There are many arguments regarding the piracy of movies, games, music and television. Many of us do it (but this isn’t a confession, copyright cops) and we are in breach of a slew of international copyright agreements when we do.
The Old School system way back in the pre-digital era had clear cut institutions for composers, producers and other owners creators of intellectual and creative products to enforce their copyright and collect a fee.
If you wrote a song and recorded it, then there were ways for you to collect royalties when it was played on the radio. If you lived in Australia and wanted to see the latest television show or movie from the US you had to wait approximately two years before Hoyts or the broadcasters decided you could have it.
In the last decade, there has been a number of technological developments that have made it possible for the average punter to get a breathtaking amount of material at speed through the crappy copper wires that we used to shoot faxes through.
If one is prepared to ignore copyright law, often it is possible to download the latest Hollywood film before it even screens in this country. Your risks are relatively low. You might get a dubbed or annoyingly subtitled version of the movie you seek. You might get a poor camcorder version of the movie pirated in a cinema rather than further up the movie feeding chain. And you might get caught up in some kind of piracy crackdown and be made to pay a huge fine.
The sheer amount of pirated TV shows and movies I see floating around makes it clear that the threat of legal action and a fine isn’t scaring too many pirates away.
When the first episode of the new DOCTOR WHO aired in UK recently, it noted that my various Oz Twitter buddies were downloading illegally. Thanks to the clever franchise building of WHO re-creator Russel T Davies, the premiere of season five of new WHO had a massive international audience waiting to see if the reboot (new Doctor, new show runner) would help or hinder their beloved Doctor. Twitter was full of comments about Matt Smith’s portrayal of the eleventh doctor and how Karen Gillan’s character of Amy Pond was working out (image above).
Australian fans get their first legal look at the series on ABC iView at midnight Friday April 16th . The national broadcaster seems to be acknowledging the demand from Australian fans. The lag between the UK premiere and Australia being a mere three weeks. Not good enough for many, but I would suggest that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation is being more realistic about illegal downloading than the commercial free-to-airs in this country.
To contrast the different attitudes a look at BBC’s zombie series survivors is instructive. According to the chat at the TV Tonight blog, the Nine Network drastically edited chunks out of the series in order to show ‘compresed episodes’. This kind of cavalier attitude virtually guarantees the geek audience will seek a properly constituted version of the series elsewhere. They might buy the boxed set of DVDs if they like what they have already seen, but aren’t they more likely to be torrenting the whole damned thing for free? They were already getting it free-to-air, but bastardised. What is their incentive to do the right thing?
This type of short-sighted decision on the part of broadcasters is disrespectful both of the program makers and the audience. However it is entirely in line with the way the networks have always done business. And these days, when the free-to-air platform is looking increasingly shaky, it’s hard to see how this high-handed bullshit will benefit the broadcasters in the long run.
I was discussing this issue with a video content provider here yesterday (Thursday). The measures that the industry have taken to restrict copyright infringement have actually become a disincentive to obtain their products legally. DRM, copyright warnings, rabid promotional material, regional delays and encoding only hurt legitimate customers and do nothing to prevent infringers. To paraphrase the first feature I saw: the more they tighten their grip, the more infringers slip through their fingers. Worse, many of the people in the industry just don’t understand how much the digital revolution has changed the viewing habits of their customer base. It’s so bad that the head of drama of one of the Australian TV networks refuses to use email and believes that Facebook et al are just plain evil – full of pirates. *whacks head on table*
It’s so shocking that TV stations are only just cluing into this, and disappointing that so many of them still don’t get it.
Bless the ABC and their iView service. The fact that I can go on the internet, and watch episodes of the Daily Show and Colbert Report that aired in the US /this week/ is amazing, and something I was beginning to think I’d never see in this country. Couple this with the fact that, with my ISP (who shall remain nameless… they don’t need the publicity) doesn’t count these shows towards my quota, is amazing.
To hear Channel 9 is still pulling crap like cutting shows to fit their broadcast needs is shocking, and so insulting to their viewers.
Last year I started making a concerted effort to obtain my TV legally, and while I’m finding most of my shows easy to come by, it’s really rather costly. Plus, I have to employ some pretty dubious work arounds before I can even hand my money over, which I find odd.
Here I am, a viewer willing to pay cold-hard-cash-monies to watch my TV shows as close to the time they’re aired in the US as possible, and I still have to jump through hoops to do it. And when isn’t available – Treme is the most recent example of this – I’m left with the internal struggle; wait till I can pay, or just do what ‘everyone else’ seems to be doing and download it?
My question is – if a TV show isn’t being aired locally, and isn’t available to purchase legitimately, nor do the networks have any intention of providing any avenue to watch it legitimately or locally, what’s the worst thing I can do as a viewer? Download it, and rob the network of potential advertising dollars? Or just not watch it, and rob the network of potential word of mouth?
It’s not just the TV stations who are ignorant. In my web work, I’ve dealt with many Australian Distributors. One distributor (who I’ve never heard from – ever. I registered 2 years ago) just announced a new website. When I went to do so, it was down. A few years ago I uploaded some movie files to a (big Australian) distributor’s server only to find that they couldn’t run Flash! The more I teach the TV and Film kids of tomorrow about story-making, the more I am thoroughly stunned by the ignorance. TV – just like Igby – is going down and they don’t even seem to be aware of it.