P2P and TV 381
Khuffie writes "According to Wired, Warner Bros. Entertainment recently passed on a pilot of a show called Global Frequency. However, due to a leak on bit-torrent the pilot episode has reached thousands of viewers who are clamouring for more, and has given the show a new lease on life. What's more interesting is what the show creator learned. From the article: "It changes the way I'll do my next project," said Rogers. If he owned the full rights, he said, "I would put my pilot out on the internet in a heartbeat. Want five more? Come buy the boxed set." Frankly, I'm all for this method of distribution, as I barely watch 'regular' TV anymore."
More Stupidity! (Score:5, Insightful)
Quick! Cover it up! People aren't supposed to know we're rejecting the GOOD shows in favor of more idiocy! God forbid that a television network pander to an intelligent clientele. After all, you're all supposed to slurp up the low cost, low profit, low intelligence, but HIGH MARGIN reality shows! Who wants to worry about actually pleasing customers? Just pander to the stupidity! That's the ticket!
Gah. And television networks wonder why no one is tuning in anymore. It must be because there isn't enough stupidity. Bring on Big Brother on Survivor Island where the worst singer is voted into fear factor stunts! In Dolby 5.1 no less! That'll bring in the ratings!
Re:More Stupidity! (Score:3, Insightful)
Its pretty amazing how knee jerk and shortsighted execs can be.
Re:More Stupidity! (Score:2)
They take action against the people that offer the content. In the case of BT, that means you get busted for uploading.
And...? (Score:2)
Quick! Cover it up! People aren't supposed to know we're rejecting the GOOD shows in favor of more idiocy! God forbid that a television network pander to an intelligent clientele. After all, you're all supposed to slurp up the low cost, low profit, low intelligence, but HIGH MARGIN reality shows! Who wants to worry about actually pleasing customers? Just pander to the stupidity! That's the ticket!
And what does any of that have to do with protection of copyrights? You know, the topic that Hoffman was ac
Re:And...? (Score:3, Interesting)
In other words, I'm not really talking about copyrights. Then again, neither is Mr. Hoffman.
Re:And...? (Score:3, Insightful)
It was his reaction to the whole thing. Instead of pondering what this sudden influx of a fanbase for a non-existent show means, he jumps straight to the "cover it up through force" method.
I wouldn't go so far as to call it "force". It might be heavy-handed, but it's a viable and not-entirely-unreasonable legal option at his disposal.
In other words, I'm not really talking about copyrights. Then again, neither is Mr. Hoffman.
Fair enough.
Re:And...? (Score:2, Insightful)
This should be true in general. Any work that an "owner" is not interested in exploiting for commercial gain should be strictly PD. None of this nonsense about locking up masterpieces in a vault to rot away.
Re:And...? (Score:3, Insightful)
What about my journal (think written paper journal), I never intended to exploit it for commercial gain, but I hardly think it should be public domain.. would I even use it if at any moment someone could take it freely and publish it?
Also, what about my music? I may one day want to exploit it for commercial gain, but mostly I do it just because I enjoy making music. For the most part I've been too self conscious to ever publis
Re:And...? (Score:4, Insightful)
No.
For example, Kafka wanted his works destroyed when he died. No one respected this, and we're all better off as a result.
Copyright is granted by the public for the public good, not any specific individual's good. Having works created is good. Having works be in the public domain is equally as good.
If copyright is the incentive that it takes to get you to create a work, then it might be worthwhile to grant you one. But if you created that work without regard to a copyright, then it'd be foolish to give you a reward; you did it for free. Since a copyright basically provides a potential economic reward, it's authors that are looking for money that deserve copyrights. Authors doing their work for fame, or for art's sake, or whatever, don't need them in order to produce.
Personally, I think it'd be better to grant a low level of protection to works in progress or not yet published, for a brief period of time, provided that there was a bona fide intent to publish and properly register the work. But most protection should be reserved for works where the author has applied for a copyright, and fulfilled the formalities that go along with that.
This way we could avoid having people pirate manuscripts, but not grant undue protection. The author would have to seek protection, and thus only the ones that actively wanted it, and were willing to take some minor steps (fill out some forms, pay a filing fee) would get it.
