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Piracy Outstripping Legal Video Sales?
b.burl writes to tell us a recently released report by the NDP Group supports the horror stories being fed to us by studio execs, but not quite in the way those execs would have you believe. The study shows a continued rise in video piracy compared to legal video sales. The largest target continues to be adult oriented content and TV shows, with only an estimated 5 percent being mainstream movie content. From the article: "[A]mong U.S. households with members who regularly use the Internet, 8 percent (six million households) downloaded at least one digital video file (10MB or larger) from a P2P service for free in the third quarter of 2006. Nearly 60 percent of video files downloaded from P2P sites were adult-film content, while 20 percent was TV show content and 5 percent was mainstream movie content."
10MB is still well within the range of the size of videos porn sites flood the net with as teasers to get people to go pay for the full-length stuff on their websites. Just because it's being downloaded for free via P2P doesn't mean it's piracy or illegal, it may be precisely what the publishers of the content wanted.
Blockbuster doesn't carry pr0n, neither does Wal-Mart. Besides, your neighbors are at Wal-Mart.
I think TV series are in the position that VHS movies were 15 years ago. Back then, movies cost 80$ US, and nobody bought them. When the price came down to the 20$ range, they started to sell. I think many people feel the same about TV series. At 80$ a season, they're not going to sell. I mean, after all it's just a TV show. If the prices came down to the 30$ range, I bet more people would buy them because they're major fans, or to watch the two episodes they missed.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Pirate that I am, I evilly downloaded the first three episodes of Heroes because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. The videos I downloaded had had ALL THE COMMERCIALS REMOVED! No revenue for you, NBC!
Of course, as a result, my wife and I sit down and watch Heroes on NBC every week, including commercials (we don't watch enough TV to need a TiVo). If we hadn't been able to illegally download those videos, we'd likely not be watching the show OR the commercials.
So I ask: Did it benefit or hurt NBC that I illegally downloaded and watched the first three episodes of Heroes?
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
He didn't say "literacy". He said "computer literacy". Here are all the things they can learn from it (often in this order):
;-)
1) How to use a mouse.
2) How to launch and use a web browser.
3) What local files and folders are, and why it's a good idea to save your favorite videos locally in your own folder.
4) How to hide things stored locally so your parent, boss, girlfriend, etc. can't find it.
5) How to install and use P2P software (often followed by how to install anti-malware software).
6) How to locate and install video and audio codecs.
7) How to find and use anonymous proxies to circumvent those pesky web filtering devices.
8) How to set up their own proxies, write scripts or programs, and/or hack the filtering device to circumvent it.
Some kids end up becoming programmers, IT specialists, or even hackers just to be able to see a boob.
Why is downloading TV shows illegal? They are broadcast for free on the tv anyway, and I just fast forward at 5X through the commercials on my DVR, so I don't see them anyway. Why are they pissy about tv shows being bad to download, oh no! someone might actually watch their show! I agree about porn being up there, its because its expensive and not at common rental places or stores
Seeing what the answer to that question will explain why piracy is doing better than legitimate sales.
As soon as they put the videos online for sale and download without DRM and a standardized format (Divx or Xvid), I think you will see a dramatic change.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
If someone gave you the choice of making $1 billion for making a television show, but the show is pirated to an extent such that over half the people who watch it don't pay you, or making $500 million for making a television show with little or no piracy of it at all with a much, much smaller audience, which would you prefer?
$1 billion and no future customers vs. $0.5 billion and lots of currently unsatisfied future customers?
They're not exactly in it for the money, not for today anyway. You're thinking short term. The RIAA and their partners at Microsoft are willing to make the necessary investments now so that they can eventually do for arts, culture, and politics what DeBeers did for diamonds. They basically want a stranglehold on popular culture so that they can reduce the diversity of viewpoints you hear and limit the quality of audio/video signals that you see- quite a lucrative position to be in that also confers significant political power. With consolidated media you can selectively promote political candidates who will let your lobbyists write the bills that they pass in Congress, and you can easily suppress alternative viewpoints from being heard anywhere except on the Internet. Political suppression on the Internet will require political/legislative fixes, to solve problems like Net Neutrality that just let anyone say anything.
