NBC Universal Drops iTunes

An anonymous reader writes "NBC Universal has cancelled its iTunes contract and will withdraw the television shows it currently offers through the service in December, when the current contract expires. This is a huge blow for the service, as NBC is the controlling interest in Apple customer-friendly intellectual properties like The Office, Battlestar Galactica, My Name is Earl and Heroes. From the article: 'The decision to withdraw the content follows disagreements between the two firms. Apple is thought to have rejected NBC's demands for more restrictive DRM and the introduction of flexible pricing. Apple was informed of NBC Universal's decision late last night. The report states that neither Apple nor NBC Universal would comment on the matter, but said they continue to talk, "free of acrimony".'" Hey NBC: I have chosen not to have cable, but want to pay you for Heroes. Guess what my only alternative will be if you pull it from iTunes?

Comments

Your only alternative?

[ShaunC]

Hey NBC: I have chosen not to have cable, but want to pay you for Heroes. Guess what my only alternative will be if you pull it from iTunes?

Uh, watching it for free over-the-air?

Re:Your only alternative?

[svendsen]

Ooooooooooooo you used logic and common sense in your first post....you're gonna get modded flamebait...ooooooo

In other news man who can not watch a TV show does NOT die of cancer.....

Re:Your only alternative?

[MrDoh1]

Buying them legally from a store might also be another idea, novel as it may be.

Re:Your only alternative?

[jedidiah]

Sorry NBC... I'm too far away from your transmission tower.

My suburban HOA won't allow for an antenna that can tune in your signal well enough.

Re:Your only alternative?

[Petey_Alchemist]

I think it's a fair point though. The studios, rather than hitting every market they can--DVD, iTMS, cable--have decided to forego certain sectors of the demand curve in order to curve demand as they want.

It's a battle between how studios want to deliver their content and how consumers want to receive it. Before the web, there weren't options. Now there are, and the studios have to realize that this is a battle they will eventually lose. They could offer cheap, protected, legal access to their content, but instead they're daring users to circumvent the law. Aquinas noted centuries ago that human law cannot compel the obedience of conscience. It's not like they don't know they're going to lose--they just don't want to realize it. Screw 'em.

Re:Your only alternative?

[Aladrin]

My over-the-air reception is crap. (I get a few channels with a lot of static.) My HD over-the-air is even worse. (I get 1 channel, sometimes, with a lot of corruption in the video and audio.)

I don't have any faith that this will get better because most people have cable (including me) and there really -isn't- another choice. (Satellite and cable are the same thing by different methods.)

In reality, the other options are:

A) Wait for it on DVD.
B) Watch it streamed from the site in a little 2" by 2" box.
C) Download it illegally and without commercials and in full quality, watchable wherever and whenever I like.

Gee... Wonder which most people would pick? If it wasn't for the waiting part, I'd cancel my cable service and buy the DVDs instead. I figure it'll cost the same per year (I only like a few shows) and it'll be better quality and more reliable. I just don't want to wait 6 months or a year and then try to talk to my friends about the eps... It doesn't work.

Re:Your only alternative?

[jedidiah]

It is a pretty novel idea. Most new shows aren't available like that. This particular show didn't even have that option until this week.

What about the rest of the NBC lineup?

Re:Your only alternative?

[Wanderer1]

You could stop watching the show. It's not an entitlement.

There are other businesses to support with your attention. That's my point. But breaking the US law (no matter how unfair the law is, and assuming you're in the US) shouldn't be the alternative. It isn't working. It's not a form of civil disobedience that seems to have the effect we need in order to call attention to unfair/unjust law.

W

Re:Your only alternative?

[gozar]

Sorry NBC... I'm too far away from your transmission tower. My suburban HOA won't allow for an antenna that can tune in your signal well enough.

They can't do that:

The rule (47 C.F.R. Section 1.4000) has been in effect since October 1996, and it prohibits restrictions that impair the installation, maintenance or use of antennas used to receive video programming. The rule applies to video antennas including direct-to-home satellite dishes that are less than one meter (39.37") in diameter (or of any size in Alaska), TV antennas, and wireless cable antennas. The rule prohibits most restrictions that: (1) unreasonably delay or prevent installation, maintenance or use; (2) unreasonably increase the cost of installation, maintenance or use; or (3) preclude reception of an acceptable quality signal.

Re:Your only alternative?

[gEvil (beta)]

They could offer cheap, protected, legal access to their content, but instead they're daring users to circumvent the law.

You mean like offering the shows for viewing on their website? Oh wait, they do that already. But people like Zonk have decided that that's not good enough for him, so instead he'll resort to pirating it. I seriously doubt Zonk was purchasing the show from iTMS when it was available anyways.

Re:Your only alternative?

[heinousjay]

They allow you to watch the episode for free on their website. How much more access do you need, exactly?

It doesn't matter how entitled you feel to the entertainment. The constitution grants the copyright holder the right to make the distribution decisions. No matter how much you want that entertainment, circumventing that right is an infringement.

Re:Your only alternative?

[heinousjay]

Gee... Wonder which most people would pick?

Probably watching it on DVD. Plenty of us realize that by pirating our entertainment, we essentially have cut out the ability for them to make more. Beyond that, lots of us also realize we aren't entitled to free entertainment, and frankly, it's not so important as to be a requirement.

In my opinion (here's where I become an asshole) it takes a particularly immature mind to believe that downloading commercially sold entertainment in an illegal fashion is somehow the morally superior alternative.

Re:Your only alternative?

[kidgenius]

Umm....how about:

D) Get an antenna and view NBC via OTA hi-def?

There are options here, and they aren't that tough if you are really don't want cable, yet you want to watch Heroes.

Re:Your only alternative?

[jedidiah]

When the law is STUPID, it should be ignored.

We are AMERICANS, not sheep.

I get the show "legitmately". I still like to download it due to the fact that DirectTV over compresses it's network channels.

In the end, it boils down to wanting to arrest people for eating their egg from the wrong end.

Re:Your only alternative?

[Anonymous Coward]

As other posters have rightly pointed out, the free/ad-supported shows streamed from the website basically suck big rocks, quality-wise. Actually, watching a few eps of Heroes that way was what got me to buy the whole season off of iTunes -- because I wanted it with good quality, and no ads. I'm not morally outraged that NBC has pulled it -- they're welcome to cut their throats however they like. But I probably will d/l full-rez, ad-free video instead of watching the crap teaser-quality stuff on the NBC site. Yes, as the grandparent says, NBC is effectively daring me to do this, whether you like it or not. As others have pointed out, this is just market and technological reality.

