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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 ..."
...what they're essentially saying with that lawsuit is that they want their content available for free, but they want to be the ones handing it out.
This makes sense. If I'm going to give away a resource for free, I want to be the one (and the only one!) who makes money off it. If that means I have to restrict who/where/when this free content can be distributed, so be it.
Trouble is, trying to give something away for free and then restrict where and how that something is used, doesn't quite work. They're not losing any money off the sale of that product.
...So how can they sue YouTube for damages when they're planning on giving it away free anyway?
I love the daily show and the colbert report. I had been watch TDS since cason daily was hosting it even. Two years ago I was paying $40 a month for essentially those two shows.
But I quit watching during the writer strike and coincidentally I moved and started working more during that same time.
When the episodes had come back, I didn't get the memo and didn't want to go through the hassle of catching up on the week or so of shows I'd missed using bittorrent.
So I just quit watching. To viacom: you want to know why? Because it would just kill me to watch something so good by myself (or occasionally with a lady) and not be able to send friends links to particular segments on youtube. You want to selfishly hoard all your copyrighted content? Fine by me. I just won't watch it (even though I'm paying for it in some way). I won't tell my friends about it. And I won't buy anything on the commercials I'm not seeing.
Jon and Stephen could do better. Personally I'd like to see them operate without viacom and have control over the content, but I know the challenges in making that work and making it profitable.
Or hell, distribute it with bittorrent with the fucking ad's in it on the day it airs!
Its brilliant. They pay virtually nothing for a few servers to seed it until the swarm takes off. They get their adverts out into the open. There's very little reason to track down some ripped version with no commercials as you can get the legit one 8-12 hours sooner!
Where is the downside to this?
Heck, they could even require a DRM license(which would be given to anyone for free) and track exactly how many views it gets! They can do a pay per viewer model with the advertisers.
If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
Why not? The big problem with DRM is that I don't get to put the content that *I paid money for* on devices that I want, or put it into any format I please. Since I didn't pay for it, who cares? If they want to restrict me to viewing through their website, sure, whatever. It's not like I paid for it, right?