BBC Views Content Piracy As Wake-Up Call 388
Peregr1n writes "The BBC is reporting that they view the piracy of a Doctor Who episode before its broadcast date earlier this year as a 'wake-up call about the demand for new technology', in a refreshing change of opinion from most media/broadcasting corporations, who would damn this piracy without hesitation. They are forming plans to simulcast the television channels BBC1 and BBC2 on the web, as well as allowing users (only in the UK to start with, unfortunately) access to shows for a week after the broadcast date. It is worth noting that they are already trying out a system where they make shows available on the web before television broadcast, with The Mighty Boosh. Other BBC3 comedies are due to follow suit and become available on the internet first." Relatedly, shadowlight1 writes "K9, Doctor Who's lovable robotic dog, is returning to the new series with a cameo in season 2."
duh (Score:4, Interesting)
besides being obvious, this is very nice, and a credit to the BBC for showing that sometimes publicly run things do get it right.
**this is not an endorsement for state sponsored programs or wholesale socialism, because most of the time it sucks... but BBC seems to be doing it right, for a change.
Piracy or leak? (Score:2, Interesting)
the piracy of a Doctor Who episode before its broadcast date
Those wacky Brits, and their funny spelling of "leak".
I was sure that most people knew it was a viral-style publicity stunt.
About time (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:BBC TV (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course BBC America shows commercial in the US.
nice time to produce state-funded content (Score:2, Interesting)
BBC, as a state-funded institution, is doing its job by achieving maximum reach. If it can expand its reach through online distribution, then it is doing a better job at fulfilling its state-funded mission.
I'm sure ABC doesn't mind that thousands of people watched LOST in high-definition on their computer monitors via BitTorrent downloads. What ABC must mind is that these home-edited, advertising-free distributions of their content subvert their entire business model.
Hope they will do this internationally (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not a technological issue preventing this; it's actually the BBC's Royal Charter, which states that any overseas venture has to be paid for with money that is not derived from the license fee (also, there could be potential international copyright issues; however, the fact that the World Service broadcasts music, amongst other things, to the four corners of the world suggests that the BBC is in a position where it can come to reasonable agreements with copyright holders).
So on that basis, a serious question: how many people outside of the UK would be willing to pay for access to BBC programming over the web?
Beeb is *big* online (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_sites?ts_mode=la
They're ahead of CNN, ahead of NBC, Fox all the USA networks, all print media. They're even ahead of Fastclick (the web advertising network!).
You gotta be impressed at how they've grasped the Internet.
Re:Piracy or leak? (Score:5, Interesting)
The main one being that the leaked episode one was an NTSC rip (29.97 fps) and not a PAL (25 fps) that indicates that it did indeed come from an NTSC territory and not a PAL one.
refreshing (Score:5, Interesting)
Next thing we need is a global service - I understand BBC limiting itself to UK to begin with, it is financed with UK tax money after all, however I really would like to see the day when broadcasters realize the power of global audience.. most companies are already global, and I would think the likes of Coca Cola, Nokia, Sony and Microsoft would see the possibilies of global marketing and the money they'd save/make by running their advers with something like that.
The superduper DRM schemes and limiting products to special markets only (through DVD regions for example) seems like a very odd and counter-productive thing to do from a global point of view.
Maybe what I'm asking for is utopia and maybe the current money flow is enough to keep us inprisoned to strange regional marketing schemes for years to come.. but maybe some day we consumers get the point through.. here's to hoping!
Re:BBC TV (Score:2, Interesting)
That is nice, but . . . (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Reason for difference (Score:3, Interesting)
In the case of the BBC, it is a government program more than anything else. For others, then it is the corporation that originally funded the program and as such, I think they do have certain exclusive rights to make what money they can from it. Of course, I don't believe they hare a right to guaranteed business or guaranteed profit, just the exclusive copyrights to make money from the work they own and funded. Unlike others, I don't see the abuses in this arena as a sufficient reason to completely throw away the copyright idea.
Compare and contrast with, say, the RIAA, who flatly deny that you buy music, rather "a license to listen", and run the upgrade treadmill - buy on vinyl, buy on cassette, buy on CD, buy on DVD-A, buy online - but tie it up in DRM so you'll still have to pay for a copy for the office and your car too.