That's just ridiculous (Score:3, Interesting)
This should be true in general. Any work that an "owner" is not interested in exploiting for commercial gain should be strictly PD. None of this nonsense about locking up masterpieces in a vault to rot away.
Scenario:
1) I create a really neat widget.
2) I am not interested in releasing the widget.
3) I am not interested in financial gain.
And somehow you come to the logical (??) conclusion that I should release the widget into the public domain, because obviously if I don't want to profit from it t
Re:That's just ridiculous (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not an unreasonable position, given that copyright is solely intended to help the public by, among other things, providing an economic incentive to authors to create and publish their works. If copyright isn't encouraging you, then it would be wasteful to give a copyright to you.
there are more financial facets (Score:3, Informative)
Jedidiah,
Consider these other aspects of a TV Pilot. In the real world where we all live, everyone working on a TV pilot is paid a minimum fee with contingency clauses in their contracts that mean these actors, set designers, costumers, directors, makeup artists, etc. will get a cut of the action if a network chooses to buy the show. So it's a big gamble for these people. For an actor, I think the day rate is like $800. And these acting gigs come few and far between. So a lot is riding on this for a lot o
Re:More Stupidity! (Score:5, Insightful)
You are not the customer, you are the product. Advetisers are the customers, they are buying your attention (what's left of it) and the TV networks are selling it.
Re:More Stupidity! (Score:2)
Re:More Stupidity! (Score:5, Insightful)
If anyone wants to make a serious show they should just go direct to DVD with some Internet promotion. TV is not the place to go for quality video entertainment.
Re:More Stupidity! (Score:3, Funny)
Oh.
My.
God.
It all makes sense now. I thought intelligent shows were passed on because they were so hard to make and keep intelligent. But you just put it all into perspective. I thought it was mere lazyness and incompetence, but THIS, this is far more insidious.
Re:More Stupidity! (Score:3, Insightful)
To me the main item is the NET does what Warnners Brothers or one of the studios/network does. But with a lot of hands not in th pie.
Lets face it. The networks started to die when cable/disk started growing with various content either too small or too much for the networks. And thi
Re:More Stupidity! (Score:5, Insightful)
Changing the producer, change the customer (Score:3, Interesting)
Cyncially, it's not entirely unlike a hunter putting out a salt lick. Well, TV viewers don't get shot. They just get shown commercials. I've known people who would say that the deer are getting off easy.
The upshot (as it were) is that the networks are the middle man, and P2P may represent a way of cutting out the middle man, for TV a
Piracy! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:More Stupidity! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:More Stupidity! (Score:3, Insightful)
"Whether the pilot was picked up or not, it is still the property of Warner Bros. Entertainment and we take the protection of all of our intellectual property seriously," said Craig Hoffman, a company spokesman. "While Warner Bros. Entertainment values feedback from consumers, copyright infringement is not a productive way to try to influence a corporate decision."
It just goes to show that it's not even about the money so much. Don't get me wrong, they'll still hold you up by your ankles and
Re:More Stupidity! (Score:5, Informative)
Nope. If I create a product that costs $10 to manufacture, sell it for $12, but sell 10,000,000 units, then I have made $20,000,000 profit on a 16% margin. On the other hand, if I create a product that costs $6 to manufacture and sell 10,000 unit for $12 a piece, I'd have made $60,000 on a 50% margin. Given the choice, most people would go for the 16% margin because it means more money.
The risk, however, is that you might fail to capture the market and only sell a small number. Any up front costs (which can be considerable in high profit dealings) are lost. Now if you consider that the 16% margin has an upfront cost of $100,000, but the 50% margin has an upfront cost of only $1,000, how do you think that effects the risk/reward ratio?
Then how is the production funded? (Score:3, Interesting)
Want five more? Come buy the boxed set.
You mean pay in advance for the boxed set that doesn't exist yet? Yeah, the kind of people hell-bent on pirating shows will do that. Even the ones who claim they'd "pay" for good content (How much? Ten or twenty dollars? Beyond which they'll just go back to BitTorrent again?). And no one's going to finance a project like this, since you've got no proven paying viewership.
Look, guys: we all realize that P2P has legitimate applications. But these desperate attempts to somehow "prove" that P2P is somehow the most desirable distribution mechanism are getting tiresome. And even in this case, Warner Brothers owns this content (though I'm not even going to touch on the legality of copyright infringement, since so many here already either believe copyright is inherently wrong, or that copyright is okay when its used by projects they approve of, but "wrong" when a corporation uses it).
