US TV shows

[antijoke]

Is it through, the companies that make TV shows have never even once mention downloading TV shows, only movies. Nobody seem to give a ****, without downloading i would have never wtached BSG, i would never have blown good money on the Blu-ray box set! So in my case downloading/watching TV has made the company money!

This article seems to say that downloading TV shows is illegal.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/14029865

The number of illegally downloaded films in the UK has gone up nearly 30% in five years, new figures suggest.

That research, from internet consultancy firm Envisional, indicates that the top five box office movies were illegally downloaded in the UK a total of 1.4 million times last year.

Film industry bosses say it is costing £170m every year and putting thousands of jobs at risk.

The research also shows a big rise in TV shows being pirated online.

Dr David Price led the the team which conducted the research and said there are four main reasons for the increase.
Graph showing increase in illegal downloads

"We've seen increases in technology like faster broadband," he said.

"The methods of piracy have become easier, with quicker downloads and easier to find content.

"We have a generation online now who aren't really bothered about downloading things illegally.

"Finally it's an issue of availability - there's a lot of American content which a lot of people are desperate to download that they can't get hold of legitimately."

It's people like Steve, who's 25 and from Essex, that the film industry says are the biggest threat to its future survival and success.

He illegally downloads and uploads around 10 films per week.

"I think in comparison to the money they make it's a drop in the ocean," he said.

'Creating jobs'

"Also, what I'm actually doing is providing people with new jobs.

"With all these ISPs that are producing super fast broadband we [illegal downloaders] are actually helping create those jobs," he added.
Dr Price on why piracy is rising
Continue reading the main story

Broadband speeds have increased
Technology has made piracy faster and easier
A new generation doesn't think piracy is wrong
People illegally download top US shows to see them before they're out in the UK

But movie industry bosses rubbish such claims.

Kieron Sharp works for the Federation Against Copyright Theft or FACT.

"Research for the government has shown that film piracy costs the industry about half a billion pounds a year," he said.

"About a third of that is due to illegal downloading of film and TV content.

"Clearly that is unacceptable."

'Big demand'

But it's not just illegal film downloading that's on the rise - research suggests people are illegally downloading more TV shows too.

The top five most popular shows were illegally downloaded a total of 1.24 million times in the UK last year.

That's a 33% increase from 2006 figures.

"We have a big demand in this country for north American TV shows in particular," Dr Price said.

"Shows like Glee and House are heavily illegally downloaded in the UK.

"We're very eager to get the television shows as soon as they get broadcast in the US.

"But we often have to wait for one month or two months for those shows to be shown legitimately in the UK.

"So people naturally turn to the internet to get that content as soon as they possibly can."

As for a solution, Dr Price says one of the best ideas available to content producers is a controversial one.

"They need to compete with piracy and get their content out there themselves as easily and as quickly and as cheaply as possible," he said.

and this article:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20095589-93/illegal-downloads-of-fox-tv-shows-rise-after-delay/

Illegal downloads of some Fox Networks TV shows have increased since the company established an eight-day delay before its TV shows are made available on Hulu and Fox.com, according to TorrentFreak.

The torrent news Web site tracked several popular Fox shows--including Hell's Kitchen and MasterChef--on BitTorrent over the last week to see if there had been an increase in illegal download activity. The results are alarming.

"During the first five days, the number of downloads from the U.S. for the latest episode of Hell's Kitchen increased by 114 percent compared to the previous three episodes," said the editor in chief of TorrentFreak, who posts under the name Ernesto. "For MasterChef, the upturn was even higher, with 189 percent more downloads from the U.S."

Did Fox's plan to delay content delivery backfire? Several CNET readers were quite vocal in our previous post about the eight-day delay.

CNET reader johnseanconn wrote, "Content providers should be using the Web to pick up the viewers they are missing through a TV service, not using it to just supplement a service people already have."

Another comment, from CNET member karpenterskids, said, "This doesn't provide a better benefit to cable consumers. This provides the same benefit to cable consumers, while screwing the rest of us. I'll end up watching even less of their shows. Less ad revenue for them!"

