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."

Comments

Why the delay?

[Weaselmancer]

Seriously, 17 months?

Why the delay? What exactly is it that could possibly take so long? You could almost put the DVDs in a hot air balloon and get them there quicker.

Especially considering that this is sales. Who waits that long to make money? Especially in that industry?

Re:Why the delay?

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically the older a show is the cheaper it is to buy. The Australian tv companies would have to pay a lot more to the American production companies if they wanted the rights to a show soon after it came out.

Re:Why the delay?

[Anonymous Coward]

Give 'em a break. They need time to translate the show into Australian.

Re:Why the delay?

[Anonymous Coward]

Give 'em a break. They need time to translate the show into Australian. There's also a minor issue with standards conversion; although Australia uses PAL, like the UK, their programmes have to undergo further conversion to flip the image upside down (which, of course, looks the right way up in Australia). The reverse also applies; this is why Britain is a bit behind Australia when showing Neighbours.

You can take a British TV set to Australia (and vice versa), and even receive pictures, but the programmes will be the wrong way up.

It's true, I swear.

Re:Why the delay?

[krosov]

This is also the case in region 2, where I happen to live. There's a similar delay in episodes of all american shows, from Southpark to Oprah. I'm downloading Southpark and The Daily Show (of which only quotations make it to the region 2 television) solely because I'm not going to wait 18 months until the show is less fresh, therefor less funny, is and broadcasted with commercial interuptions for phone sex, at 23.30h at night when I really do need to sleep. I can get a sure weekly southpark fix from the local bittorrent dealer in a dark alley of an internet and watch it hours after it was broadcasted at prime time. With movies, the same issues occur. Whe have to wait at least 6 months, which made sense in the old days when the marketing machines would also arrive 6 months late. At least the release was in sync with the marketing peak. Now, we do see movie trailers, reviews, blogs, parodies, pleasant scandals and bloopers at the same time the Americans do, thus months before the movies enter our movietheatres. I'm not a film lover, but I can see why people download the movies. Since the advertising reaches us all the way here, the marketing boosts the filesharing! Most DVD players in .eu are region-free now (I 'hacked' mine), otherwise we can't watch the movies we legally order over the internet! There's no way you can be 100% legal!

If you can make a copy of my Ferrari

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can create a cloned copy of my Ferrari without damaging mine, then I'd have no problem with you doing so. Make two.

Re:If you can make a copy of my Ferrari

[bendodge]

I would, because you agreed not to let that happen in your EULA, and the engineers who spent years designing it wouldn't get their earned pay.

In regards to the article:
Shocking! People want something they can't get, so they bootleg it!?! How surprising!
Come on, this is obvious. But it is still wrong.

Re:If you can make a copy of my Ferrari

[Anonymous Coward]

and the engineers who spent years designing it wouldn't get their earned pay.

Newsflash! The engineers already got paid while they were designing it.

Re:If you can make a copy of my Ferrari

[Sj0]

Actually, the dealerships buy the ferraris. They're the ones that actually pay for it, so the engineers would get their money. Also, in this example, the dealerships don't need to sell their cars to individuals. They make their money by selling advertising at stoplights. Since the standardized metrics used to estimate the number of people watching aren't affected by piracy, the only people who are hurt are the advertisers.

Don't hold your breath on me crying a river for advertisers who get slightly less exposure than they thought.

Re:If you can make a copy of my Ferrari

[Dun Malg]

But Ferrari would. You didn't pay the engineers to design the car and the machines to manufacture it, or the marketers to sell it. No, Ferrari wouldn't care, so long as you didn't attempt to make copies to sell to others, misrepresenting the copies as Ferrari originals. You could even make copies and give them away and Ferrari wouldn't care much, as the cost of materials would drive you to bankruptcy very, very quickly. This is why the "car analogy" shit fails. "Content owners" only care about digital duplication because it exposes the fraud of their business, that they've made a living out of distributing information based upon an artificial monopoly on information reproduction and and the traditionally high cost of encoding that information in physical, transportable form. The cost of the latter has suddenly vanished, leaving them tap-dancing in mid air.

Re:If you can make a copy of my Ferrari

[suckmysav]

"The only thing that makes one item counterfeit from another identical item is the brand owner saying it's fake."