Frankly, I'm all for this method of distribution, as I barely watch 'regular' TV anymore.
Well bully for you.
What do you watch, then? Shows whose production counts on the advertising revenue associated with the show? No, you don't have to watch the advertising, and yes, you can go to the bathroom during the commercials. But the advertisers are paying to be in front of X number of peoples' eyes. And if that goes away, how does your well-produced show get, well, produced?
I'm not saying there are NO alternatives; just that it's more than a little hypocritical to completely discount where the money came from to pay for these shows you're downloading.
Now, if someone who creates and owns the content wants to distribute on P2P and try to drum up interest that way, go for it. But I highly doubt the kind of entitlement crowd that downloads everything for free is going to be willing to pay to support ongoing production of such an operation. Some money? Aboslutely, sure. The kind of money that is ANYWHERE NEAR the kind needed to support the ongoing production of such an operation? Absolutely not.
Re:Then how is the production funded? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's nothing stopping Internet distribution from including ads. Sure, some people will remove them, but the majority wouldn't bother. There are also other models that can be explored, such as BitTorrent-like streaming where the final file is really not accessable to the user.
Want five more? Come buy the boxed set.
This is the "first hit free" model. It's based on the idea that most people aren't going to bother running around trying to find another free hit. They'll just pay for it. There will always be a small group trying to game the system, but they are insignificant.
Reading the article, my gut feeling is that this is nothing more than a grass-roots effort to get a show into production. Just like the fan-base of FireFly was built through BitTorrent, so will the fan-base of this show be build. I don't think it really has anything to do with the P2P aspect other than the fact that P2P technology was used for distribution. Similar things happened prior to the Internet with leaked tapes, whereupon copies upon copies were made.
Just because . . . (Score:2)
Just because it made the guys at ID Software great thumping wads of cash . . .
Re:Then how is the production funded? (Score:3, Insightful)
Define "don't watch"? If you mean that consumers ignore them, then there are no new challenges in this model.
Bear in mind it's impossible to get viewing figures from bittorrent,
I said "BitTorrent-like". If the studio controlled the tracker, they could indeed know the viewing figures. In any case, the sharing algorithm would have to be more linear in order to provide a real-time data stream.
especially when ski
Re:Then how is the production funded? (Score:4, Insightful)
You are looking at a gross of 10 million dollars. You only pay taxes on the profits. So first take off your costs. Actors- Figure 50k per episode for the Stars and 10k per episode for all bit actors. But they might go for a percentage of the gross. Techs- Figure another 100k per episode for editors, etc.
Music- Another 100k per episode. Costumes and Sets- 300k one time setup plus 10k per episode- so say another 60k per episode.
Easily 200k per episode profits after the cost of producing quality dvd's. Take off 50% for the government and you have 500k profits.
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Part of the reason it is expensive now is that you are paying for a HUGE overhead of hollywood, distributers, and local outlets. All of that expense goes away.
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Check out "Star Wreck" or "Star Trek the new Voyages" for an idea of what you can do with merely 15 grand- upscale that by about 500 grand and imagine how much better it would be.
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A lot of junk will be produced- but a lot of good stuff too. Once you build up street cred that you won't rip people off- you produce a "pilot" and put it out. Tell folks "The nut for this is 500,000 viewers at 20 bucks a piece. If we get it- we will produce 5 episodes on DVD for those folks. We'll make another 6 episodes as long as the actors and the audience can agree on a price for more. We'll stop when they can't agree."
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The cost of making things like this is dropping like a stone. You don't need 150 million dollars to do it if you don't go through hollywood.
Re:Then how is the production funded? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just a million?
Just a million?
I think you vastly overestimate the number of people you could get on board for something done exclusively in the non-advertising, P2P panacea you envision.
Even the article [wired.com] used for this supposedly shining example says:
"Now I have an extra 10,000 hits a week on my website, and I've got to figure out what to do here."
Rogers, who said he had nothing to do with the leak, has already received 350 e-mails from people praising the show. He said he would like to release the pilot as a DVD.