By the way, do you know Zonk personally, that you're in a position to call him a liar? Or are you just being a knee-jerk stuffed shirt DRM apologist and going on the attack?

Re:Your only alternative?

[iapetus]

Wait, we get to choose which laws we obey now? Sweet.

Re:Your only alternative?

[squiggleslash]

And as the GP said, the FCC will step in should any home owners association attempt to enforce a rule like that against the installation of an antenna. In every way, what you just described contravenes the FCC rule.

Sure, some HOAs will try anyway, because of a combination of ignorance of the law and the fact that HOAs are generally run by power-crazed jerks. One complaint to the FCC will prevent the HOA from continuing.

Re:Your only alternative?

[reanjr]

Or on XBox Live. They just started putting episodes of Heroes up there last week. Seems NBC already found a new channel to replace iTunes...

Re:Your only alternative?

[amper]

Here's a nice PDF from Uncle Charlie:

http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/consumerdish. pdf

Re:Your only alternative?

[kidgenius]

No, they can't. They may try, but they are prohibited under Federal Law from doing that. I think that Federal Law trumps some stupid little HOA bylaws. I thankfully have an understanding HOA. They know this, and when I went to put up a satellite dish, they told me where they would like it installed so as to be as unobtrusive as possible. But, they knew that if reception could not be achieved from that spot that they would have to deal with it. Fortunately, it worked just fine where they wanted it.

Re:Your only alternative?

[Shrubbman]

In my opinion (here's where I become an asshole) it takes a particularly immature mind to believe that downloading commercially sold entertainment in an illegal fashion is somehow the morally superior alternative.

But in all fairness, the way I read it he wasn't even claiming it to be the morally superior method of watching, just the most convenient.

Re:Your only alternative?

[garcia]

Probably watching it on DVD. Plenty of us realize that by pirating our entertainment, we essentially have cut out the ability for them to make more.

That makes no fucking sense whatsoever, especially for shows on NBC. I could see if you were talking about cable network shows like Rescue Me or Monk but you're talking about free OTA shows here. If "pirating" NBC shows is somehow affecting their sponsors, then DVR users are also pirates in your eyes or is that somehow different?

I have no sympathy for the networks losing money on this. They need to come up with less expensive shows (no one should be paid $1+ million an episode for ANY TV show).

Re:Your only alternative?

[miskatonic alumnus]

I agree, laws like the DMCA are misguided and benefit the wrong people. But they have been voted into law, and the best way to fight them is to try and get them either voted back out of law, or ruled by the court to be invalid

Yeah, that's worked real well for the proponents of marijuana legalization. AFAIK, I have one life --- one. I'm not going to waste it in vain trying to change laws drawn up by millionaires. I actually don't have a problem with copyright. I do have a problem with it being extended until past the end of time, and with DRM and the DMCA, etc. These sons of bitches go too far. And who benefits? The citizenry? Of course not. Now, the ultimate seat of authority in the U.S. is we the people not we the handful of privileged wealthy with access to the higher levels of lawmaking machinery. It would appear that we the people want some changes.

Re:Your only alternative?

[NtroP]

You mean like offering the shows for viewing on their website? Oh wait, they do that already. But people like Zonk have decided that that's not good enough for him, so instead he'll resort to pirating it. I seriously doubt Zonk was purchasing the show from iTMS when it was available anyways.

I can not get television, cable or satellite TV where my house is situated in Alaska. I can barely get 1 Mb/s DSL. I have chosen to go the route of purchasing my shows off iTunes and watching them on my AppleTV. I do NOT want to watch the shows in a fucking browser window, in Flash or stutter-streamed, on my laptop! Those shows that I am interested in that I can't get legally from iTunes, I choose to get "illegally" from Bittorrent or from friends/coworkers who are able to record the shows. I put illegally in quotes because in this case it's truly a victimless crime. I want to pay for it, but they won't let me so I'm not taking revenue away from them. I am also not re-sharing it (any more than I can help since I don't seed with bittorrent) so I'm not keeping anyone else from buying it.

If the greedy fucks at NBC don't want my $2 per episode for Heroes and the Office, etc., I'll be glad to pirate them and won't feel the least bit guilty about it. I know that I don't have a "right" to watch the show, but if it's a show that interests me and everyone else is talking about it at work, I want to watch it - close to the time they watch it, not a season later when it comes out on DVD. The only reason I won't be able to watch it now is that they want to charge me more for content that is more restricted/broken than before and Apple is rightfully calling bullshit. Since I only download the shows to my iPod and AppleTV, restrictions aren't a big deal for me (it's the principal of the thing!), but I am not willing/can't afford to pay more than $2 for an episode and if they bundle crap I don't want, I won't buy it at all - I *will* pirate it. Sue me!

They are just proving over and over again that pirated goods are far superior to their DRM'd crap anyway. It's cheaper, often available sooner, in better quality and gives me the freedom to use it as I see fit. They are driving *me*, a grown adult and professional, their paying customer, away to piracy. I say good riddance to them. Stick to your guns Apple! I want to buy shows a-la-cart if I want and I am not willing to pay more! I will reward those studios that see the light. The rest can take their chances with draconian DRM, end-to-end Vista-like content controlled crap and the like. The deserve what they will get!

Any one have a contact email for these pricks?

Re:Your only alternative?

[mhall119]

So you're willing to violate NBC's copyright, but not willing to violate your HOA rules?

How is it that your HOA can restrict your means of obtaining this content for free, and you're OK with that, but NBC pulls one venue for obtaining this content for a fee, and you feel violated?

Re:Your only alternative?

[mgblst]

I will never buy another DVD, the DVD is one of the most annoying formats ever. At least with VHS I can fast forward past the boring warnings.

Re:Your only alternative?

[HoosierPeschke]

Riiiiiiight, because market forces are absolutely pointless so we shouldn't do anything about anything because it might go away. Maybe if more people revolted against the media controlling culture they would change to accommodate us. Supply is supposed to try and meet the demand, not the other way around.

Re:Your only alternative?

[p7]

He can wait for the DVD release, he can use an antenna or stop watching. The implied 'I'm going to have to illegally download it.' sounds kinda whiny and entitled, especially since TV is pretty much the least restricted medium out there. Even high definition capture cards can be purchased at fairly reasonable prices.

Change this from a TV show to a software package released under the GPL, would we be as self righteous about violating the licensing.

Re:Your only alternative?

[timeOday]

You could stop watching the show. It's not an entitlement.

You could stop watching the show, but to NBC that's no different than pirating it.

I wouldn't be surprised to see NBC come crawling back to iTunes. NBC will miss the money they were making on iTunes. People don't schedule their lives around TV any more.

