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South Park To Be Available Online Free and Legal
garnetlion writes "South Park is coming online, free and legal. My brief research has not indicated if it will use DRM, require some silly Windows-only software or be otherwise substandard. According to a Wired blog article, 'Parker and Stone said they were inspired to start the site when they got 'really sick of having to download our own show illegally all the time. So we gave ourselves a legal alternative.'" In this regard South Park joins fellow Comedy Central notable The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, whose archive was made freely available online late last year.
Just discovered last week... NBC has the entire season 4 of The Office online, watchable in full screen, with traditional TV-like ads interrupting the shows. Of course, nobody likes ads, but it's worth it to me, at least, and I'm glad to see some of the old-school media companies like NBC FINALLY starting to "get it".
I don't respond to AC's.
Not sure how their particular deal works, but I think if Comedy Central actually owns the show they make, then they could have actually been criminally breaking the copyright of their own employers and in theory could be sued for it. IANAL, etc.
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Dont' assume they have the copyright to the show just because they're the creative guys behind it. When Arthur C. Clarke reprinted a chapter from 2001: A Space Odyssey in the sequel novel, he had to get permission from the publisher of 2001.
They don't own it, Viacom owns it.
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The episodes are already online. Not "coming soon", not "to be"... you can see them right now.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
it's a flash based web player. there's no drm. same deal with all the new video from mtv networks. flash players, no windows stuff, etc.
* i work for mtv networks doing video syndication, so i'm posting anonymously.
Go here: http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml. Slide the slider to a date to get the Episode Number that aired on that date. Type that Episode Number in the Search box. The episode will be there in clips. For example, I went there: http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml, slid the slider to March 20, 2008. The first clip in the results showed it was Episode 13039. I then typed "13039" (no quotes) in the Search box. Voila! 5 clips were displayed. I added up all of the running times, and it was 18 minutes, 59 seconds, which seems to me to be about right for a 30-minute show (shy of commercials and non-informational transitions).
It's not the 1/2-hour unbroken stream you want, but it's there.
-- Dedicated Cthulhu cultist since 1982 A.C.E.
The very first thing after "garnetlion writes" is that very same "informative" link.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I worked with Matt & Trey's web production team on an online video game store back in 2000. I met them and hung out a few times. They were dosed to the gills that year at the Oscars.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I hate to burst your bubble but south park's creators have had this stuff up on their site for weeks. The summary makes it seem like it will happen soon but in reality all of the episodes have been viewable before now.