TurquoiseB wrote:
>
> * Media piracy is a complex issue that cannot be
> reduced to a simplistic "Thou shalt not steal."
> As I've said many times, here in Spain I *have
> no other choice* if I want to see many movies
> and television. They won't be available here
> legally for six months to a year. The piracy
> exists because the producers have not been
> smart enough yet to figure out Video On Demand
> effectively. If there had been a way to pay for
> this show, I would have done so. There is not.
> That is FOX's problem, not Joss' problem. He
> has already been paid. It's FOX that is trying
> to make money now, in the form of number of
> viewers and the ads they can sell based on that
> number. If FOX had been smart enough to figure
> out a way to sell digital copies of the show,
> they wouldn't be so dependent on the number
> of eyeballs watching it on broadcast TV to
> make their money.
>
FOX has many if not all of their shows available VOD on the Internet.
There was a power outage here which kept me from catching the first hour
of 24 this season. I caught up with it the following day VOD from FOX's
website. They have their own proprietary player which streams a very
nice picture and is only interrupted by 15 second spots usually the same
one. The problem is it will only serve the files to IP addresses in the
US and Canada. FOX has had this for at least a couple year. NBC
charges a buck for their VOD. YouTube is about to launch fee based
views for people who want to sell their own movies and videos. It might
wind up being a source for those hard-to-find old films that you can't
even find as torrents.
