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TV Torrents — When Piracy Is Easier Than Purchase
An anonymous reader writes "NBC's recent withdrawal from the iTunes store leaves the millions of Apple's customers who have Macs or iPods without a legitimate way to purchase and watch NBC's content. Online media stores such as iTunes, Amazon and Walmart have never been able to compete with the pirates on price, or freedom and flexibility — as the content they sell is typically wrapped in restrictive DRM. The one advantage that legal purchase offered was ease of use. CNET looks into the issue, and discovers that with mature open-source media players such as Miro supporting BitTorrent RSS feeds, it is actually trivially easy for users to subscribe to their favorite shows. Want to wake up to the latest episode of The Colbert Report, Top Gear or any of hundreds of TV shows automatically downloaded and waiting for you? CNET offers an easy three step guide."
...there are cases where piracy is not easier than purchase?
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
1. I have no working TV.
2. TVs with resolutions comparable to my computer are expensive.
3. I don't have a sound system for a TV.
4. I don't have cable.
5. I don't want to dick around with HDMI and whatever other crap I'd need to get a HD signal to said TV.
6. I'm at work quite often and at odd times. Tivo costs money.
... to be a TV executive? Is there some kind of test you have to fail, or something?
Clue stick to head of NBC: Jobs knows what he's doing. Trust him. Give him your content, tell him to do whatever he wants with it, and go play golf or something.
Why don't NBC's stockholders revolt against the kind of mismanagement that throws away free money and turns content-distribution power over to pirates?
I don't think most people WANT to illegally download things rather than purchasing them. However, I do think everyone has a threshold at which they'll download illegally rather than deal with the pain of buying something legitimately. For most, that pain is provided by unreasonable prices. For others, it's by formats (DRM) that force you to jump through hoops to be able to watch something you legitimately paid for. So they don't have to make it as easy as the free alternatives, because that's impossible. They only need to make it easy enough that most people will decide that their process is better than breaking the law.
Content providers need to make these downloads as cheap and easy as possible, and they will make money. The more painful it is, the more people will turn to free alternatives out of frustration. Most people that are not generally criminals will only break laws if complying with them becomes too onerous.
Right now, the providers seem to be trying to crack down on free providers and make the legitimate versions ever more restrictive. This is counterproductive, and will only push more people away.
Perhaps it's a protest. "Show content owners how much you value what they have to offer - by finding ways of avoiding compensating them for their endeavors!".
I'm serious. I've downloaded movies in the past. TV shows too. But enough with the ridiculous fucking denial, the self righteous indignation of "they took away our 'right' to see their content". You want to break the law to get it, do so. But let's not pretend it's oh-so-evil-NBC's fault.
Not because it's "free" (the beer kind). But because it's free (the OSS kind).
Do I mind paying a sensible price for content? No. Do I mind the restrictions imposed? Yes. Simple as that. Yes, I can afford it. Yes, I do afford it, if the supply matches my demand. Unfortunately, usually it does not. If I cannot store it on my content providing machine and display it on my TV-enabled machine, the content is of no use for me. Simply because I cannot use it. What? Oh, I could store it directly on the machine that connects to the TV? Sure I could. I don't want. You don't provide it the way I want, I don't buy. Simple as that.
What manufacturers (not only in the content business) today fail to see is that you cannot sell things to people that they do not want. At least some people will rather abstain from having something before they are forced into unfavorable contracts or conditions. You provide it the way I want it and I will buy. You don't, I won't.
Free market at its finest.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You fogot step 0, that is "Find out that the show you're looking for is unavailable for legal download. Half a year later, after it gets realeased on dvd, realize it's only in US/UK/whatever and not in your country. Enjoy the fact that ordering the dvd from overseas will take 2 weeks and cost twice the already outrageous price"
All the things you list are no excuse for you to steal their content. Think about it: you probably cannot afford a Citroen C Metisse either, but that doesn't mean you get to steal it.
The only question here is whether your downloads constitute a lost sale (and therefore a loss caused by theft) to the publishers, or not. I believe it could be shown that people would buy at least some of the stuff they download illegaly if the illegal sharing were shut down, so they are indeed thiefs, but one might argue differently.
Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
While I do think that free TV content should be freely available on the internet, none of the reasons you've given above justify downloading material illegally. Just because you don't want to spend the money doesn't mean you can steal their shit.
Our time is better spent convincing the media execs why making their content available is a Good Idea.
If these are shows that are broadcast over the airwaves, don't you have the legal right to receive them? If you _download_ a show that you already have rights to watch as an OTA broadcast, how is it copyright infringement?
It doesn't need to be tested in court: bittorrent means you also broadcast as you download.
You definitely have no license to broadcast.
You've got it right. you just forgot to add to the time cost of having to watch previews, fbi warnings, and other nonsense you can't skip through on the BUY side.
I think the invisible hand of the market has its middle finger extended
--A wise old fart named SC0RN
I disagree.
I find no validity to the argument that a broadcaster has televised a show for free, but then somehow still expects that they're going to be able to retain the right to dictate when and how a person is able to watch.
Now, if someone was making commercial use and selling the intellectual property of the content provider, then I'd say there's a solid case that that person is committing theft of revenue. But downloading a torrent of an episode of Lost from bittorrent because you missed it and want to watch it while on the train ride to work, or whatnot, is not significantly different from recording it on your DVR for playback later in the day.
What this is about is getting people used to having their Fair Use rights to time-shift and place-shift denied, so we all slowly forget that we ever *could* watch programming on our own terms.
I don't see how a broadcaster can argue that their show, that they broadcasted FOR FREE one night previous, somehow gains monetary value because someone downloads it.
How is this lost revenue? Because of the redacted commercials? The sponsor's message didn't get to that viewer anyway if they missed the episode. Sponsors base their advertising on a speculative audience pool anyway, based on ratings from a sample, rather than actual viewing habits. Since the ratings are based on people who actually *did* watch it on television, the downloaders fall outside of the ratings pool. And if it weren't for VCRs and DVRs, most of those shows would be completely missed to begin with.
The ratings pools would still be entirely speculative even if you took time/place-shifting completely out of the equation. Remember what life was like before TiVo? Did you sit like a good little drone and soak in all that commercially goodness? Or did you, more likely, use it as a chance to go to the bathroom or get a snack? Personally, if I'm watching live TV on a non-DVR, I'll mute the damned commercials. Is that theft?
When they do finally get the broadcast flag fully imposed, clearly most shows will be blocked from DVR recording. If they didn't mind recording, they wouldn't put up such a stink about downloading. But I'll bet you there'll be other provisions to prevent you from muting the commercials too. After they've gotten us conditioned for a few years, I'm sure it'll be mandatory to watch the whole broadcast if you watch it at all. They'll probably find a way to apply the DMCA to say that muting the show, or walking away during the commercial, somehow constitutes circumventing their DRM.
I see the rig from Clockwork Orange in the near future, coming to a home near you. Strap in, or no Seinfeld re-runs for you!
Raoul Mitgong: Unhelpful.
1. Turn on my computer
2. nbc.com
3. ????
4. Watch on iPod on train to work.