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TV Industry Using Piracy As A Measure Of Success
mrspin writes "Last100 has an interesting post from Guinevere Orvis, a web producer who works in the broadcast industry, who describes the way in which 'unofficial' but sanctioned BitTorrent leaks are being used as a measurement of a TV show's likely success. Orvis writes: 'Broadcasters aren't posting their shows directly on PirateBay yet, but they are talking informally and giving copies of shows to a friend of a friend who is unaffiliated with the company to make a torrent ... it's partially an experiment, but the hope is that distribution of content this way will lead to new viewers that wouldn't have been reached through traditional marketing means.'"
How would you feel if you made a product so bad that no one would steal it?
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Since piracy statistics are being used to help with marketing and increase profits, is this a measureable reduction to the actual cost piracy has on the industry?
What they call 'Piracy' will continue to rise - there is no point at which it will retract. I wonder if they have added into their estimations the accelerating growth of this piracy they are measuring.
Which brings me to something that I've been wondering about for a while; how would the entertainment industry survive if there was theoretically no way to protect their intellectual property from open and free distribution. How would they handle a world where there was no legal route to enforcing a royalty-style or licensed payment system?
Because it is my thoughts that as our world further connects itself together that this is exactly what will happen in the (no so distant?) future.
At least in the technological sense, the legal sense is difficult to gauge, though I hope the legal system will suffer a major overhaul in the coming decades.
Read my Very Short "Stories"
Many television networks are putting many of their popular shows online now, for free. All the major networks: CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox -- are all putting full episode content on their websites now. Even Sci-Fi is starting to do it, although they don't have too many shows with full episodes up (but a. they're owned by NBC, who is getting into the online distribution format quite rapidly and b. they're probably realizing that a good number of their shows are popular with geeks that know how to share their shows via bittorrent quite readily). I wouldn't be surprised if a few more networks, like Comedy Central, get into the action. I think what's happening is that the corporations that run the networks have seen how a site like Youtube has practically sprouted up overnight, and they're seeing this as a way to reach out to more people (and thereby increase their advertising streams and revenue).
If possession of pre-release material is a felony, then why would a TV exec condone this? So downloading is ok if it helps make the companies money? Am I the only one that sees something fundamentally wrong with this?
Personally, I never saw the problem with the piracy of TV shows: a large proportion of those who watch them, assuming they like them, will probably watch the original broadcast or the next episode when it's aired anyway. It's a different matter for large-scale, large-budget Hollywood films, but in instances like these, I think that this is a move in the right direction.
Many new shows this year were leaked weeks and months before their pilot aired, undoubtedly creating early talk about the shows that they wouldn't get otherwise.
I watched a few and they helped me make decisions, half of the Geico Cavemen pilot was enough forever, and the Sarah Connor Chronicles pilot renewed my interest in the Terminator series and I'm totally pumped for the show this January or February.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
And then if the show doesn't take off, they can always recoup their losses by suing the pirate...
I'm wondering why independent shows haven't started popping up and gaining in popularity over the internet. Talk about the perfect opportunity to change how TV is produced and delivered while the majors are down and out.
For network TV, I fail how to see this as piracy. With an antenna and DVR, I can record it and replay without their express permission. So if someone else does it for me, is it still pirating? I'm gonna watch the show with my DVR or a torrent version from someone else, but the end result is the same. I watch the show.
This is exactly how I got hooked on Jericho. I watched the series after it got canceled. I really liked it and ending up watching it again with my friends, who, in turn enjoyed it. Now, we're waiting for the show in mid-January. With HD recording software of course.
import system.cool.Sig;
I, for one, can attest that I've definitely discovered a few new shows by simply checking the list of most-seeded torrents on some web site.
:)
I've also discovered that it's not always an indication of quality.
Ok, so what if I, Joe Pirate, go and download the latest episode of Lost from the pirate bay and subsequently get sued for copyright infringement. What if this episode was something that was leaked "unofficially" by the studio. Since it is done under the radar, the mafiaa officials won't know the difference. They're basically baiting you.
It's like putting a diamond ring on a park bench, hiding in the bushes, and then calling the police when someone picks it up.
I got nothin'
Well, there are some, just look at the sort of things that popup on youtube from time to time. Every now and then there will be something independent that makes a splash on the internet, but there are a number of barriers to mass popularity. The most important is probably one of advertising. Without at the very minimum a central channel or resource to promote the show people simple won't know about it. Relying entirely on word of mouth a show can still be popular, but it won't get the kinds of numbers most mainstream cable shows can pull in. The second smaller hurdle is one of quality. It still takes some money and talent to produce a good show, and results are all over the board for most of the independents that are running on shoestring budgets.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
I remember many people thought Michael Moore's "Sicko" movie was released on BitTorrent on purpose.
