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Viacom Nudges Some Premium Content Online, For Free
amplt1337 writes "Debates about the profitability of 'free' continue to rage, but at least one major media conglomerate — Viacom — is pushing forward with releasing paid-for content for free on the Internet. Of course, the prospect of free and easy full-length Daily Show episodes has caused some tension with cable providers, who pay a hefty premium for a heretofore-exclusive right to distribute the conglom's content (there are obvious parallels with the conflict between labels and musicians). What strikes me as really interesting is that even an old, entrenched company like Viacom has enough vision to see the opportunity for increased profits through free distribution — provided they can control that distribution (see their YouTube lawsuit) and have discretion over just how free they go. Of course, the NYT itself has had its own experience with expanding access to previously fee-based content ..."
Viacom wants some of the pie, they claimed that youtube was unfairly benefiting from viacom's intellectual properties...
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
There is at least one company already doing it - they have many movies and television shows online (classic TV series as well as newer series) - some full seasons, some are just a sampling, but check it out: http://www.hulu.com/ - it doesn't let you take the media with you (and honestly I have not tried capturing it) and there are commercials inserted into the stream, but SOMEBODY has to pay for the content, so I'm very happy with their service. I wish I could get it on my PDA though.
Oh, and yes, it works with Linux.
I've submitted feature requests to them, one of which is to be able to opt out of certain advertisers. For example, I'm not going into the military so I should be able to opt out of those ads, and I don't do fast food so I should be able to opt out of those. This would make advertising less likely to be ignored, and would actually increase the value of each ad delivered to the viewer.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
As I understand it, they are saying that it's possible to make money from free content and they're willing to try. The lawsuit is over the fact that Youtube is making money from their free content while it should be Viacom making that money.
It'll be interesting to see what models they try to monetize the content - something established like banner ads and video commercials or something a little more experimental. Regardless, I think it's good for the industry that bigger companies are trying to adapt.