Wow, a whole 350 people emailing praise? Holy smokes! And assuming all those people would pay, only $9,996,500 to go! And 10,000 extra hits a week? How do you quantify all this stuff? More realistically, you've got maybe 10,000 people willing to pay $10/show, lowering your gross by a couple orders of magnitude.
It's easy to lay out a best-case scenario.
What's hard is for someone to actually execute on it. And, P2P aside, if it were that easy, it would already have been done.
I'd love to see it succeed, and I'm sure some will. However, none of this justifies any of the rationalizations used for taking things funded by advertising in the meantime.
Re:Then how is the production funded? (Score:3, Insightful)
Without advertising and only found by accidentally running across it on a search. Not many people email with comments after downloading something off of P2P either (it would be admission of guilt).
already been done (Score:3, Insightful)
Web comics, like Sluggy Freelance [sluggy.com] for example, seem to make their authors a decent living based entirely off of merchandising and compilations of free on-line content. So, the question isn't whether money can be made on this kind of open model, just whether it's enough to support movie production as opposed to say comics.
Basically, this new model requires producers to accept a (possibly) lower gross income per viewer in order to achie
Re:Then how is the production funded? (Score:3, Insightful)
"And, P2P aside, if it were that easy, it would already have been done."
Come on! That is such a nonargument! It's what wildly successfull movies/books heard as an excuse not to be made. Douglas Adams got told 'there is no interest in sci-fi comedy'...when he asked how they knew that, he got told 'because otherwise, someone would have done it before already'. Same goes for Star Wars.
Just because someone hasn't done it before only means that someone hasn't done it before. If someone
Already tried & failed (Score:5, Informative)
Stephen King tried it. He started a new book and gave the first chapter away for free, putting subsequent chapters up for sale; when enough people bought a chapter he would write & publish the next one (all on-line). It was a dismal failure: the second chapter was bought by few and re-distributed by many; as a result, chapter three was never published. Author and audience couldn't agree on merely chapter 2.
Re:Then how is the production funded? (Score:2)
This is pretty ridiculous, since there's pretty good feedback that there's a lot of demand. Maybe not as many as there are download
Re:Then how is the production funded? (Score:2)
I'd buy the boxed set. I'm not really interested in spending hours downloading something over the internet and tying up my hard disk space when I can buy it at Amazon or rent it from Netflix in 30 seconds and have it show up in may mailbox.
Re:Then how is the production funded? (Score:2)
It doesn't fall out of the sky. But, since you haven't got any actual rebuttal, and since you know that the money comes from ADVERTISING, I guess this is about all I should expect.
Re:Then how is the production funded? (Score:2)
Two words: (Score:5, Insightful)
And Paramount's response? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is *precisely* why Copyright law needs an overhaul. The supposed goal of copyright law is "to promote science and the useful arts".
How is allowing a company to stop this from seeing the light of day a promotion?
If you make something, and don't release it, you shouldn't be allowed to stop someone else from distributing it for no charge.
Re:And Paramount's response? (Score:2)
Because if they didn't have the right to stop this, they wouldn't have paid to create it in the first place.
I could agree with that after a certain length of time, but not immediately. It could be a whole new business model... Get funding from a studio for a pilot, make something good that they
Re:And Paramount's response? (Score:2)
"If you make something, and don't release it, you shouldn't be allowed to stop someone else from distributing it for no charge."
*shrugs* I kind of like living in a world where people can't force me to share something I own. We all learned in kindergarten how important sharing is, but I don't feel the government needs to be involved to enforce it. A TV show is neither science nor a useful art. It is entertainment. If entertainment falls under "useful art" then anything qualifies as useful, as everythin
Re:And Paramount's response? (Score:3, Insightful)
The "ownership" an artificial construct created by the government meant to achieve some high minded purpose that justifies such meddling.
The absurdity of the underlying meddling is why file sharing networks are such a pervasive "problem".
Re:And Paramount's response? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:And Paramount's response? (Score:2)
Re:And Paramount's response? (Score:2)
Answer: The studio obviously thought it was crap so they shelved it as to not promote crap in the arts.
Re:And Paramount's response? (Score:5, Interesting)
He's just saying that if the point of copyright is to encourage more content to be created and released (which it is), then we should consider the copyright system a bit broken if it causes large amounts of good stuff to get suppressed. It's possible that tweaking the copyright system would result in more content getting created and released, which would make it better. GP said nothing about giving stuff away for free.