I really don't see it that way. Though I don't liked DRM'd music, but DRM isn't a means to prevent an individual from using their music whereever they go, it is to reduce the redistribution to others that didn't pay for it. For example, Apple lets the same DRMed music be played on up to five computers. They also let the DRMed music be playable on an indeterminate number of their portable audio player products.
little britan (Score:5, Interesting)
Recent finds
The Power of nightmares [thepiratebay.org]
Global Dimming [thepiratebay.org]
The Private life of plants [thepiratebay.org]
If drugs were legal [thepiratebay.org]
also things like little britian and dr who. I would say that i download more BBC content than content from any other company/org. If this were provided for say 20 dollars a month, for fast not dead at 98.2% torrents, i would happily stop using the free ones.
BBC advances humanity once again.
The power of honesty (Score:5, Interesting)
Imagine if the RIAA or MPAA were in their shoes. "RAWWWWRRR!! SUE!!!! DIE!!!111!1one" - but the Beeb are different. They actually listen and take a pro-active approach. Instead of shouting at people for... ahem... "pirating" their show they ask themselves why and what they can do to *persuade* people not to or to do something even better that prevents people from needing to in the first place.
Heck, they even have a show (Points of View) where they allow people to blantantly and openly slag them off and read out the letters on air. Okay if someone's being a numpty then they'll just turn around and say "don't be silly." But often someone comes up with a valid point, and the appointed representative holds his hands up and says "yes you're right. Here's our apology and here's what we're going to do to prevent it happening in future"
You don't get that from many companies. One that actually listens to its customers is so worth it...
Of course they also get bonus points for inventing the BBC Micro... and BBC News Online which everyone around the world like to read... and embracing open source... and...
The BBC will follow the money. (Score:5, Interesting)
The BBC has a lot of content that I like; the few odd series that have made it to US public television that I specifically remember were Doctor Who, Are You Being Served, May to December (was that the name of it?), Mulberry, etc.
There were quite a few others that generated buzz but I never managed to see (Kumars of x Street, Yes Minister, some of the old crufty stuff like Upstairs Downstairs).
Heck, even MTV picked up The Young Ones.
The BBC has a large catalog of shows. Imagine charging an internet license for Bittorrent access to this archive and suddenly doubling their audience.
It was recently very difficult to get the entire Doctor Who 2005 down by bittorrent. If the BBC guarantees a few seeds for everything, then heck I'd pay.
It will be somewhat ironic if the BBC becomes a global media powerhouse while ABC, CBS and NBC go the way of the dinosaur.
Positive step, but not unexpected (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, as an ex pat myself I still find myself drawn to BBC programming; partly becuase I still find the English accents more "comfortable" than American for certain types of TV, but mostly because I find the general quality of writing and acting tends to be better. US TV is awfully focused on "How can we sell something to the public using the ruse of a drama", while the BBC has always subscribed to the notion "Let's entertain our people with good drama." This leads to a lot of good quality American TV shows that eventually pander too much to advertisers and/or "consumer advocate groups" and as such tend to eventually target at the lowest common denominator of the audience. This is why subsequent seasons of many TV shows seem to become progressively worse than the last.
This isn't really just an American phenomenon; I see this in some British TV shows as well, but in general it seems more prevalent in the US. Perhaps that because there are more hours of TV produced, more channels or something... I haven't really performed any sort of analysis; just my observations.
Getting back on topic though I have to say that I enjoy BBC content and would gladly pay an annual fee (like the license fee) for unlimited and unfettered access to this content. To me it would be better value than most of the crap I get on my satellite TV and never watch... and BBC America doesn't really count because many of the shows pre-date my moving to this country (10 years ago), and those that are more recent are often repeated incessantly and thus lose some of their "luster". A subscription to content would allow me to grab content on my broadband connection as I want to see it, then dump it to the hard drive of my MythTV box for viewing on the family television. Better than crowding around a monitor and just as comfortable as sitting watching regular TV.
I can't be the only person out there to be able to count the number of programs they actually watch on American TV on the fingers of one hand... not to mention being able to put my finger on what I consider quality TV because it is so different from all the other chaff on TV.
