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TV Delays Driving AU Viewers To Piracy
Astat1ne writes in with a story in The Register about the delays Australian TV viewers are experiencing getting overseas-produced series and how this is driving many of them to download the shows via BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer networks. The problem is compounded by the fact that Australian viewers are unable to download legal copies of the episodes from the US iTunes website. Quoting: "According to a survey based on a sample of 119 current or recent free-to-air TV series, Australian viewers are waiting an average of almost 17 months for the first-run series first seen overseas. Over the past two years, average Australian broadcast delays for free-to-air television viewers have more than doubled from 7.9 to 16.7 months."
I know that as a Doctor Who fan in the states I'm not going to wait to see new episodes of Who. When I can download them and watch them less than 12 hours after they have been on in BBC, there really isn't any reason to wait until SciFi channel or whoever decides to air it. More and more it seems as if my favorite shows aren't aired on channels in the USA or if they are, they are shown months later.
Sure it may be copyright infringement to download them, but since there's no legal way for me to see a lot of these shows in the first place, I don't have a problem with it. I can't pay for them if I wanted to, I do pay for cable, and I'm not a Nielson Rating's house, so the arguments against downloading these shows seem pretty weak.
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TV in Australia sucks because of the constant barrage of overly loud advertisements for 3 minutes after every 5 minutes of TV show.
Cinema in Australia sucks because of long queue lines, high prices and poor quality movies, as well as the 20 mins of lead-up-to-the-main-feature advertisements.
DVD release in Australia suck because we have to wait and wait and wait for a DVD that gets superseded 1 month after arrival by the Gold Edition, then the Extra Gold Edition, then the SuperMegaHypeUltraBlaster edition shortly after.
The whole experience of entertainment via TV/DVD or cinema is completely wrong. It lacks that all important component - ENTERTAINMENT.
Why bother? I can buy a bootleg copy of just about anything, download it if I can be bothered or borrow someone else's copy of whatever it may be. Either way, these three elements of access to entertainment guarantee I get my entertainment fix.
Yes - I am an Aussie.
It's not that simple. Production companies charge more for new shows and less for old shows. Basically the AU tv company has said we are willing to pay $X for your show and no more. The Production company then replies, well if that's all your willing to pay you'll have to wait at least 12 month since we have other markets whom are willing to pay a lot more. If they where willing to sell for $X to AU at once then for example the UK market who where willing to pay more than $X will refuse to do so and the production company loses money. That's all basic economics.
As for putting it on iTunes. By doing so the program loses value for the AU tv company since it will mean that less people will watch it on TV and so they'd be willing to pay even less for the rights or even decide not buy it at all. So the US production company will eithert lose a sale or get less money from the sale than they could have had they not released the show to iTunes. That is a real and significant cost for them, one which any profits gotten of iTunes may very well not cover.
Piracy IS theft.
Copyright violations ARE NOT theft.
TopGear is apparently the most pirated(sorry watched) BBC show after Dr Who worldwide. It is very un PC and that is what makes it so attractive.
Goody, 55mins to go before this weeks edition. The lads are messing around in Tractors trying to grow their own Fuel.
Keep up the good work lads. I'll be at Dunsfold next week for the show.
Perhaps the BBC should copy UK Channel 4 and setup a pay downoad site for non serial shows like TopGear
Off Topic:-
The place where the show is filmed is the place where the Harrier VTOL Aircraft was flight tested before delivery to the like of the RAF, USMC and Spanish Airforce..
I worked there in the late 1970's.
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
Not only do we get most movies much later (if at all). We also get TV series MUCH later (if at all), and to add insult to injury, it's all in some crappy translation (you just can't translate puns, nor can you really adequately translate interesting dialog), spoken by speakers with totally different voices than the original ones, and so forth...
As a result, I don't even own a TV anymore (just not worth it, especially since the government makes us pay >$15/month), only watch DVDs once in a while, and otherwise watch downloaded stuff from overseas.
It's like the war on drugs: wake up, nobody cares if it's illegal. When people want something, there are two choices: sell it to them in an open, competitive market, or prohibit it and live with the results (mafia gangs, illegal distribution). But you can't change people.
Except they can make money by directly selling it to the people and cut out the networks altogether. I suspect that since the media companies are really married to the advertising model however, they don't consider the potential for direct sales. Now, I don't condone piracy when the piracy might interfere with the content producer's ability to earn money, but by the same token, I've become quite accustomed to having commercial free entertainment on DVD or through iTunes. I'm in the US so it is easy for me to get things by legal means and so I do. If I was AU, I wouldn't feel guilty about downloading because nobody wants to sell it to me anyway. Right or wrong, this is the future market media companies have to deal with and what they ought to do, is figure out how to deal with it profitably.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Well it is wrong in the legal sense but I would call it right in the moral sense. Americans have the show for free on broadcasting networks. They can tape it, share the tape with friends, but can't do this digitally or can't give it to australians friends ? Yeah, that's the law, you should comply but you should also change it quickly.
Luckily I am free of the series addiction that seem to get all my colleagues, but I must say that it is very hard for those watching the series on the national network to not be spoiled by the bittorrenters who knows who gets to be killed at the end of season 1 12 months before "honest guys".
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
I don't pirate software (there's enough very good free stuff out there).
I don't pirate movies (anything worth having is worth buying on DVD).
I don't pirate music (same as DVDs).
However I do download 7-10 TV episodes off usenet every week. I pull them the day after they are on in the US as they won't be shown here in the UK for months - if at all.