Re:Your only alternative?

[tehcyder]

If the greedy fucks at NBC don't want my $2 per episode for Heroes and the Office, etc., I'll be glad to pirate them and won't feel the least bit guilty about it. I know that I don't have a "right" to watch the show, but if it's a show that interests me and everyone else is talking about it at work, I want to watch it - close to the time they watch it, not a season later when it comes out on DVD

So in other words, you want whatever you feel like, whenever you want it, and if you can't get it legally you don't care how you get it. This is known as throwing your toys out of the pram where I live.

I hope you're lying about the work thing and are only ten years old, because to call your attitude "adolescent" does a disservice to normal teenagers.

Re:Your only alternative?

[Anonymous Coward]

"But breaking the US law (no matter how unfair the law is, and assuming you're in the US) shouldn't be the alternative."

  That might be the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Law doesn't mean right and wrong. Look at some of the U.S. laws we've had in the past, slavery, segregation, etc. I'm not saying EVERY law (or even this one) should be broken, but abiding by a law, no matter how unfair, is not a good idea.

Re:Your only alternative?

[calviin]

Isn't the other alternative to just buy it on DVD?

Re:Your only alternative?

[Televiper2000]

It's more a matter of the DVD then competing directly with the TV show. If people know they only have to wait a month to get the DVD they're more likely to forgo the hassle of watching the show weekly and just wait for the DVD. That's great for us but probably cuts quite a few points off the advertising dollars which are mostly likely paid on the shows ability to draw an audience. It's simple economics. An early DVD release would have a fairly aggressive impact on a shows ability to draw an audience. They're not just trying to make money off the show, they're also trying to make money for the network, and the local affiliates. If you're willing to wait a month to pick up 24 on DVD then you're more likely to be checking out the competition at that particular hour. The DVD release is set to a marketing schedule. Besides, I think most people would be smart enough just to wait for the cheaper boxed set at the end anyway.

Re:Your only alternative?

[Babbster]

It would appear that we the people want some changes.

Now where the hell do you get that idea? From the shrill minority who populate Slashdot, the relatively small group that supports the Electronic Frontier Foundation or the huge number of people who pay $100/month for cable and buy DVDs every other week?

I'd like to think that people are up in arms over the fact that "Steamboat Willie" is still covered by copyright, but the truth is that most people don't care, or even know, about the situation. If "we the people" actually cared that much about getting US copyright laws fixed, it would come up in the mainstream media more than once or twice a year, and politicians would probably address the issue. As it is, "the people" probably think that the copy of Tale of Two Cities they bought from the bookstore last week is covered by copyright, and they don't care.

Re:Your only alternative?

[LunaticTippy]

I don't think that a mindless devotion to the letter of the law is helpful. I've performed acts of sodomy in states with sodomy laws, I have gone over the speed limit, I have broken drug possession laws. Yet I have harmed nobody and done nothing unethical.

In fact our society is becoming more and more fascist. Everybody breaks laws all the time, it simply cannot be avoided. Having citizens always subject to arrest for some reason or other is one of the tools of a fascist regime.

This country would be a much sadder place if everybody who found laws offensive just sucked it up. From the founding fathers to slavery, prohibition, equal rights - I feel I owe a debt of gratitude to countless people courageous enough to break unfair laws.

I don't mean to glamorize copyright battles by comparing them to obviously greater things, but I guess now that our basic rights have been established (not that we can be complacent, fascism is not far away) we can shift our fights to luxuries.

You can obey our media overlords and bought-and-sold legislature all you want, but please don't claim a moral high ground over someone who does not.

Re:Your only alternative?

[bentcd]

Wait, we get to choose which laws we obey now? Of course you do. It's called free will. Now, your choice does not come with a complimentary "get out of jail free" card so choose wisely.

Re:Your only alternative?

[shoptroll]

So why do they bother putting stuff up on iTunes then? Heroes episodes were hitting iTunes with 48 hours of the original air date. It doesn't take a genius to take a look at the cable bill and then look at the Apple TV and decide that possible Apple TV + iTunes might actually satisfy their needs. Especially when you can pull your local news + forecast off the standard airwaves or the internet. Or the radio or the newspaper.

Re:Your only alternative?

[phcrack]

I'm currently based overseas, without access to decent television. Since they don't allow you to watch them online unless you're in the US, iTunes was my only option for watching the shows while still giving back to the people making them. Americans complain and complain about people overseas pirating stuff, but continue to refuse to sell it overseas. I figure, if you don't give someone a way to pay for the stuff you're selling, what right do you have to complain when they don't.

I make things for a living that people might want to pirate, and would feel bad about it if someone was pirating, I shouldn't pirate either. I rent movies I want to see, buy software I want to use, and try to let others know that not paying for these things is stealing. I also don't tell people from other countries that they can't buy my products though.

Re:Your only alternative?

[robbiethefett]

This country would be a much sadder place if everybody who found laws offensive just sucked it up. That's why I'm advocating using every weapon in the free man's arsenal to change the laws. I'm definitely not advocating just sitting around and letting the laws be unjust or offensive and leaving it at that. This country may look more and more fascist with each passing day, but it is still a democracy, and it can still function as one. That is, of course, if we as citizens act as citizens of a democracy, and stand up for our rights and our freedoms, rather than just ignoring the laws we don't like.

I have broken drug possession laws. Yet I have harmed nobody and done nothing unethical. As have I, so I guess I'm caught being hypocritical on that front, but I have been involved with a great many demonstrations, have written countless letters, and have done about as much as i possibly can to stand up and try to make harmless plant matter legalized. I'm not claiming moral high-ground here, I'm just trying to point out that yes, I do try to use the ideals of democracy to right the wrongs and all that jazz. If everyone went thru the proper channels, we wouldn't have to ignore laws, because the laws would reflect the common interests of the people.
I know it's a fools errand, but I'll be damned if I can think of a better way.

You can obey our media overlords and bought-and-sold legislature all you want, but please don't claim a moral high ground over someone who does not. I claim no moral high ground, nor do i obey our media overlords.. I spend very little of my hard earned bread on media garbage, and I spend even less effort seeking it thru illegal means. To be frank, very little of the shit on TV or in theaters interests me in the least. I don't think I'm "above" it or some shit like that, I just couldn't care less about it when there's so many other ways to entertain yourself.

Re:Your only alternative?

[amper]

I can not get television, cable or satellite TV where my house is situated in Alaska. I can barely get 1 Mb/s DSL.

