le sigh

May 15, 2005 6:54 PM

Le Sigh - ShunTv joins the ranks. I found this through metafilter users.... would like to lament shun with metafilter users. As MPAA expands into prosecuting tv viewers.
posted by sourbrew (46 comments total)

So... do tell....what was ShunTV?
posted by newfers at 9:23 PM on May 15, 2005

I'm not quite as quick to jump on the "your failed business model is not my problem" bandwagon, but what exactly is the argument that copying and distributing tv shows that go out over airwaves is copyright-violation?

With CDs, tapes, DVDs, and movies I understand that I am not really buying the content but instead a license to listen to/view it. Where is the transaction that gives me the license to view tv shows sent out over the airwaves in the first place? If there is one, it seems dangerously implicit.

Any argument that would work would seem to disallow even walking out of the room during commercials, let alone DVRs which are readily available. I understand that these companies seem to think they're losing money by people downloading the shows instead of viewing them with ads but it can't be as simple as their right to make money off of the content, can it?
posted by ontic at 9:24 PM on May 15, 2005

ontic: I think the distinction comes between personal use and distribution. Using DVR's, ignoring commercials, etc. though disliked by television and advertising people, cannot be construed as illegal. The recent ClearPlay case confirms this.

Copyright, on the other hand, exists in the absence of a license, and thus, it is distribution that is problematic.
posted by aubin at 9:34 PM on May 15, 2005

shuntv.org was a torrent distribution site for tv episodes

btefnet.com is also supposedly one of the sites affected by this but I haven't followed it as closely as I probably should have
posted by jeffmik at 9:43 PM on May 15, 2005

Render unto your corporate masters the unwavering attention of your naked brain or render instead your ass to prison for immediate rape.

Get with the program, people. Duh.
posted by scarabic at 10:07 PM on May 15, 2005

Yeah, no longer will you be able to downloaded a missed episode of a show you enjoy, or the proper widescreen version if your local channel thinks that showing the middle 4:3 box is perfectly fine. And you'll need to manually fast-forward through the ads rather than relying on some kind soul to trim them out for you.

I bet we'll see a huge surge in DVD purchases a year or two down the track when today's shows are released. (Or 5-10 years for region 4.)
posted by krisjohn at 10:07 PM on May 15, 2005

Sometimes I wish they would just pass laws telling us what me MUST buy, so we could skip all this advertising horseshit and get on with our lives instead of coddling this illusion of "consumer choice.
posted by scarabic at 10:08 PM on May 15, 2005

ontik, you are assuming that there is some facet of objective reality involved in the discussion - there isn't!

aubin, using DVRs cannot be construed as illegal by who? Certainly corporations with a financial interest will construe in whatever way benefits their bottom line the most.
posted by Chuckles at 10:11 PM on May 15, 2005

It blows my mind that there is some damning legal difference between me TiVoing shows and downloading them instead. I do the latter due to sheer personal preference - it doesn't really matter one way or the other, but I like not having to remember anything at all. On-demand television is a beautiful thing, and will no doubt make someone very rich in the near future when it is commercially implemented.
posted by mek at 10:14 PM on May 15, 2005

I subscribe to HBO.
HBO does not run advertisements during programs.
I download HBO shows that I missed.

Am I a thief?
posted by Tlogmer at 10:17 PM on May 15, 2005

Sorry aubin, missed the part about the clear play decision. So you are clearly saying construed by the courts...

Still, the DMCA and the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension show that the occasional balanced judgement in the courts has little to do with the way this thing is going to play out over time.
posted by Chuckles at 10:22 PM on May 15, 2005

shuntv.org was a torrent distribution site for tv episodes

AAAAhhhhhh. "Shunt - TV" not "Shun TV".
And here I was thinking it was finally television for the Amish.
posted by dreamsign at 10:29 PM on May 15, 2005

I've got other places to steal it... I will keep doing so.
posted by Dean Keaton at 10:54 PM on May 15, 2005

People still watch programs on televisions? With commercials?
How quaint.
posted by nightchrome at 11:03 PM on May 15, 2005

I download HBO shows that I missed. Am I a thief?

