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."

Comments

-1 Redundant

[perlionex]

In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true.

We /.ers already do that all the time, no need to remind us. /me ducks

Never have so few words been so profound.

[His name cannot be s]

"In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true".

That's Slashdot. Summed up in a single sentance. That's so beautiful.

I think I'm changing my sig.

*sigh*

And, in an attempt to be on topic:

No, why would it make it harder to share. Uh, google video? WTF?

Oh right. That's how people share videos... *snickers*

Oh Rihgt.

Re:Never have so few words been so profound.

[Jeff Benjamin]

"In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true".

...
That's Slashdot. Summed up in a single sentance. That's so beautiful.

Um, I hate to break it to you but that was two sentences.

Re:Never have so few words been so profound.

[Justin205]

Oh, come on. He's just ignoring facts. And going with what feels true. ;)

Re:Never have so few words been so profound.

[rtaylor]

"In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true". ...
That's Slashdot. Summed up in a single sentance. That's so beautiful.

Um, I hate to break it to you but that was two sentences.

Didn't you read what he wrote? "In your answer, ignore facts."

Re:Never have so few words been so profound.

[wass]

"In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true".

Normally I wouldn't do this, but after seeing about 20 /.ers comment on these words, nobody yet (at least in the comments I've seen so far) have realized this is a tongue-in-cheek homage to the king of sarcasm himself, Stephen Colbert , of the Colbert Report.

Colbert totally rocks, I look forward to his show more than the Daily Show. For those that don't know, Colbert basically pretends to be a right-wing egotistical fact-ignoring pompous talk show host, but everything he says is either cleverly sarcastic, dripping in irony, damn funny, or all the above. So as per the original poster, some of his trademark lines are "I'm not a fan of facts" or "I don't like books, too many words". And of course, his consistent number one threat - bears.

In fact, I'm surprised more /.ers aren't a fan of him, as he was a total geek when he was younger. He played D&D alot, loved LotR and Sci Fi, and sometimes works this geekiness into his show. For example, once when he introduced a guest who's a poker champion, he said "Now, I've never played Poker, but if its anything like Dungeons & Dragons, I'll be up to my baldrics in scimitars before you can say, 'Cure Light Wounds!'". Also, back when he was on the Daily Show and Viggo Mortensen was on, they had Colbert backstage reading Aragorn's family history and list of aliases in a total geeky way, it was pretty funny. And of course, who can forget his epic Sci-Fi novel (still looking for a publisher) "Stephen Colbert's Alpha Squad 7: Lady Nocturne: A Tek Jansen Adventure"

So yeah, sorry to have to explain the tongue-in-cheek joke above, it's never funny that way, but seeing how many people didn't catch it was a Colbertism, it needed to be done. Wikipedia has a good list of funny lines by Colbert.

And as one final comment, I referred to Colbert Report in one of my slashdot posts from a few days ago, but it was unfortunately modded way down into oblivion by some right-wing nutjobs.

Brilliant

[Scareduck]

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.

Re:Brilliant

[Eightyford]

Hey without my chiropractor, I wouldn't be able to turn my head side to side. Regular western medicine would rather fuse my spine so that I can't move my upper back/neck at all. Now, which method is progress, and which is pointless?

There's really nothing wrong with a chiropractor treating back pains. The problem comes when a chiropractor tries to treat migrains, the common cold, ulcers, and even irritable bowel syndrome. Scientifically, you might as well drink chinese tiger penis soup to get a stiffy.

Win-win situation

[FlyByPC]

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.

Re:Win-win situation

[timeOday]

There's no such thing as "artificially high." If the market accepts a given price, that's what a product will be at.

No, "the market" is a set of man-made (artificial) rules and not a law of nature. The price of content depends on an elaborate system of laws, courts, and police to make sure nature doesn't take its course. The natural price is the cost of copying information, which is near 0.

None of this is to say that copyright is bad, necessarily. Just don't act like questioning the market is blasphemy, when it's really no different than questioning a tax rate.

Sign me up!

