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BBC Views Content Piracy As Wake-Up Call
Peregr1n writes "The BBC is reporting that they view the piracy of a Doctor Who episode before its broadcast date earlier this year as a 'wake-up call about the demand for new technology', in a refreshing change of opinion from most media/broadcasting corporations, who would damn this piracy without hesitation. They are forming plans to simulcast the television channels BBC1 and BBC2 on the web, as well as allowing users (only in the UK to start with, unfortunately) access to shows for a week after the broadcast date. It is worth noting that they are already trying out a system where they make shows available on the web before television broadcast, with The Mighty Boosh. Other BBC3 comedies are due to follow suit and become available on the internet first." Relatedly, shadowlight1 writes "K9, Doctor Who's lovable robotic dog, is returning to the new series with a cameo in season 2."
FINALLY!
Thank god the BBC have some common sense.
If the BBC does this internationally I'd be willing to pay for their content. Currently they have news clips available on-line and I would welcome a move towards internet broadcasting. I am tired of paying for 50 channels of cable when I only watch 5 of them and one of my other favorite channels I can only get by paying another $25 a month for an extended plan.
ACTUALLY LISTENED!
Look! Pay attention all who hate on piracy and despise users for doing what they want:
Google listens, gives everything away for free, yet is one of the richest and most loved companies.
BBC is just now listening to what people say,
and now we must give them respect for doing that.
MPAA recently said that they could be wrong too, and that their movies sucked. They do.
What a novel concept! Give people what they want and they won't hate you so much.
Go with the flow instead of against it. Gah, haven't you people read the Tao?
As much as people from abroad take the piss for our "TV license", it's nice to have a media corporation act in the public's interest rather than being legally obliged to do everything in its power to make money for its shareholders, unlike typical broadcast corporations.
Here's the crucial difference: the BBC think "they've already paid for it, how can we give them better access to what they have paid for?", and other corporations think "they've already paid for it, how can we make them pay for it again?".
Compare and contrast with, say, the RIAA, who flatly deny that you buy music, rather "a license to listen", and run the upgrade treadmill - buy on vinyl, buy on cassette, buy on CD, buy on DVD-A, buy online - but tie it up in DRM so you'll still have to pay for a copy for the office and your car too.
At some point, corporations should recognise that they've been more than compensated for the cost of producing it, and let it go. But they are unable to do so as long as shareholders are able to turn around and sue them for not milking the public for every penny they can.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
If I have signed a licencing agreement with X over a (presumably popular, though I've never listened to it myself) show, wouldn't X be rightfully annoyed if I then start giving it away ?
Say X's business depends on it, and they've committed funds on that basis - the beeb would be in obvious breach of the licence, and would be open to being sued. This is therefore not an excuse, it's a cold hard problem. Deal.
It annoys me when (anyone) makes a bold new move, and joe-random-nobody pops up with "yes, but it still doesn't do *this*". So what ? Progress is being made in a good direction. The idea is to applaud and encourage, not to bitch and moan. Some people are so unbelievably self-centred.
Simon
(who's noted that being critical of someone on
Physicists get Hadrons!
Although most of time getting stuff for free is the goal. In this case, its fans wanting to see the new show in the first case. In this case the pirates or a good percentage of them would probably pay to buy the video/dvd etc.. I could be wrong but some of that BBC stuff isn't even available in the states, forcing die-hard fans into pirating.
Piracy for movies and songs that have been around in the market for a while, is all about getting it for free. These folks probably wouldn't pay no matter what.
There is talk about releasing dvds at the same time as movies in theaters. Seeing as a DVD costs about as much as 2 tickets, I think it might help with group 1, but not with the "i'm never going to pay" group.
But who says a private individual (or even company) couldn't do the same, skipping or delaying the public television release in favour of a downloadable episode(s). Put in some overlay advertising or such. Actually putting in real commercials would result in the comercials being cut out and then the video being redistributed.
Ever notice how nowadays, almost all major movies are simultaneously released worldwide -- or at the most, within a few days?
/DVD media or burner manufacturers, PC makers in general have also benefitted enormously over the past few years due to illicit copying, These technologies -- all with legitimate non-piracy applications -- are now inexpensive ubiquitous. Had it not been for piracy, I'd submit it wouldn't be the case today.
Before Internet piracy took off, movies would be delayed for months before overseas release.
And I would guess that broadband ISPs, hard drive makers, CD
I'm not claiming it's justifiable morally, but it's not all 100% evil.
-- Samir Gupta, Ph. D. Head, New Technology Research Group, Nintendo Co. Ltd., Kyoto, Japan.
FWIW, it didn't seem obvious to me.
Pushing the content into the pirate's channels before the pirate can. Hmmm... why wouldn't that work for commercial TV too, with ads in place as originally broadcast? Sure, maybe ads could be fast-forwarded, as with TiVo, but maybe they wouldn't all be (as with TiVo).