I have to assume here that you didn't move to, or remain in, Alaska because of the excellent quality of the communications services, so I have to wonder why it is that you're so pissed off about this. I can think of any number of advantages to living in Alaska that make good TV service pale in comparison, and I'm sure if you put your mind to it, that you can, too.
But seriously, you're going to turn to copyright infringement just because you have difficulty obtaining television content? You're going to break civil laws just because you're pissed off that you can't spend money on a faceless corporation who is under no obligation to provide *you* with entertainment? Your priorities seem at little strange to me.

Re:Your only alternative?

[Myopic]

Um, mods, that post isn't funny, it's insightful. I own exactly zero DVDs, because of exactly that reason. On the flipside, I own maybe two or three hundred CDs, lovingly archived in my closet, because that is an open, free, high-quality format. I have furthermore never paid for crippled content from iTMS, but happily download the podcasts (bonus that they're free).

Look, if I pay for something, I expect to own it and I expect that it will do whatever I tell it to do within its functionality range. Any product which is artificially limited only draws my ire. Why the fuck can't I fast-forward a DVD the same way I could a VHS? That's bullshit. Well, fuck 'em. Here's the equation:

free+anytime+anywhere+howiwant+immoral > $$$+whentheysay+wheretheysay+howtheysay+moral

They can't just fall back on saying

immoral < moral

and expect me to give up the other four criteria, which are the four dominant criteria.

Re:Your only alternative?

[amper]

Yeah, that's worked real well for the proponents of marijuana legalization.

Well, the problem with marijuana is that not only do a large proportion of people in this country not have any problem with attempting to enforce their stunted versions of morality upon the general population, but that those nanny-state proponents generally do not have the mental capacity to understand the actual issues involved, whether those issues are corporate welfare/pork sponsorship of Cannabis criminalization, the costs to our society for attempting the subsequent "War On Drugs", the incredible loss of revenue and resources due to our inability to legally grow Cannabis sativa, or other problems that result from these misguided policies, such as the suffering inflicted upon those whose use of marijuana (and while we're at it, we may as well include Papaver somniferum) whose greatly reduce the physical pains of dealing with chronic disease. I would hesitate to place marijuana in the same category as copyright infringment.

Re:Your only alternative?

[sacrilicious]

Wait, we get to choose which laws we obey now?

Replace "get to" with "have to". As the GP pointed out, we are all being systematically criminalized. You need to think for yourself now... try it.

Re:Your only alternative?

[p7]

I'm not overstating things at all. I'm sorry that you can't get the shows legitimately till years later, but that doesn't give you the right to download it. I live in the US, and am a fan of Dr. Who and a few other BBC shows. I currently don't have access to them, am I downloading them, no because I wouldn't want people ignoring the license or rights of my IP. Soon I am going to be getting rid of my cable and am going to lose access to about 90% of the shows I like watching. I won't be downloading them either. So in my opinion my alternatives are realistic, your stealing is the only remaining option is what I mean by entitlement. Do you feel that people without TV's would be justified in stealing them so they can watch the TV shows they are entitled to? If they can't afford one it is the only realistic option.

For all we know, NBC is working on or has an alternate venue for the shows on the web. Obviously NBC didn't find the current licensing deal with Apple to their liking. Should NBC be forced to bow to Apple, since they are the major online media distributor? My take is no they shouldn't. I also would bet that we will see most of those shows available in some manner online in the near future.

Re:Your only alternative?

[heinousjay]

Yes, obviously people pirating movies and TV shows dislike the product. That makes perfect sense.

Re:Your only alternative?

[mosb1000]

"The only reason for buying from iTunes I'm guessing is so you can download it to your system and watch it off line"

iTunes doesn't have commercials.

Re:Your only alternative?

[Grishnakh]

The GPL parallels broadcast TV amazingly well. The GPL essentially says you can access and do whatever you want to the IP. However if you modify it and redistribute it, you must 'pay' for it by allowing others free access to your IP. Broadcast TV you can get for free. However if you want to redistribute it, you have to follow their terms. Just like the GPL does.

Sorry, no. The GPL's terms are binding because there's LICENSE file in the download telling you what your rights are WTG redistribution. I've never seen any type of license notice when I watch TV shows over-the-air. DVD movies have FBI and no-copying notices, yes, but TV shows do not. So I think your analogy is bad.

Re:Your only alternative?

[LunaticTippy]

You seem pretty reasonable and I think we agree on many points, but I have to call you on claiming a moral high ground.

In your reply to someone who advocated simply ignoring unjust laws you said

Congratulations, you are what is wrong with America.

You then proceed to compare these ideas to a child molesters.

Whatever you do, DO NOT make a habit of spreading the cancerous idea that anyone can ignore any law at any time as it suits them.

This certainly seems like you are placing yourself on a pedestal and judging his opinion.

I'm a big fan of advocating change and I do so about things that I feel strongly about. However, our political system and climate are imperfect and we all must live in the present. I think principled disobedience of laws is a valid form of protest, and is perhaps even beneficial to the larger cause. If everyone obeyed media companies every whim things would be much worse for us now.

The only reason we have things like iTunes and DRM-free legal downloads is because piracy is so rampant. The media companies did not want to give us these things and would not have done so of their own free will. I suspect the MPAA learned from the RIAA's experience with piracy and has done a much better job. Within a few years of computer/bandwidth becoming cheap to distribute movies we already have numerous legal (and some free) sources of downloadable video. Without the threat of cheap and ubiquitous piracy the MPAA would certainly have preferred to keep to their comfortable and profitable theatrical release/dvd /broadcast only arrangement.

We should all thank pirates for giving us these things. Without these noble creatures we would have no legal downloads, no price constraints, no motivation for developing new distribution models. They are truly advancing the ideal of a more just copyright climate by risking financial ruin for demonstrable gains, while more timid souls impotently write letters and vote libertarian.

Re:Your only alternative?

[robbiethefett]

I definitely agree that pirates have played a large role in enacting change in the way content is distributed. I certainly agree that this change is for the better. I still can't advocate selectively breaking laws as they suit us. I know it comes off as claiming moral high ground but it's really just a matter of perspective. To me, when someone says "I know it's illegal, but I do it anyway" they really mean "yea, but I'm special." So my mentality is that I need to always keep in mind that I am not special, and that we must all follow the same laws. I think the whole spirit of democracy can be boiled down to one phrase: "We're all in this together." That's really what is going thru my head when I say that selectively breaking laws hurts everyone.

As i re-read that, I guess I still come off as taking the moral high ground.. oh well, fuck it. Someone has to play that part, I guess I'll just accept it. But I'm really not a dick, i swear.

Re:Your only alternative?