[Radiohead]

I just subscribed to the Daily Show. I don't have cable and the video quality is better than the files I've found on YouTube or other places online. The "subscription" title is a bit misleading - this is more like subscribing to a podcats - iTunes automatically downloads new episodes as they are made available. You can opt-in to an email notifying you that a new episode is available. It's more like a magazine subscription than a music service subscription since you get to keep the video files you've downloaded even if you don't renew the subscription. Kind of like buying an album on iTunes where they send you a song a week automatically. The DRM is the same as for any other song or video you buy on iTunes. Not a bad model for my needs.

Re:Sign me up!

[Nugget]

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.

Re:Sign me up!

[Overly Critical Guy]

You willingly chose to buy a DRM product? Clearly the RIAA had a gun to your face and was threatening to throw your mother over the balcony while they stripped you naked and burned a copy of the Bill of Rights in front of your face using a swastika-clad lighter while black-suited Republicans chanted satanic hymns in a candle-lit circle around an alter of The Almighty Dollar(tm)! There's just no way you or the other 87% of the iTunes-using market could possibly be choosing this illegal, immoral, unacceptable, childhood-raping scheme of your own volition. Just no way.

Rejoice, consumers!

[Urusai]

Another opportunity to make easy monthly payments!

Re:While good - why not unlimited I-Tunes pass

[Yahweh Doesn't Exist]

>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.

Re:Already available

[avalys]

Please show me where I can download the entire show, as it aired on a given night, as a single unbroken clip, at either of those links.

I already have cable

[geekee]

and for $40 a month, I get a hell of a lot more content than 4 shows.

Re:I already have cable

[Overly Critical Guy]

You're right; I clearly don't know what sarcasm is or how it is used. Thanks for the help!

Re:I already have cable

[RalphBNumbers]

And you are so blinded by the crap on TV that you don't realize that less than 1% of it is worth my time to watch.

And much of that $70 a month to get the channels that offer those shows back via digital cable.

And that's not even mentioning the fact that I can see them whenever I want instead of having to remember to watch or record them on the TV's schedule.

If Apple were to extend this deal (~16 shows for $10, paid in advance) to some of their other shows, like Battlestar Galactica, I could actually see myself making my first iTMS purchase.

But of course, they probably won't offer that low a rate on longer and more collectible shows like BSG. And I really can't see paying much more than that for a movie that just isn't all that comparable to a DVD (320x240 vs 720x480, watchable on ubiquitous $40 players vs needs a computer or an iPod, comes on a nicely packaged DVD vs can't even be burned as a DVD, etc).

Really, it seems to me the iTMS got a lot of things right with music, and then turned around and got those same things irritatingly wrong on video.

They made the music decent quality, as good or better than most of the stuff being traded on the net at the time (using similar bitrates and a superior codec). But they made the video disappointingly low res, equivalent to stuff that was traded online in the late '90s, not the mid '00s (the h264 codec is great, and the ~768k bit rate they use is, if anything, overkill for their resolution, but the 320x240 resolution is just not competitive with what you can find on bittorrent these days [and as Jobs has said before in relation to music, the pirates are their real competition]).

And they made the music burnable to a standard redbook CD so it could be easily backed up and used with your old equipment, but they made the video unable to be burned to a DVD... (I wonder if the studios demanded the burned DVDs be DRMed and were bitten in the ass by their earlier mandating that consumer DVD burners cannot burn CSS encrypted DVDs?)

I wonder what balance of the causes of this was? Were the studios setting apple up to fail, or at least not succeed to fast for the competition to copy, after being frightened by apple's rapid success in selling music online? Or, was it largely a technical issue? Would letting the iPod decode 640x480 h264 have required more time/money/power than Apple felt they could spend to release the iPod /w video?