What I can never understand is why Murdoch et al don't sign deals with the American networks to show their channels as part of their cable / satellite packages. Same goes for the BBC in American (the "proper" BBC channels - not BBC world).
If I could just record these shows on my PVR my own "piracy" would drop off to almost nothing (and the networks would get me watching more adverts instead of my current number of zero).
Not only do we wait up to 18 months for the shows, the local networks air them at stupid times, keep changing timeslots, air the episodes out of order, start the episode late because some other live show earlier that night ran late.
Due to the crappy timeslots, I'd have to tape almost all the shows I want. If I'm watching a tape, I'm going to fastforward the ads. So why not download it off the internet a year earlier and save all the hassle?
This isn't the same as a movie. I go to the cinemas every few weeks and pay to watch a movie. This is free-to-air TV that I wouldn't have paid anything to watch in the first place.
"The unethical"?
I'd say that's pretty subjective. Personally, I believe that since I pay a lot of money for cable TV, I've 'paid my dues' with respect to gaining access to the media. I don't believe that advertisers have any moral right for me to watch their ads, and I can easily show that nobody in the entire chain loses money as a result of my downloading a TV show I've paid for access for, to watch at another time and place.
Within my ethic, then, I am acting in a perfectly ethical manner. I'm simply attaining content I've paid for from another source, using an internet connection I've paid for. Since, in my ethic, I am not obliged to watch advertising just becuase some company paid for it, downloading TV shows is completely ethical for me.
It's been a long time.
Exactly. When infinitely-copyable digital material starts getting compared to physical items, the analogies break down.
All such analogies should start with "Assume that millions of regular consumers have magic cameras which can create fully functional, visually perfect 3D replicas of whatever they photograph. Further assume that the material item in question costs twenty, thirty bucks tops."
So, the question becomes "Given the choice between buying a genuine Ferrari for thirty bucks including delivery, or going out and finding the exact model you want and taking a magic photo of it, which would you choose? Now how about if Ferrari had decided they were never going to sell cars in your country or allow any to be imported - EVER - and yet everywhere else in the world, people are driving their cheap Ferraris around and yakking about them on the net? And hey, funnily enough, half your neighbourhood is driving Ferraris too..."
The MAJOR point should also be that australia has more ads per show than ANY country on the planet.. HEROES was almost 2 hours long for the first ep when it aired here (seriously 1min view for 1 min ad) We are, on average, at 20 minutes of ads per hour. (its sweden or norway next on the list at 17min) Also for all of us SCIFI watches - BSG, Stargate, Trek, DrWho etc, we want to watch it as it is released as well read the forums etc. Also in the 90's - did you know that they SPED UP the shows so that a 44minute show ran for 43minutes? Yeap - another minute of ads there. (channel 9 was the main user of this)And that was when they didn't choose to edit Star Trek:Next Gen to fit more ads in..(yeap that's right they cut whole scenes out!) Another example was with the Muscial Buffy Episode - they sped it up slightly (shown on channel 7) so it was a bit out of key - My Wife was soooo pissed, but loved me for my DVD copy i had got earlier (was first getting tapes sent from the states then dvds - love my mates) and all this quickly from memory while at work........
O.K. Let me come out and say this. I live in Australia and I regularly download TV episodes from the States, and the reason, you cannot trust Aussie TV stations. Many years ago in Australia a show was broadcast called American Gothic. it had received good reviews and Network Ten had the rights to it. So I watched the first episode, it seemed good, I watched the second episode, it was alright, I watched the third episode... And I had no idea what was going on. I spoke to friends in Oz, seeing if I had missed something, and they too found the show confusing and odd. I stopped watching.
I later discovered the Network ten screened (and I apologise if I get the numbers wrong here, it was a while ago) episodes 1,2,13. Thirteen! when a TV station cannot even screen a TV show in order there is a problem. "My Name is Earl" was screened out of sequence last year on Aussie TV. Seven screened at US children's puppet show called "Greg the Bunny" a few years back during the School Holidays at 11:00 am in the morning, so the kiddies could see it. If any of you have seen "Greg The Bunny" you will know that this IS NOT, nor could any reasonable person conclude that it WAS EVER aimed at children. but why would a TV exec actually WATCH the show before airing it. (Seven dealt with a large numbers of complaints from concerned parents)
So now I download almost all the TV I regularly watch. But the problem lies deeper that just this. as someone earlier mentioned is that when a TV station in Australia buys the show they buy the Distribution rights in Australia. Network Ten used to own the rights for "Xena" in Australia and that caused a few problems with Pay TV.
So am I stealing, nope, I am not. am I violating copyright. yes, yes I am. Funny thing is, legally I would be better off stealing. if I stole a CD from a music store I could be caught, fined $200-$500. If I am caught SINGING a SONG whilst walking down the STREET I can be fined $1230 for illegal broadcast of copyrighted material. Also applies to "Happy Birthday" (copyrighted until 2030 as I understand) so who in Australia isn't guilty of copyright violation? When you make criminals of your population, you're population will commit crimes. It's pretty simple
Leg Godt!
$2 an episode is too much. Let's imagine I watch 12 series with an average of 24 episodes per series per year. That's $576 per year on top of the Internet bandwidth costs which are still quite significant in Australia (about $600 per year). I could get cable TV (or more commonly in Australia, satellite TV) for half that and get all those shows and several dozen more.
Realistically I'd be wanting to pay 10-20c per episode. And I'd want them DRM free so I could make backup copies for watching later. Anything more expensive than that is not even remotely tempting. I would like to know where the "$2/episode" meme came from because I don't think any thought was put into it.
Broken Window Fallacy. Look it up.