TV Torrents: When 'piracy' is easier than legal purchase

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks)
Date: September 13, 2007 7:29:23 PM EDT
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] TV Torrents: When 'piracy' is easier than  
legal purchase

[Note:  This item comes from reader Robert Berger.  DLH]

From: "Robert J. Berger" <rberger () ibd com>
Date: September 13, 2007 2:07:27 PM PDT
To: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>, David Farber  
<dave () farber net>
Subject: TV Torrents: When 'piracy' is easier than legal purchase

TV Torrents: When 'piracy' is easier than legal purchase
Posted by Chris Soghoian September 13, 2007 6:00 AM PDT Practical Tips
<http://www.cnet.com/8301-13739_1-9775271-46.html>

NBC's recent withdraw from the iTunes store leaves the millions of  
users of Apple iPods without a legitimate way to purchase and watch  
NBC's content. Could this be the push that brings easy-to-use  
'piracy' to the masses? This article discusses the issues, and then  
provides step-by-step instructions to setup a computer to  
automatically download any of hundreds of TV shows as soon as they  
are broadcast and put online.

With Apple's recent lovers's spat with NBC making the headlines, it  
seems like a good opportunity to examine the state of the online TV  
downloads, be they paid or 'pirated'. The end result of the dispute  
between the companies is that NBC's shows, which currently count for  
approximately one third of iTunes' TV show sales will no longer be  
available for sale at Apple's iTunes store. Customers wishing to  
purchase NBC's shows will now need to go through Amazon's Unbox  
service. While Unbox supports users of Windows and TiVo, Mac users,  
as well as those millions of iPod users are left out in the cold.  
Linux geeks, and those customers who have purchased divx/avi capable  
portable music players are also excluded, but this small subset of  
the market were equally ignored by Apple.

The Apple/NBC dispute, of course, only affects US based consumers.  
Foreigners, due to the lengthy delay between a show airing in the US  
in markets abroad, have already been driven to illegal file sharing.  
In Australia, where the broadcast of US shows is typically delayed  
between 22-30 months, many viewers have given up on waiting for their  
favorite shows to appear on the tube, and have instead turned to  
BitTorrent. According to a report published in 2006, "Australians are  
responsible for 15.6 percent of all online TV piracy, bested only by  
Britain, which accounts for 38.4 percent. The US lags behind in third  
position at 7.3 percent."

The legitimate and legal online media stores cannot compete with file  
sharing on price. Furthermore, as iTunes, Amazon, Walmart and the  
other stores all wrap their media in restrictive Digitial Rights  
Management (DRM), they cannot compete on freedom, flexibility and the  
ability to transfer purchased media to other devices. The only areas  
where they have the upper hand are in quality, and ease of use.

Warner Brothers' China division, in a rare act of intelligence on the  
part of a major media company, demonstrated significant savvy last  
year when they began selling cheap, legitimate, high quality DVDs of  
movies within days of the theatrical release. By pricing the discs at  
around 12 yuan (approximately US$1.50), Warner is hoping to make cost  
a non-issue, thus allowing them to compete in one area where they  
hold the upper hand: Quality. Instead of taking a chance with on a  
low quality, shaky-camcorder copy of a film, Chinese consumers can  
get a high quality copy of the movie at a reasonable price, all while  
enjoying the warm fuzzy feeling that you can get knowing that you've  
helped to pay for some small portion of a a Hollywood star's private  
jet.

Apple's iPod makes up more than 70 percent of the overall mobile  
player market. With those customers now completely cut-off from NBC's  
offerings, the ease-of-use advantage of legitimate purchase has been  
lost. While camcorder copies of films still make up a decent portion  
of movies on file sharing networks, the widespread availability of  
digital television and TV tuners in PCs means that it is trivially  
easy to find high-quality copies of TV shows on BitTorrent sites such  
as The Pirate Bay.

It's taken some time, but the 'piracy' path has finally gotten to be  
more user-friendly and easy to use than iTunes and the other pay- 
services. Miro, a multi-platform RSS and BitTorrent enabled media  
client is now very stable, polished and fast. Using a tool such as  
this, and a couple minutes of configuration to subscribe to your  
favorite shows, it's now possible for users worldwide to wake up to  
the latest episode of The Daily Show, without paying a penny, or  
being locked into a restrictive DRM scheme. It's still illegal of  
course, but that hasn't stopped the millions of file sharers who have  
made BitTorrent responsible for more than 25% of all Internet traffic.

It's worth noting at this point, that for people in India, the Middle  
East and other markets ignored by the major players, Linux users (for  
which iTunes, Amazon and Walmart's media stores do not work), Apple  
customers who wish to watch shows made by NBC or another network that  
won't play ball with Apple, or Windows users who are simply not  
willing to submit themselves to the shackles of DRM, illegal  
downloads are the only way to watch TV shows on their computers and  
portable media players. I'm not advocating illegal activity, but  
merely stating the facts.

If a user wishes to break the law (or they live in a country that  
doesn't respect US copyright law), lets see exactly how they could go  
about setting up their computer to auto-download their favorite TV  
shows. This information is, of course, for educational purposes only  
and I in no way encourage anyone to violate copyright laws.

<snip>


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