Re:I already have cable

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple hater verification check
rev 2.3
 
[ ] Called Apple users "fags"
[ ] Used "OS/X," "OSX," or "OS-X" instead of OS X
[ ] Used the word "overpriced" while ignoring previously published price comparisons
[ ] Described a Mac as "cheap PC parts"
[ ] Vaguely accused iPod users of falling for marketing
[ ] Confused install base with market share
[ ] Referenced Xerox Sparc
[ ] Referenced "Pirates of Silicon Valley"
[X] Posted list of fictional cliches in a Slashdot discussion to avoid discussing a point
[ ] Used the words "evil" and "DRM" in one sentence
[ ] Gave someone else credit for an Apple innovation
[ ] Made fun of a Switch commercial
[X] Ignored a valid point in favor of bashing Apple users
[ ] Made a one-button mouse joke
[ ] Made reference to "white plastic"
[ ] Called 99 cents "too expensive"
[ ] Victoriously made reference to Microsoft's monopoly market share to avoid addressing a point
[ ] Referenced a "lack of games" for Mac despite all big-name titles having Mac ports
[ ] Pretended that normal computer users actually want to have to build an entire computer by themselves piece by piece, have knowledge about every transistor in the machine, and hand-tune C code for any piece of software the user might have an issue with
[ ] Ignored when someone mentions that you're not a mechanic and didn't build your own car either
[ ] Used the word "cult"
[ ] Ignored that Apple was the first consumer GUI with built-in audio and graphics while PC users were staring at C:\> for the next 15 years.
 
BONUS
[ ] Claimed to hate Apple yet drooled over running OS X on generic PCs

Harder to share?

[zakezuke]

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 -TFA

Totally easier to share, but that's hardly the point. The point is I pay for cable, and there is no way I'd pay for both cable service and downloads... so if what I watch is available for download at $10/season... I'd ditch the cable. I'm not offended by the idea of paying for media. I pay for cable, I chuck money tward PBS from time to time. I'm not that hip paying for DVDs as in contrast to downloads they take up a hell of alot less space.

Parents would also be interested as I'm starting to notice more switching to video rentals rather cable subscriptions.

Legal starting to get more convenient than illegal

[brxndxn]

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..

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. /end rant.. gonna eat a banana now.

Actually,

[AWhiteFlame]

This is pretty cool. The iTunes model .. could be worse. With my Mac that runs iTunes and my iPod, I hardly even notice the DRM. iTunes prices are very reasonable, legit :P, and go straight into my library. AAC provides decent enough music for my 2.1 speaker system (or my headphones). iTMS MPEG-4 provides decent enough quality video for 2 bucks an episode. There is definitely tons of room for improvement, but seeing as they're the dominant force in the online legit music business, they could make the predicament much, much worse.

Re:Actually,

[TheSkyIsPurple]

> I hardly even notice the DRM

As a consumer, I agree.

As a developer... I disagree.

I wrote a nice replacement for Front Row that would do full screen on any of my attached screens, on screen menuing, browseable, etc...

It worked great! I ripped all my Firefly episodes and had them randomly playing on a "Channel" from my computer that is distibuted throughout the house. Wonderful for background stuff. I recorded a bunch of music videos from VH1/MTv/etc, and have a pretty good music video station that I run around the house when guests are around.

Problem! I can't play DRMd files. The Quicktime API won't recognize the files, nor deal with them. I submitted a bug report, since there were no limitations mentioned anywhere. After over a month of sitting around, I finally got a response: "It works as designed".

Re:Already available

[Overly Critical Guy]

Deaer Earnest Murderer,

You, sir, are a scholar and a gentleman. Your calm demeanor and rational way of handling confrontation are an example of maturity to us all, which I am sure brings in the ladies. Please accept my apologies on behalf of your aggressor as he busts your hump and promptly pisses off as you commanded. I extend this token to you out of goodwill.

Signed,
Theodore S. Quogin, 1893

Re:Already available

[ScaryFroMan]

Right here!

http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/ full show.jhtml

There is a word for this...

[SetupWeasel]

"In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true."

I believe the proper expression is:

Answer with truthiness.

So long fair use. We hardly knew ye.

[natrius]

I hope everyone's watching closely as fair use is lying on its deathbed.

Lots of Slashdotters are hailing this development as a move away from traditional TV-based distribution to online video sales. It sounds nifty on paper, but let's look to the future. If these online video stores end up becoming popular enough to supplant TV distribution, fair use is screwed. These videos are DRM encumbered, and breaking that protection is against the law. TV shows like the Daily Show and Colbert Report depend on their being a large pool of accessible content to discuss and parody. Once it's all online and DRM encumbered, they won't be able to use that content without breaking the law. Want to add background music to your home videos? I hope you didn't buy your music online. Even though this type of use isn't specifically protected under copyright law, it is still felt to be perfectly acceptable by the masses, and courts would probably back it based on the same logic that stopped Hollywood from taking time-shifting away from us.