Re:duh (Score:5, Interesting)
These are extremely convenient ways to watch TV, so people prefer them to Internet broadcasts. Also, because of the high barrier-to-entry, there's a perception (true or not) that it's "better" content: it's "what's on TV". There's a considerable amount of simple inertia, too.
So advertisers will pay more for a 30-second commericial on TV than for an overtitle on your web broadcast. (You may well find overlays even more aggravating than commercials.) Or you could put in real commercials and watch the slashdotters scream about the DRM you put on to keep people from skipping them.
You'll find that the expense of producing a TV show, plus the expense of serving up 640x480 video images, rapidly exceeds the budget you get from advertising.
That said, feel free to prove me wrong. Overcome the inertia, make something good enough that people WANT to download it. Or build a set-top box for serving up Internet-based content, and hook it up to a simple remote.
(The remote alone is a big barrier. A TV remote has the simplicity of ten digits because of the limited number of channels. Full URLs are going to be a pain in the ass. Tie it in to full-scale web surfing, perhaps, with a wireless keyboard, preferably for a high-def TV so that you can read the screen...)
I'd love to see the Internet break the barriers that scarce spectrum/cable/satellite bandwiths bring up. It's starting to happen with music, which has lower start-up costs both in production and bandwidth. Video content may be next.
Re:Reason for difference (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you have stock? Do you have some fund or investment plan or retirement plan or
It's amazing how many people are whining about the shareholders demanding higher revenue causing less jobs or inferior products or whatever while they or their parents or neighbours are shareholders themselves whom start whining the moment stock prices are dropping.
Blame the managers for being clueless or whatever, but not the shareholders.
Re:The power of honesty (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What, exactly, do you expect ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Piracy or leak? (Score:2, Interesting)
Which means nothing at all. I just ripped a copy of "True Stories" for my girlfriend in Serbia. And reencoded it from NTSC to PAL with no problems whatsoever. The tools are very cheap and easy to use. It could easily have been a reencoded PAL rip.
Re:BBC TV (Score:3, Interesting)
Isn't $25 a month what Giganews now charges for unlimited downloading? Drop the crappy cable, and learn how to download binaries and watch .AVI files. Get a nice TV with a VGA input (even 640x480 VGA is a vast improvement over S-video), and let other people be your Tivo. I haven't had cable for four years now (and the last year I did have it, it was free with my apartment rent), and I'm quite happy with watching the local stations (especially PBS) on HDTV.
The best part is how you can watch stuff which would be impossible to get through cable (or even satellite) TV, such as Japanese drama shows. For instance, Densha Otoko is highly recommended as a story about a nerdy guy who gets lucky in love, and has a whole webboard cheering him on and giving advice, currently on its eighth of eleven episodes.
And of course the new season of Dr. Who when it appears a few months from now.
If the cable companies don't consider you a target audience, then to hell with them. The broadcast TV rippers do consider you as a target audience. Not only that, but a DVD-R full of AVI files of shows not on cable can easily be shared with like-minded friends.
For the love of God, sell them to me!!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
While simulcasting on the web is a nice step, just let me download the episode and give you money! Otherwise I'll complete the one step I can - downloading the episode - and then PERHAPS buying the DVD later after I've already watched all the episodes. Simulcast is just not anywhere near as convieninent as downloading, even if I am able to view it which I doubt very much not being a UK citizen.
With Battlestar Galactica I had the same issue. I wanted to watch the show in HD but that was impossible on TV in the US (at le4ast with my cable) - so I was forced to seek avenues other than TV to watch it. When they released the DVD I bought it, which as far as I'm concerned closes the loop. But I would have also happily paid to download those episodes as well, and probably still bought the DVD anyway for the extras and convienience of storage.
The one thing every content provider needs to do right now is open up a channel for payment, at the very least saying "I downloaded this and my payment precludes you from suing me. Enjoy the extra money you would not have seen otherwise".
Re:What is the story with no Dr Who in the US ? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd say a combination of both.
