“NBC Universal said [Wednesday] that it would soon permit consumers to download many of NBC’s most popular programs free to personal computers and other devices for one week immediately after their broadcasts,” Bill Carter reports for The New York Times.
“The service, which is set to start in November after a test period in October, comes less than three weeks after NBC Universal said it was pulling its programs out of the highly successful iTunes service of Apple Inc. That partnership fell apart because of a dispute over Apple’s iTunes pricing policies and what NBC executives said were concerns about lack of piracy protection,” Carter reports.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple and NBC remain in negotiations. NBC TV shows remain for sale at Apple’s iTunes Store.
“Under the new NBC service, called NBC Direct, consumers will be able to download, for no fee, NBC programs… But the files, which would be downloaded overnight to home computers, would contain commercials that viewers would not be able to skip through. And the file would not be transferable to a disk or to another computer. The files would degrade after the seven-day period and be unwatchable,” Carter reports.
“‘Kind of like ‘Mission: Impossible,’ only I don’t think there would be any explosion and smoke,’ said Jeff Gaspin, the president of the NBC Universal Television Group,” Carter reports.
MacDailyNews Take: Also, if you don’t wise up quickly, Jeff, just like your career and the careers of many others that your kind always take with you. Let’s see: predicting the future of technology: Steve Jobs or Jeff Gaspin? Puleeze. Jeff, wake up, you dumb-ass. Give it to us in an acceptable way or we will take it. Period. End of discussion. Get it now, Jeffie?
Carter continues, “The programs will initially be downloadable only to PCs with the Windows operating system, but NBC said it planned to make the service available to Mac computers and iPods later… Chris Crotty, an analyst for iSuppli, an independent firm that specializes in analysis of new electronic media, said of the NBC move, ‘I think it’s a stretch.’ He argued that consumers have shown they are extremely happy with the iTunes service and that it would not be attractive to consumers to have to range far and wide over a number of services to find the programs they want to download… ‘The consumers have decided they want to get their content from iTunes.'”
Carter reports, “Mr. Crotty said NBC had come across to consumers as ‘highly greedy’ in its dispute with Apple. Apple reported that NBC was insisting it raise the price of some downloads on NBC shows to $4.99 from the $1.99 iTunes charges for all programs. NBC hotly denied that… But, Mr. Gaspin said, ‘piracy was and is our No. 1 priority.’ He said that the music industry had been devastated by the free exchange of music, much of it facilitated by iTunes.”
MacDailyNews Take: Jeff Gaspin is your typical know-nothing, BS-shoveling network suit. The sooner these empty-headed dinosaurs like Gaspin die off, the better. Until then, think of P2P as a sort of giant meteor that users can magically deploy in surgical fashion, so as to not take out all of the other old media types that happen to “get it.”
Full article here.
“With the creation of this new service, we are acknowledging that now, more than ever, viewers want to be in control of how, when and where they consumer their favorite entertainment,” said Vivi Zigler, Executive Vice President of NBC
Nice work Vivi, lets see how much we control:
How – only on a computer running micro$oft w/ mandatory commercials
When – only one week after an episode plays
Where – certainly not on my ipod in the airplane or in a car
Thanks for my choices Vivi, I’m obviously too stupid to make my own choices
I’m confused. Is there an easy way to beat the DRM on itunes video?
@ ../. — Well said and right on the button. I read the article was blown away by the incredibly stupid and liabelous remark that iTunes is responsible for a good portion of piracy. This shows that NBC has no interest negotiating an agreement to continue with Apple. They actively spreading misinformation to damage iTunes. I hope to God, as Ratty mentioned earlier, that Apple sues NBC’s ass off for that utterly false and damaging comment. I’ve argued for years (pre iTunes) that piracy was wrong and P2P networks were damaging a fabric of enterprise that promoted the production of interesting and entertaining art. iTunes actually brought a lot of “pirates” in from the cold and turned them into paying customers. The entertainment industry ought to be kissing Jobs ass because he saved there bacon. Apple provided an end-to-end solution so attractive that it made people want to become infranchised with the idea of buying entertainment again, rather than taking it off the internet. NBC and this guy Gaspin makes me want to puke over the lack of gratitude. I know business is business. But what NBC is doing now is not business. They’re pissed that Jobs is smarter than them and that Apple owns the keys to the castle. They don’t want to pay rent so they are trying to bring down the landlord, Apple. What they are too immature to realize is that they are bringing down the whole castly that is providing them shelter. What they will have left, if successful, is only a pile of rubble, not good to anyone. The jerks. As of now, after purchasing ALL my entertainment for 53 years, I will gladly circumvent NBC’s crazy crap and pirate any show I choose to watch and can find available. I will continue buying other music and TV shows from iTunes. NBC is dead to me. DEAD TO ME!
