p2pnet - rss feed: Apple sells TV downloads in Britain
p2pnet news | TV:- “Apple is offering customers the chance to download TV programs for the new iPhone.”
A line of hype from the latest Apple puff piece?
It’s the intro to a story in Britain as The Telegraph joyously announcing the arrival of downloads which will be available from Apple in the UK.
But, “There is currently little UK-produced content, although ITV, Channel 4 and the BBC all offer their own download catch-up TV services,” notes the BBC.
“Offering” should be exchanged with “will be trying to con people into buying” because the “service” (read sales point) will cost Brits £1.89 per episode (almost $4).
Apple launched its video download service in the US two years ago with “mixed results,” says the story.
Meanwhile, downloads of Lost, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy and Ugly Betty, examples of shows being promoted, are easily and readily available everywhere online.
Also See:
The Telegraph -Apple offers TV show downloads, August 29, 2007
BBC - Apple launches TV service in UK, August 29, 2007
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Tango
August 29th, 2007 at 8:39 am
Nearly £2 an episode lol - and the companies wonder why people go for pirated content all the time. I could probably buy the dvds of any series cheaper than that and then convert to avi or whatever myself. I could definitely rent them at blockbuster cheaper lol.
Sometimes I swear the companies want to launch these pay per download things at an extortionate price, flop, and then be able to tell senators etc “Well, we tried - we offered a legal alternative - but the scourge of piracy ruined it. Crack down hard on those freeloaders!”.
If they are serious about offering content for download, they need to stop ripping people off - after all, the companies are saving a fortune on stuff like packaging, shipping, retailer discounts etc. Maybe they ought to pass that on. But, they are not serious about offering a good deal - to them the net is just a new opportunity to rip off their customers.
August 30th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
I couldn’t agree more ! Sites like allofmp3 which provide affordable and LEGAL music are forced to close because the big labels want 1us$ per track on a PC/Mac and Twice on a cell.
A- Why should it be 1 penny more to download a track on a phone rather than a computer ? The song/tv-show is the same, no ? If not, the phone version will likely be worse (more loss during compression).
B- If 99 cents a track is `reasonable’ for a middle-class American, well it is ONE WHOLE DAY INCOME for most of the planet’s inhabitants ! And billions of those with a cell phone i.e. `richer’ earn 3 to 5 us$ per day: I’m writing from Thailand where people around me enjoy music/TV-shows/Movies as much as anywhere else, but for that price forget it ! They get the same thing in Phuket for 1/10th of the price if even that !
C- By forcing legal cheap online services to shut down (e.g. 2$ for an album IS reasonable/expensive compared to a typical Russian income which is what allofmp3.ru offers) big labels and other Corps like Apple are CREATING piracy. Therefore, even though the law might be on their side (cause they have the most expensive lawyers) they have no moral rights to complain about piracy ! I also fail to cry over the lost royalty of a millionaire Hollywood actor/actress
D- DRM goes against basic consumer rights: I travel and read a lot, so ebooks sound … efficient and easy to carry. WRONG ! It should, but in practice DRM cripples any benefit of e-media. I tried mobipocket.com, bought some 25 books, hopped on the plane, and discovered once on the beach that I could not read my cool novels because my Palm (Pilot not Tree) wasn’t registered. On that remote beach, the burden is on ME to find internet access/phone etc. at a HUGE cost to solve the problem… After 3 years I still haven’t bothered recovering those books after finding out (the hard way) that mobipocket is not compatible with my mac… Since then, no more DRM ebooks for me !
E- Sadly it started a while ago, first with courts upholding software manufacturer’s rights (THE one product you can go to jail for or shell out a LARGE amount of money, and are guaranteed NOTHING as soon as you open the seal: not compatible with your system? your fault ! Not performing the task you expect? your fault ! Not installing properly? Your fault! Wiping out all the data on your hard disk: Your fault! One variant being “call our hotline for an insane price per minute and wait an hour before you get to speak to a delocalized `expert’ who does not speak your language and/or has no clue how to solve your problem…”).
Compare this to Children Toys’ or car manufacturers and the gap in basic-product-quality-expectations is obvious
F- DVD-zoning, the biggest rip-off of the century ! You buy legit DVDs in the US because you live there, in Asia because you travel and get tired of your hotel-room TV playing CNN and the news in a language you don’t begin to understand, you pop the DVD in your laptop and … unless you’ve tweaked something illegal to dezone it… your won’t be able to see your legally acquired movie, at least if you travel more than 5 times i.e. the max # you are typically allowed to change most DVD players’ zone. Or if you like those light and cute portable DVD-players for long hours on a plane… well make sure you get 5 of them, 1 per zone…just a tad bulky…. WHY ON EARTH ARE THEY PORTABLE IF YOU CAN’T USE THEM TO TRAVEL ???
Or if you’re just an American cinephile or an immigrant who likes European movies (yes, they make good movies in Europe, even better than their American remakes), you just WON’T find even the classics in the US, or if you do find an occasional French movie the pricetag is 3x what you’d pay in France - again for the very same product…
I am a geek, an `early adopter’ in tech marketing jargon. My latest attempt: learn an Asian Language with the all-audio (and rather expensive) Pimseur method. I bought the method legally on SD cards, along with a few audiobooks from a company called Audiofy (again, I consider myself honest and find it normal to pay a reasonable price for an innovative and convenient service). I started listening to the SD chip on my Palm… but then didn’t have a 220V adapter for the country I was visiting. So I popped the SD card in my cell-phone… nothing, then in my mp3 player’s SD slot… nothing…. turns out that the audio SD playing EVERYWHERE really means `Palm o.s. 5 or more, Windows XP, or Audiofy proprietary cheap chip players which break in .. 3 days’. Now I get the same product on CDs on eBay (and I admit not being picky about how/where the CD comes from for such a low price !) and for buying music… I`m grateful I studied Russian in high-school !!!
Having been burnt once too often, ITunes is now for me a free tool to import my CD collection, I pay overweight luggage when I travel with my non-ebooks, and I can’t disclose how I watch my DVDs even though I have legally acquired each one of them !
So not to pick on Apple specifically (I`m a happy mac and iPod owner), but it INFURIATES me that most people sheepishly accept or even defend such practices, because I can’t imagine they’d agree being told that they can read their favorite paperback only in Europe and not in Asia, that they can’t borrow a thriller from the library or lend one to a friend, that they can’t give their “favorite Albums from their youth” to their grand-kids (without rebuying the whole thing), that their 100$ textbook will self-destruct if it choses to and there isn’t a thing they can do about it or that it can only be read on a Boing 747 but certainly not on an Airbus A320 ! Well, maybe `those’ people don’t get it because they don’t read, but then why should they complain if Junior gets lead-poisoning from his latest made-in-China toy ? Because if Junior goes on killing spree after playing with video games for too long (or more likely out of frustration because the latest hit he spent his allowance on just won’t play on his brand new computer) or if Junior is exposed to kiddy porn via Daddy’ or Mommy’s software, well… it’s Junior’s fault ! Yet should Junior `borrow’ music from his friends, let him rot in jail while we throw away the key !
On the bright side we’re lucky the problem is just about the entertainment industry, and not about saving human lives… Say, if Pharmaceutical Companies prevented manufacturers from selling cheaper generics to treat millions infected with HIV and who will die if untreated… simply out of greed …
Aren’t we ?