[CleverBoy]

Episodes don't stay up indefinitely on the website. If you want to watch the previous season, you're probably out of luck. Moreover, I hate their website. They make it a little difficult to just play the damn show. I had to click around to find a version without the "commentary" running alongside it. Pain in the ass.

If you want to watch it on your iPod of Apple TV, the only alternative is to simply record it yourself or if you don't get good reception, grab it from... some other source. The point is of course, that trying to charge more per episode than it should cost, and withdrawing from a major distribution source is more than enough reason for people to obtain illegal copies. Which is highly ironic, given that NBC has been quoting that most iPods are mostly filled with illegal content. Which I think is a falsehood and insulting. My iPod is filled with music I've collected over years and with podcasts and videos I've downloaded from iTunes. Illegal? Nice try. They want Apple to pay for being successful on "their backs", like the cable companies wanting to charge Google. iTunes exists alongside all the other avenues, not instead of. iTunes won't stop someone from buying the DVD. It stops people from abandoning shows with no time to watch them. NBC wants to confuse customers and spin them around to see if they can shake more money out.

"Heroes, yes... that's $4.99 per episode, but if you act now, you can by Heroes for $1.99 if you buy three episodes of My Name is Earl!" Dude, no. I just want Heroes. "Then, go to our website." What? No, I just want it on my iPhone. "I can't help you sorry." I guess I'll help myself. "What was that?" I said, I guess I'll record your sure with my EyeTV and use by USB transcoder to put it on my iPhone automatically. I didn't want to have to do it this way. "What! No, you need to pay us for that!" Then sell it to me on iTunes, bitch! "Sniff. But we don't wanna! iTunes forces us to simply provide desireable content. That sucks! We really need to confuse people!"

Nice editorializing

[heinousjay]

Hey NBC: I have chosen not to have cable, but want to pay you for Heroes. Guess what my only alternative will be if you pull it from iTunes? Watch it over the air as NBC is a broadcast station? Failing that, watch it on NBC.com? Failing that, buy it on DVD?

Nothing to see here

[djdavetrouble]

Please move along.......

Well, I don't know about other shows

[Kierthos]

But I watched most of Season 1 of Heroes on their official site. Here's hoping Season 2 continues that way.

Re:Well, I don't know about other shows

[teh_commodore]

A lot of broadcast corps have been offering pretty decent quality shows on their site. My wife and I watched all of Heroes s1 online, several episodes of Fox's Stand-Off, Every episode of The Black Donneley's, and my wife watched the whole first season of Ugly Betty. I believe that covers three networks. It's a really nice free thing they offer, and there are fewer commercial interruptions than if you watched it broadcast. With only a VGA cable, I hooked up my Dell laptop to my Samsung TV, and watched the whole thing on a 32" TV instead of a 15" monitor. And please, if you've never utilized the service, don't knock the quality off-hand, because it's actually pretty good. I'm all for fighting the man and what-not, but let's at least be intelligent enough to give credit where credit is due.

Use an Antenna

[Jaguar777]

Hey NBC: I have chosen not to have cable, but want to pay you for Heroes. Guess what my only alternative will be if you pull it from iTunes? I know you meant to imply your only alternative would be illegally downloading the show, but you have plenty of options if you really must watch Heroes.

1) Use an Antenna. It's called broadcast TV.
2) Go to a friends house. You do have friends right?
3) Go out to a public place that has Heroes on their TV.
4) Wait to buy the DVD's.

Most of these options don't even involve paying NBC.

Yes, a little hyperbole in my reply, but no more than "Guess what my only alternative will be".

Re:Use an Antenna

[LWATCDR]

1. What if you can get an NBC station with your Antenna. I know that I can not where I live.
2. I think your friends will get a little ticked off with the weekly vists.
3. HUH????
4. So I need to wait until the end of the season.

I think NBC is makeing a huge mistake.
1. More DRM on iTunes? People you BROADCAST IT OVER THE AIR. I make DRM free recordings of your shows on my computer NOW! They Torrents are out NOW. They are not coming from iTunes.
2. Flexible pricing? You mean jack up the pricing. Oh well. As I said I can get it for free now. I guess I will start recording more shows with my computer and buy less with iTunes.

Dumb...

Re:Use an Antenna

[heinousjay]

2. I think your friends will get a little ticked off with the weekly vists.

You have pretty shitty friends if they can't handle you for one hour a week. Or you're a pretty shitty friend. Either way.

Re:Use an Antenna

[morissm]

Zonk's point is not that iTunes is his only alternative but rather that it is the only convenient one. I, for one, am not willing to wait several months for the show to be released on DVD nor I am willing or able to guarantee that I will be home or free at the moment Heroes airs.

TV is free yet a lot of people spend valuable dollars on extra bandwidth, go through the trouble downloading torrents and watch TV in their uncomfortable chair. Why? Because despite all of that they find it more convenient than traditionnal TV.

Stronger DRM won't stop illegal TV show downloads (in fact, it has nothing to do with it). Affordable convenient legal downloads will.

P.S. A DVR might fit the bill but, depending on your viewing habit, it can be a whole lot more expensive than a season pass on iTunes.

Existing purchases...

[Thwomp]

So what will happen to people's existing purchases after the cut-off date? Will they continue to work or will Apple just do what Google has done with their premium video service?

don't worry - you will have your chance to PAY

[zoomcloud]

NBC will provide alternative means to pay for and download your shows. Expect a M$-based solution, which will provide the DRC they're looking for.

Only Alternative

[popo]

Buy DVD's?

Rent from NetFlix?

Watch it on your Xbox 360?

Or use that crazy thing called an "antenna"?

Universal are smart and this is all they could do.

[kiwioddBall]

Lets face it, Universal own the content, and content rules. They haven't been able to distribute the content how they want with Apple, so they are calling Apples bluff. The thing is, if they market another service well enough (and it does come down to marketing) and that service has the content, then they will get exactly what they want - more than one service selling prime content and therefore a competitive market for selling content meaning better margin for them.

Universal are in a losing situation by having their content in only one marketplace.

As much as I love Apple and their ethics, it was overdue. The only way that Universal can lose is if they fail to market the new service they have selling the content.

OP is a bit naive thinking he won't be able to buy Universal content any more!!

Yet another option

[MarkGriz]

Maybe get out of the house and find a girlfriend.

Failing that, at least spend more time surfing for porn.

Err, try again?

[Nodamnnicknamesavial]

"Hey NBC: I have chosen not to have cable, but want to pay you for Heroes. Guess what my only alternative will be if you pull it from iTunes?"

Getting cable.

I'm broke, and I have CHOSEN to not get a job, so my only alternative is to steal? Rubbish.