The choice of what to do with it is in the hands of the creator, not what the masses want.
The construct of "intellectual property" is created by the masses for their own benefit. If it happens to benefit creators, that's great. If the creators get in the way of benefit for the masses, fuck 'em. Copyright is about benefitting society; that the best method of instituting it happens to help out the creators in most cases is incidental. The system can help creators a bunch, that's fine, but the second that interferes with the benefits for the masses it needs to change, because that's not why the masses invented copyright. The creator can choose not to release anything at all; however, if they do release and then seek copyright protection, society better damn well better be getting something out of it for granting them such protection.
We're talking about optimization here. Best possible good for the masses. Odds are the solution gives the creators of content a pretty damn good deal, too, but that's just a happy coincidence.
Re:And Paramount's response? (Score:2)
The choice of what to do with it is in the hands of the creator, not what the masses want.
Unless the masses decide to ignore the laws enforcing the creator's rights, which seems to be the case at present.
Re:And Paramount's response? (Score:2)
The choice of what to do with it is in the hands of the creator, not what the masses want.
Actually, it's more like you create the Awesome-o-matic(tm), show the plans to the Awesome Company, they say they're not going to make it. Furthermore, they say that due to the fact that you went to them with the product, they aren't going to let you produce it at all.
But
Heh (Score:4, Insightful)
Only on slashdot is stealing* encouraged and applauded when it involves Television, music, and movie copyrights, but God forbid anybody violates the GPL.
*Yes i know it's not technically stealing.
Re:Heh (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't believe you would murder* someone for copyright infringement.
*Yes, I know it's not technecally murder.
Re:Heh (Score:2)
So don't try to oversimplify the discussion. Leave that shit to 24 hr news channels.
Not quite. (Score:2)
1) You can profit from GPL creations.
2) You can violate the GPL without profiting, ie. by using GPL'd code in your free-as-in-beer application and not releasing the source.
Re:Not quite. (Score:2)
You got me there, except I can't figure out why someone would do that unless they intended to profit from it in some way. (eg. Software is free but only usable with a specific product). But you're right it is possible.
Try a remedial course in reading (Score:2)
Only on slashdot is stealing* encouraged and applauded when it involves Television, music, and movie copyrights, but God forbid anybody violates the GPL.
*Yes i know it's not technically stealing.
Good Lord, your statement is so full of holes it must either be a troll or a sign of a one-digit IQ.
First, distributing a copy of a pilot that is destined for the dustbin isn't even the moral equivelent of jaywalking, muc
Re:Try a remedial course in reading (Score:2)
Re:Heh (Score:2)
*whatever the actual truth about Robin Hood, this is what people remember.
Re:Heh (Score:2)
Re:Heh (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll repeat the copyleft infringement v. copyright infringment argument again.
Infringment of the GPL/BSD licenses is a worse offense because you are taking something open and making it closed, whereas straight copyright infringment is taking something closed and making it open.
Re:Heh (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Heh (Score:2)
Yeah right...a "leak" on bit torrent (Score:2, Insightful)
No sireee bob, no humans were involved in this "leak"...it was all accidental
Teetering on the brink (Score:2, Insightful)
One way to save.
But legal standing?
Really quite grave
Wherein lies SCOTUS, and ol'
Burma Shave
It makes you wonder... (Score:5, Interesting)
Why? Corporate interests? Copyrights? It's sad how copyright law lets something be shoved under the carpet like that.
I'd like to see media companies do something cool: if the product is no longer generating revenue, turn it loose on the web. Maybe that's just a dream, because they're hoping TV Land will pay royalties to air old TV shows, so since there's a *potential* revenue stream, the shows sit on the shelf.
Hey, here's another idea. Put the pilots on the web, and have a contest to see which one folks like best. *gasp* Imagine that! Having the *viewing public* help you pick out what shows to work on next! Oh, the humanity!
Heat Vision And Jack (Score:2)
If not for Bittorrent, I'd never have seen it. I bet most people haven't even heard of it. It's funny because everyone involved is really famous now.. It's like an artifact from an alternate reality.