(Nice they're reviving K9. Consonant with with their anti-piracy push-philosophy, makes him sort of a 'please-watch dog'...)
Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
I think you hit on a very important point.
I don't think TV content producers care how their programs are distributed. They care about whether or not people are watching the advertisements.
Let's face it; when it comes to any media outlet's business model, WE'RE the product being sold. Advertisers/sponsors pay very good money to media outlets to spread ads to as many people as possible.
It's natural that advertisers, and in turn broadcasters, are concerned by any technology that prevents the ad from getting to the consumer: hence Ted Turner's comments about channel-flippers being "thieves".
I'd be willing to bed that for-profit broadcasters would embrace any technology that gives their programs (and more importantly, ADS) wider distribution. Things like Tivo and P2P distribution of ad-stripped programs is a direct threat to their business.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
My first thought as I read the beginning of the article was that the BBC would go on a witch-hunt against P2P and perhaps internal leaks. A little further in and I am still quite amazed that they've taken such an informed and tolerance approach. In the days where the makers of such technology are sued, and the users sued en-masse... it's very nice indeed to see that somebody actually gets it
If this service becomes available outside of the UK I think I'd probably be quite interested in signing up as I do like a lot of the BBC content.
Award winning documentaries, always impartial in news
.
and no difference when the OS issues came became an issue.
When the Linux users complained about not beeing able to
listen to online radio provided for windows media player, BBC
reacted and started to http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/audiohelp_nix.shtml support Linux users as well
Its good to see these wonderful public service freethinkers
go at it again - this time to figth piracy the democratic way!
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
On the contrary. I live in the UK and fully support the license fee. The BBC is one of the best things about this country, even if the quality of their news output has dropped of late.
Rich
yep, thats a new record for initials in a post, but I have to remark that this is very similar to KCRW in Los Angeles, california, USA.
They are at the forefront of podcasting radio shows to the public. They were one of the firsts to simulcast on the web as well. I do not find it suprising that this forward thinking website that caters to a intelligent demographic is also a public broadcasting station tied to NPR (national public radio).
I hope this is a boon for public broadcasting in geenral.... great ideas!
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
> **this is not an endorsement for state sponsored
> programs or wholesale socialism, because most
> of the time it sucks...
Yeah, "socialist tv really sucks:"
NOVA, Wall Street Week, Seasame Street, This Old House, Victory Garden, McNeal Leher Report, Cosmos, Scientific Frontiers...
Not to mention, the cooperation that brought us:
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Dr. Who, Blake 7, Benny Hill, Faulty Towers, Monty Python,
As opposed to Quality TV on Korporate Funded Networks:
Friends, pick your favorite reality show, Different Strokes, Heehaw, the 700 Club, GMA, Katie Couric, Friends,
Sure, Korporate TV does get some things right, but show for show, "socialist tv" is doing a hell of a lot better.
Not quite. They don't care whether people watch the adverts. They care whether they can tell their advertisers "we have [x] number of people watching on a Friday night, and they are likely to be of [y] age, with [z] amount of disposable income".
So even if everybody who illegally downloaded their programmes watched the adverts, it would still matter to them, because they can't measure viewing figures or know anything about them.
I think that they will only embrace new technology if they can count the number of watchers and know stuff about them. P2P doesn't seem to be very conducive to this.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Absolutely we want boobies.. Boobies = Mmmmm good!
And yes, the Puritans over here are very anal about it all. I have to admit though, I am against pornography on TV or the internet where little eyes could stumble across it. Benny Hill though, was/is not porno, it's mature/adult entertainment, and should be shown during a time frame that young eyes don't happen onto it.
Leave kids to be kids, there's plenty of time for them to be adults WHEN THEY BECOME ADULTS...
I say this as a father and a grandfather..
That said, bring on the boobies!!
This is why the Beeb quite simply 'rock' and why the license fee is worth every penny.
This is rubbish. I don't pay the licence fee because I don't have a television. Note that (if I did have one) I wouldn't have to pay the licence fee because I watch their programmes: merely owning a television which is capable of receiving their programmes makes me liable to pay. It matters not that I only watch Sky or MTV, I have to pay the TV tax for owning a TV.
This move from the BBC paves the way for them to collect the TV tax from people like me who have a PC for everything *but* watching their programmes. I don't like their stuff, but I would still be required to pay for it as soon as they can classify a PC as a device which is capable of receiving their programmes.
If this sounds paranoid, read this If the BBC were truly about modernising, they'd get rid of their antique and ridiculous soviet-style taxation-based payment methods, and move to subscriptions. That way, we'd all get a choice about whether to pay or not regardless of where we live.
Right! Contrary to many of the comments, the BBC still *doesn't* get it.
