China Censors "The Big Bang Theory" and Other Streaming Shows 166
dryriver (1010635) writes in with news that the Chinese government has had enough of the antics of doctor Sheldon Lee Cooper. "Chinese authorities have ordered video streaming websites in the country to stop showing four popular American TV shows, including The Big Bang Theory and The Good Wife, senior staff from two sites said Sunday. The move suggests government attention is intensifying on the online streaming industry, which is freer than state television and China's cinemas to show foreign productions and other content and has stretched the boundaries of what can be seen in the country. A spokeswoman for a leading online video site, Youku, said it had received notification on Saturday not to show sitcom The Big Bang Theory, political and legal drama The Good Wife, crime drama NCIS and legal drama The Practice."
Re:One of these things is not like the others... (Score:4, Insightful)
But I ninja'd all the haters who will now repeat this correction, at least.
the internet no longer routes around it (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe in the past, but the more we centralize everything, the more censorship-tolerant (and surveillance-tolerant) the internet becomes.
It needs to move to p2p, strongly encrypted communication. If it doesn't, it will die under the force of organizations that don't want freedom of communication.
Re:So? (Score:4, Insightful)
Dont kid yourself: You arent "forced" to pirate it, you choose to because you want the content they produced but dont want to play by their terms.
Maybe that doesnt bug you, but at least be honest about it.
Re:So? (Score:4, Insightful)
Dont kid yourself: You arent "forced" to pirate it, you choose to because you want the content they produced but dont want to play by their terms.
Dont kid yourself, when people find terms unreasonable, casual copying becomes justifiable.
Ultimately piracy is a delivery problem, not a legal one. Here in Australia if I want to watch Game of Thrones I need to pay Murdoch A$70+ a month and have to do it on Murdoch's time table. Both of these are unacceptable to me. So downloading it is the only acceptable option remaining.
The old system used by HBO and Murdoch's Foxtel is dying a slow death. People dont want to wait for shows to be on, they want to watch them at their own leisure nor do they want to have to pay for 30 channels of bullshit to get 1 show. Piracy isn't a scourge on humanity as Murdoch et al. would like to perpetuate, it's merely the market reacting to conditions they find unacceptable. If you want to see piracy of your show plummet, make it available through as many channels as possible for a reasonable price. The easiest way to do this is to allow anyone to resell it for a flat (per copy) license fee that people will accept.
However they want to continue to prop up outdated ideas like exclusivity. So they will have to accept that piracy is an acceptable alternative.
Is it really censorship? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The BBT - Good start, not enough stamina (Score:4, Insightful)
It's maybe becoming more like the TV show "Friends" with everybody in a relationship
That kind of tends to be the pattern in real life as well.