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Apple to Offer Monthly iTunes TV Subscriptions
sg3000 writes "Fans of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, rejoice! Reuters is reporting that Apple will provide monthly subscriptions to two of Comedy Central's most popular shows. One question, as TV shows become available for sale on the Internet, will this make it harder to share clips online, such as through Google Video? In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true."
Thus the scientific basis for chiropractic, homeopathy, and items found in the Slashdot submission queue.
Dog is my co-pilot.
If prices weren't artificially high, I think a lot of people wouldn't bother pirating clips -- and the whole IP discussion wouldn't be as important. If, for example, you could download songs you liked at $0.10US each, why bother pirating them? Same for video -- let people freely trade small clips (say, 2 minutes or less) legally -- and add a link to the traded file to make it easy to purchase the whole episode for not too much money. Trading small video clips would become *good* for the companies that produce them, as it would get more people interested in the programs.
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
Another opportunity to make easy monthly payments!
>Am I the only one thinking this is the first step to subscription music on the IPod
no, but you seem to be one of the people who are falsely under the impression that "subscription" means rental, which it does not in either the general case or the case of iTunes video passes.
here "subscription" has its tru meaning, as applied for example to magazines, in that you pay for something in advance (at discount) and receive the product periodically when it is actually published.
this is not to be confused with BS "subscription" services which take away what you already have when you stop paying.
and for $40 a month, I get a hell of a lot more content than 4 shows.
Vote for Pedro
The whole point of piracy, imo, is to make all media (entertainment not limited by the economics of scarcity) more convienient than actually purchasing the media..
/end rant.. gonna eat a banana now.
But, even with piracy, there's annoying costs involved.. It takes a user's time to find the shit. The user has to be skilled enough to extract it, run it, store it, convert it, etc.. Also, users have to rely on each other to package pirated media in convenient forms.
However, if one can pay a small fee to get ready access to their shows from anywhere, then piracy will die down. Once the actual media is more convenient than pirated media, piracy will be less of a problem. IMO, even most tenacious of pirates would rather have Google or Itunes store all their media so they could access it from their set-top boxes, Ipods, PSPs, cell-phones - all without having to take the time to convert it or store it on their own hard drives.
But then, since the media companies are so determined to prove piracy as a bigger problem than it is - as a display of greed not necessarily good for the media industry - they DRM the hell out of everything. So, most people that are used to controlling their own media just ignore everything with DRM.
Piracy, for consumers, IS A GOOD THING. The more consumers pirate, the more media companies will be FORCED to innovate and adapt. If the media companies were entirely in control, we'd probby be forced to listen to only the 10 most-popular songs on Clearchannel, watch reality tv with 1/2 the time being commercials, and call an 800 number to ask permission for every time we use the media.
IMO, what Apple is doing is a GOOD thing. It's just hilariously funny how Apple is doing it while becomming an unecessary middleman since the media companies have their heads so far up their own asses they can't realize that they are NOT in control of what the consumer wants - or even their own media once the consumer consumes it.
I support the principles of piracy.. I think it's morally acceptable to pirate when the pirated media is more convenient (with more features) than the regular media. The marketplace is about the consumer - not the producer. If I decide to put my Chiquita banana on a stripper's tit covered in chocolate and take pictures of it, Chiquita can't cry when I'm not consuming it like a normal monkey. I feel the same way about media companies..
If media companies had their way, they'd have control of our memories and erase everything they could re-sell us. So, we'd even forget we watched a movie or bought the DVD and blindly pay for it again.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
I listen to the same audio track tens, if not hundreds of times. I watch the same video a maximum of two, maybe three times (except in exceptional cases). For the first, a purchase model makes sense. I buy a track, and then I can listen to it as many times as I like. For the second, a rental model makes more sense - I pay a monthly fee and I get to watch whatever I want.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
So in other words, it's EXACTLY like a subscription.
As opposed to the bullshit newspeak definition of "subscription" we've been hearing lately.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
iTMS DRM is acceptable because it doesn't impact my usage of the media. I'm quite able to do all the things I expect and want to do with songs and videos I buy from the iTMS. So the DRM is just fine by me.
How is that a hard concept to grasp? It's a product I want at a fair price that arrives in a form which does everything I expect it to do.
You'll still be able to get it for free... in fact, the more it's distributed for free, the more Apple will make.
They're not really selling the bits, although they're pretending to. What they're selling is convenient, automated delivery, and super-convenient playback. It blends many of the best elements of the computer and a VCR. So the more available it is online, the more people will be interested, and the more will sign up for the automated delivery service.
This is the first really definite step toward the Holy Grail of convergence.
I might even subscribe. It'd take more than 10 bucks' worth of time to find and download these episodes anyway.
So in other words, it's EXACTLY like a subscription.
As opposed to the bullshit newspeak definition of "subscription" we've been hearing lately.
That was the most insightful thing I've read on Slashdot all month. In the real world, when you subscribe to something you get something you can keep - like magazines or a CableTV feed you can record (by law, since it has to include firewire output).
Newspeak has "subscription" taking on the meaning of the peep show, where you can see whatever you like - as long as you keep putting in quarters. The moment you stop you have nothing, and indeed can legally not even try to keep anything.
What a great summary of the ripoff that modern "subscription" services are. $10 a month for eternity is not cheap in my book.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm over on an American airbase in South Korea, and I'm glad that I'm able to get the Daily Show from iTunes.
.torrents, and by that evening, I have all the TV shows I'm interested in.
I've been downloading my favorite shows from BitTorrent sites, (including Mythbusters, Stargate SG1/Atlantis, Malcolm in the Middle, and The Simpsons), but I'd go nuts trying to download the Daily Show... Why? Because I'd have to find it every day. The other shows are all once a week.. I spend about a half hour Saturday morning grabbing
Now I'll be able to watch the Daily Show every day, without having to spend the time looking for and sorting out each episode with all the different naming conventions, and trying not to miss an episode. iTunes makes it easy, and is well worth $9.99 a month.
Hey, that's what hardship pay is for, right?
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my