Well,

1. No, since copyright violation isn't theft. But more importantly...
2. The issue isn't you downloading. The issue is them distributing. The MPAA isn't coming after you. They're going after the torrent sites that are, in effect, rebroadcasting without the prior consent of the copyright holders.

Of course, this is all bullshit when you consider that torrent sites actually help get more eyes on the boob-tube. To whit: Piracy is Good: How Battlestar Galactica Killed TV (also seen on /.). The article points out that BG was dead in the water until people started spreading episodes through the internet, urging their friends to watch the show. A similar phenomenon has been happening with the BBC's latest Dr. Who series--most people weren't interested until they happened to d/l an episode and see what they were missing (after-the-broadcasting-fact).
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 11:05 PM on May 15, 2005

Thanks aubin. So what exactly is the legal relationship between me and the tv program? I don't have a license to distribute it, but I have a ???????? to watch it. Is it just the lack of the copyright holder's desire to prosecute for anyone watching it without a license?
posted by ontic at 11:18 PM on May 15, 2005

BitTorrent trackers do not distribute copyrighted data; they are only capable of informing people of where it is located. It's the equivalent of a tourist guide telling people where the red light district is. If it ever got to a court of law, any decent judge would find them legal, but it doesn't seem like anyone's able to stand up to the MPAA and its ilk at the moment.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 11:20 PM on May 15, 2005

As an aside: All I'm saying is that somebody needs to give the guy who wrote this article an MLA handbook on grammer.
posted by grandcrewno2 at 11:32 PM on May 15, 2005

As an aside: All I'm saying is that somebody needs to give the guy who wrote this article an MLA handbook on grammer.

Classic.
posted by nightchrome at 11:36 PM on May 15, 2005

If it ever got to a court of law, any decent judge would find them legal

I'm not so sure about that. You can try arguing semantics, but judges get kinda pissed when you make a mockery of the law. The sites aren't just pointing out where the red light district is, they're actually pimping the ho's. Without the torrent site, there would be no way to find the peers, thus the sites are facilitating in an illegal activity.

Don't get me wrong. I've got about 8 torrents going as we speak.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 11:46 PM on May 15, 2005

Perhaps the real problem is that, without being able to control the stream of information, people are downloading what they want to watch. So, Battlestar Galactica gets another season because there are more people watching it now (thanks to bittorrent), while mediocre shlock like Joey whithers on the vine. Awe, poor movie studio finally has to come up with some decent entertainment? Poor thing.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 11:52 PM on May 15, 2005

The studios have to go after the people distributing their product over the Internet. Whether you like the business model or not, the fact is that the studios make most of their profits -- and finance the production of most of the shows Americans watch -- by selling the distribution rights to their programs to local stations (through syndication) and national broadcasters (though their first-run license agreements). If third parties are allowed to duplicate these products and distribute them to viewers free of charge, this dilutes the value of the product the studios sell to the stations -- fewer people are likely to watch SEINFELD reruns on TBS if they can easily download them on their computer and watch them whenever they wish free of charge. TBS will then pay Castlerock less for those episodes. Pretty simple.

The majority network television series are produced on a deficit. It's assumed that the show will lose money during its initial run. Only thru the syndication and additional repurposing will a series pay for itself. And since most shows fail to make it to the milestones required for syndication (typically 100 episodes, but that varies), the shows that do make it have to finance all the ones that don't. Love ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT? You have years of SIMPSONS and 70s SHOW reruns to thank -- that's where FOX gets the money to pay for the shows that don't pay for themselves.

It's not a perfect business model. And with the popularity of reality programs (which don't rerun particularly well) the overall importance of syndication may be in decline. But that's offset by the rise of TV series being sold on DVD, something which free Internet downloads of programs directly competes with.

If a baker wanted to come up with a system to prevent people from taking his pies without paying for them, would people blame the baker? Would people say that the baker deserves to have said baked goods stolen from him? Regardless of how expensive or delicious the cakes may be? I doubt it. But when a studio wants to protect the product its selling, suddenly a number of people get up in arms. I don't get it.
posted by herc at 11:55 PM on May 15, 2005

It always amuses me when people try to compare data/content to physical objects.
posted by nightchrome at 12:39 AM on May 16, 2005

herc: fewer people are likely to watch SEINFELD reruns on TBS if they can easily download them on their computer and watch them whenever they wish free of charge.