Sounds like DeBeers and their ongoing efforts to discredit "man made" diamonds as being somehow fake, despite them being indistinguishable from the "real thing."

standard register article

[gEvil (beta)]

I find it humorous that the article talks about how the Australian TV networks are "unable or unwilling to change their programming policies", yet makes no mention about the actual core problem here--the licensing of the content. Yes, if a TV show is produced and owned by an American TV network, then the Australian TV network needs to license it from the American company. They can't just decide to air it whenever they feel like it (which is what this article seems to suggest). Whether the problem is the American company not offering up the content for licensing, or whether the Australian companies don't want to pay the fee until it's lowered needs to be mentioned in order for this article to be more than an uninformed gripe. Then again, it is the Register, so it comes as no surprise to me that it's actually missing the point...

Re:standard register article

[Mateito]

Many of the US shows last year (CSI and SVU spring to mind) had double episode end-of season finales. In the US, these were aired a week apart, so that the cliff-hanger was resolved in 7 days. Here in Australia, the local networks played half the finale around mid-November, then advertised that the second part would be shown in early February. This is an absolutely dispicable way to treat your loyal fans. So, yeah, I pulled down the second half via P2P. Stuff them.

And you know what? I discovered that could get an HD version with no commercials and with better sound. So, I kept doing it... just for one or two of my favourite shows. I can honestly say that if the local networks hadn't treated me (the viewer) with such contempt, I never would have bothered to look around the Net, never worked out which P2P client was the most efficient, and frankly would be watching them on local TV week to week.

Note that most of the current shows are aired only a few of months after the US. Heroes, NCIS, House and Grays Anatomy all fall into this catagory. We are about 3 or 4 episodes into the current season of each of these. I think in the US the episodes are up to the mid teens. The delay in airing doesn't bother me, but being forced to wait four months for the resolution of a double episode pushed me over the edge.

Re:standard register article

[grimJester]

I don't even know how far behind the shows I watch are in Finland anymore. There simply is no legal way to get them within a reasonable time. I've quit watching TV almost completely - all I watch nowadays is BBC News or found on the net.

I follow several "currently airing" series. Battlestar Galactica, Stargate, SG Atlantis, Rome, The Simpsons, South Park to name a few. I'd be happy to pay, for example, $2/episode for subscriptions for these if I could get them to start downloading from a trusted source as soon as they're available. Heck, I'd be willing to develop the service for a pittance. Still, the content providers are more concerned with preventing the audience from viewing their product than making it possible for the audience to view said product.

The current state of copyright no longer serves the purpose of making as much art as possible available to as many as possible. It needs an overhaul. Badly.

Re:standard register article

[nathanh]

I follow several "currently airing" series. Battlestar Galactica, Stargate, SG Atlantis, Rome, The Simpsons, South Park to name a few. I'd be happy to pay, for example, $2/episode for subscriptions for these if I could get them to start downloading from a trusted source as soon as they're available.

$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.

Obvious...

[bigbigbison]

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.

Re:Obvious...

[sokoban]

Also, Doctor Who on BBC-America looks like crap. I guess it is due to the PAL-NTSC conversion, but everything on that channel looks awful.

I do the same thing with Bleach, a Japanese anime show. I can either wait a few years for the dubbed english version, or get the subbed Japanese show the same day in really high quality DivX. I don't know what it will take to convince the networks that people really would like to download content and have it at home. I also don't understand why networks don't just release shows for free with targeted advertisements. It seems that if you had people sign up with some sort of basic survey about where they live, how old they are, their interests, etc. advertisers gladly pay to have commercials interjected into the programming people download. Free, but with advertising, television downloads would be a big hit, I imagine.

Re:It's Still Wrong

[unformed]

Who said it's about justifying piracy? It's not. It's still wrong, but it shows that there IS a market that is willing to pay for it ... if it was provided.

Piracy isn't justified, but if the consumers want to see a TV show, they will. The question now is, are you going to sell it to them, or are they going to have no choice but to steal it?