I paid for iTunes because it gave me what I wanted

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure there will be other alternatives like antenna or going somewhere else but the fact remains:

1) I paid for a ton of NBC shows on itunes the last few seasons, literally spending hundreds of dollars. I did this because I liked having them in reasonably high def, commercial free, reasonably close to the time of initial broadcast and using a program I already was comfortable with little or no work on my part past the initial purchase.
2) I had planned to do it again.
3) Now I probably will either not watch the shows at all. The next most likely solution is to download a torrent.

Its not that there arn't other ways to watch it. Its that none of the other ways to watch it provide the right mix of convienence, quality and lack of interruption. Having the shows on itunes didn't give me exactly what I wanted, but it gave me enough that I was willing to pay for it. If I have to install another program(and its associated additional drm and god knows what else), or put up with ads, or put up with low quality broadcasts, or put up with having to watch it at a specific time, or put up with a cable provider/dvr, or wait 6-18 months for a DVD or any of that other stuff, then its just not worth the time or the money.

I want it on my computer, when its released, with minimal hassle and no interruption. For that service, I'm willing to pay. Otherwise, its not worth it.

No low-cost option left

[Anonymous Coward]

Watch it for free over-the-air? No such thing in Canada (the channels list is pathetic).
Watch it free on NBC's website? No, they filter IPs and only allow americans.
Buy it on the iTunes Store? Nope, we still don't have movies and TV shows in the Canadian store.

My only other options are either cable or satellite, and both are forcing us to pay for "packages" that include 200 channels we don't want to get the 10 channels we want.

Guess what's my other alternative?

Re:No low-cost option left

[OverlordQ]

Guess what's my other alternative?

NOT WATCHING IT.

God damn I'm tired of these replies, last time I checked there wasn't an inalienable right to get every single TV show you wanted whenever you want it when you want it. So you can get it where you live? Well then consider $TVSHOW an opportunity cost for living where you do.

Buck up and stop whining about it.

Doctor Evil said it best

[Dachannien]

Why make billions, when we can make..... millions?

more restrictive DRM?

[mmeister]

One of the reasons given was that NBC Universal wanted to add more restrictive DRM to the shows and Apple said no.

If Universal would win that battle, then WE ALL lose out. Remember, this is the same network that f*cked with its time schedule so shows ended at 8:31 and such to try and f*ck Tivo owners. That shows you just what they think about the viewer. I'm sure the new DRM ideas would have us in mind, as in how can we make this experience more painful for the content viewer.

This will just make it more likely that I won't watch NBC shows. I am personally tired of networks dictating what time and where I should be watching their content. That's so last century thinking. Yeah, you can go to NBC.com, if you don't mind being tethered to streaming content, which sucks if you're not on the net when you have time/want to watch a show.

Accuracy

[samkass]

I know I'm not new here, but I'd just like to say that the article is self-contradictory. NBC is not pulling anything off of iTunes for months at the earliest, and contract negotiations to keep them on the site continue.

In other words, this article can be summarized as "NBC, looking for some leverage in ongoing negotiations with Apple over iTunes, has called reporters to float the idea of pulling out of iTunes altogether."

Holy mealy-mouthed buzzwords

[p3d0]

NBC is the controlling interest in Apple customer-friendly intellectual properties How about "NBC owns the copyright to Apple-customer-friendly shows"?

re: iTunes/QT for Windows

[King_TJ]

I've got to say, I'm pretty lost as to why some people keep making these comments?

I know iTunes and Windows Vista had some issues - but that's not really shocking, considering how many other things aren't quite Vista compatible.

Overall though, geez... Quicktime player has been used in Windows since version 3.1, as a de-facto standard for playing multimedia files off CD. It's not exactly something Apple just "slapped together to say they had a Windows version".

Safari for Windows? Nothing special there, but it's also a very first attempt at doing it for the platform, and it's FREE software too. As others pointed out, it's probably relased right now mainly to allow easier development for the iPhone from a Windows box, plus giving people the option to use the same browser they have on their Mac, if they so desire. Apple's not auto-deleting your copies of Firefox and IE 7 just because you installed it or anything, so why the big fuss?

Re:Universal are smart and this is all they could

[chad.koehler]

I fail to see how a competitive market is better (better margins) for the competitors. I see how it could be better for the consumer, but I would think the competitors themselves would much prefer a monopoly.

The option everyone's forgetting

[KingSkippus]

If iTunes isnt willing to play, maybe NBC has some other thoughts on how to get the shows out there.

Of course there are, but they all revolve around NBC wanting more money and more control over how, where and when you can watch their shows.

I bought every season available of Heroes, Battlestar Galactica, The Office, and My Name is Earl on iTunes. I like the shows, but apparently, that's not good enough. Apparently, NBC wants me to be so desperate to watch the shows that I would support their outright greed.

Well I for one am not a slave to my television. Unless NBC shapes up and gives me the opportunity to pay a reasonable price for seeing their shows in a timely manner and in a fashion that I wish, I guess I won't be watching them any more. Oh well, I guess that frees up more time that I can use for other interesting things.

These networks and media companies just kill me. They act like if they only provide one expensive and inconvenient legal avenue for me to watch their shows, I'll just have to suck it up because they say so. Then you have the people like the submitter who imply that they'll just resort to illegal avenues to watch the show.

Everyone seems to be forgetting option number three, the option I'll be choosing should NBC keep this silliness up: Simply don't watch the shows. Frankly, it looks to me like that is NBC's ultimate goal, and if that's the case, I'm happy to oblige.

Re:The option everyone's forgetting

[SlappyBastard]

"Apparently, NBC wants me to be so desperate to watch the shows that I would support their outright greed."

I'm judging you never watched the movie Wall Street... greed is good.

Re:The option everyone's forgetting

[hackstraw]

Of course there are, but they all revolve around NBC wanting more money and more control over how, where and when you can watch their shows.

This is wrong. NBC gets essentially 100% of their money from advertisers. Broadcasting stuff for free over the airwaves simply does not spontaneously generate money.

NBC attempts to make shows that people want to watch for pride/personal reasons, and by having popular shows, they can then charge extra for advertising on those shows.

I would assume that the iTunes downloads don't have these ads, and even if 2 million mild manored geeks pay for and download the thing, its simply a waste of time for NBC to even think about.

Here is a listing of the cost per 30 second slot on TV: http://www.frankwbaker.com/2005-2006_ad_rates.htm

At $1.99/download, even if every penny went to NBC, its still not worth the effort. This is compounded when you consider syndication, which downloads pretty much circumvent altogether.