This really isn't particularly true, except in one sense which I will get to in a minute...

I have the full run of South Park on my hard drive, have had for a year or two. I watch the reruns on Teletoon more often than I watch my downloads. There are two reasons for this, I think. Now that I have seen the entire series, and since I can watch my favorites whenever I want, I don't particularly like to make the decision about which episode to watch on a regular basis. It is why someone would choose to listen to the radio instead of programming their own music. The other reason is that South Park happens to be on at the time of night that I have my TV on. I flip around a bit and there it is - yay, South Park!

So if TV were to start sucking so badly that I didn't have it on quite so often, I might start changing my habits. True, this would likely be related to the internet, but only in the broadest sense. More or less in the same way that technology influences all business models.

As for the baker... You know damn well we are talking about the recipe, not the pie.
posted by Chuckles at 1:28 AM on May 16, 2005

Well, filesharing is immoral, but that doesn't make it the same as theft. If I steal a baker's loaf of bread, he's lost a loaf of bread. If I copy information, the maker hasn't lost anything.

On a moral level, I'd say it's much the same as regularly reading Metafilter without donating money or buying an ad.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 2:12 AM on May 16, 2005

krisjohn: I bet we'll see a huge surge in DVD purchases a year or two down the track when today's shows are released. (Or 5-10 years for region 4.)

i bet we'll see a moderate surge in servers cropping up in more friendly places (like pirate bay in sweden) in the short term.

and in the medium term, decentralized bit torrents will be the gooey-gooey tar around the next limb of the suing dinosaur.
posted by quaeler at 2:46 AM on May 16, 2005

ontic: I'm not quite as quick to jump on the "your failed business model is not my problem" bandwagon

But has the business model really failed, for movies or music?

Last I heard, the industry honchos are doing pretty well for themselves. Rather, new technology is creating new paradigms for content distribution and consumption, and the bosses want to dictate the change rather than be dictated by it, as is happening. What will the scene be like, in 2010? Any takers?
posted by Gyan at 3:38 AM on May 16, 2005

Pretty_Generic writes "BitTorrent trackers do not distribute copyrighted data; they are only capable of informing people of where it is located. It's the equivalent of a tourist guide telling people where the red light district is."

Where can I find some big-headed German TV torrents?
posted by orthogonality at 4:16 AM on May 16, 2005

And isn't it 'We hardly knew ye'?

/pedant
posted by bdave at 5:56 AM on May 16, 2005

herc: But that's offset by the rise of TV series being sold on DVD, something which free Internet downloads of programs directly competes with.

If a Family Guy season 4 DVD was being sold in Region 2 before or parallel to being aired on US TV I would agree that they compete. Alas, no.
posted by skarmj at 5:58 AM on May 16, 2005

I think a lot of TV downloads of US programs happen overseas. Over here, France, I'll have to wait another 2-3 years before I could watch an episode of Battlestar Galactica, The Wire, Deadwood... and on and on.

I think you could shave a year off that number for the UK, but still, it's hard not to resist the temptation. I want my entertainment NOW!

If the companies who make this stuff were to put it online, for €2 a download (sans DRM please), I wouldn't hesitate to pay. DO IT! Ya greedy bastards!

{oh and I do buy DVDs of this stuff when I can -- honest}
posted by gsb at 6:17 AM on May 16, 2005

Better to shun than shunt. Anything that makes it a little harder for people to maintain their zombie-like fixation on the trash being spewed out by the media corps. to keep brains ina gelatinous state is ok with me. Hasten the demise and all that. Bring it on.

And kill your TiVO after you've blasted the Sony 27 inch to smithereens. TV is the root of most evil in this society.



RCM
posted by realcountrymusic at 7:08 AM on May 16, 2005

RCM: stop signing your comments. it's annoying.
posted by mr.marx at 8:00 AM on May 16, 2005

This is not about how much money anybody is losing.
It's about control, plain and simple.
However the chips fall, whatever new business models come along, the current content cartels are trying to ensure they have legal control over them, so they're settnig precedents by suing everybody in sight.
Everything else is just spin / rationalizations.
C.O.N.T.R.O.L.
posted by signal at 8:26 AM on May 16, 2005

TV is the root of most evil in this society.