Piracy is bad

[bhalter80]

While piracy is bad, I think most people would agree, this study shows an interesting phenomenon of our shrinking world. With the increased availability of digital content the barriers to acquiring a product available in a region of the world that is not your own are almost non-existent. In the past you would have to fly to the region that had the product you sought out, buy it and fly back or have it imported via some other means. Now there is no technological reason you shouldn't be able to do the same, just some legal hurdles imposed by countries out to make a buck anywhere they can and media companies out to do the same. I don't know what the solution to the former is but in regards to the latter I would think this would be enough to show that there is a demand for the content and for them to find a way to distribute it.

Re:Piracy is bad

[frdmfghtr]

Now there is no technological reason you shouldn't be able to do the same, just some legal hurdles imposed by countries out to make a buck anywhere they can and media companies out to do the same. I don't know what the solution to the former is but in regards to the latter I would think this would be enough to show that there is a demand for the content and for them to find a way to distribute it.

I don't follow how you can say that the "countries" are out to make a buck...unless you are referring to government officials who will allow their influence to be, well, "influenced" by the industry that wants to make a buck then make another one without extra effort.

I would like an explanation from somebody in the industry as to why content is not made available to more viewers/listeners/etc. Demand is there; we see that in the amount of sales that come from online digital resources and transfers via other means such as BitTorrent. If there is demand for your product, you can do business and profit. If you don't do business, somebody else will.

People download from p2p nets because YOU (the content provider/copyright holder/whatever term you want to use) won't provide quality content and a reasonable price. Do that, and you will profit. Those who continue to use p2p weren't going to buy your product anyway, so you have lost nothing.

It all seems so simple, I must be missing something somewhere.

The real problem

[mdboyd]

Is the that the toilets in Australia flush counter-clockwise. This really messes with Ted Steven's tubes and prevents licensed content from quickly reaching the country.

You heard it here first folks...

Re:It's Still Wrong

[pnattress]

You can't afford a Ferrari. That doesn't mean it's not available to you, just that you don't have the means to get it. The issue here is that Australians don't have the means of legally acquiring this material. They can't even log on to the US iTunes and pay for it. That's the problem.

I love how Slashdot has become the only place to come for incorrect car analogies.

The whole 'entertainment' experience is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:The whole 'entertainment' experience is wrong

[Overzeetop]

Let me just say that, as an American, I feel entirely superior in my media consumption, as I have the ability to watch 3 minutes after every 5 minutes of TV show, stand in long queue lines, pay high prices for seating and refreshments, all to watch 20 mins of lead-up-to-the-main-feature advertisements before I get to watch the poor quality movie, only to then wait several months before I can purchase the DVD, which rapidly gets superceded by the arrival by the Gold Edition, then the Extra Gold Directors Cut Edition, then the SuperMegaHypeUltraBlaster edition, up to a year or more before you get to get caught up in the whirlpool!

Quite honestly, I'd say you're in the perfect position. With global commerce, you can get the DVD, rip it to disc, and watch the whole thing before the theatrical release even get to Australia! Of course, that's 6 months after you could have downloaded it of oosnet-yay (the first rule of...) as a screener or cam-capture (they're getting better you know, thanks to the Canadians).

Of course, none of this makes up for the fact that we (and I mean "we" in the most generic, ugly American sense, not me personally) are churning out an amazing volume of absolute crap every year, which we so carefully delay in sending you.

Somehow, in the era before the internet and digital cinema, it made a certain amount of sense to have a staggered release. Given enough theaters with digital projection capabilities, it shouldn't really matter. I know that time is not here yet, but it's close enough that it could be. Maybe it's a little like HDTV in the US. If the FCC had had a backbone in the 90s, we could have all been happily watching 720p already. (And for you 1080i zealots - wouldn't it have been better to have 720p that actually worked than the spaghetti that is HDTV now?)

exuse me...NO, bartender, I'm just fine...in fact you can top me off if you would. Of course I won't be driving home...

No surprise

[Dan East]

I guess a bunch of execs are sitting around the board room table, still thinking it is 1970 and they have exclusive control over video distribution of their content. It will probably take an entire generation worth of executives to die off before some of these industries can reform. It really takes serious denial to think that consumers would prefer to wait for them to broadcast the content over their channels, when it can be obtained immediately, on-demand, in HD without commercials for free.

Dan East

Re:It's Still Wrong

[anagama]

I disagree with you here. Note, I've been modded flamebait and troll a lot for saying stuff against the partyline on copyright. The problem with piracy is that has the potential to harm producers because some people who would have paid won't (it's impossible that all copyright infringers absolutely never would have paid for the content). Thus, the producer is harmed by illegal downloading and it should not be condoned.