This is why the record labels decided to go after Napster to begin with. If the songs are available for free download all the "albums" containing one hit and 9 filler songs got split into pieces. Everyone got the hit and ignored the ballast.
The P2P sharing shows immediately what people want, and allowing that would force the record labels to produce high-quality music rather than mediocre one that can be forced down the customer's throats (ears ?). And high-quality music is a lot harder to come by than the turn-of-the-crank filler that we have been blessed with in recent years. No wonder the CD sales are decreasing.
I know that the IP owners watch piracy to see what's hot. I noticed this a long time ago on usenet in a few .mp3 subgenres. Some extremely rare audio tracks that were not in print and only available in very old, extremely limited editions on vinyl were restored by certain (ahem) users. They were immensely popular, were constantly reposted, and basically became the only copies available in any media. The studios apparently noticed the popularity of these tracks, and the vinyl LPs were suddenly released on CD. I've seen this happen numerous times. They watch to see what the collectors consider worth investing their time in audio restoration, what the users consider worth collecting, and then they see money and rerelease the product from their vaults.
Because you can pick it up, unencrypted, right out of the radio spectrum just about anywhere. People have been stealing television content for years, with equipment kits you can buy at most garage sales.
Some content providers have started to insert commercials both as a deterrent against stealing content, and as a way to recoup the massive losses. Advanced piracy tools already have hacked this system, with things like a 'mute' button.
I oppose the mute button on moral grounds. Also, I am miserable.
I would love to see some better TV out there but I get the feeling that WGA writers are not to blame for shitty TV. A lot of the shows that I like such as the Daily show, House, Family guy and the Simpsons are down from the WGA strike but other shitty shows are still up and running. It seems like WGA writers make for better TV not worse.
The list of hurting shows
1-2 days? That sounds seriously lagged. Either there are serious bandwidth issues with the seeders, or you aren't using the correct site. It isn't uncommon to see pre-air releases and pilots on Usenet/torrent sites, so sometimes you get it well before it is broadcast. You also have the advantage of getting it from any market, and sometimes (but rarely) schedules in other countries (Canada and Australia come to mind), will lead to releases even a few hours early.
:-)
After air in the east coast, I expect it to be available online in 10 minutes. Generally I can have it downloaded in 20 minutes or so, for ~350 MiB episodes. Again, this is a second hand copy. I assume that someone grabs the scene release off of somewhere (Usenet/ftp) and then seeds the torrent.
If they broadcast it through my airwaves, I don't have a problem downloading it. That's my rationalization.
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I download all my TV shows from Bittorrent. I don't even have cable. Why should I? If I'm just going to Tivo/MythTV the shows and skip commercials anyway, why not cut out the cable-TV middle-man?
Though I think it may have had the opposite long term effect on my viewing. I don't see ads for new shows so I don't hear about them like I used to. I only have like 4 shows that I watch regularly and if they were ever canceled, chances are that I would simply watch less. So downloading shows and skipping commercials has weened me off of television on the whole.
Doesn't bode well for the producers. They have to balance between the number of people who might, like me, just give up on broadcast television and those who'll use Bittorrent only to sample shows and then switch to regular TV. I suspect that more people will begin to see what a ripoff cable/satelite TV is and switch to "piracy" in the long term.
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
My prediction is, eventually, a compulsory license will be the only way.
You probably can't stop piracy short of Trusted Computing, and that's if and only if trusted computing turns out to be 'unhackable', which history shows is probably unlikely. And the down sides to Trusted Computing aren't worth it anyway.
So, eventually, the only way is a flat fee compulsory license that is tacked onto your ISP bill. Then some system of measuring "# of downloads per show/song/movie", distribute funds accordingly.
Now, the elephant in the room is, this may lead to a situation where meat-puppets who won a genetic lottery that makes them nice to look at will not be making 7 and 8-figure salaries for a movie that takes less than a year to shoot.
Historically, actors and musicians were somewhere between working class types and prostitutes, on the social status ladder. It may end up returning to that eventually. Same with producers and directors etc. These guys seem to think that they're entitled to office space at 100 bucks/sq. ft, private planes, and 7-figure salaries, like it's in the constitution or something.
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
Actually if it wasn't for torrents, I would have never been hooked on House. I have a fairly well set aversion against doc shows. I somehow can't stomach the usual tear squeezing and heart-rending stories of someone dying (or not dying so someone else has to or what not), and generally I don't feel for the patient.
Now finally there's a doc who shares my feelings. Quite refreshing!
