Cord Cutting Is The New File-Sharing
Janko RoettgersJuly 15, 20124 cord cutting,
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Cord cutting will kill Hollywood. Cord cutting doesn’t exist. Cord cutting is the future. Cord cutting is only done by poor kids who will change their ways when they get a real job: These days, it seems like everyone is talking about cord cutting, the trend of people ditching their pay TV subscription for online alternatives.
I’ve written many stories about the subject over the years as well, and I’ve been making how-to videos for people interested in cutting the cord.
But lately, all that rhetoric about cord cutting has been sounding awfully familiar, and I started to wonder: Where had I heard that before? And then it hit me: Cord cutting is the new file-sharing.
Of course, I don’t mean to say that all cord cutters are pirates. Sure, a subset of them are definitely getting their TV show fix from BitTorrent sites and cyberlockers after ditching cable, especially in countries where no legal alternatives exist. But in the U.S., many people instead turn to Hulu, Netflix and even free over-the-air TV once they cut the cable cord.
Still, cord cutting and file-sharing have a lot in common. On the surface, both are about paying less for movies and TV shows. But take a closer look, and you’ll realize that money is only part of the equation. What really unites cord cutters and file-sharers is that they want to take their media consumption into their own hands.
via Cord Cutting Is The New File-Sharing | TorrentFreak.
To a certain degree one could claim that HBO is to blame for Game of Throne’s success on BitTorrent. They want to keep access to the show “exclusive” and even Netflix wasn’t able to buy the rights no matter what they offered.Whether this is the best decision in terms of revenue is hard to tell, but it’s clear that HBO prefers more exclusiveness over less piracy. And who knows, maybe they even sell HBO subscriptions to BitTorrent downloaders in the long run.
via Who’s Pirating Game of Thrones, And Why? | TorrentFreak.
Mostanra a hazai lakosság körében is megkezdődött a digitális televíziós videótár térhódítása, és a trend folytatódásával 2012-ben széles körűvé válhat az otthonról távkapcsolóval megrendelhető videótartalmak fogyasztása. Ez állapítható meg a UPC és az ITHAKA Információs Társadalom- és Hálózatkutató Központ online kutatásának eredményeiből, illetve a UPC saját VOD-statisztikáinak összevetéséből.
via 2012.01.19. – Feljövőben a digitális videótárak.
It’s been a week since Fox stopped offering free access to its TV-shows the day after they air on television. The TV-studio took this drastic step in the hope of getting more people to watch their shows live and thus make more revenue. TV-viewers, however, are outraged by the decision and have massively turned to pirated sources to watch their favorite shows.
 One of the main motivations for people to download and stream TV-shows from unauthorized sources is availability. If fans can’t get a show through legal channels they turn to pirated alternatives.
This is one of the reasons why Hulu drastically decreased TV-show piracy in the U.S. Viewers are happy with the legal streaming option it offers them, but not all studios see that as a success.
Starting last Monday, Fox began delaying the availability of new episodes on Hulu and Fox.com for 8 days. The decision goes directly against the wishes of the public but Fox will take this disappointment as collateral damage in the hope that the delay will result in more live viewers and better deals with cable and satellite distributors.
When the plan was first announced last month we predicted that it could lead to a significant boost in online piracy of Fox shows, and this does indeed turn out to be the case.
Over the last week TorrentFreak tracked two Fox shows on BitTorrent to see if there was an upturn in the number of downloads compared to the previous weeks, and the results are as expected. For both Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen and MasterChef the download numbers have surged.
During the first 5 days, the number of downloads from the U.S. for the latest episode of Hell’s Kitchen increased by 114% compared to the previous 3 episodes. For MasterChef the upturn was even higher with 189% more downloads from the U.S. For MasterChef; the extra high demand may in part have been facilitated by the fact that it was the season finale.
Aside from BitTorrent, there are of course many other options for people to catch up with a missed episode. YouTube for example, from where tens of thousands of people streamed the latest Hell’s Kitchen episode.
Instead of Hulu or Fox, the pirates get the praise. On YouTube and BitTorrent sites many users thank the uploaders for making the shows available.
“You so rock and allowed me to keep my promise to my son. I promised if he cleaned for one hour he could watch Hell’s Kitchen with me. He was excited and then disappointed that we couldn’t watch it on Hulu or Fox.com,” WithurShield writes.
“Thanks a lot for uploading these, Hulu used to be my go-to but alas, they have failed me,” minniemica adds.