Others seem to find it odd that people are getting upset in the first place. SergeM256 writes, "They are giving it for free; it is over-the-air. Watching online only means more convenience--I don't have to schedule my day around [a] TV schedule or bother with setting up [a] VCR. Online: more convenient, lower quality, same commercials, should be same money for network."

Backlash against the move is easy to find on Hulu. "First it was two or three commercials per show. Then it became six or seven. Then it became two or even three commercials per break," says Hulu forum user Lisa Leone. "Then I found out they weren't showing full episodes of a lot of shows anymore. Now they want me to have a Dish account? And there will probably still be commercials. No thanks. Count me among the folks saying bye-bye."

Scott Grogin, senior vice president of communications for the Fox Networks Group, believes there is merit in the TV-to-Internet-streaming delay.

"Authenticating viewers is not about making sure they only watch live...in fact, quite the opposite. We support a 'TV Everywhere' proposition and are working with our distribution partners to achieve that goal. We want the 90-plus million households who pay to watch our programming via cable/satellite/telco to receive maximum benefit and ultimately be able to watch live, via DVR, on [video on demand], online, or through one of the various tablet apps that allow in-home viewing," Grogin told CNET. "We are actively in negotiations with all major providers regarding authentication of their customers and we hope to announce several more agreements before the start of the new television season in mid-September."

Do you believe that a delay in content delivery is the best solution? What would you do about this if you were in charge of a major TV network?

And I have a question for you:

Is it legal to download a boxing match after it has been on Sky box office?

 

[Participant]

• One thread per show / film.
• Discussion of any episode or film that has been released globally is allowed.
• Enforce the use of spoiler tags for obvious spoilers no matter when the media was released, unless the title specifically mentions spoilers within.

There are no answers that satisfies all three stakeholders (members that haven't yet seen, members that have already seen, and mods) therefore I think the above is the best solution that covers the most bases.

----------------------------

Longer version:

In my opinion, the least adverse solution, taking all parties into account, is to have one thread per TV show and promote the use of the spoiler tag for ANY plot reveal, irrespective of when the episode or film was released, unless the title of the thread specifically states 'Contains Spoilers'.

This is because having two threads per TV show could still be a problem; two threads to moderate instead of one, it would get messy with people getting mixed up and posting in the wrong thread, and finally having a second thread where discussion of everything aired in the UK is allowed still presents the problem that not all people know what the latest episode being discussed actually is. People might assume that the latest one being discussed is the latest show aired in the UK, only to find that people are discussing an episode already released in the US.

The only way round this without expecting the mods to make IMDb their new most visited page, is to allow open and all discussion in threads with 'SPOILERS' in the title, for any show that has been released anywhere in the world. For threads without 'SPOILERS' in the title, any spoilers must use the spoiler tag.

E.g. discussion of the characters and their traits wouldn't need spoiler tags, discussion of the fact that X did Y to Z would need a spoiler tag.

 

[oxygene]

• One thread per show / film.

• 
  
  I'm afraid I disagree. It is ofc the mods choice but I think if theres one thread per tv show then people will be trying to chat about the english episode and others about the us episodes. It will be like two different groups of people holding a conversation over each other and will get extremely off-putting quickly.

 

[Participant]

I'm afraid I disagree. It is ofc the mods choice but I think if theres one thread per tv show then people will be trying to chat about the english episode and others about the us episodes. It will be like two different groups of people holding a conversation over each other and will get extremely off-putting quickly.

There is that possibility but a) like I said you can't entirely satisfy everyone and b) simultaneous discussion of different topics happens in every other forum section, e.g. BF3 thread - some people talking about MP whilst others are having a conversation about SP; road bike thread - some talking about lights and some talking about clothes; Motors / BMW forum section - people talking about the engine and people talking about the interior.

Also don't forget each post can have a sub-title too.

 

[robgmun]

US Pace and UK Pace. So there's a thread for those of us that *ahem* live in the US