Forget NBC. They don’t matter.
It will all come down to sales which in NBC’s case will be a BIG FAT ZERO! Maybe then they’ll get a clue that life doesn’t revolve around DRM. Until then we have P2P if forced upon us. Or we also lso have iTunes the only pleasant online buying experience so far to date.
What gets my 20-something, non-geek friends excited is having a season of a favorite show on DVD. Ownership without commercials. TV on iTunes is an extension of that model. I guess the problem is just as the music industry doesn’t know how to make money except through overpriced pablum promoted on corporate radio; the TV industry doesn’t know how to make money other than wasting 30% of our time with spots.
The real issue ISN’T piracy… its the inability of these fossilized industries to come up with business models using new technology. In music it’s that market fragmentation and into an unprecedented number of tastes and genres and the democratization of the tools of production (really a rennaissance if you think of it). In TV it’s deliverance from the strangehold of just a few networks–both for choice AND for being force-fed commercials.
To the extent that the “industry” doesn’t faciliate these changes, of course piracy will increase.
The music industry blew it when they tried to kill internet radio instead of use it like terrestrial radio (how to you promote 100 genres and 10,000 artists–with 50,000 channels of course… and the technology to turn a listen into an instant 99c purchase with a single click.)
The MPAA and NBC/U are equally clueless but even more disingenouous–thanks to the DVD they’re making more money than ever. But they’re the ones who want to literally censor the internet because their profits from entertainment are more important than freedom.
Imagine if GW proposed to filter every packet of the internet to stop terrorists… there would be a cry across the land. But to protect the sitcom, hardly a whisper.
I’m not for piracy but some things are more important than entertainment profits…
NBC/U can leave iTunes with my blessing… it’s their football, so their rules. But they are attacking the foundation of the internet (every packet goes through without the infrastructure looking at its content or deciding if its okay).
iTunes has great DRM which is why they have 75 plus percent of the market. Locking up DRM tighter will only make legal paying customers leave the market, not want to come back and buy more TV and Movies, IDIOTS! Gaspin like the others really don’t get it. Not only that but they always blame everyone else including the very people they call there customers. Calling your own customers thieves is not the answer. Blaming Apple’s iTunes, saying its DRM is to weak is not the answer nor the reason. No they just want an excuse to raise the prices of online TV shows and movies. It has nothing to do with how good iTunes DRM is. But they needed an excuse so there you go. iTunes gave them record profits for online sales. No wonder why there plight seems to get worse not better. They are biting themselves in the foot and are just to STUPID to figure it out! Your online store will fail Gaspin! When it does we’ll all have a great laugh.
Put another way, NBC/U wants a must-DRM INTERNET. Every single f’in packet.
And yes, I’m not going to get over this until somebody realizes the audacity and evil of what they’ve proposed. Because I am not making this up.
Hey Zune,
Don’t you ever get tired of recording the sound of your own farts?
Stop whining like a bunch of bitches and get a DVR.
You have to be an Apple FanBoy of perplexing proportions to prefer paying for iTunes DRM NBC shows over getting them free from NBC. I like Apple products, but I’ll keep my money in my pocket whenever possible.
I hope that each time they say iTunes is responsible for pirating (WTF?!?!) that Apple negotiate 10c more profit per NBC show sold on iTunes after Gaspin has gone on his knees to Jobs to beg forgiveness…
NBC is part GE. And as someone else wrote, they are without Jack Welch, just a bunch of Managers. Not a leader in sight.
Don’t MS and NBC have a close relationship? Does this relationship have anything to do with NBC pulling out of iTunes? Does anyone else think MS is helping NBC setup this “free” service? Gates is always talking about how advertisers can use the internet to target sheep into buying products, isn’t this just more of that?
@ Questions:
Don’t MS and NBC have a close relationship? Does this relationship have anything to do with NBC pulling out of iTunes? Does anyone else think MS is helping NBC setup this “free” service? Gates is always talking about how advertisers can use the internet to target sheep into buying products, isn’t this just more of that?
Yes. There is a channel called MSNBC on cable/satellite. That’s the first thing I thought when I read the article, too. Well, good riddance to NBC. I don’t think there’s a show I watch on their belated network, anyway. BSG hurts a little, but I’d even drop that like a bad habit and I never bought it from iTunes anyway.
I hear that the Model T was killed off by horses.
Oh, and iTunes, of course.
BOYCOTT NBC and their loser fall TV shows. I can’t wait to see how bad those shows surrounding “Heroes” do on Mondays. And Bionic Woman and whatever the hell is on at 10/9c on Wed — ? What were they thinking? And ER — give it up, NBC.
NBC = Nothing But Cancellations.
