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MPAA Targets TV Download Sites
KenDaMan writes "ZDNet.com is reporting that the MPAA is targeting websites that serve as traffic directors for BitTorrent swaps. From the article: 'Continuing its war on Internet file-swapping sites, the Motion Picture Association of America said Thursday that it has filed lawsuits against a half-dozen hubs for TV show trading.' Apparently it is OK to record TV as long as your aren't sharing it."
So, my mom calls me in a panic the other day. My dad forgot to record one of her favorite shows, and it was the series finale, and she really wanted to watch it.
What are her options? Hope they repeat it in a few months, buy it on DVD in a few years, or maybe locate someone who has a copy? All of these options are pretty iffy.
I have another choice, though: Break the law downloading it to make my mom happy. Why can't the TV people sell it for download themselves so my mom can be happy legally?
(Insert the "your mom" jokes below.)
I think you miss the point when it comes to porn. The porn industry has profit margins that exceed all other forms of entertainment.
Think about it. You pay a guy and a girl $500 for a 18 minute video, which may take all of 2 hours to shoot and an evening to mix/produce, then you have a lot of revenue for a long time if marketed correctly.
If these margins weren't so wide and the people doing the shooting weren't privately funded ventures, you would see a major difference. To simplify this: There aren't thousands of screaming shareholders, nor are there hundreds of lobbyists working on making ends meet for these businesses. MPAA associated businesses are different.
All these things are covered in high school economics class, it's strange to see people think some industries are cooler for the sake of humanity and completely missing the reason why every single business on earth exists: to generate revenue.
Seriously, I don't think these guys get it. Anyone remember the latest Harry Potter book? Remember that part where Fred and George set off a multitude of fireworks in the school and Umbridge was forced to run around extingiushing them all? I believe what she tried to do at one time was stun one out of existence and it just ended up multiplying.
So, imagine. MPAA and RIAA executives, whose collective IQ is about half that of a kid with Down Syndrome. They're Umbridge.
Their goal: make torrent download sites obsolete.
Take the RIAA . They succeeded in shutting down Napster and they rejoiced that it was the end of music swapping... or not. Napster died, Morpheus, Kazaa, WinMX, Gnutella, and Bittorrent rose to prominence and actually made the problem worse.
So, the MPAA seems intent on killing Bittorrent. They managed to get to suprnova, Lokitorrents, and few other sites. The result? A plethora of suprnova clones that are alive and thriving.
Do these organizations remind you of a dog that chases his own tail?
It almost makes me want to stop teaching and go into business because if these executives have IQs of -4 and still manage to make millions, imagine what me with my IQ could accomplish.
I really really really hope that the guys start ripping using the H.264 codec next season, then the HD content would look even sweeter.
Ok, Apple's somehow really brainwashed people with this H.264 thing.
It's a good codec, but it's just the latest version of MPEG-4. And Apple's not the only company to use it either (Nero Digital AVC is H.264, for example).
Apple gets good results because they use fairly high bit rates and spend time on the encoding. But honestly, WMV-HD, which is based on an older MPEG-4 codec, looks just as good to my eyes. It just doesn't compress quite as well (and we're talking a couple of hundred kbps difference; they're not worlds apart).
Anyway, DivX, which is what most of these HDTV shows on BT sites are compressed with, is actually using pretty much the same codec as WMV-HD. It can look just as good as Apple's H.264 stuff. Obviously, though, you're talking a 350MB file for a 44 minute show (60 minutes sans commercials) vs. a 350MB file for a 1 minute trailer, in Apple's case. The bit rate is heavily compressed on the files you can get on BT sites, and the resolution is also lowered in the interests of file size for downloading.