This situation different. If the material is not released in any pay format, the content producer cannot possibly suffer any negative consequences by banned groups' piracy.

The question is different when there is delay as in this case and there are more questions to be answered. For example, do all shows make it to Australia or just a few? Why exactly are the content producers delaying so long? Is it actually the AU media that is standing in the way of distribution?

Answers to these kinds of questions could sway my thinking (remember, it is based on the potential for lost sales, not any "moral" argument posed by either side). If it is simply a choice by the content producers not to sell to AU, then I don't really have a problem because they would never have made a dime of Australia. I would think the answer though is more complicated. Politics? Protectionism?

Re:It's Still Wrong

[anagama]

Chances are these people aren't stupid, but have looked at the numbers and concluded that people aren't willing to pay enough for them to make a profit.

How does that make sense? If they intend to never sell in AU, they've made the show with the presumption it will make a profit in other markets. If it turns out they can also sell in AU, then that's all pure bonus money. And how much exactly would it cost for them to get the show on iTunes? Doesn't apple actually provide the bandwidth for their pay stuff? There's just no downside.

Re:It's Still Wrong

[MostAwesomeDude]

Woot, a troll.

Okay, so listen up. If you can't afford a Ferrari, that is understandable. Ferraris are spendy little cars. But DVDs? They're perfectly affordable. So is basic cable. The problem here is not cost, not at any level -- Australia is an English-speaking country with similar obscenity laws and a excellent grasp of American culture. There should not be any costs associated with "preparing" episodes for export to Australia, neither for broadcast nor for DVD.

People are pirating it because there is no other way to get it. For some inexplicable reason, the industry seems to think that there is little to no demand for importing these shows, and so they've neglected to do so. It's sort of sad, really; the industry hasn't always been this way. For example, Cartoon Network started airing late-night anime precisely because polls showed that the biggest demographic of anime fansubbers and traders was also the demographic most likely to sit up late at night and watch cartoons. While this may not seem like a big deal to you, it was an amazingly awesome thing for anime lovers, and I think that Cartoon Network got it right.

Your "wait for it" method assumes that the show in question will in fact be aired and released in Australia regardless of consumer input. This is not true. There are many shows in markets which simply never arrive in places due to a lack of demand. For every anime imported, dubbed, edited, NTSCed, and aired or released in America and Canada, there are dozens that they predict just won't sell no matter how snazzy the packaging is. The only way to show that there is a serious demand is to pirate the shows.

The TV business is usually not as receptive to input as the Adult Swim guys. They don't understand much besides money and ratings. The only way to force them to speed up their importing schedules is to create economic impetus -- to pirate the shows that are being demanded. Anything else is futile.

Re:It's Still Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

TopGear- On later tonight.

[RotateLeftByte]

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.

The same is true in Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:It's Still Wrong

[anagama]

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.

Re:It's Still Wrong

[Yvanhoe]

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".

They can't?

[Leuf]

This situation different. If the material is not released in any pay format, the content producer cannot possibly suffer any negative consequences by banned groups' piracy.

Just because they haven't released it YET doesn't mean there's no potential harm. If they can't get the content in a timely fashion and everyone has already watched it off bt, then why bother releasing it late? You don't get to decide when and how they have to release the content.

The reality is that we have a global audience now. Aussies can get on the net (except for the Tassies that are still working on that whole fire thing) and want to talk with other fans of the show, but it's impossible for them to do so because the dominate online presence is a year ahead of them. The content providers have to do a better job releasing things everywhere at as close to the same time as is reasonable or else human nature is going to take over.

Brainwashed

[clang_jangle]

You sir are brainwashed.

The people who began calling the process of copying files from the network w/o the permission of the "IP owner" "piracy" and "stealing" are the **AA parasites, and they add little to no value while conspiring to hold us all back technologically and for what? To keep milking a clearly obsolete business model.

Data wants to be free; we can only restrict distribution and charge $$ for it by making some artificial arrangement (which is always going to be defeatable). Even so if they would price their "IP" at a level the market is willing to bear and provide it in a format people find useful (vs restictive) most people would rather just buy it, it's easier.
These are some *reasons* piracy happens.
So the real excuse makers and criminals here are the **AA .