On the other hand, several users who went to Hulu expecting to see a fresh episode left comments berating Fox (although most target Hulu) for their decision not to make the episodes available for free.
“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing when I went to Hell’s Kitchen and Master Chef. Right in the middle of the series idiot at Hulu decided to through in the pay services. At least have the decency to wait till the end [sic],” one commenter writes on Hulu.
“What I don’t like is up until now I have been able to watch the episode of Hell’s Kitchen the day after it airs and all of a sudden they now want me to pay for it?” another commenter adds.
There is no doubt that the Hulu delay is not in the best interests of TV-viewers. Although it might be a good business decision in the short term, one has to doubt whether driving people to ‘pirated’ content is a wise choice. To many viewers it is clearly a step backward.
Instead of artificial restrictions the public demands flexibility when it comes to entertainment. They want to decide when and where they want to watch something, and right now video streaming sites, BitTorrent and even the old VCR do a better job at this than Fox.
“I’m going to go buy a DVR or dust off my VCR and I will be recording my tv shows from now on,” a commenter writes on Hulu.
via Fox’s 8-Day Delay on Hulu Triggers Piracy Surge | TorrentFreak.
Starting in two weeks, Fox will no longer offer free access to its TV-shows the day after they air on television. For TV-fans the decision to limit the availability of these show is a step backward, and all the signs indicate that TV-show piracy will once again surge in the United States. But whether Fox will care much about this piracy increase remains to be seen.foxWhen Hulu first launched in 2008 there was an immediate effect on the piracy rates in the United States.Having a free, legal and on-demand option to catch up with missed TV-shows suddenly made BitTorrent a less urgent need.
via Fox Will Boost U.S. TV-Show Piracy | TorrentFreak.
Discovering behaviors and attitudes related to pirating content
Today’s consumers can access an astonishing variety of movies, videos, and television shows — on multiple platforms — faster than ever before. With so much content at their fingertips, what compels some consumers to commit online piracy by downloading or streaming content illegally?
via Speed of life: Consumer intelligence series.
At the D9 Conference this morning, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings credited his company with helping to beat piracy — at least in the U.S. Now, he says, the challenge is to outcompete copyright infringement in places like Korea, where it runs rampant.
“One of the things that we’re most proud of is we’re now finally beating BitTorrent,” Hastings told AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher. Thanks to services like Netflix, Hastings said most Internet video is now paid for in the U.S. The hard part for content providers, he said, was coming up with a service good enough that people were willing to pay for, rather than just searching for free content on the Internet. Netflix has been able to provide that service by making its streaming videos available across a vast number of devices, and giving subscribers access to a wide range of library content for a relatively low price.
Netflix has also enabled content owners to make money on shows they previously weren’t monetizing. Hastings offered up Joss Whedon’s Firefly as one example of a series that had a rabid fan base that couldn’t find it under legal means prior to appearing on Netflix. At the same time, he quelled any rumors that the company could bring Firefly back from the dead.
via Netflix CEO: ‘We’re Finally Beating BitTorrent’ — Online Video News.
There are two principle components of the new value chain of television hyperdistribution: the producer and the advertiser. An advertising agency is likely acting as an intermediary between these two, connecting producers to advertisers, working out the demographic appeal of particular programs, and selling ad payload into those programs; this is a role they already fulfill – although at present they work with the broadcast networks rather than the producers. There is no role for a broadcaster in this value chain; the audience has abandoned the broadcaster in favor of a direct relationship with the program provider. That said, the broadcasters are uniquely qualified to transform themselves into highly specialized advertising agencies, connecting advertisers to producers; this is something they already excel at.
This is clearly a viable economic model: the producer gets paid at least as much for their programming as they would have received from a broadcaster, and probably more; the advertiser gets a cheaper ad buy; and the audience continues to receive free television programs. This is a win-win-win scenario, unless you're a broadcaster.
via Mindjack – Piracy is Good? Part Two: The New Laws of Television.
Hulu Blog
The Hulu team is often asked about our thoughts on the future of TV. The following represents our point of view, which has been materially influenced by our daily interactions with users, advertisers, and content owners. We are fortunate to have such meaningful interactions with these three customer sets, and we are relentlessly inventing better ways to serve them.