Re:The option everyone's forgetting

[forgoil]

The bittorrent versions comes without commercials. That is what geeks watch. Their choice isn't between ads and $1.99/episode. Their choice is between $0.00/episode bittorrent or $1.99/episode iTunes, because this is what people want:

1. They want it freakin' now, no waiting, not even for a few days (rules out DVD)
2. No ads killing the flow/suspense/illusion of the show (fuck you TV!)
3. Straight to their TV (AppleTV, xBox, WMC, HTPC, MythTV, etc)

iTunes is 2.5/3 (because of the DRM), DVD 1/3, TV 1/3...

Look what iTunes did to music, maybe it could do the same to TV series. I'd love for a production company to release their TV series directly to iTunes, no TV... (blu-ray/HD-DVD would be nice though, for rewatching it :)).

aw screw it, rant off!

Re:The option everyone's forgetting

[beckerist]

Want to bet this has something to do with it?

Re:The option everyone's forgetting

[lambadomy]

What are you talking about? Of course it is worthwhile if they get the whole $1.99. Look at the chart. They don't even get $300k for 30 seconds for the #10 show. Even if we assumed that every one of these shows we're talking about here did pull in $300k/30 seconds an episode, here's what we get:

Half hour show - 8 minutes of commercials - 4.8 million dollars. We'll double that for the hour shows.

2 million geeks...$1.99 each...even if they only get half of that they're increasing their revenue by 10 or 20%. The only way this could be bad for them is if their advertising revenue goes down at the same time (due to lower ratings).

Anyway, the most likely explanation of all of this isn't that it isn't worthwhile, it's that they've got their own distribution system coming down the pipe.

Re:The option everyone's forgetting

[Just Some Guy]

I bought every season available of Heroes, Battlestar Galactica, The Office, and My Name is Earl on iTunes.

Well I for one am not a slave to my television.

Ummm....

Re:The option everyone's forgetting

[mjboyle]

I'm not sure that math scans... Taking ER as an example from your chart, a 30 second spot is $400,000. Assume 20 minutes of ads (an overestimate, given that show run about 42-43 minutes and some of the ads are for other shows on the same channel), that works out to revenue of $16 million. The same season they got about http://loneswordsman.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!D545 4D646CBAAB6B!198.entry12.3 million viewers or about $1.30 per viewer. I believe that the wholesale rate for TV shows http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/19/steve-jobs-figh ting-for-9-99-itunes-movie-downloads/is 70%, so if the TV show costs 1.99 to download, 1.393 will go to the studio. Therefore, the studio is making about the same amount of money, possibly a bit more from each viewer who downloads a TV show from iTunes as they make per viewer from advertisers. I'm sure this is not a coincidence. Ad rates are set by number of viewers, so, although I didn't check, I'd expect this to scale to shows with higher or lower viewership, maintaining about the same revenue per viewer. Furthermore, if more and more viewers switch from watching on the buying from iTunes, the decrease in the amount they make from ads will be balanced by more revenue fro downloads. This isn't about maintaining the amount of money they make off of broadcast, it's about increasing it, and, more importantly, increasing their control.

Re:The option everyone's forgetting

[reidconti]

Is this intentionally funny? You do realize how Microsoft screwed their PlaysForSure customers with the Zune, right? Why would you spend a single penny on their media technology, knowing they're likely to do the same thing again?

Can't wait to see NBC's online sales dry up.

When eggs run out, eat bacon!

[FatSean]

Do you see what I did there?

Meh...

[itsdapead]

Hey NBC: I have chosen not to have cable, but want to pay you for Heroes.

Hey, Apple, I'm in the UK and buying Heroes or BSG (assuming they were available on UKiTunes) as low-res, DRM-infested downloads would cost about the same as getting the shiny DVDs from Amazon - better quality (and only the DRM equivalent of a wet paper bag that is CSS).

If a series is worth paying money for, its worth waiting for the DVDs (and you'd probably want a whole season) so I don't really give a stuff.

Where iTunes might come in is if you have missed an episode but that doesn't really figure if you're not following it on broadcast anyway.

Does This Make Apple The Hero?

[blueZhift]

It seems to me that the real dispute boils down to NBC Universal wanting to charge more for shows and bundle popular shows with other, presumably not so popular, shows. I don't really want to pay more for shows, don't they get enough via my cable fees already? And I don't want to have to download some other, probably horrid, show to get the one I really want. So I guess that makes Apple the hero in my book for standing up for what I, the customer, wants. Granted, Apple wants to sell more iPods, but I think NBC Universal is clearly ignoring what their customers really want.

I personally don't want to resort to means of dubious legality to watch the shows I like, so I simply won't be watching if seeing what I want becomes an unpalatable experience. I remember a number of years ago having a problem with my cable service, but once I threatened to cancel the service altogether, they quickly came around and fixed the problem. I suppose NBC Universal will have to learn this the hard way.

Here's what Apple says

[gnasher719]

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/08/31itunes.h tml

"Apple® today announced that it will not be selling NBC television shows for the upcoming television season on its online iTunes® Store (www.itunes.com). The move follows NBC's decision to not renew its agreement with iTunes after Apple declined to pay more than double the wholesale price for each NBC TV episode, which would have resulted in the retail price to consumers increasing to $4.99 per episode from the current $1.99. ABC, CBS, FOX and The CW, along with more than 50 cable networks, are signed up to sell TV shows from their upcoming season on iTunes at $1.99 per episode."

AMEN!

[BLKMGK]

I TIVO most stuff and skip past the commercials unless they look interesting. If I miss something or learn about a new show after it's started (Flash Gordon, Saving Grace, Burn Notice, Robin Hood all found out about after they started) then I download it and setup a season pass to get the new ones. Yup, Torrent has no commercials but if the studios offered Torrents of these shows WITH commercials in something that wasn't DRM'd then I'd watch them just like I do TIVO. If the commercial sux blip blip blip and if it doesn't or I forget then I see the commercial and ponder the product. I have an aTV too and I'm working to hack it into an HD version of my XBMC'd XBOX - sorry but paying for something I could just as easily have recorded is nutz to me. Put it out there with commercials for free and you've at least got a fighting chance that I'll see the commercial....

Meh, makes too much sense for them to do it!

Retail price would increase to $4.99 per episode

[shmlco]

"This really upsets me that they would do this to their paying customers"

According to Ars, the issue is that they want you to pay more. A LOT more. To quote, "Apple declined to pay more than double the wholesale price for each NBC TV episode, which would have resulted in the retail price to consumers increasing to $4.99 per episode from the current $1.99."

So how does $5 a pop sound? At that rate, a typical series would cost over $100 purchased digitally, as opposed to buying the DVDs for $30-$50.