The future looks bleak for creative works online. These developments call for an overhaul of our copyright laws, but it really doesn't look like that's going to happen. Should a work that is only available in a DRM encumbered form still be protected by copyright? If so, why? Copyright was granted to copyright creators for a limited term, but with DRM, not only do they take away fair use, but they also gain the ability to close up their work forever. Hopefully someone gets elected soon that sees and is willing to fix the many problems with our copyright laws.

Re:While good - why not unlimited I-Tunes pass

[TheRaven64]

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.

Re:Misleading title.

[freeweed]

So in other words, it's EXACTLY like a subscription.

As opposed to the bullshit newspeak definition of "subscription" we've been hearing lately.

watch out for that aspect ratio

[adpowers]

I was about to buy the 16 episode plan, but I previewed the episode and noticed that both TDS and TCR both have problems in the encoding. The videos are are 320x208 resolution, which is horribly non-standard and causes the stretching of both videos (well, more accurately, squishing, but they have the same end effect), making everyone look fat. I have a blog post with picture comparing Jon Stewart's head in the video with how it should look.

you'll still be able to get it for free...

[Malor]

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.

Now THAT was insightful

[SuperKendall]

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.

I still don't get it...

[MScrip]

I still don't understand why people pay to watch TV on a PC or portable device. Music is one thing... but TV shows? Really? Sure Desparate Housevives in a great show, and it's very popular... but who would watch it more than once?

I'll definately listen to a song more than once. We all will. But, these are topical news shows. They talk about things that happened today. You probably won't watch them ever again. And now you own them!

I'd take that $10 a month and get a DVR box from my cable company. Then I could record ANYTHING I want and watch it when I'm at home. I don't need to watch last night's TV shows on my portable device.

Obviously video subscriptions are selling... but it's not my cup of tea. If your most favoritest show in the world in the Colbert Report... you must be jumping for joy.

I'll turn on the TV at 11:30pm... or I won't.

I signed up for it...

[Kredal]

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.

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 .torrents, and by that evening, I have all the TV shows I'm interested in.

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?

Psychological voodoo

[Anonymous Coward]

"Hey without my chiropractor, I wouldn't be able to turn my head side to side"

More and more doctors are coming to the conclusion that most back pain that doesn't have an actual obvious physical problem is indictive of stress and/or psychological pain.

"Regular western medicine would rather fuse my spine"

There are bad doctors everywhere. It's your body, take charge. Find a doctor who is more in line with your thinking. "Western Medicine" is not an insult; it's a system based on provable scientific facts. If I do X, I will get result Y Z% of the time.

Chiropractors once they get beyond rubbing your back are quacks. Your spine can't be "aligned", and no disease is caused by spine alignment. What we do know is that people's minds control their body to a significant degree. And we know a lot of people are whiners about their pain so effective debilitate themselves because they have convinced themselves the pain is debilitating. What chiropractors do is essential convince people they are getting better. Because for the most part, since pain in the back is psychological, if you work on the psyche, you cure the body.

If you go to a chiropractor and you believe they're a quack and its the equivalent of a witch doctor saying "ooga booga booga", then they have no power to heal. So while I admit that too many doctors are pill pushers and don't listen to patients, part of that is that people have too much faith in doctors. They're like a mechanic for your car. You don't keep going back to a bad car mechanic who gives you bad advice...why would you go back to a doctor who gives you bad advice? My brother in law had severe neck/back pain for 2 weeks and went to a doctor who gave him similar advice. I told him that doctor was incompetent; unless he was in a car accident or something similar, he certainly would not need to undergo surgery. I told him to get more/better advice and while he was shopping around, the pain gradually subsided. The poor guy was stressed between work and family and it was clear to me the problems were psychological. He needed to relax, not fuse vertabrae.

Take charge of your life and body. And I guess if it helps you to go to the witch doctor to cure you, that's fine too. But prefer cause and effect explanations.