TekGoblin
Netflix announced today that they have brokered a deal with Disney-ABC to add their content to the Netflix library. The deal should add a substantial number of new TV shows and Movies to instant watch. The episodes will be added rather quickly to instant watch only 15 days after initial telecast. Here is a list of the new additions to Netflix:
- Prior season episodes of current ABC hit series “Grey’s Anatomy,” ”Desperate Housewives” and, for the first time on Netflix, “Brothers & Sisters,” all of which are among the network’s most successful and popular TV franchises in recent years.
- Every episode of recent ABC favorites “Lost” and “Ugly Betty,” the latter making its streaming debut at Netflix.
- Each season of several hit series from ABC Studios, including “Scrubs” and “Reaper,” which are both new additions to Netflix.
- A host of content from the Disney Channel, including the hits “Phineas and Ferb” and “Good Luck Charlie,” which are also new to Netflix; updated and expanded offerings of “The Suite Life on Deck” and “Wizards of Waverly Place;” and library offerings from the smash hits “Hannah Montana” and “The Suite Life of Zack & Cody.”
- A wide range of content from ABC Family, marking the introduction of ABC Family content streaming from Netflix. Included are the hit series “Greek,” “Make It or Break It,” “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” and “Melissa & Joey.”
With much more content to come. Netflix also recently added a new plan that included no dvd rentals but unlimited streaming for only $7.99 a month down from the original $8.99 plan.
Slashdot Technology Story | How Hulu, NBC, and Other Sites Block Google TV
Shortly after the launch of Google TV, it became clear that several networks and services were blocking access. Reader padarjohn points out a blog post from Lauren Weinstein explaining the blocking mechanisms being used and wondering why it’s being tolerated. “Imagine the protests that would ensue if Internet services arbitrarily blocked video only to Internet Explorer or Firefox browsers! Or if Hulu and the other networks decided they’d refuse to stream video to HP and Dell computers because those manufacturers hadn’t made deals with the services to the latter’s liking.” Various workarounds are being used to get around the blocks.
Slashdot News Story |
Since I never heard of Sickbeard, sabnzbd, or Astraweb, I figured I’d do a little research, and post my (Score: 5 Informative?) findings here. Please correct me if I made any mistakes….
Sickbeard is an open source, GPL licensed Python application (so runs on Windows and Linux and other platforms), that watches newsgroups, looking for announcements of TV shows whose torrents have been put on the web. In Sickbeard, the user can specify which shows he is interested in, and it keeps an eye out for those shows. Once it finds shows that the user has specified, it can queue up a retrieval program, but Sickbeard doesn’t retrieve them itself.
Sickbeard will request the show from sabnzbd. Sabnzbd is also open source, Python. Its function is to go retrieve binaries from newsgroups. So it seems to me that the newsgroups have both the announcement of the availability of a TV program (like a torrent tracker), and the actual program. Sickbeard is watching the announcements, and Sabnzbd is grabbing the program.
Astraweb is a newsgroup website that apparently allows you to download newsgroup posts. This is a paid service, and the parent post signed up for a $25 service for 180GB of downloads. Based on my MythTV experience, I’m guessing this might be 180 half hours of TV (please correct this number if I am off!).
So for $25 plus 2 free open source programs, I can have almost 200 half-hour programs that I can watch anytime (starting a few minutes after they air). Interesting!
WSJ.com
ABC, CBS and NBC are blocking TV programming on their websites from being viewable on Google Inc.’s new Web-TV service, exposing the rift that remains between the technology giant and some of the media companies it wants to supply content for its new products.
Full-length episodes of shows like NBC’s “The Office,” CBS’s “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” and ABC’s “Modern Family” can’t be viewed on Google TV, a service that allows people to access the Internet and search for Web videos on their television screens, as well as to search live TV listings. Logitech International S.A. and Sony Corp. began selling devices running the software this month.
Spokespeople for the three networks confirmed that they are blocking the episodes on their websites from playing on Google TV, although both ABC and NBC allow promotional clips to work using the service. ABC is owned by Walt Disney Co., CBS is part of CBS Corp., and NBC is a unit of General Electric Co.’s NBC Universal.
“Google TV enables access to all the Web content you already get today on your phone and PC, but it is ultimately the content owners’ choice to restrict their fans from accessing their content on the platform,” a Google spokeswoman said in a statement.
The move marks an escalation in ongoing disputes between Google and some media companies, which are skeptical that Google can provide a business model that would compensate them for potentially cannibalizing existing broadcast businesses.