That only 4.8% of internet users downloaded 10 MB of internet porn?
;)
No, it's a survey, remember? Only 4.8% of internet users ADMITTED to downloading 10MB of porn
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I download the occasional tv show, when I happen to be busy when the show I like is broadcast or I fail to tivo it. IMHO if the Execs would look at the big picture they would find that it probably increases revenue rather than lessens it. Take 24 for instance, its a show where you pretty much have to see every episode, if I miss one I download it. The alternative is to wait until the season is over and buy the box set, which I do anyway. When I miss a show or several episodes and cant find a torrent, I generally just stop watching until the box set is available so they loose my eyeballs the rest of the season. Usually somewhere in between the missed show and the dvd release I tend to loose interest and forget about it, so they loose even the dvd revenue. This is what happend with me and Lost, I watched all of the first season, missed almost a month of season two and the only torrents I could find were unbearably slow so I just stopped watching. I had every intention of getting it on DVD but found another show I liked that was on at the same time so I still havent bothered.
I dont have an IPod and dont care for itunes, but if I could buy a download at a reasonable price that was at a resolution viewable on my tv I would have no problem doing so. A few networks have at least figured out part of that, my son for example watches Ben10 on cartoon networks website for free regularly. Since its free he doesnt mind watching it on the computer, they flash banner ads so they get their ad revenue and everyone is happy.
For some reason the networks have a hard time accepting that times have changed the days of the whole family sitting down at 8pm to watch Ed Sullivan are long over, people are busier and have more diversions and distractions. Giving the viewing audience flexability is the future, the old ways will die, it might take a while and will be fought tooth and nail but its no less inevitable.
I agree with most of that. The only point I would differ on is that they charge way too much per season for most TV shows. There are some shows I would like to have, but not at $50 or more per season. They're taking something we're used to getting for free (with ads) and assigning a fairly high price tag to it. Yes, I know how many hours of entertainment it is, but it's still kind of a lot to ask when you've already seen it for free.
Take Heroes for example. I'd much rather go to nbc.com and watch any episode any time than pay for it (too expensive), record it (no cable, so quality is poor) or download it without ads (illegal). The online versions have one commercial per break instead of the several they have on TV, it's free to watch, and it's extremely convenient. Bravo to NBC for moving in the right direction with it. I would probably watch (or at least try) a lot more shows that I can't see now if they were all online like this. I'd also kick my TV to the curb. The only problem I have with Heroes is not being able to save the episodes locally.
I'd really love to see the TV and movie companies distribute - via BitTorrent - free low-res shows with a few ads in them. All they have to do is make it too convenient for anyone to want to bother with the illegal, ad-free versions. Sure some people will edit the commercials out before saving it to a DVD, but that takes time most people won't care to spend, and by then they've already seen the commercials anyway (most people will watch it before they edit it, and you have to look at the ads to determine what frames to cut out). I can't imagine anyone risking legal action by uploading or downloading an ad-free version if the legal version is that easy to obtain.
The BitTorrent trackers could be used to gauge show popularity, and companies can release progressively higher-res versions, each with different commercials, to increase ad revenues.
First, the bullshit the executives use about tv shows "pirated" is exactly that. Bullshit. Advertisers are not paying less to air during the shows that are being "pirated" in fact the shows that are heavily pirated are the top shows and earn the MOST money. BattleStar Galactica is the #1 "pirated" show on TV next to the simpsons. Both make craploads of money and get paid for what they did, the channel that aired it got paid for the advertising during the airtime, JUST LIKE NORMAL.
Anyone that says you are stealing a TV show that AIRED is so full of it they stink. the show was created, they got paid for it, the broadcaster got paid for airing it by the commercials that aired during it. THEY ALL GOT THEIR MONEY.
The exec's that are whining like little babies are the ones that want to wring another $1.00 per viewing out of it after it aired. I.E. the pigs that smell the cooking bacon out there and want a piece of that pie too.
It's drivin by 100% unadulterated greed, and they try to villify it to justify it in the minds of the public.... Their real definition is that you are a thief if you have a VCR, DVR, recording DVD player or PC that can watch it... They just dont say that in public as it will piss off the public.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.