All this is not big news --- do try to keep up old man!

The post about copying the ferarri is spot on and should be modded up.

Re:Brainwashed

[Wicko]

You sir need to be modded up. How piracy managed to get in the dictionary with respect to copyright infringement, I'll never know. This is a slang term which in its actual definition has very little in common to the acts described by the **AA. I can't stress enough how twisted this situation is, with all the brain washing and "studies" performed by **AA and friends. People need to start thinking for themselves instead of horribly disfigured articles and news reports doing it for them.

Re:Brainwashed

[Dun Malg]

Data wants to be free;
Oh god, not that crap again - data isnt tangible, it doesnt want to *be* anything, let alone free. Hey genius, let me introduce you to the fascinating world of Rhetorical Devices.
Note that those with "nothing to lose but [their] chains" need not actually be confined by chains, nor does a comment of "I wouldn't want to be in your shoes" have anything to do with the relative merits of footwear.
"Information wants to be free" is a catch phrase, shorthand for the larger, more complex principle that the entire purpose of information is to be shared. But you knew that. You were just being an ass.

Re:Brainwashed

[Maxx169]

I think the best way to think about the phrase "data wants to be free" is: Data wants to be free in the same way as water wants to leak. Water doesn't sit on its back patio thinking about the good ole days before rubber seals became common place, when it was free to leak and drip as much as it wanted, even if it had to flow through miles of scalding hot pipes on its way to school. It's just, if water is free to leak - if people don't constantly try and prevent water from leaking though patching holes and creating seals, then it will. It has a natural tendency to leak, just the same as information. It has a natural tendency to want to be free.

Well, duh

[Cholten]

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).

Tape Trading

[mrshowtime]

It seems that in the torrent age, everyone has forgotten that tv shows used to be traded on VHS all over the world. I used to get Dr. Who episodes from my cousins in England (I had a very expensive PAL/NTSC converter-player) and I used to trade episodes with a lot of people all over the world. Now I can just download whatever tv episodes that I want. I don't understand why nobody gave a shit about tape trading, but now if I share a private torrent or a custom made dvd of a tv show with my friends, instead of sending them a tape, I am a now PIRATE! Television has always been regarded as "disposable" entertainment. It was not till Lucille Ball started filming all her show that anyone thought that a tv show could hold any future value after once it aired. Look at the BBC, they have had a policy of no reruns past the original broadcast. While we here in the states got to watch Dr. Who/Blakes 7 over and over again on PBS stations, it was difficult to find old episodes in the UK.

Re:It's Still Wrong

[MillionthMonkey]

Well, we wanted all this "globalization", didn't we? And we have worldwide communication now, don't we? So why do they act surprised when people start pirating titles when they delay release dates across different continents by months?

I mean, geez, who's running the television industry, the Dutch East India Pictures Association? Why is their incompetence the fault of the market? Why do we have laws to protect incompetence?

Here are some examples of the delays

[dns_server]

It is really that bad for a majority of programs especially scifi:

Alias for example, according to wikipedia it was shown 2005-2006, It has not been shown in australia yet with no plans from what i can see to have it shown, There is also no release date for the dvd. Star Trek: Voyager was the worst you finished in 2001, we finished in 2005.

With Battlestar galactica we just showed the last episode of season 2 a few hours ago (started at 11:40pm but would be shown anywhere between 10:30pm and 2:30am) You are half way through season 3.

Stargate sg1, we finished season 9 last month, Stargate Atlantis we are at season 2 episode 6.

Extras started their second season last week.

The O.C. Is one exception though, channel 10 actually showed episodes of this within a week of the us, You showed it on the 22nd we showed it on the 23rd or 24th (the Australian rules pre-season has started so some regions where delayed).

Most programs are put on a 6 month delay much of this is because of the difference in ratings periods, yours is around September ours started a few weeks ago.

Re:Here are some examples of the delays

[hoojus]

You forgot the other major problem we have in Australia. Non-continuity! It has been quite often the case (CSI a prime example) that the network would just stop the current season for no reason and start playing reruns in the same time slot. If it wasn't for Grisham's beard showing up in the first few minutes you would have to rack the brain to figure out if you saw it. Then they move it to a new time slot without warning and you end up missing part of the season until you remember to check through the TV guide for new schedules. And finally living in a sport loving nation any program can and will be stopped half way through a season just because some stupid men in white have to stop some little red ball from hitting their wickets!

