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

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.

Re:Because it's only a bad thing...

[cliffski]

well you should be 100% behind them using p2p for legal means the right? as they are making the slashdot point, that p2p has legal uses. You can't be defensive about legal P2p, and against companies using it at the same time...

I see no problem with them being anti-piracy, pro-copyright, and pro-using p2p for legal means.

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.