Over the summer, Google pressed major media companies to optimize their websites and videos to work more seamlessly with Google TV. Some outlets, including Time Warner Inc.’s HBO and Turner Broadcasting networks, did so. Even NBC Universal’s CNBC embraced the service, optimizing some content to work specifically on Google TV.
But many other companies declined to specifically optimize their websites, and some held out the possibility that they could block their content from the service, as the three networks are now doing. Some TV executives said they were worried their shows would be lost in the larger Internet. Some, including Disney and NBC, were also concerned about Google’s stance on websites that offer pirated content, according to people familiar with their thinking.
Disney executives, for example, asked that Google filter out results from pirate sites when users search for Disney content, like “Desperate Housewives.” But they were unsatisfied with Google’s response, according to people familiar with the conversations.
News Corp.‘s Fox Broadcasting and Viacom Inc.’s MTV aren’t blocking Google TV from playing episodes on their websites, according to a spot check Thursday. Spokespeople for Fox and MTV confirmed they are not currently blocking Google TV, but the Fox spokeswoman said “a firm decision has not yet been reached.” News Corp. also owns The Wall Street Journal.
For its part, Google has tried to assure broadcasters and content owners such as Disney that Google TV’s search feature is optimized to promote their TV broadcasts and own websites’ video content rather than pirated content, according to a person familiar with the matter.
In addition, Google has also told broadcasters and content owners they can submit requests to Google to delete unauthorized results from the Google TV search feature, just like they do for results in Google’s traditional Web search engine, this person said.
Some shows—from siblings of the networks that are blocking their content—were working on Google TV on Thursday. Shows from the CW network, which is jointly owned by CBS and Time Warner, appear to play on Google TV, as do some from Lifetime, a cable channel jointly owned by Walt Disney Co., Hearst Inc., and NBC Universal.
Google won’t directly make money from the sale of the Google TV software, but the software’s use will benefit Google’s ad-supported Web search engine and is expected to increase viewership of the ad-supported YouTube site, which is owned by Google. The company also has been in talks with Madison Avenue’s media-buying firms to discuss how to sell ads on the Google TV interface without interfering with TV commercials, people familiar with the matter have said.
But the three networks are also not alone in blocking their content. Video site Hulu, whose owners include Disney, NBC Universal and News Corp., also blocks its video from being played through the Google TV interface. Spokeswomen for both Hulu and Google said the companies are in talks to bring the Hulu Plus subscription service to Google TV.
Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303339504575566572021412854.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection#ixzz13IlB7D8R
Epicenter | Wired.com
 Netflix instant accounts for 20 percent of all non-mobile internet use during prime time in the United States, according to a new study.
Streaming media — real-time entertainment — accounts for 43% of peak period traffic in the U.S., according to Sandvine, which helps ISPs manage their networks and thus has access to buckets of information about usage patterns.
But Netflix alone accounts for nearly half of that between 8 and 10 p.m., and that usage comes from only 1.8 percent of the service’s subscribers.
“Per-user, Netflix is the heaviest user of downstream bandwidth in North America: the average fixed access Netflix connection is 1 megabit per second,” Sandvine said in reply to an e-mail question. “On mobile networks, per user, only Slingbox (at almost 800 kbps) is heavier than Netflix (~125 kbps).”
Streaming video is the most bandwidth-intensive use of the internet, but there are plenty of other choices — starting with YouTube. So the dominance of Netflix, which only offers “studio” fare, would seem to indicate that there is an enormous appetite for profession programming delivered from the cloud.
Good news for Hulu, Amazon Unbox and even YouTube, should its movie rentals service gain traction. Better news for the content creators, assuming they can come up with a killer streaming revenue model and as if they needed any more proof that on-demand, internet delivery is the future. Bad news for cable and satellite — protestations by CEO Reed Hastings notwithstanding.
But Hastings does see that streaming is the engine for Netflix now. “In fact, by every measure, we are now primarily a streaming company that also offers DVD-by-mail,” Hastings said in conjunction with the company’s earnings report Wednesday [pdf]. “At the same time, the introduction of our streaming offering in Canada in late September has provided us with very encouraging signs regarding the potential for the Netflix service internationally.”
Media | The Guardian
The UK has become the first major economy where advertisers spend more on internet advertising than on television advertising, with a record £1.75bn online spend in the first six months of the year.
The milestone marks a watershed for the embattled TV industry, the leading ad medium in the UK for almost half a century. It has taken the internet little more than a decade to become the biggest advertising sector in the UK.
