Downloading TV shows in Oz
p2p news view / p2pnet: Everwood. It’s not a cool program. It probably never was intended to be a cool program. I mean come on. A family drama, with scripts written by a team of writers, and accomplished actors? It would never work. Would people watch a program with no one getting voted off every week?
Australia’s Nine Network, the home of Survivor, The Apprentice, 60 Minutes, Dr Phil, and game shows such as Temptation and Family Feud, certainly never had faith in it. They waited nearly three years from its first US screening before they started showing it in Australia. And when they did screen it, they BURIED it on Saturday afternoon.
Then something strange happened. Hundreds of thousands of Australians started watching the program and as the number of viewers increased in 2005, Nine did the unexpected (or was it the expected?) - they simply yanked the program off their schedule.
No announcement. No explanation. Then after a break of many months, recently the program reappeared on weekdays at 10am every day! Fantastic - Everwood fans could watch the program again. Except if they had the temerity to have a job and go to work on weekdays. Remember, in Australia it’s still illegal to time shift TV programs by recording them and watching them at a later time, although it’s safe to say almost all viewers do .
Now Everwood has been yanked off the schedule. Again. For those curious - the last episode shown in Australia was “The Birds & the Batteries” - episode 5 of season 3. The episode aired in the US in October 2004. There is no word on when the series will re-appear.
The Everwood story is a typical story as Australian fans of The West Wing, Enterprise and host of other programs will attest to.
No wonder internet savvy Australian TV viewers are downloading TV programs in unprecedented numbers. The issue has even started receiving publicity in the Australian mainstream media.
You’d think after watching the recording industry spend millions of dollars on the Kazaa case, in a futile attempt to prop up outdated business models, the Australian television industry would have learned a lesson or two from the Australian recording industry. But seemingly, that’s not the case - witness the quote in the above article from Ten’s David Mott: “We don’t condone piracy and we support the US networks’ efforts to prevent it”.
That quote could have come straight from the recording industry.
A final thought for copyright holders: imagine the revenue stream if a small percentage of Everwood’s Saturday viewers would have been willing to spend just a few dollars to purchase a stream or download of that program, so that they wouldn’t have to wait years to see what happens to their favourite characters.
Instead, they’ve been forced to turn to the torrents.
Talk about creating an environment encouraging piracy and then getting upset when the piracy actually takes place!
Alex Malik - p2pnet
[Malik is a lawyer, music industry commentator and academic researcher at the University of Technology in Sydney.]
February 13th, 2006 at 12:52 pm
The content holders love their paradoxes … don’t provide any “authorized” alternatives and sue them to death when they turn to the “dark side”.
February 13th, 2006 at 8:34 pm
The paradoxes work for the music industry, how many people have gotten rich sueing p2p? Perhaps this is why there can never be a solution that allows anyone but a music industry crony to be in the digital down load business
February 14th, 2006 at 3:03 am
This has been going on for as long as i can remember, and i’m an old bastard. Hell i turn 40 in a few years. <grin>
In fact i’ve literally given up on the whole medium of film and tv. Not only do i not watch tv or movies when they’re on or come out, i don’t even download the vast majority of either. 99.999999999% of them are just boring 3rd rate rehashes of shows i saw while i was growing up. Apparently most of the execs are either too old or too young to remember the shows they’re ripping off and are hoping all their viewers are too.
In fact the only show in a very long time that i’ve made an effort to see is Firefly. Because it’s different. It’s not “trek” it’s not “wars” eithers. Oh sure you’ve got a group of ppl in a ship wandering around space. But other than that it’s not like any other space series i’ve seen. The whole wild west feel to it was cool too. But i don’t want them to bring it back and do more seasons of it. Why not?
Because the beancounters WILL fuck it up in some feeble moronic attempt to get it to “rate”. And i’d rather go without than see that happen.
February 15th, 2006 at 10:03 am
Yeh, not only do i download the programes because i miss an episode or 2 (or Nine Yank it off air) but i also download episodes of “The OC” without any adverts,no interuptions but best of all i use eMule and can get episodes 15 weeks before they come out in Australia! Then i run around being a bad bloke telling everyone the storyline…the main point is -DOWNLOADING SHOWS IS AWESUM!