Re:Heat Vision And Jack (Score:2)
Yeah it was fairly funny, but it didn't seem like a pilot as it was just a bit out there.
Re:It makes you wonder... (Score:2)
I can count about 6 unaired shows sitting here in the office. That is of course what we get as a broadcast affialite and those shows made the "probably going to air" cut. However, we don't get things like Global Frequency which were nixed off the bat.
I can't say many of them catch my eye though, but the pilot to Fearless wasn't bad.
Torrent (Score:5, Informative)
The future of Podcasting here? (Score:5, Insightful)
Makes you wonder if Podcasting might not take this route. I once listened to the "Catholic Insider" (not because I'm Catholic, mind you, but I liked his reporting on the death on the last Pope), and he had a joke Podcast about podcasting in the future - where people all around the world online edit the video, set up production, then distribute it online with the ads built in (or people pay for certain individual content).
It's rather optimistic, and I'm not saying the major networks will "go away", but if gentlemen such as this guy can go "Woah - wait - now I have an option on how to promote my work", then there's a chance that it will bring a new level of pressure onto the networks. Which would mean more competition. And that is always good for the customer (I don't like using the word "consumer" for myself, sorry).
Of course, this is all just my opinion. I could be totally wrong. But I hope not.
Re:The future of Podcasting here? (Score:2)
gosh, it all sounds so simple when you put it like that
I wonder wht no-one ever thought of it before
oh yeah, the "get some funding" part
Re:The future of Podcasting here? (Score:4, Interesting)
devil's advocate (Score:2)
>some funding, put together a pilot and a few episodes, and then do it
>himself.
Where will he get funding without a studio?
pay for it with ads (Score:4, Insightful)
If people want the show to continue, they'll get their copy from the producers. If not, then advertizers will not pay and the show will die.
Re:The future of Podcasting here? (Score:2)
Maybe not as much as the WB cou
Amen, brotha!! (Score:3, Insightful)
It's mind boggling to me that things like this don't put big, green, opaque dollar signs in the eyes of studio execs everywhere.
Even without effective DRM, studios could be raking in the cash RIGHT NOW via any number of online distribution methods. Yes, there would still be piracy, but it would convert at least SOME of it into dollars. RIGHT NOW!! If they want to keep pursuing DRM then fine, but they're losing money right now. What more incentive do they need??
Re:Amen, brotha!! (Score:2)
Actually I'm becoming less suprised every single time. TV execs are the least imaginative people in the world. These are people's who job it is to homogenize everything that's put in front of them to make it palatable and sellable to the most people possible.
Has anyone else realized that the new trend in TV seems to be crime dramas with female leads who are "profilers" of some k
Agreed, We Need More Geek TV (Score:2)
The only two channels I watch are the Discovery channel, and the Cartoon Network (Adult Swim). There is a definite need for more intelligent programming, other than the garbage that American Idol, The Crapelor, or whatever shi'ite that the big networks decide are "good" for the masses.
Then again, the morons that watch this crap raise the ratings, and the networks follow the new trends. Maybe this leads back to educ
Re:Agreed, We Need More Geek TV (Score:2)
Why does every single thread about anything on TV bring out the guys who want to brag about how little TV they watch and how most of it is crap.
Face it guys...we're old enough to make up our own minds. You don't like TV and don't watch it. Fine. To each his own. It doesn't make it special, and if you really aren't interested in TV, why do you bother reading these threads and cluttering them up with useless "I'm better than you because I'm too smart for TV" posts?
The Long Tail (Score:4, Interesting)
This is the end of advertising-sponsored media -- not Tivo or illegal torrent downloading. Advertising-based media, which always must seek the largest audience possible for every program, simply cannot compete once broadcast distribution is no longer a scarce commodity. The larger the target audience, the lower the quality.
The full implications of the long tail are astounding, once you really work them out. Imagine the end of huge movie stars, of "hits", of fame in entirety -- it will simply not be profitable -- imagine what that would mean, in any medium! How will we decide what to watch, listen to, or read when there is nobody who can make money deciding for us?
This guy gets it.. (Score:2)
If the demand is there, then sell the boxed set. And yes i do belive that leaking is a very savy way of building interest. Its just my experiance with my own hobby here (read my url). I have a couple hundred dollars in recording.. and couple thousand in equipment, and am not niave enough to think that fame and fortune are in my future.