In a globally connected world, it simply doesn't work to make TV programs available in one part of the world but not others. The real demand for Dr Who torrents isn't from the UK, it's from everywhere else on the planet; and the BBC still has no credible plan for reaching the rest of the planet.
"BBC America" is largely a waste of time. It's run by The Discovery Channel, censors the shows (sometimes heavily), and shows them in pan-and-scan format. At any given time it shows a very limited selection of content, padded out with endless re-runs of cheap bad 30 year old content (e.g. Benny Hill).
The BBC needs to set up satellite rebroadcasting of content from their own channels, and manage it themselves. Don't go through some clueless American media corporation. Make it a premium channel, get DirecTV to offer it, and I'll subscribe.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
politics as with some altruistic desire to serve the greater good of the more technically inclined on this planet. The recent hatchet wielding internally was specifically to allow the organisation to build a "war chest" to spend on internet broadcasting and the like, this is part of the skewed view that the BBC should be driven by a very narrow elite of it's more technical congregation rather than getting the rest of it's house in order and providing a better service to those UK license fee payers that do not (and if some research is to be believed, never will) have internet access and also still do not have access to the much praised (mostly by BBC management) digital channels. It's worth mentioning that those digital channels came as a result of a commercial operation (ITV digital) taking the risk and failing, mostly due to the lunacy of spending more than the GDP of many small nations on Football rights. If the BBC were to be more canny about this they should let the venture capitalists and tech pioneers take the risks and come in once the platform is stable rather than taking huge risks with license fee payers money which would be better served making content rather than developing platforms or paying for bandwidth.
That creates artefacts, though. You can't pull information out of thin air.
Try Corewar @ www.koth.org - rec.games.corewar
Ahh yes because The owner of the Times, Rupert Murdoch, is going to be fair and unbias when it comes to his main competitor in the UK TV industry. Sky and the BBC are the two main players, and I know which one I think is better value for money, and it's not Sky.
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
Is this meant to be flamebait?
... I've got FreesatFromSky (which cost me nothing to get) and I get 114 television stations (not counting shopping channels) for no fee a month. Cut out the crap and specialist services and there are 40 reasonably decent channels there. Freeview is another option if you want some 20 free to air channels.
... oh
£10.50 per month for advertisement free unbiased television and radio per household that has a television.
That's for BBC 1, BBC 2, BBC THREE, BBC FOUR, BBC News 24, CBeebies, CBBC, BBC Parliament. They'll all be in high definition next year as well, if you have the equipment, for no extra money. Couple that with over 10 radio stations (not counting regional)
How much is your cable/satellite television bill again? Good thing it has no adverts
PS: They don't use roving vans, but the licence fee people are a bit zealous sometimes.
It's simply a question of choice, nothing to do with who owns it or their biases. I don't want to pay money to Murdoch or the BBC. If you do, then you can (or should be able to) subscribe rather than be forced to pay for something you have no intention of using.
Sure there is, you leak it in NTSC because you're trying to attract a Canadian audience. You don't need to leak the PAL version because the Brits are already nuts for Doctor Who, but this way, it hits the streets in Canada in a playable format and people get interested.
The leaked copy wasn't even that great. It was compressed beyond belief and included some unpolished special effects (the garbage can scene had clearly not been shaded properly yet.)
Are you telling me that someone who works in a video production studio would have somehow dubbed off a *lousy* copy. No way, he would have picked the best DivX or Xvid setting out there and sent out a pristine copy. I worked in video for three years and those guys are obsessed about picture quality.
The whole thing screamed of viral marketing tactics. And it worked. The ratings for our long neglected Time Lord were through the roof. Clearly even with the poor quality it drummed up a lot of excitement.
I mean, not that I downloaded it or anything...
Life, the Universe, and Everything... in my image.
I'm not advocating forced payment to anyone, Sky or BBC, it's just that using a Times article to justify a paranoia that the BBC is going to get a licence fee from PC users is just absurd; of course mr Murdoch wants you to believe the worst of the BBC. But if you look at the facts, the BBC's charter is coming up for renewal and the momentum is the other way: for abolition of the licence fee (although the government has said the licence fee will stay this charter). The various comittees that have looked at the issue have said that the licence fee is becoming more and more unsustainable in it's current form, things like top sliceing[sic](giving part of the fee to other broadcasters with a public service remit: ITV, Channel4 and Channel 5) are being proposed. No offence but I believe your fear is just paranoia based on rupert Murdoch spin and nothing more.
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
Only part of its funding is derived from the licence fee. It also generates a lot by selling programmes outside the UK, and through DVDs and so on. It could be argued that BitTorrents of shows might be damaging to these other sources of revenue, and it might be that the BBC is seeking to protect. However early access (via electronic formats) might boost sales if a way to deliver and sell via electronic media is made possible.