Yeah, TV and that horrible rap music. And the lack of prayer in schools. And the gays.
posted by Jart at 8:45 AM on May 16, 2005

Does anybody distribute .torrents (not the content, just the torrent files themselves) over Usenet? it seems like the perfect distribution network for that...
posted by costas at 11:40 AM on May 16, 2005

I live in a valley and its almost imposible for me to catch a television broadcast unless i decided to attach an antenna to my roof. As a result i rely on torrents for new shows like Family Guy, and American Dad. I would gladdly watch these on a central fox server with adverts if they had decent bandwith. However, its shows like the bbc documentaries that i have recently become addicted too that make me the angriest about this situation. What a load of shiza. Although hopefully the BBC is moving towards a digital distribution method anyway.
posted by sourbrew at 12:32 PM on May 16, 2005

i kinda have to agree with herc on this one, in spite of his awful pie analogy. I'm all for music downloading, because artists can get along just fine without record companies or cd sales.

not so with animation and video artists. they need the current system to finance their production. low budget films and shows are all well and good, but they can't always compete with the quality and production of larger-budget projects. especially kiss animation and special effects good by, because that type of work takes more than just free time.


This is not about how much money anybody is losing.
It's about control, plain and simple.
-signal

I thought you got the power after you got the money. yeah, after the money and before the women; that's how it goes.
posted by es_de_bah at 2:15 PM on May 16, 2005

22 Gigabytes of BBC television programming that I can't get through the states. So I am enjoying immensely good shows that I can't reach otherwise.
posted by Dean Keaton at 2:25 PM on May 16, 2005

With the broadcast tv shows it definately is a business model issue. My #1 reason for grabbing shows through bittorrent has nothing to do with the trimmed commercials. Primarily I want to grab something I can't tivo for some reason (Smallville, when the mood strikes me), or that the damned local affiliate preempted (Veronica Mars). There's the added bonus that they are usually HD quality and that if I'm going to be flying in the near future I can watch on the plane.

I'd happily go to the WB or UPN website for those purposes and get them with commercials. The torrent technology would seriously reduce the bandwidth demands of making that available. But of course it would be the end of the world if I could watch stuff when I want (see TivoToGo legal brouhah), save as long as I want (see stories re: seeking flags limiting how long PVRs save shows).

Best of all, they called me a thief for downloading what they spewed out into the air for free.
posted by phearlez at 2:34 PM on May 16, 2005

Dean Keaton: That's very beautiful. /wipes tears
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 2:52 PM on May 16, 2005

I would gladly pay a buck an episode for Arrested Development. It draws six million viewers a week.

If it were distributed by torrent only, it would pay for itself handily and the producers would no longer be beholden to Fox.

The price point is going to be very sensitive to viewer whim. At a buck ten, it might be a complete flop; sure as heck at a buck fifty, I'd find myself a pirate copy.
posted by five fresh fish at 3:12 PM on May 16, 2005

Dean Keaton: Your email dosn't work in your user file, can you drop me a line at James dot Roe at Gmail dot Com
posted by sourbrew at 3:38 PM on May 16, 2005

"If it were distributed by torrent only, it would pay for itself handily and the producers would no longer be beholden to Fox."

Ok, out of those 6 million, how many would have the proper codecs installed, enough bandwith, and a powerful enough processor AND doesn't mind watching it in front of their computer? Not to mention a credit card.
posted by Dean Keaton at 3:53 PM on May 16, 2005

Dean Keaton: Bless your Power of Nightmares folder.

I've found that I also download programs, only to watch them on my TiVo more often. I've given BS Galactica season 1 to my friend who turned me onto it in the first place, and he'd rather watch the rerun.

I'll miss ShunTV, as it was fast, reliable, and gave me 32GB of good torrents. I never got around to collecting all the Bill Maher episodes they posted about, nuts...
posted by Busithoth at 1:53 AM on May 17, 2005

Just so you know...

Yotoshi, the bittorrent search engine.

Because knowing is half the battle.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 5:00 AM on May 17, 2005