NBC Still Down On P2P But Plans To Use It Themselves

Cotton Eye Joe writes "Ars Technica has an interview with Rick Cotton, the general counsel for NBC Universal who is best known for saying that piracy is a more serious offence than robbery. Cotton still has some strong opinions on P2P, even though the network will be using it for distribution. 'He's convinced that the pirate problem is costing NBC Universal real revenue and that the scale of the problem is so vast as to discourage investment in the carrots, positive solutions like Hulu. "With all that pirated material available, it creates tremendous disincentives to content owners who need to invest in new content," Cotton says, "and that just hurts consumers over time."'"

Comments

Huh?

[sm62704]

piracy is a more serious offense than robbery.

Huh? And this guy makes how much money every year?

Simple economics

[elrick_the_brave]

I love it when spin doctors change the reality of the situation. From an economics standpoint, if there is no supply (e.g. meeting market demands with new product and services - how long have we been asking for newer methods to access and enjoy our entertainment ) then how on earth do you expect demand to come into play?

I have always wanted to buy cool things... I reward convenience with my cash. I reward innovation with my cash. I reward customer service with more cash than if I find a cheaper competing product or service.

If a company didn't respond to market changes in the past, it was called incompetence and the management was fired. These days it seems like the short term desire for quarterly profits blinds people to that.

As I said, you can spin the results any way you want. What makes the money is selling what people want.

NBC's real problem

[peragrin]

is the lack of quality programming and the massive amounts of commercial breaks per 30 minute episode.

The last things on NBC I watched was Hero's and the Knight Rider Movie. Both of them felt very funny like i was watching 4 minutes of show and 4 minutes of commercials. by the time i got through 2 hours of the Knight Rider movie I was pissed off.

Watching NBC is like listening to Wil liam Shat ner speeeeaak. Ev ery thing is drawn out.

sorry I couldn't keep it up my brain kept fixing the errors.

Cut the ads down to less than 15 minutes per 30 minute episode and people might start watching again.

Re:NBC's real problem

[flajann]

All the networks, indeed all of cable, suffers from a lack of quality programming. Even "newcomers" such as the Discovery Network, the Sci-Fi Channel, and the Science channel started off great but sled down the slippery slopes to mediocrity.

Why should I spend $100 a month for lack of quality programming despite the vast array of "choices" of hundreds of channels

There was a time I had both Satellite and Cable TV; now I have neither. It is simply easier to BitTorrent the few things I like, and sans the rest. Then I can watch what I want at my leisure, on my schedule, free of commercials that rarely, if ever, promote anything I am interested in anyway.

If the network providers like NBC, CBS, etc. can't understand that, the to balls with them. I am more than happy to pay for quality, and that also means not being inundated with bazillions of commercials that take me out of the story anyway.

NBC is its own problem. They now have to compete with YouTube and MySpace and MMORPGs and everything else we can do online. That's the real thing that is killing them. They just can't compete, and they use P2P as a scapegoat to whine about their "losses".

Even the news outlets like MSNBC and CNN leave a lot to be desired, which is obviously more interested in the corporate bottom line and political correctness than reporting real news. I always find it amusing to read on the BBC website interesting news happening in my "backyard" here in the US without seeing any reference of the same on our own news outlets. Funny that.

Give Me Quality Content, and I will be more than happy to give you my eyes, and maybe a few bills as well.

Nothing to see here... move along

[zappepcs]

You can (IMO) ignore this guy as uninformed, or more dangerously, misinforming the legislative processes.

"You have to start with the first proposition," Cotton says, "which is: should we collectively be concerned about the fact that 50 to 75 percent of the total bandwidth of broadband ISPs is today taken up by P2P traffic which is in fact overwhelmingly pirated? I have to tell you, I think the answer to that is yes." Lets see some facts and resources here? Prove it was pirated! I dare you.

He goes further; P2P protocols themselves disrupt the Internet by passing bandwidth costs from content owners onto ISPs. Cotton told the FCC in a recent filing, "P2P applications shift the costs of centralized storage and distribution to end users and their broadband network providers." Obviously, he thinks that we, the end users, have not paid for the use of the bandwidth? WTF? Perhaps he believes that Google should pay for ALL OF THE INTERNET since they index it? Or maybe Facebook should pay for their 15% of the Internet in North America? This is just double speak so they can end up double-dipping. If they are able to establish clear end to end connections for content distribution then it will clearly be easier to determine who they want to litigate against for illegal content and bandwidth usage. They WANT the Internet to be a series of trucks running through tubes they build and control all the way to your eyesockets.

P2P is the solution to NBC

[binaryspiral]

and that just hurts consumers over time.

No, you dumbass... I think you don't understand that P2P was the answer to all the things you did to piss off consumers.

Forcing TiVo to eliminate the commercial skip pissed off consumers.
Using outdated ratings and canceling popular shows pissed off consumers.
Eliminating popular distribution methods (like ITMS) pissed off consumers.

When you alienate enough of them - they fix the problem themselves. P2P is the solution to the problems you created.

TV itself was a gamble when it first came to the public. NBC invested in it. Now they say they won't invest in new mediums because of pirates... give me a damn break. Quit your bitching and listen to your viewers - yes, even the pirates.