In other news, People have been ripping HDVD and Blu-ray movies and torrenting them for some time. see the links below for examples.
http://www.isohunt.com/torrents/?ihq=1080p
http://www.isohunt.com/torrents/?ihq=720p
http://thepiratebay.org/search/1080p/0/3/0
http://thepiratebay.org/search/720p/0/3/100,200,300,400,600
Maybe if consumers didn’t feel cheated they wouldn’t be pirating stuff so much. A way around copyright protection is always found. If people want to pirate something than there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them. What the movie and music studios need to do is to get people to stop wanting to resort to piracy.
Hint: Legal threats aren’t going to work as history shows.
Best MacDailyNews Take ever: Also, if you don’t wise up quickly, Jeff, just like your career and the careers of many others that your kind always take with you. Let’s see: predicting the future of technology: Steve Jobs or Jeff Gaspin? Puleeze. Jeff, wake up, you dumb-ass. Give it to us in an acceptable way or we will take it. Period. End of discussion. Get it now, Jeffie?
This doesn’t seem like the smartest move, I agree, however.
MDN, in your take, saying “the sooner they die off” is a bit much. It’s saying things like that that give mac users and enthusiasts such bad names. It’s ok to discredit what a guy says or does by intelligent debate, but calling for their death? That’s callous, and automatically makes you lose any ground on an argument.
Lucas makes a good point.
also, why must you “have it, just the way I want it” only?
Television, INITIALLY, was a medium for COMMERCIALS, programming was secondary.
Not that I want to return to that…
“He said that the music industry had been devastated by the free exchange of music, much of it facilitated by iTunes.”
Where has this guy been. WAY BEFORE iTUNES — Napster, P2P, LimeWire, those are the file sharing he should focus or learn about. iTunes tried both ways.
Uhmmmmmmmmmmmm. DRM music is really more of a WINDOWS PC issue. I believe here is only one application on Mac… DRM Dumpster. Where there are at least 20 for PC and a few are free. Give to Window USERS 1st. This has been always the case. And I think if Windows has 80-90% market share… then piracy must then be at the hands or that market. Most servers also – which are DOING the sharing.
Heck, you can take your PVR and dump the MP4 video and the share it from a server. THE transfering or coping of FILES isn’t the problem… it’s the POSTING and SHARING, giving it away, or selling it for cheap THAT is piracy.
NBC is GOING to HAVE to AIR the show — to self distruct the media EVEN on PVRs. And if this is a good idea, the show should dissolve/vanish/erase/encrypt after first viewing, not one week.
YET this is just more trouble.
Tell your child he can not smoke… and they go behind your back and do it. Challenge them and they push back. Similar, hackers will find a way.
JUST sell the show 4 a reasonable price, flat across the globe.
Fairly.
I am no computer wiz.
You made me really worried cos I really will miss my shows. Unless…. hmmmmm.
I thought the web was the new land of tv. I feel so foolish to have cut my cable subscription.
So, I just ran out in fear and bought my very own copy of Vista for my Mac. That’s right – I didn’t pirate it – I made a purchase.
Unlike 40% of the Windows users.
Please tell me, Mr. Zune… will I not be able to download as NBC shows like you when running the Windows environment?
Oh oh… is this a DirectX tang? Oh… then forget it.
Vista 4 sale!
OK, let me see if I have this right. Since NBC has decided not to sell their pathetic crap from last week on iTunes, John Wayne is now a gay muslim? Wow, this 21st century is a real trip man!
MDN word progress – as in this is progress?
Irony- as I read your take (accurate, I believe) on NBC, their ad for “Chuck” flashes along the side. I’m glad you don’t let your advertisers influence your objectivity.
Way to go MDN; keep up the good work!
Wow, I guess I’m famous now. I have my own brainless liberal troll attempting to smear me by writing supposed sarcasm under my handle.
Look at the time stamps, folks. 4:33 PM? I don’t think so. Anyways, let’s dissect.
“NBC’s business practices remind me of all of the Muslims who hate freedom. They resent iTunes liberal DRM policies and want to clamp down of the innocent video downloading citzenry. I apologize for the use of the word ‘liberal’ but it applies here. Liberals don’t belong in America because they hate freedom like Muslims. Liberals are gay like John Wayne too. I bet most Muslims are gay.”
First off, your sarcasm is meaningless because it attempts to make points that I have never made. Second off, if you have to resort to stealing my handle to make points, it’s because you don’t have the courage to use your own handle and debate me on your own. You are a coward. Third, if you knew anything about modern liberalism, you’d find it strange how liberals and Muslims embrace the same US foreign policy. It’s more than just a crazy coincidence. Fourth, the reference to John Wayne being gay was a comparison of impossibilities. Fifth, if you look at Muslim-run countries, all of them but a few are under Shiara law and are dictatorships. There’s a reason for that.
Grow up, child. Either face me in the open forums (and preferably on a different site to keep this site on topic), or at least use your own name.