BBC Worldwide Americas (BBCWA) - the licensing arm of the BBC in this region - reportedly wanted the SciFi Network to pony up $1 million per episode for the rights to televise NewWHO in the United States. That's far more than what the fees were charged to CBC of Canada or any of the other markets NewWHO is being televised in. SciFi said "no" and decided to plow the money into more of their *shlock* "original pictures" instead. SciFi also dug deep into the NBC Universal archives to update the old series "Time Tunnel" for next year as well.
It is also possible that SciFi was aware that lead actor Christopher Eccleston was leaving the show at the end of the first season before it was officially announced and they wanted to see how David Tennant did in the role prior to committing to acquiring the American televising rights.
There are others (like IGN.com) who claim(ed) BBCWA insisted that any American cable network that picked up NewWHO also had to televise the ClassicSeries as well. But that claim has been criticized severely since published.
The other problem is that the DVDs won't be released for Region1 (which the US is part of) until NewWHO Season/Series 1 is televised in America, according to BBCWA. Warner Home Video (a division of TimeWarner) holds the distribution rights to Region1 DVDs and although they probably would like to market them right now, BBCWA won't let them because they think it will hurt their chance to eventually sell the series in this market (although the logic doesn't explain really SciFi buying the rights to televise repeats of "Firefly" from Fox since that whole series has been available on DVD for two years*). The DVDs are available (in bare bones vanilla currently but a box set is coming in November) in the UK/Europe in Region2, but be advised that the MPAA (to which Warners is a part of) considers the importation of Region2 DVDs to Region1 as a form of piracy known as "parallel import." You would also need a DVD player that is capable of doing multi-regions such as the $60 Philips DVP-642 that is sold at Target.
The whole season/series is of course posted online (ahem, illegally) and Torrentspy has links to each episode. The previously mentioned Philips DVP-642 player can play Divx/Xvid encoded material so if you acquire the Region2 DVDs or the Torrented files online, you can play them through that machine on your television.
With that said, here are some links to websites covering New Doctor Who:
www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho - official site.
www.gallifreyone.com - big online fan site known as "Outpost Gallifrey."
www.aintitcool.com - Aint-it-Cool-News has covered almost every episode from the past season.
*Yes, I realize the SciFi Network, as a division of NBC Universal, acquired the rights to televise "Firefly" as a marketing campaign for the upcoming spinoff motion picture called "Serenity."
Pay to view: old-school... (Score:2, Interesting)
Once people outside Britain start paying towards the license fee, then and only then would I be happy for foreigners to see BBC content...
All I can say is: WE allready have this (Score:5, Interesting)
We (the dutch) are allready doing this. The website (http://www.uitzendinggemist.nl/ [uitzendinggemist.nl] translate as "Missed Broadcast/Episode" hosts most of the stuff broadcast by public access (three channles here), it's all avaialable for free, and without commercials (which our public access does have, but only in between shos, not during).
I myself am enjoying this service so much, that I'm thinking of not getting a TV at all (I'm moving out soon, finally), since I'll be able to get my news, and background (60 minutes like shows) from the forementioned website. I'll just get the big american shows from the web, I usually end up doing that now anyway, since our (fully) commercial channels are atleast six months behind on the americans.
Re:This is what I'm paying a licence fee for. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Git orf moi LAN! (Score:1, Interesting)
(1) Its BBC most popular show on their Web "Listen Again"
(2) Long Wave transmission is vital for national security - the nuclear submarines monitor it to check if UK has been nuked (Paxman interview on Parkinson) - No Archers and they'll let off their nukes!
(3) Ambridge is not shy of the Internet & other technological advances - it was founded on giving farmers the latest technical advice.
(4) This Archers fan has Archers on my HD MP3, PC, streaming WiFi etc. etc. etc.
(5) I'm not sure how old you are, but Radio 2 used to broadcast on 198kHz (or 200kHz as it was then) until the 70's.
Even Bert Fry has a mobile/cell phone and uses SMS!
Re:Err... (Score:2, Interesting)
It could also have been Tom Baker who said that: apparently he didn't like all the stooping to get in shot with it.
Although, Lalla Ward (Romana 2) is reported to have described Tom Baker has her least favorite monster (presumably after the divorce [cuttingsarchive.org.uk]) so all's fair in the Doctor Who family!
It would be nice to see the next series get a bit more self-referential. Throw a few more things in for the aging fans.