Classic TV for Free Download 366
way2trivial writes to tell us the New York Times is reporting that Warner Brothers will have over 100 classic TV shows available for free download with a 1-2 minutes of commercials per episode. From the article: "There is a catch. To use the technology, viewers will have to agree to participate in a special file-sharing network. This approach helps AOL reduce the cost of distributing-high quality video files by passing portions of the video files from one user's computer to another. AOL says that since it will control the network, it can protect users from the sorts of viruses and spyware that infect other peer-to-peer systems."
Central control = no spyware? Ha... (Score:4, Informative)
(Stating the obvious here, but damn..)
Re:Free but more details needed (Score:3, Informative)
I think the major deterrent will be this (FT fine A):
"The company will offer a changing selection of several hundred episodes each month, rather than providing continuous access to all the episodes in a series, Mr. Frankel said, so as not to cannibalize potential DVD sales of old TV shows."
So just when you are in the middle of a season, the show will go out of rotation and you have to go and get the DVD anyway (or wait -- 4800 episodes, a few hundred per rotation -> at least 6 months).
another link (Score:3, Informative)
Also, if you want to read the NYT version but don't want to create a login, check out BugMeNot.com [bugmenot.com].
Kontiki (Score:2, Informative)
Maybe it'll actually work better now...
Re:Uhh... (Score:5, Informative)
Because it is ostensibly controlled by the owner of the copyright, which means they are controlling the means and methods of distribution, which is the central power of copyright. Nothing here changes or makes the illicit distribution of "Lost" legal.
Re:Uhh... (Score:5, Informative)
there isn't anything special about using a peer to peer network for distribution, the advancement is a social advancement in WB seeing the market for free downloads with ads as comparable to free broadcasts with ads.
Re:Why not bittorrent? (Score:5, Informative)
Its worth mentioning... (Score:5, Informative)
They are definitely the good guys.
Re:I'll throw out the first questions (Score:3, Informative)
If they cut some 60% of the crap that is out there, they could save billions.
Special network my ass (Score:2, Informative)
-d
Re:Proprietary or No? (Score:5, Informative)
"AOL is using file-sharing technology from Kontiki, a Silicon Valley company providing a similar system to the ambitious Internet video program of the BBC."
and a google search brought me here at Kontiki's page [kontiki.com].
Re:Oh Come on! make up your mind already. (Score:3, Informative)
The List (Score:5, Informative)
Alice
Babylon 5
Beetlejuice
Chico and the Man
Dark Justice
Eight is Enough
F Troop
The F.B.I.
Falcon Crest
Freakazoid
Freddy's Nightmares
The Fugitive
Growing Pains
Hangin' with Mr. Cooper
Head of the Class
Histeria!
Kung Fu
La Femme Nikita
Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman
Maverick
The New Adventures of Batman
Perfect Strangers
Pinky and the Brain
Scarecrow and Mrs. King
Sisters
Spenser: For Hire
V
Welcome Back, Kotter
Wonder Woman
This is what I was able to find for a full list with more content to be added over the course of a year. There are a few shows I am glad to see, can you guess one from my sig?
Reg-Free Link (Score:4, Informative)
Re:required clients are blocking true integration (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I'll throw out the first questions (Score:3, Informative)
And you KNOW this how? Further, if you bought stock in a company, would you support a regulation that you could only sell it for 150% of what you bought it for, or that after the dividents had brought in 150% of your purchase price you had to give it away? Corporations exist to make money. This money goes into making new things and providing money to the owners.
In fact, most of them should have entered the public domain long ago if our copyright system were not corrupted by dirty politicians being bribed by rich lobbyists.
The shows I saw listed were all created within the past few decades, within copyright protectiong long before there were masses of rich lobbyists extending copyright laws.
People can make good shows for much less than you think
OK, prove it. I speak with over a decade of professional experience in the music industry. I have also dabbled in video, doing costuming, lighting, camera work, audio recording, and editing/post production. My work's appeared on ESPN, PBS, and Australian music video programs. Not a ton of work, but enough to know what even just lighting a scene to look good takes. Your qualifications are?
