well, that last one doesn't really fit the theme of what I was getting at. Which was: You can't sell something to someone who can get it for themselves for free.

Re:"They don't get it"

[Troed]

You can't sell something to someone who can get it for themselves for free.

Of course you can. I'd very much like to go to one central place for music, movie and tv-series downloads where I know the quality of the content and that I indeed support the ones producing it. I'll happily pay for such a service.

Not everyone here on Slashdot is 14 and thinks free downloads are cool.

Re:"They don't get it"

[drsmithy]

Why oh why can't you idiots understand that there is a FREE MARKET [...]

Anything involving copyright isn't a free market, it's a government-granted monopoly. That's what copyright *is*.

[...] and that the market has CLEARLY AND UNEQUIVOCALLY said that the work done by middlemen, such as distribution companies, advertising and marketing firms, etc IS VALUABLE

Actually the "free market" is currently demonstrating that the role of those "middlemen" has become obselete. The fact that it's doing this *in the face of* blatant law-buying by those who are being obseleted, draconian laws and ridiculously excessive punishments just makes it all the more obvious.

Why oh why can't you pro piracy liars [...]

I'm not pro-piracy, I'm anti-"intellectual property".

[...] finally just grasp the simple economic reality that it is neither a common nor easy nor cheap task to take my bathroom hummings and turn them into a product?

Actually it is fairly cheap - and it's very quickly getting cheaper. That's why those "middlemen" have become obselete.

Re:"They don't get it"

[asliarun]

I agree with you that the author's/director's cut is an economic deal, and should be treated as such.

However, that doesn't change the fact that the whole creative business has been perverted to such an extent that the laws of economics no longer prevail. We currently live in such an artificial world that we've forgotten the real value of something. This is aided by the fact that a painting sells for tens of millions of dollars, a music album sells for over $20, and a 30 minute TV episode sometimes contains 15 minutes of commercials.

The way things currently are, these creative works are priced as high as a customer can bear. Forget about economics or supply/demand for a second and answer this. How much is something really worth? For a manufactured product, the answer is fairly simple. Take the manufacturing cost (plus R&D cost), add a 10-50% margin, and you'll get a fair value for a product. Economics only kicks in when you want to figure out the exact margin, based on competition or lack of it.

The price for a creative work can be determined similarly as well. The only difference is that the R&D cost in the above example is substituted with the royalty that the creator should get. I don't pretend to be an expert, but my rough calculation tells me that the current prices of books, audio CDs, movies, and paintings are a complete perversion of the above calculation. $20 for a audio CD cannot be justified by ANY real means, especially considering the fact that the same creative work was priced 1/4 a few years ago.

This is my objection to the current system. Barring that, issues like the monopoly of distributors or authors getting a raw deal are just by-products of this screwed up system.

Re:"They don't get it"

[mankey wanker]

Free markets do not have potentially immortal corporate entities that have huge advantages over natural persons. At one time people would practically sell their souls over to these power-mongering entities just to get their foot in the door of a given media industry. The internet may change the need to do that. The internet is changing the face of all media - that is, unless it is halted by the moneyed interests described above.

The gatekeepers are a dying breed. No one is interested in protecting their exclusive right to shit that lasts over 100 years. And I don't mean the govt. that sucks corporate cock, I mean the people that have to actually obey or disobey the law. A century ago civil disobedience meant riots in the streets, today it means using the internet to exchange information - much of which properly belongs to the commons.

Why don't you get it? It's basic economics.

Re:"They don't get it"

[sp3tt]

The director signed a contract, and the middlemen get the most of the cake.
Does that mean middlemen are required? Does it mean the directors want to get 3 cents per sold DVD, maybe 50 cents per sold theater ticket? Does it mean that the directors like the middlemen, who take most of the money?
No, it does not.
Middlemen are not required. Most of them aren't. But the movie industry has not yet realized the opportunities of the internet.
Most middlemen can be cut off with distribution over the internet, but so far, it has not been done, because noone dares the risk.

And, by the same logic as your fucked up reasoning:
Why should we explore space? Obviously we are happy with earth, because we don't live anywhere else, and why should we, noone wants to move anyway.

Re:"They don't get it"

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is that whilst up to now the "traditional" channels have been the only possible way of distributing music and video, there are now new possibilities.

As such, producers of content may be able to find a more efficient way of getting their offerings to customers than via the traditional, expensive, mechanisms. If a new way of doing things can result in content producers getting more money, customers paying less money, and industry moguls getting screwed, everyone wins. That's the free market in action.

The thing that is valuable is not so much marketing (unless you're a pop band aimed at the prepubescent sheep market) but the filter that publishers of music, film, books or whatever provide. Compare the quality of a typical published book with typical fan fiction found on the web. Whilst some of the latter is quite good, most is bilge.

Customers with time constraints (anyone who isn't a student) need someone to filter out the crap, and will pay money for that. So you still need some kind of crap filter, but it could probably be done better and more cheaply (for music, at least) than the current system.

The industry giants are seeing their monopoly being threatened. That's the free market at work.