Soon enough big networks will die if they don't
Broadcast TV Cares Not For Quality (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, what's changed in recent years is the number of cable networks and channels getting in on the act. Ad revenue matters to them too, but they throw on much riskier programming that can be resold through retail channels. Their smaller quantities of free eyeballs ("expanded basic" cable or satellite subscribers, not over-the-air or nearly-free basic cable) demands that they provide niche value to the channel lineups, and demands they produce programming that can be sold. Comedy Central is a perfect example of this - South Park, Chappelle's Show and Reno 911 would not have gotten a chance elsewhere. On CC, they made money for the channel through ad revenue, and sold tons of DVDs.
The production houses are the wildcard in all this (Warner Bros, Paramount, NewsCorp). They're now directly affiliated with broadcast media conglomerates themselves, but for years, they sold to ABC, NBC and CBS. Now they can pitch to those 3, along with their "vanity" broadcast network, as well as to their vanity cable station (FX, TNT, USA and the like). With so many broadcast outlets, the big dollars don't come with being picked up. They come from syndication and retail resale. As such, those production house (like the one from this article) owe it to themselves to get quality shows in front of viewers, no matter what it takes to get it there.
Never going to work... (Score:2)
What happens when the contents of the boxed set finds its way to the P2P networks? Past actions dictate that thisis the most likely outcome and people will claim they want to make sure they like the other five episodes before they shell out money for the boxed set.
copyright (Score:2)
IMO, this is how things would work if copyright didn't exist. eg. you create a work and release it to the public. Then you ask for people to fund your next work. Information that hasn't been created yet has intrinsic value that can be bartered for.
It's like contract programming. You get paid for creating information, not owning it.
-metric
Hollywood Still Missing The Obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
That does not mean that I am saying that stealing is right, or that *is* a right, clearly, from a legal, moral and ethical standpoint it is not. However, common people are becoming common electronic thieves simply because that is the only way to satisfy demand. Given the illusory "anonymity" of the internet, it is all too easy to do, and right now, the odds are favoring them as opposed to Hollywood when it comes to facing the consequences of violating the copyright holders' rights.
That all said, it's also my take that people, given the choice, would pay a *reasonable* fee to legally download television shows and do more or less with them what they did or do with videotapes. However, for some reason, Hollywood cannot seem to grasp this, or at the very least, cannot grasp how to do loosen their grasp on their content in such a way to make a subscription based P2P net possible.
My suggestion: allow people to subscribe to virtual channels, as they do with satellite or cable now. Allow them to download the shows, to share them on legal networks and pay a fee that is comparable to what they pay for cable now. That would be a real on-demand system, one where the infrastructure of the network is paid for by the subscribers themselves. Other than a substantial investment in seed servers and a first uplink, Hollywood would have to do little else than pay credit card processors and accountants.
To enable protection, they could sell smartcards similar to what Dish and DirectTV use now. Yes, I know that they have been hacked in the past, but nowadays, they are relatively secure, in as much as the average guy will not bother even trying.
Then, collect cash.
Back Channel Marketing maybe? (Score:3, Interesting)
In today's 500+ channel universe, getting "eyeballs" can be hard for a new show on TV...but on the Internet, it's a good chance if you get even a small part of one percent, you will get more viewers than the average new show on network TV. As various groups track P2P transfers, you can get a more accurage accounting of viewership than you can with a random sampling of TV viewers such as Neilson does.
All in all, P2P distribution seems to be a more economical way to judge the possible success of a new show.
ttyl
Farrell
I suggested a similar scenario to TiVo (Score:4, Insightful)
After "Doctor Who" debuted/returned triumphantly back to British television and the SciFi Network here in America continuted to pass on the show, I wrote a personal letter to TiVo CEO Michael Ramsey (a Scotsman) advocating that TiVo make an offer to BBC Worldwide to make the series available as a download to broadband enabled TiVo subscribers that might be interested. I figured that most broadband enabled subscribers would also be viewers with scifi leanings, and it would be a success and would generate buzz.
While it might have been costly short term wise, I asserted that TiVo would be at the forefront of a potentially profitable new television wave. Charging production companies/studios to make available pilot episodes to TiVo subscribers to create buzz for certain properties. It would be a way to circumvent the networks saying "no" to shows that might otherwise be successes.