And then they wonder why we download instead of attempting to watch a season on one of our useless commercial stations (we have a whole 3)

Yes I am bitter! but I do have difficulty discussing Heroes with friends as I am 12 episodes in front.

Re:Here are some examples of the delays

[AeroIllini]

Star Trek: Voyager was the worst

Right on.

Re:It's Still Wrong

[aplusjimages]

Is that you Ben Affleck? Don't worry the Aussies aren't downloading Daredevil or Gigli.

bullshit laws just suck

[zogger]

Now I am old enough and ornery enough and imbued with a certain sense of basic right and wrong. And as such, some of the things I did when I was younger was I walked in protest marches where the bullshit laws said people of a certain color could not use certain public facilities or go into certain open to the public businesses. Yes, that was "the law" back then and the pigs tried to enforce it, sometimes extremely violently, on orders from their masters, their pig political bosses and pig lawyers and pig "businessmen" who were worried about their pig "profits" should "the law" change, or some other weirdo crap they spewed. The law needed to be violated en masse once it became apparent the system was corrupt and so hopelessly broken that the only actions left to take was either break the law peacefully as possible or break the law violently and have a revolution. I can say it got close probably.

Back before my time, they tried to enforce "no, you can't ever have a drink, for any reason", and that was "the law", and the law was bullshit and it needed to be violated, en masse, and it was, because of basic human nature, that humans can see when things get to the "fuck you, that is total bullshit" stage. Humans can have a drink if they want to. I don't drink, don't like it, did for a long time but just quit, grew tired of it and prefer to be with all me wits all the time-but I don't care if other folks want to because it is their right to buy it or make it and drink it. The bullshit law eventually got changed back to medium non-bullshit. Because of mass "civil disobedience" which is a polite way of saying "you are full of bullshit and I no longer am going to respect your asinine "law".

It's something you can either see or not, two choices.

Right now copyright and patents are hopelessly broken, because of pigs and their profits, so they are being ignored, because it is basic human nature to not be gouged, lied to, taken advantage of, and so on.. People all over the developing world can't get affordable medicine to save their lives, so now they are just going "ok, enough,we've tried for years to be reasonable, but now that it is patented bullshit with extremely high artificial scarcity prices based on western income levels, which don't exist where we arem we are just going to make the medicines and fuck you and your gouging bullshit pig profits", because it is way past the obvious to anyone rational "bullshit stage" over there.

Now I personally don't download or violate any copyrights with music and movies, because I don't give two craps about hollywood movies and screeching popular music. I have more than what I want, bought it legit years ago, keep getting nailed with format changes, etc, so enough already, noticed the price gouging and bullshit "laws" that keep getting extended, so I quit buying their crap new. And if I can't get it over the air for free by the support of ads, either music or movies or shows, I just don't care, but I *certainly*, on general human principles can relate to people who are human and know they are being lied to, price gouged to the extreme, and forced into technological serfdom by the bullshit pigs of the media industry who want to keep technology to themselves and charge 1000% markups complete with more DRM and other bullshit buggywhip job protection practices and "laws". What do they expect, people will jump up and down and scream HALLELULAH! WE CAN KEEP BEING PRICE GOUGED OR IGNORED!

It used to be illegal for those pesky "commoners" to READ, that was "the law", it was bullshit and got violated and people learned anyway.

The redcoat pigs tried to say the early settlers had to pay taxes to some ignorant drunk royal "king" 3 thousand miles away for no representation, that was obvious bullshit,so the "law" got broken, along with enough redcoat heads to make the point stick.

And so on. Once stuff starts to get into the obvious bullshit stage, you can just expect it to be ignored/worked around/resisted, and depend

Re:It's Still Wrong

[grimJester]

Piracy IS theft.

Copyright violations ARE NOT theft.

a) wrong.

b) correct.

To elaborate, piracy is robbery, not theft, committed at sea. Stealing something from a ship without getting noticed in the act would not be piracy. Threatening the crew of a ship with a cutlass while helping yourself to their booty is piracy. Possibly rape, depending on your definition of "booty".