UK advertisers spent £1.75bn on internet advertising in the six months to the end of June, a 4.6% year-on-year increase, according to a report by the Internet Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers. To put this in perspective, in 1998, when the IAB first measured internet advertising, just £19.4m was spent online.
The internet now accounts for 23.5% of all advertising money spent in the UK, while TV ad spend accounts for 21.9% of marketing budgets.
The IAB originally predicted that internet ad spend would overtake TV at the end of 2009; however, the crippling advertising recession accelerated this by six months. TV advertising fell about 17% year on year in the first half, to about £1.6bn, according to the report.
The IAB’s figures show that of the total of £1.75bn spent on internet advertising, £1.05bn, or 60%, was spent on search advertising on websites including Google, up 6.8% year on year.
Online classified advertising grew by 10.6% year on year to £385m, about 22% of total internet ad spend. But online display advertising, such as banners on websites, fell by 5.2% year on year, to £316.5m. This was an 18% share of all internet ad spend.
Total Telecom
Online video service reinvents itself as technology provider for media companies.
Joost NV, an online video service launched by the founders of Skype, is retreating from the consumer market and replacing its high-profile chief executive.
The New York-based company, which provides television programming over the Web, said it would reinvent itself as a technology provider that will enable media companies to publish Internet video under their own brands.
The move marks a dramatic shift by Joost, which was founded in 2006 but failed to live up to its early hype. Internet users have instead flocked to Google Inc.’s YouTube for user-generated content or sites like Hulu LLC, a joint venture between News Corp., General Electric Co.’s NBC Universal and Walt Disney Co. dedicated to TV programs.
“In these tough economic times, it’s been increasingly challenging to operate as an independent, ad-supported online video platform,” said Mike Volpi, who will step aside as Joost’s chief executive as part of the restructuring.
Mr. Volpi will be replaced as CEO by Matt Zelesko, senior vice president of engineering. Mr. Volpi, a key architect of networking giant Cisco Systems Inc.’s acquisition machine during the dot-com boom, will remain chairman of Joost’s board.
Mr. Volpi said the changes will result in layoffs but didn’t say how many people would be leaving the company. Joost employed about 100 people prior to the restructuring.
Joost was founded by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, creators of Internet telephone service Skype, but the company got off to a rocky start largely because it required users to download software, while rivals such as YouTube and Hulu let people stream video directly from Web sites.
Mr. Volpi joined the company two years ago and his first order of business was to relaunch Joost as a streaming Web service, but that improvement wasn’t enough to overcome the company’s early missteps.
O’Reilly Radar
That’s pretty much my view, too. DVDs (mentioned in the note at the start) became a big boon for the studios, once their crazy ideas about self-destructing Divx discs went the way of the Dodo. The studios have a very long history of betting against technology people want, and on technology people don’t want. This is just another such case. The technology people want always wins in the end — no duh — and usually benefits the businesses who fought that technology to the death. Here’s hoping the technology people want — Boxee — doesn’t wind up benefiting the studios fighting it now.
Sports Night season 1 episode 4 clip 2
Happy birthday is copyrighted
Technology | Reuters
NEW YORK (Reuters) – NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric Co, is teaming up with Google Inc on a multi-year partnership in which Google will act as a broker to sell TV advertising on some NBC cable channels.
In a joint statement, the two companies said NBC Universal will offer advertising time from several of its cable networks for Google to sell advertising through its Google TV Ads service.
The deal, set to go into effect in coming months, covers advertising inventory on Sci Fi, Oxygen, MSNBC, CNBC, Sleuth, and Chiller, with more NBC Universal channels possible in the future, the companies said.
“Advertisers using the Google TV Ads platform can reach NBCU Cable’s national audience and gain access to viewership data at an unprecedented scale,” the NBC Universal and Google statement said.
Mike Pilot, president of NBC Universal sales and marketing, and Tim Armstrong, Google’s president of advertising and commerce for North America, said that the partnership would make TV ads more accountable.
Through an existing deal with DISH Network, the Google TV Ads service can report second-by-second TV usage data allowing advertisers to measure viewership of their ads more precisely. The NBC-Google partnership extrapolates on the data supplied by Dish set-top boxes in millions of U.S. homes.
NBC Universal and Google have also agreed to work together to adapt the Google TV Ad service for use in local TV markets. They are also collaborating on custom marketing and research projects using Google TV Ads to survey audience trends.
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