Fox Subpoenas YouTube Over Content

popo writes "FOX has subpoenaed YouTube for the identity of a user who posted entire episodes of '24' and 'The Simpson's'. It is not yet known whether YouTube has complied with the request. The '24' episodes in question actually appeared on YouTube prior to their primetime January 14 premiere on the Fox broadcast network, which spread four hourlong episodes of the hit drama over two consecutive nights. Fox became aware the episodes were on YouTube on January 8, according to the subpoena."

Comments

Why Worry?

[eno2001]

This isn't about your typical copyright infringement. This is about an inside job since that's the only way those files would have made it to YouTube. I have a feeling that if found, the person responsible will first be fired, then sued out the whazoo and sent to debtor's prison.

Re:Why Worry?

[dknight]

I know a lot of the "TV Groups" get shows long before they air.
How? Well, one in particular that I know of used to pull them out of the air. It seems that Fox would send out the completed episodes about a week before they were supposed to air, via satellite, to assorted groups (I dont know who, but I assume their affiliates). These "pirates" would pull the complete shows right out of the air (yes, I know, its much more complicated and involved than I'm making it sound, but I'm simplifying here people), encode them, and release them, well before the actual airing.

No inside job needed, and noone handing out things they werent supposed to.

Re:Why Worry?

[aeryn_sunn]

I have a er..."friend" who is a member of the Academy and gets to vote on the Oscars. One really cool thing about going to her house is that she gets tons of movies from various studios that are vying for nominations for every category... why cool? because she has movies that are still in the theaters, or ones that we never get to see, such as foreign released films, shorts, documentaries, and stuff that is not yet on DVD (yes, usually there is a weekend marathon of movies)

Anyway, the Academy used to send them on regular DVD but one of the restrictions was that members are forbidden from sharing the movies, i.e., letting others borrow them, else they lose their membership and probably get tossed in a cell with a drunk Mel Gibson and Gary Busey... now, they have the movies on a special DVD that only works on special players that are distributed to most members (I think some members still get regular DVDs, although I cannot vouch for this)...

I wonder if Fox just gives out regular DVDs to special people to view? I know a guy I worked for one time used to the president years ago of whatever group gives out the Emmys, but as a member of the..."Emmy group"?...he still gets tons of DVDs of various episodes of all the TV shows on broadcast and cable. As far as I know, they were regular DVDs. (I used to sneak a few out at work and watch them on my computer...during lunch and breaks of course).

It seems if Fox or other networks thought that such episodes were so important,they would not allow unresticted DVDs out into the wild. Hell, it could have been one of Fox's VP's kids that got a hold of 24's premiere and unleashed that baby into the tubes of the interwebs...

Re:Why Worry?

[asills]

A coworker of mine had the DVD the week before 24 aired. His girlfriend works at Blockbuster and they had gotten their shipment of the DVDs three or four days before it aired. The Blockbuster manager allows employees to "rent" anything before it goes on shelves so she got them and he watched them that weekend.

Re:Why Worry?

[shreevatsa]

now, they have the movies on a special DVD that only works on special players that are distributed to most members

And it is something that has cost them dearly:

In 2004, a company named Cinea spent $5 million distributing custom DVD players to Academy and BAFTA members with very mixed results. Lately, it seems the new strategy is to stop trying. Maybe the industry is finally realizing that the best way to get recognized is for people to see your movie, despite the risk of piracy. For example, Munich was very likely snubbed for a British Oscar nomination in 2005 because the screeners were late and defective. The best case study is Lionsgate's promotion of Crash vs Disney's Cinea-encrypted screeners:

In a way, Lionsgate's strategy was the opposite of Disney's. While the indie sent its film to as many voters as possible, upping the odds copies could be pirated, the Mouse House focused on minimizing piracy, with the result that at least 26% of Oscar voters didn't watch its screeners.

The outcome: Crash shocked the world by winning Best Picture over the favored Brokeback Mountain, while Disney only got Best Makeup for The Chronicles of Narnia.

Re:he's a star

[finkployd]

Which probably means a major million dollar lawsuit in a civil court will be filed against some unsuspecting family with a linksys router running default settings. Aim the lawyers, prepare to devastate lives.

Finkployd

Re:If he posted the commercials ...

[HTH NE1]

A smart uploader including commercials would still exclude localized commercials as they could be used to determine location, or replace them with local ads from another locality to give a wrong impression.

Of course, by releasing before airtime, that would mean there'd be no local commercials (from broadcaster or cable company) inserted. If intact, the national commercials the locals replace would be intact or something else to mark the local ad break.

Interesting though that YouTube has a cap of 10 minutes for regular uploads, allowing longer videos only for people who prove they run a business that produces videos (even if just for software demo videos). And even then, individual videos still can't exceed 100 MB in size.

So Fox is getting upset over very low (sub-VHS) quality copying. Without commercials, that's under 3 hours for 4 episodes at a filesize under 400 MB. That would be worse than VCD quality!

At a 10-minute cap, probably splitting at each break, that's a more reasonable 2 GB for four episodes. But still, if people will go to the trouble of watching twenty clips to see four episodes (I doubt they'd tolerate 36 clips with commercials), perhaps Fox should consider doing repeat airings on FX again. But no, they won't do that; it would piss off their affiliates wanting their piece of the local ad revenue.