One thing's for sure, if hulu has this kind of idiotic pricing structure, then it's just SURE to be a success...

Apple Drops NBC Universal

[CODiNE]

Looks like Apple is playing hardball too.

Apple® today announced that it will not be selling NBC television shows for the upcoming television season on its online iTunes® Store (www.itunes.com). The move follows NBC's decision to not renew its agreement with iTunes after Apple declined to pay more than double the wholesale price for each NBC TV episode, which would have resulted in the retail price to consumers increasing to $4.99 per episode from the current $1.99. ABC, CBS, FOX and The CW, along with more than 50 cable networks, are signed up to sell TV shows from their upcoming season on iTunes at $1.99 per episode.

"We are disappointed to see NBC leave iTunes because we would not agree to their dramatic price increase," said Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of iTunes. "We hope they will change their minds and offer their TV shows to the tens of millions of iTunes customers."

From Apple press release.

Record it

[Jimithing DMB]

I watch NBC quite a bit, but not for any of the shows mentioned in this story. Last season I purchased a USB tuner stick and a copy of EyeTV. Forget watching low-res iTunes versions of the shows. I recorded them and watched them in full HD quality. Granted, each show after trimming out commercials to bring it down to about 44 minutes will barely fit on one single-layer DVD but my god they look gorgeous on a cinema display.

If I happened to miss recording one I could always either wait for it to rerun or simply grab it from a torrent site. For Studio 60 most of the torrent rips seemed to be from Canada, presumably because the show aired on Sunday rather than on Monday. Quality was not quite the original MPEG-2 1080i but the re-encoding (Xvid I think?) was not that bad and the whole thing still looked far better than what NBC sold on iTunes.

I really don't get why NBC is so concerned about DRM though. Their shows are already broadcast and recordable (quite legally) by anybody and distributing them over the internet is at best a gray area. In other words, the content is already quite readily available so the best thing for NBC to do is realize this and convince someone like myself that for say $2 I can avoid doing the recording myself and just buy the show whenever I feel like it.

All the legislation in the world will never change the fact that I'm already able to record the shows using the hardware I've already purchased. The "broadcast flag" is never going to happen no matter how hard they push for it. Even if they get such a dogpile passed it won't change anything since boxes will be modifiable. In the case of the USB tuner sticks the MPEG-2 stream goes directly in through the USB port. It's entirely up to the software program to enforce any restrictions that may be flagged in the MPEG transport stream.

I have a feeling though that rightly or wrongly, NBC isn't targeting people like me since we're already aware that the shows can be recorded in full over the air. NBC is clearly trying to convince people who aren't aware that you can receive and record their programming for free. It still amazes people when I tell them I get HD programming for free. Hell, depending on where you're at you don't even need a spectacularly good antenna. I've got a $20 indoor VHF/UHF model I bought at Wal-Mart. I set my parent's bedroom TV up with a short piece of coax with a 75/300 balun screwed onto the opposite end. The little leads on that balun are enough to receive HD!

Another friend of mine has a DirectTV DVR box. Those boxes have ATSC/NTSC inputs and after a bit of prodding I convinced him to just do what I did and pick up a cheap antenna. He swore it would never work due to all the interference from Norfolk Naval Station. Guess what? It works. And because it's hooked into his DVR he's able to record from it as if it were a satellite signal. Perhaps that's why DirectTV isn't so interested in running local HD signals over their bandwidth. It's basically unnecessary since most people can pick up HD TV directly from their antenna with a very clear signal.

Re:Do the math

[geekboy642]

While one Superbowl ad may cost 2.4million, an average TV spot during primetime is bound to be considerably lower-priced. Secondly, NBC is averaging 5.6 million viewers, a far cry from the Superbowl's 90 million. Another factor is that overall TV viewership is dropping. One could put all that together and consider that this may not be directly a per-episode or per-viewer cost consideration.

NBC might be concerned that affordable access to ad-free versions of their shows will harm something they've worked very hard to program into their viewers: The concept of watching ads to get shows. A glimmer of that danger shows up in this article. Apparently, NBC is already finding it difficult to gain enough advertising to put on good drama during primetime. If the advertising money dries up entirely, NBC--and others--as a company will need to do something very different. The move they've tried to pull is likely to have been an attempt at preserving their business model.

Odd that some think Apple monopolies are OK

[AHumbleOpinion]

Buying them legally from a store might also be another idea, novel as it may be.

Let me offer a variation on that. Buy them legally from a different online store. Why is it that only Apple can offer such products, why is a defacto monopoly by Apple OK? If NBC doesn't like Apple's terms they should backout, contract with a competitor who they can come to terms with, or start their own.

Personally I see history repeating itself. Apple pioneers something, validates the product or business model, develops a commanding lead with early adopters, then missteps and get beaten by others as the bulk of the market beings using the product or service. Apple has "been there, done that" with respect to personal computers, the graphical interface, etc. I wish it were otherwise, I wish Apple could come to terms and maintain their position as the bulk of the market enters, as they may have with iPod - we aren't that far beyond early adopters though, but its Apple so I am not optimistic - changing their position would go against Steve's vision.

MSFT is the mastermind of this move and others

[aristotle-dude]

Apparently MSFT wants to be the only seller of NBC Universal content online via their XBox Live store. Rumours are flying that MSFT was behind the move to have Paramount withdraw support for Blu-ray (a format supported by Apple). MSFT has a great deal invested in HD DVD via the HD DVD add-on and their Windows Media technology for HD DVD content creation software.

They do not want any media that uses industry standard AVC as a codec to succeed because the cannot sell encoder licenses for media creation software or influence media content creators to use their OS and related technologies.

If Paramount is next to withdraw from iTunes (even if they are making a lot of money), I would suggest investigating whether MSFT paid them off like they may have indirectly to support HD DVD exclusively.

Re:God, you're prejudiced...

[Grishnakh]

Maybe you should open your eyes and mind, you ignorant ass.

I'm an engineer, not an IT person. Maybe you didn't realize it, but there's a lot of engineers here on Slashdot. It's not just IT geeks who run servers all day. Engineers don't work at banks or insurance companies, period. They work at tech companies. Places like Intel, Motorola, Cisco, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, NASA, etc. They generally do design work, or some other type of engineering work: validation, applications, etc. There's also smaller employers that hire engineers, but as I said before, they generally don't pay as well, but even so, along with the giant employers I listed, they're all located in cities because that's where they have to be to compete with the big places (and hire up their engineers when they decide to have some layoffs to improve their quarterly financials).

So get your head out of your ass and stop presuming everyone has a system administration job, or worse a "run around and reboot the Windows servers" job.