Take a look some time at the numbers for the production cost of TV shows.
Slashdot favourite, Farscape, cost somewhere around $2 Million per episode, just to make it.
The last time I saw the numbers some people worked it out that to pay for the production, manufacturing, and distribution to give every cable and satellite subscriber every show on cable on DVD, without ads, would cost about eight dollars a month.
OK, let's pretend that there's 2 billion people in the world in this equation, all of whom pay in $8/month. Let's further pretend that there's 150 channels (In fact, there'd be many more than that, because once you go global there's going to have to be channels that provide local/local language programming), with 6 hours/day of unique programming. That works out to:
2,000,000,000*$8=
$16,000,000,000 pot. Divided by 150 channels:
$106,666,666 per channel. Divided by 30 days in a month:
$3,555,555 per day. Divided by 6 hours of unique programming leaves:
$592,592 per hour of programming.
And that's supposed to include the cost of distributing the content to the users on DVD too? I think their math is a little suspect. Perhaps they set out with an assumption and looked for "evidence" to prove it?
This is not about rewarding artists so they will make more content.
Actually it is - the artists involved get residuals from old shows.
How many more episodes of "The Prisoner" are going to be made that would not be made is copyrights were cut down to 7 years?
None. But your question is broken because no matter what (within the realm of likely possibility), no more episodes of "The Prisoner" will ever be made. It's about as valid as me asking how many more episodes would be made if I don't shoot two dozen adorable little puppies in the head.
What is more important is whether actors can continue acting in small but interesting shows such as the Prisoner rather than some schlocky sitcom, knowing that the Prisoner audience will be far more likely to subvert payment systems. What is more important is whether anyone would fund making more shows LIKE the Prisoner, based on the behaviour of the fans of existing shows. I can assure you that reducing copyright to 7 years would cause media production of all kinds to fall drastically. Sure, there'd be some amateur stuff that would try to fill in the gaps, but you know, amateur work is called that for a reason. The vast majority of it simply isn't very good and finding the stuff that is can be a major pain. I'd far rather watch The Prisoner than public access cable. How about you?
Re:Source(s)? (Score:3, Informative)
It was a sex joke (Score:2, Informative)
The joke I mean.
DVD backward compatibility (Score:4, Informative)
So if they get scratched too badly, etc
For one thing: SkipDr [digitalinnovations.com]. For another: DVDs of old live-action TV series aren't as likely to get scratched as animated DVDs are because your kids aren't likely to want to watch them and thus won't be as likely to look for them, provided that you keep them separate from discs containing programming targeted at children.
Eveventually DVD will be replaced by the HD standards and then it will become difficult to find anything play my "forver" DVD.
Difference is that DVD has such an installed base and an identical shape to the new high-definition video disc formats that it'd be market suicide to make and sell a player that doesn't play customers' existing DVD Video disc collections in at least EDTV (480p/576p) resolution. Even today, many DVD Video players are capable of playing legacy MPEG-1 discs such as VCDs.
if I can get things as a digital file without a bunch of hinderances
Not likely. The business models of the entities controlling exclusive rights in huge back catalogs rely on digital hindrance management [wikipedia.org].
Re:Uhh... (Score:3, Informative)
Go read the opinion [akamaitech.net] -- it's publicly available for free, and it's really not hard to understand at all. (BTW, I copied that link straight from www.supremecourtus.gov, so it's as legit as it gets, despite what Slashdot may say about the domain.
Re:Central control = no spyware? Ha... (Score:3, Informative)
Hmm, that would make them just exactly like... Apple! Thier QuickTime player is perhaps the worst offender w.r.t. taking over things you don't want it to. Heck, QT takes over as your *TIFF* viewer, even when you tell it not to. Apple/QT is now far worse about hijacking PCs than Real, who for all their faults at least listened to complaints and made new versions much less intrusive.
But somehow, Apple is immune from serious criticism, even if it's justified, and that's especially true here on Slashdot...