I saw the show at a friend's who got a few episodes from torrents. So now I'm sitting every week for an hour in front of the TV watching. That's one viewer more they wouldn't have without that torrent existing, or at the very least it would have taken me a lot longer to find out that I do actually want to see this medical show.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The only thing worse than watching Bionic Woman is being sued for downloading it.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
While your demographic might be a bit different than the General TV Watching Demographic, this is an obvious, free, and valuable way to determine popularity, probably as good as the Nielsons, and mabye slightly less useful than Tivo data (since they can, as I understand, know whether you actually played, and ostensibly watched, the show using Tivo data).
If it weren't for the advertiser-driven model that we currently have, the bittorrent "content delivery system" would be nothing but positive for the industry. What they need to do is make high definition, high quality video files available for download for a reasonable fee, and remove all ads (or at least make that an option). I'd say the removal of commercials is the second most valuable aspect of getting shows off the Internet compared to the tuning in at 8PM (the first being able to watch it when I feel like it, something about as novel as the VCR).
File sharing can't be stopped. Well it could, but it would involve stopping the Internet, and rather large economies would collapse if that happened. The writer's strike is all about writers getting revenue from "new media" and I have to say, I think they have a point since it's pretty clear that before long the boundary what is TV (coming over cable) and what is being delivered by the Internet (which, in my house, comes over cable already) will be less and less distinct.
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?
The North American Anime distribution companies have been using Bittorrent distribution of fansubs to tell how popular new shows are for years now. The thing is, is that it works very well. The popularity of the fan subbed version either means that there is a strong niche/cult following, or that it will have strong widespread popularity.
Good point, that's true, still not 60 min, but still better than network TV. And the lack of interruptions is very, very nice.
Personally, I get most of my TV shows (BSG/Dexter/The wire/Sopranos/the office/30 rock) from bittorent. And speaking as somebody who just recently gave up my cable TV, I can't help but wonder if we'd be better off if the whole TV advertising industry went the way of the dodo.
Nothing's really been proven, but there's been some psych studies that have suggest that the deliberate manipulation of your emotions/unconscious motivations by the advertising industry may not be good for society as a whole. I mean, can it be good for a democracy to have regular doses of messages telling you to not trust your own judgment, and that you'll be happier if you just buy [product X]?
And that's without even discussing the impact that the huge high cost of TV advertising has on elections. I can't remember where I heard this (or verify it's veracity) but the statistic I heard was that a US senator needs to raise $10,000 a day every day he's in washington to pay for his re-election. So there's definitely a relationship between the high cost of TV advertising and how beholden politicians are to monied interests.
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
Your opinion is based on a perverted perspective - you're getting the stuff for free by doing something illegal and immoral. Not everybody can take the route of downloading TV from bittorrent because then nobody would be paying for the shows to be made so no shows would be made. If you want a real taste of an advertising-free world then buy the DVDs. OK, DVD is only a not-very-heavily-advertised-on medium, but it's the closest we've got.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
"Your opinion is based on a perverted perspective - you're getting the stuff for free by doing something illegal and immoral. "
I have to take exception to that assertion, because, like everybody else in Canada, I'm paying for this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy#Canada
And, according to the Competition Board (sort of the Canadian equivalent of the FTC) private non-commercial downloading is perfectly legal in Canada.
And whether or not it's immoral is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. Given that I could just as easily record most of those shows from over-the-air TV signals on my VCR or DVR, I fail to see how it's immoral. Unless you're making the assertion that by not watching ads on a TV show is immoral?
That aside, I'd be perfectly OK with renting or buying the DVD's of the above shows, were downloading not available somehow.
On top of which, I don't think it's my distorted perspective that brings me to wonder if we'd be better off without TV advertising, because I lived without TV entirely from about 1999 to 2001, and did exactly zero downloading then. And I still felt the same way then on the subject of the effects of TV advertising.
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
Boy, I'll say! But you know what was really shitty - that time when I went to Sea World with Bruce Springsteen and Mike Wallace... [cutaway gag]
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Actually, what you're doing is illegal. After reading your Copyright Law, it expressly permits private copying of sound recordings only, so downloading TV and movies off BitTorrent could still get you in a whole lot of trouble.
Reference: your own damn law
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Well, IANAL, this is not legal advice, YMMV, but one might make the case that at the time that the copyright board expressly stated that downloading of _music_ was permitted, that downloading of video files was not yet as common in Canada as it is now, so the copyright board didn't address that question, and that if they were to do so, they might rule the same way for video files as they did for music.
Really, on an ethical/moral level, what's the difference between somebody downloading last week's episode of "house" and setting my VCR to record it?
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
So your idea does present an interesting perspective and a sound reason for ending copyright. So no more copyright and no more drunken drugged up minstrals, no more media executives demanding BJs in limos, substantially fewer recruits for the scientologists, no more has been has been actor politicians etc. ect. ect., and of course in will immediately end the existence of 'perverted' copyright pirates.
Now that's a way of really sticking it to the pirates, end copyright and put them right out of business ;).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen