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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!
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.
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
> **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.
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.