p2pnet - rss feed: ABC takes on p2p ‘pirates’
p2p news / p2pnet: Apparently, ABC television network’s decision to sell content online had nothing to do with money. Perish the thought! It was to show those dastardly pirates what’s what.
Angering affiliates, the move, "was aimed at preventing piracy from eroding the broadcasting business, a senior network executive said on Tuesday," states Reuters, going on:
"ABC, owned by Walt Disney Co., sells some of its shows on iTunes and will soon experiment with offering popular shows such as ‘Desperate Housewives’ and ‘Lost’ free on the Internet, supported by advertising. Disney-ABC Television Group President Anne Sweeney admitted the iTunes move ‘did not endear us" to local station affiliates but said thousands of illegal copies of hit shows were being downloaded hours after broadcast in a rapidly growing trend.
"It’s actually becoming common for programming in the U.S. to be captured real time from the East Coast broadcast and put online for anyone in the world to see before the same show airs on the West Coast," she told the National Association of Broadcasters’ annual convention in Las Vegas, says the story.
Local affiliates are afraid they’ll be, "cut out of the revenue picture by the television networks when popular shows are made available for downloading or are streamed directly to consumers over the Internet," says the story.
In the old days, they knew how to deal with pirates: keel-haul them or make them walk the plank.
Also See:
Reuters - Disney-ABC exec says online offerings fight piracy, April 25, 2006
April 26th, 2006 at 6:56 pm
” Apparently, ABC television network’s decision to sell content online had nothing to do with money. Perish the thought! It was to show those dastardly pirates what’s what.”
yeah I’m sure people who dl freely available tv shows (that they can watch for free & record for free) will pay for drm crippled dl’s. Whohoo where do I sign up!! NOT
April 26th, 2006 at 7:06 pm
haha they say that the shows get online before west coast airs.. Not really. The compression process is a butt. That’s why it takes usually till late night for a release.
April 26th, 2006 at 10:37 pm
The HDTV release does take a bit longer, but if one rips it directly off Dish network or the direct network feed, it’s already digitized, so compression with DivX or XviD won’t take long at all. Plus, once all the non-program bits are stripped from the stream, you are left with about 41 minutes of content from a one-hour broadcast.
I’ve noticed some groups who consistently have their 4:3 release seeding within 30 minutes of the end of a broadcast.
April 26th, 2006 at 11:04 pm
How can ABC possibly characterize p2p downloading of something they give away for free as ‘piracy’? It would seem that unlike the movie or recording industry that expect to sell their offerings, television is either given away totally free by terrestrial broadcast, or in bulk via cable. Furthermore, recording a program on cable is transforming content that has already been ‘paid’ for by the cable fees.
I’ve not seen anyone out hawking DVDs of the latest episode of LOST or 24 on La Cienega Blvd. an hour after it’s been broadcast in the Eastern Time Zone.
Piracy? What piracy? I don’t see no piracy……
What is the sinister implication of the statement that “anyone in the world” can see a show before it’s official broadcast in the Pacific and Mountain Time Zones in the USA? Is this really relevant in Japan, India, Oz, or France?
–TurboGeek
April 27th, 2006 at 12:51 pm
The studios consider it to be piracy because the commercials are striped out thus they are losing potential revenue .
At Least ABC is offering an alternative even if it has DRM so they can embed targeted advertising and you cant strip the commercials out without more hassle of bypassing the encryption .
I suppose the Studios are dammed if they do and dammed if they don’t .
You hardcore copyleft advocates, should be careful what you wish for ,just look at what happened in France recently with copyright law if you need a “Historical” perspective .
April 27th, 2006 at 5:32 pm
I cannot believe you are so blind….this is why the record companies went after so called pirates in the first place …
they are going to MONopolize the entire thing (as always)
This is going to be the norm …no more P2P for free… in fact email wil be next you will pay for sending email…oh dont worry you wont feel a thing…your rates will just increase…Now that we are used to already….IF we do not BOYCOTT the corps..we will turn into WHORES …giving all our money to them is whoredom in it most intrinsic state….they are the Pimps …SOLUTION ..just stop buying online Electronics.. music Ipods stop going to the malls for one year collectively…No soda ect. .save every penny you can obsessively… OUR MOTTO “DONT SPEND WITH THEM”
save YOUR money in a “screw them account ” Let them feel the power of the consumer …we are the power…
April 27th, 2006 at 6:55 pm
Easy big fella