Now, as for what's going on with these lawsuits, it really strikes me as stupid. The TV networks give this stuff away over the airwaves! I understand that they own the exclusive distribution rights, but you know what the obvious solution then is? Offer the damn shows up for download (not streaming) complete with commercials, from the TV station's official site. Simple! Make them low quality divx files just like we get from BT for all I care. I will happily skip over the commercials, but you know what? I do this anyway with my MCE machine, and there's not a damn thing they can do to stop me. So I don't see how they really lose anything from this proposition, and they'd regain their internet distribution for themselves.
Here's an example of why this pisses me off. Tonight MS had the good sense (sarcasm) to schedule their Xbox 360 show at the same time as the Apprentice, which I normally watch. I only have a single tuner. So what do I do? I watch the MS thing and miss the Apprentice. Why do the networks not want me to now see the Apprentice that I missed, complete with the same commercials I would have skipped over anyway if that's how they want it? Why not just give me the stupid show as a free SD-quality download an hour or two after it originally aired?
(btw, I say that knowing that I personally would not be helping them any with my commercial skipping, but the point is the same number of people who watch commercials normally are still gonna watch them on a downloaded file, especially if they're still watching on a TV. The people who don't watch commercials aren't gonna watch them no matter what, and even if they're forced to they're not gonna pay any attention.)
If they're worried about overseas or affiliate distribution, a) put up a country block similar to the one the BBC used for their online Olympic coverage (this was pretty effective - I managed to get around it using an anonymous proxy but it was hellishly unreliable, and 99% of the world would not know how to do this), and b) put the downloads on a time delay such that no show goes up until the last affiliate has screened it.
Why is this such a complicated idea? Which makes more sense, to try to sue every bittorrent site out of existence or to proactively retake their own online distribution back? Online distribution is not going away, the question is whether or not the networks want to control it themselves or cede it to others. (And by using lawsuits as their only strategy, they are ceding it to others... they will never stamp out file sharing completely and they should know it. They need to provide a compelling alternative themselves.)
My one gripe with 'stolen' bittorent TV is that they rip the advertisments out. Don't get me wrong, I'd much rather watch TV without adverts, but I also understand that making TV is not cheap and that somebody has got to pay for it and until Apple gets it together and start selling TV that means adverts.
I understand that its not a perfect solution. At the moment, advertisers pay networks, networks commission production houses and production houses pay the staff. But whilst they still exist distribution networks should be embracing this as, so long as the adverts are intact, they are getting paid for nothing. Geeks rip the TV using legal software and distibute it at their own expense. Advertisers hit a bigger market, and if the networks are savvy they can charge advertisers more. Where is the problem?
Here is my prediction for a happier TV future
The technology is there already. TV networks need to wake up and start doing this now.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
I'm so glad this happened.
See, I've been without cable for probably going on 3-4 years now. And we get crappy reception, so broadcast TV doesn't work well either.
I was pretty happy with my lack of TV until someone told me where I could get full episodes of The Daily Show via bittorrent. So I downloaded Azureus since it has a couple of nifty RSS plugins and started gathering them.
Then I noticed other shows on the list. Wait a minute, is that really the new Battlestar Galactica? I watched the mini-series at a friend's house, this is great! I downloaded them all, and I told my friends who watched it when it finally aired on Sci-Fi in the U.S. I also started to get Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis, since those were a couple of weeks ahead of the U.S. (and I was basically getting mega-doses at a TiVo-owning friend's house).
I was renting Smallville through Netflix, but when I hit the end of season 3, I started getting those through bittorrent as well. Then the new Doctor Who showed up, and I was thrilled; the show is good, and I was telling my friends in the hopes that it would eventually hit the U.S. in DVD form.
I was basically starting to reconsider getting cable again -- the downloads are nice, but I have a small hard drive, and I work a swing shift, so they're not always done when I get home -- and perhaps even springing for a TiVo since I can't be home to watch stuff when it normally airs. Then I got home to read this article.
So I have to say, thanks MPAA! With this incredibly fucktarded move on your part, you have lost a potential paying customer, probably for good.
You almost made me forget what short-sighted, greedy fools you were. I'll not make that mistake again.
Jay (=