Would drive me batty...

[A_Non_Moose]

BSG's pilot, I watched a year or so after it aired after I downloaded it. Liked it and
watched "33" on Sci-fi's website for about 10 minutes before saying "screw this".

Real media (blech, but whatever) 3 inch window (c'mon, 640x480 days are long gone)
and of course frequent pauses for buffering.

Fired up BT client and all of the rips were from Aussie satellite and looked fantastic.
Also, they were 1/2 to 3/4 through season 1, so "what the heck" snagged them all before
they even showed on Sci-fi. Still watched them on Sci-fi (hey, Sci-fi/charter how about
a hi-def channel, or ffs a bit more gamme on your output, please! This is BSG, not
DooM3).

Still bought the DVDs.

Same thing with Dr Who, heck season 2 was worth it for the Daleks vs Cybermen exchange of
"Daleks would not be at war with the cybers, it would be more like pest control" (pause)
BWAAAHAHAHAHA.
Heck, I forget where Sci-fi is with Dr Who, but doesn't matter much as the DVD's are
released shortly after the British season ends, if I'm not mistaken. 80 bucks is
rather steep, but as I said, for some eps well worth the price.

Torchwood, too. Show grew on me quite quickly. Depending on season2, might actually
be worth it to get the DVDs.

Heck, the US/UK/Aus TV ppl would make a killing money/ratings-wise with an P2P/iTunes like
distribution without the bullshit delays and some easy way to unlock it/burn it.

Heck, the shows are going to get to viewers eyeballs one way or the other, and you'd think
something that benefits the studios bottom lines (rating/$) with them in the picture would
be better than out.

Global market whether they want to admit it or not, and as one quip by a brit I recall:
Yanks get Dr Who/Torchwood, and we get Sopranos and 24...fair trade.

Agreed, heck that 7month hiatus for BSG almost hurt, tho giving American Idol to the Aussies
first and us waiting a year sounds splendid.

Re:It's Still Wrong

[Matt_R]

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.

Re:It's Still Wrong

[Sj0]

"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.

Re:It's Still Wrong

[anagama]

This ignores the fact, whether illegal or not, that people will get the material when they want it. Laws and lawsuits notwithstanding, the media companies have a choice -- make some money and provide the content in a form people desire, or make little to no money and watch the people receive the content in a form they desire through unauthorized means.

Re:It's Still Wrong

[TeraCo]

It's true, it is nothing more than a justification. But strangely enough, we don't care.

I mean.. I'm pro-copyright in principle. I buy loads of stuff on itunes and I think there is a case for DRM (in that content producers should control what happens with their content) but ultimately, I'd rather download the TV shows now and buy the DVD's later than wait for Australian TV networks to get their shit together.

Ultimately downloading + DVD buying = Watching good TV shows earlier for me + Extra cash for the content producer + Australian TV stations getting fucked in the ass until they learn to quit screwing us around. It's win-win-win.

AU more ads than anywhere in the world

[pwylltwiceborn]

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........

Re:It's Still Wrong

[bonhomme_de_neige]

Anime is the best example of this. Fansub groups have been pirating Anime for a couple of decades, more so in the past 5 years as VCD/DVD and digital subtitles became practical. Most fansub groups pirate material until such time it becomes licensed in their country, which they feel they contributed to creating a market for material that otherwise did not exist. 100% justified. Whether it's right or wrong is up to the respective copyright holders, who in the past have shown tolerance to anime fan-sub groups. You can't say it's wrong, holding the copyright alone gives you the moral and legal authority to what you want. I can say, without a doubt, my spending on import material has increased as a result of these anime pirates.

To add to this, Madman Entertainment, the (pretty much) sole distributer and licensee of Anime works in Australia, decides what to license and distribute next by collecting feedback from fans & customers and examining the rate of fansub downloads. When 100,000 people a week are downloading the next episode of series Y, it's hard to argue a case that they shouldn't put it out there on DVD ASAP.

Furthermore, they are usually very nice to small groups wanting to use their content - if you're a small club and you want to show something licensed by Madman at a members' screening, all you normally need to do is write them a polite email asking for permission, and it will be granted (on the 'condition' that you give out some promotional posters, which they will provide, at the screening, or something equally benign - in fact when I was organising such things we had people offer to pay for the posters when they missed out).

