TV Show Piracy Soars After CBS Blackout 314
TorrentFreak reports that piracy rates of the television show Under the Dome shot up by more than a third last weekend, even though official ratings dropped. What caused the increase? On Friday, three million subscribers to Time Warner's cable TV service lost access to CBS programming, the network on which Under the Dome airs. The article says this provides compelling evidence that the availability of a show is a key factor in the decision to pirate it.
"To find out whether download rates in the affected markets increased, we monitored U.S. BitTorrent downloads of last week's episode as well as the one that aired this Monday following the blackout. The data from these two samples show that in Los Angeles, New York City, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit and Pittsburgh, relatively more people downloaded the latest episode, an indication that customers are turning to unauthorized channels to get the show. With hundreds of thousands of downloads Under The Dome is one of the most pirated TV-shows at the moment. Of all sampled downloaders in the U.S. 10.9% came from the blackout regions for last week's episode, and this increased to 14.6% for Monday's episode, a 34% increase. In New York City, one of the largest affected markets, the relative piracy rate more than doubled from 1.3% of all U.S. downloads last week to 3% for the episode that aired after the blackout."
Q.E.D. (Score:5, Insightful)
This means that those "new" pirates had the capacity to pirate all along, but chose not to.
People are quite willing to pay for services such as television, but given the absence of legal means to do so, they will turn to illegal means.
Increase the legal avenues to access media and piracy will decrease accordingly.
CBS screwed themaselves even more (Score:5, Insightful)
Another reason the torrent numbers probably wen up is that CBS also blocked TW customers from accessing their shows from the CBS website. If a TW customer went to the CBS website to try and watch a show, they weren't able to. So any money they could have made from that was gone as well. So really, CBS actually pushed people who would go through the next legitimate channel further down the line. Sure, they could possibly buy it from Amazon or iTunes, but at a dollar per show, that is a pretty hefty price for a show you will watch once and then delete.
Re:Q.E.D. (Score:5, Insightful)
Although you may be correct, the real telling will be how many return to cable after getting the shows illegally without the advertising. Once the forbidden fruit is bitten, they may like it and never return...
Re:Q.E.D. (Score:5, Insightful)
Although you may be correct, the real telling will be how many return to cable after getting the shows illegally without the advertising. Once the forbidden fruit is bitten, they may like it and never return...
Yet another reason to provide a good enough service at a reasonable price from the very beginning, so that people never have a reason to explore illegal avenues.
Re:Q.E.D. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's why DRM created more copyright infringements than anything else.
People buy something, they notice that it doesn't work the way they're used to (like, say, that you're able to time and medium shift the content), get upset, get told that there are "other ways" to get said content, notice that those "other ways" are not only more convenient but also free and a new "pirate" is born.
Well, DUH! (Score:5, Insightful)
What do you expect?
Let's face it, for most people simply turning on the TV is more convenient than downloading a show and then figuring out a way how to watch it sensibly on their computer equipment. They easily and willingly accept ads as the price for that convenience. Remember that they're not technical people like most on here, they want something that "just works", and they don't consider watching shows on their computer or connecting it to a TV very convenient.
But if they have a favorite show, especially if it's a show that spans a longer story arc and doesn't just consist of self contained episodes, they will go that extra mile to compensate if their cable provider drops the ball. And no, you may rest assured that they're not happy about it, far from it. It was most likely a hassle for them to get that show, they had quite a bit of "expense" (in terms of time and 'nerves') to get their show back.
It's actually even likely that they will not continue this policy despite the ads. It's simply more convenient for them to just switch on the TV, grab a box of chips and sprawl out on the couch rather than tinkering and toying with the computer to get that.
Barely worth pirating (Score:4, Insightful)
The sad part is that "Under the Dome" really does SUCK. I am hooked and want to know what is happening, but the whole "drama" part is so horrible, I am fast forwarding through at least half of each show now.
And no, I don't pirate the video, it is on Cox.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What's funny about Under the Dome (Score:3, Insightful)
Fast, unlimited cap internet access -- especially if you work from home -- is easily worth $125/mo.
Fuck that. 100Mbps internet + telephone + basic cable costs me 35EUR a month.