Re:"They don't get it"

[cayenne8]

"There was an article in a Swedish newspaper some weeks ago. It was about a true garage band, they didn't have a record contract, hadn't advertised very much and so on. Yet when they went out on tour, people in Milano, Italy were waiting for them at the airport."

Very interesting....good to hear it for them.

My question is...sure, you can get fame from releasing your music on the internet in a free fashion, but, how do they plan on making any $$'s by giving it away for free?

If they plan on making it,by selling tickets to live performances....they I applaud that!! Let's get back to the older ways in that a band made records to makes some money, but, mostly to get people excited about seeing them live. When I was growing up, I was always saving money to see the next band come through town....I don't think you see that as often anymore.

But, if you just put your music out for free...well, people will just download it for free, and cheer you on...but, you're not gonna make lots of money that way.

And face it...most guys get in rock bands to chase the dream of making money, and sleeping with lots of women.

same here, on PowerPC

[r00t]

Linux runs on Macs too.

Plus, being able to fix bugs is addicting. I know that I never need to seriously worry that my Open Source software will break if I change platforms, upgrade my OS, or whatever. I can always find or make a fix, because I have the source. Support doesn't end with an uncaring or bankrupt vendor.

Say, is it even legal to use those Windows DLL files and such?

Re:same here, on PowerPC

[Ilgaz]

Eh, its what people get for wmedia. In such situations, remembering the amazing flame real networks gets while offering NATIVE stuff to platforms makes you laugh.

We will see when Microsoft make it impossible to use wmedia 11 or 12 by a simple trick, like requiring advanced latest directx.

I bet the stuff they offer won't play in OS X native wmedia client (you know its a joke), someone should pay for it and call his/her lawyer for lawsuit.

God bless Real/Quicktime and mpeg 4.

Re:Didn't make it to air....

[Anonymous Coward]

Fifth Gear /did/ make it to air. It's rubbish, but it made it.

Oh. I read the story as "these clips that they're selling didn't make it to air" rather than "the show didn't make it to air, here are some clips". But I see the ambiguity.

Submission Bias

[Afty0r]

Except that they don't quite seem to get it yet. They are offering here some videos from this car programme which apparently didn't quite make it to air, for the princely sum of £1.50 (about $3), in DRM'd WMV 10 format (mplayer plays them fine).

Why does their choice of platform mean they "don't quite seem to get it"? This is fanatical raving - choosing a closed codec is a perfectly valid thing to do, and ensures at least casual copiers will not be able to pirate this material.

Hopefully they won't take the lack of response as 'proof' that there's no demand. There's more about this at the BBC's website."

What lack of response? Do we have any stats on how many people took up this offer versus their expectations, or is the submitters comment mired in biased speculation?

TOP GEAR FIFTH GEAR = #t

[Laconian]

Puh-leeze. They're not doing it for the machismo factor. They're doing it because it's HILL-ARIOUS! The guys at Top Gear enjoy everything about cars, even when it has nothing to do with driving them:

* Bobsled v. Mitsu Evo VIII
* Ferrari 612 v. Mass Transit
* Hilux torture session
* Caravan slingshot
* 2000-quid Porsche Challenge
* Celebrity in a Reasonably Priced Car

Don't those all sound ten times better than watching Tiff spray cum all over the cabin of an RX-8 when he tries to describe its handling?

Re:Channel 5 History

[Anonymous Coward]

Fifth Gear is a blaitent rip-off of the BBC program Top Gear without Jeromy Clarkson.
And thank the gods for that. The sooner the BBC sack this Led Zeppelin roadie masquerading as a journalist, the better. Think of Fifth Gear as Top Gear with the useless crap removed.
The rest of Channel 5 is, to be fair, utter rubbish. It's a shame C5 didn't buy Clarkson instead where his ego might wither and die from lack of exposure.

Completely Missing the Point

[Anonymous Coward]

It wont catch on, the whole point people in britain are downloading TV shows (Especially from the US) is because they have to wait months if not a year before the shows appear over here in the UK, and then it might only be aied on sky or a straight to DVD release leaving everyone with "basic" TV another year to wait before it airs, the point of downloading TV shows already over here is pointless

Re:Erm..

[Hogwash McFly]

While I agree that there is a fair amount of stuff on C4 worth watching, sometimes they try just that little bit too hard to be cutting edge and serious like the BBC with respect to shows like documentaries. What you end up with is a show that wants to be intelligent yet still relies on shock value to attract the 19 y.o. pseudo-intellectual college students who always point out the fact that they love C4. A newspaper column I read pointed out this fact:

"'The Boy Born Without A Face'. 'The Woman With No Skin'. What next, 'The Show With No Creativity'?"

That's not to say that any one channel is perfect, of course. Don't even get me started on ITV. Northern, lowest common denominator fodder.

Re:Codecs

[Taladar]

The problem is simple. There are no 64-bit codecs for Windows Media and 64 Bit applications can not import 32 bit ones. And since we have no source we can not simply recompile.