Madman has been expanding at an enormous rate since its foundation and it would be absolutely blind for anyone to say they are not profitable. Of course, they are a monopoly distributor to a niche market - but at the same time having their intellectual property "pirated" in this way hasn't hurt them one bit, because they've embraced it and found a way to use it to its full potential. And what better way to do your market research than to let your customers do it for you ... for free?/pP

This is true of Anime in the US as well

[WillAffleckUW]

Right now you can watch the 200th episode of a series that is only on episode 42 in the US.

Information wants to be free.

Helpful hint for non-USians to use iTunes

[patio11]

You *can* download from US iTunes. You just need an American address, an email account which is not the same as the one linked to your AussieTunes account, and a US payment method. For the American address, you can use the White House for all I care (or, if this scares you for some reason, use Google maps to pick out a city/state at random and use "1234 Maple Street" with the appropriate zipcode). The email can be whatever the heck you want. The payment method is the only tricky part, and its a lot less tricky thanks to eBay. You see, lots of people who get gift certificates but really wanted cash put them up on eBay and some other sites. Buy some gift certificates from eBay (at a discount to face value), get the codes mailed to you, use them to buy from iTunes. Since you aren't inputting a credit card they won't have the computer verify your address because there is nothing to verify it against.

I keep two iTunes accounts around, one for Japan and one for the US. Thankfully they don't do geotracking or anything, and they'll both happily integrate into the same iPod/iTunes/etc.

(Incidentally, the White House address:

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
)

Re:Helpful hint for non-USians to use iTunes

[Anonymous Coward]

Terrorist! Handing out national secrets like that! The location of the White House is classified information! Wait until I tell Homeland Security about that!

*stomps off to call homeland security*

Re:Helpful hint for non-USians to use iTunes

[Neoncow]

So in order to avoid copywrite infringment, you have to commit fraud to obtain these shows?

Re:It's Still Wrong

[WilliamSChips]

Go read a freakin' book! I hate people always saying this whenever TV comes up. If all I wanted to do was read books I wouldn't even own a TV. But I do own a TV.

It's Illegal, but is it Wrong?

[batwingTM]

They are not stealing it. I don't know about the law down under, but in the states, if you receive a copy from someone who made the copy, not only have you not stolen it, you also have not received stolen goods nor violated copyright law. Please explain this whole stealing business.

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

Scheduling and generally crappy performance

[Craig Ringer]

Australian TV broadcasters tend to keep only loosely to broadcasting schedules, so don't expect to be able to just watch one show. You'd best start ten minutes beforehand. And, of course, everything is on long delays as compared to the US, and often broadcast with weird gaps and sometimes even out of order.

Of course, they might just cancel the show if there's a football or cricket match on. Sure, they knew it'd be on weeks in advance, but they didn't bother planning for it.

To top things off, the ads are incessant and REALLY BAD. We're talking mind-bogglingly awful patronising badly-made crap.

So ... why would anybody endure free to air TV in Australia? Until the Internet became a useful alternative, I just stopped watching it. Borrowed the odd DVD from friends, bought the odd DVD, watched more than the odd CD of AVIs, but that's about it - it just wasn't worth enduring the suck.

So, let me see - I could put up with that miserable crap, or I could otherwise obtain the show and get it:

• when I want it (on time)
• in better quality; and
• ad free

I'd pay for HD downloads of shows - at decent prices and without that DRM crap. Unfortunately, most services don't provide access for Australians or are TV-like ("you'll watch what we want when we want you to"). They're also all DRM'd or at best streaming-only. The DRM is pointless, since the shows are ALREADY available on the 'net, so it deeply confuses me as to why they bother.

Sure, it's dodgy, but until the media industry is willing to move a bit and meet people in the middle, I'll continue to use the alternative means available.

The delay goes both ways

[TavisJohn]

In the US we have to wait for shows like Doctor Who. The us is currently about 18 months behind on Doctor Who! And I know there is no real excuse for it! At one point we were only a week behind. The suddenly for a year and a half there was NO Doctor Who to be had!

So this works BOTH ways! I am a HUGE Doctor Who fan. So it sucks that the BEST way to see it is over BitTorrent networks.

Re:MOD DOWN (-1, urban legend)

[Builder]

Whoosh!