To this day, I haven't heard one thing back from TiVo about this. I think my idea had merits, and obviously an idea whose time has come.
To this day, no American broadcaster or cable network have picked up the rights to the new "Doctor Who" series, leaving potential American fans to *acquiring* the show through less-than-legal methods until an official DVD release in the States happens...which won't until the series actually is televised in America first.
The irony... (Score:2)
About halfway in, though, it really starts to shine, and my wife (who came in at that point) mentioned that she'd like to see more episodes of it.
Re:The irony... MINOR SPOILERS (Score:4, Interesting)
I've watched the pilot. Clever, but the first half _sucks_. Uses pretty much every cliche in the book.
Clichés are clichés for a reason. They work because they meet the viewers' expectations.
I assume you're talking about the setup for the show, where we get the "what is the Global Frequency" talk, the introduction of the "new guy" into the world of the series, etc.
I'm curious how you would handle the following:
without ending up with either the pilot we got or having something like this [wikipedia.org] at the beginning of the show?
By the way, this wasn't the final pilot; the GF ringtone was only a placeholder, and the music wasn't finished either. It was a version that was shopped around to networks, which would have been finished had they been picked up. John Rogers [blogspot.com], the producer, said he would've reshot elements of the pilot they been picked up, particulaly the opening scene in the alley.
Jay (=
Broadcast TV is dead (Score:2)
Broadcast TV is completely unwatchable these days. You're wasting a third of your time having your intelligence insulted by all the ads. It's not just the sheer amount of ads drowning out the real show you're trying to watch. My impression -- from the snippets I catch here and there -- is that they're
What would it take to do it on the net (Score:2)
I might if it was a show I really liked and I'm guessing that a lot of fans of cance
Let the viewers choose what goes on TV (Score:2)
Start a monthly program. Put pilots up for download (will probably be DRMed; I'm sure many on Slashdot would have have a hissy fit, but I'd be fine with it.) Then have the people who download them fill out a general questionaire. Offer the service free to a limited amount of people, and allow others to buy their way in if they desire. Pe
In the future - fsck the TV "execs" (Score:2)
My boss saw my editing abilities when it got around that I do video junk for the kids at church, and now, instead of doing requirements validation and system engineering paper studies, i now sit behind a G5 with Final Cut Studio and Motion...and i even get paid to do it!
Hey - it beats working.
btw: have fun watching my
Take the power back (Score:2)
I'm tired of having the views of these jerks imposed on the public. If they'd had their way there wouldn't have been a Star Trek... in fact, they wanted them to do it without "the guy with the ears... he looks demonic, it'll scare the women".
And don't get me started on Nielsen ratings... these people have no taste, and they get to decide what I can or cannot watch? Insane!
The TV/Movie industry doesn't get it (Score:2)
Another example but P2P related was how P2P piracy (*ahem* online independent distribution) helped BattleStar Galactica become a hit [mindjack.com]
"they" really don't see the opportunities that exist and gonna keep squeezing their existing business model till it's dry.
e.
hits != unique visitors (Score:3, Insightful)
hits != unique vistors
Each unique visitor can easily generate 100 hits or more depending on how the website is organized.
10,000 / 100 = 100 visitors, and alot of that may be non-unique vistors (such as return visitors,) or even extra Googlebot, Yahoo, or MSN activity.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's great that the P2P community can bring life to a show that the corporate world sent to the trash.. power to the people and all that stuff.. but lets not get overly excited. 10,000 hits extra a week is a marginal amount of activity considering the amount of people actually surfing the Internet at a given time.
Ensign Ro (Score:3, Insightful)
Funniest line in the story. Forbes has been a tech-geek actress for a long time. Perhaps some may remember her recurring role playing the compelling Ensign Ro Laren [startrek.com] in Star Trek: The Next Generation?
Family Guy's revival after internet distribution (Score:3, Informative)
I'll say it again,... (Score:3, Interesting)
Michelle Forbes (Score:3, Interesting)
I guess having appeared as Ensign Ro in multiple Star Trek the Next Generation episodes isn't worth mention as far her geek-pedigree goes?
Re:What a bunch of Greedy Bastards (Score:2)
Re:It makes sense (Score:2)