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Possibly the most blatant illegal TV/Movie sharing website, used by an estimated 6.5 million people per month has, unsurprisingly, been shut down in a raid involving British police and Trading Standards Officers.
TV-Links.co.uk gave direct links to a huge array of TV shows and movies and did not require users to be familiar with Bittorrent or other complex file sharing programs.
Here's the article from the Guardian.
The upcoming lawsuit between Viacom and others against YouTube has taken an interesting turn. Looks like YouTube's lawyers want to question Jon Stewart in their bid to avoid a decision that would "threaten to silence communications by hundreds of millions of people across the globe who exchange information, news and entertainment".
The press in England is having a field day at the moment at the expense of television, and some even within the TV industry may say it's long overdue.
Following a scandal involving a phone-in competition to a popular kids TV show, where the lines were down so they got a kid in the studio to fake a call, and an incident shortly thereafter involving misleading editing practices in a documentary about the Queen and photographer Annie Liebowitz, newspapers are on a witch hunt for any situation where TV is employing dubious practices or morales.
The latest scandal involves 'survival guy' Bear Grylls, who recently appeared spectacularly on Oprah, and who has been shown in a recent Discovery Channel documentary to have been staying in a motel while supposedly abandoned in the wild. A raft that he is supposedly constructed was actually put together by crew members.
Like all 'flavours of the month' for the press, this one will not stop until the public gets bored, front page headlines about the issue stop selling newspapers, and most likely, the public has come to the complete conclusion that all TV is inherently bad. Seeing how little faith the public has in the integrity of newspapers ("Nothing you read in the newspapers is true"), it's a wonder this particular witch hunt has taken as long as it has to show up.
I've worked in both TV and print and I have to say there are dubious practices in both. You could even say there are dubious practices in all industries - it's human nature to cut corners and misrepresent things for a benefit. Uniquely, TV and Print pretty much act with immunity thanks to their inherent power to report and persuade.
What's interesting about this particular mud slinging is the inevitable reaction that will follow. Newspapers have enjoyed a lack of investigation into their own practices for a long time. Writers write without credits (do you ever know who wrote a salacious tabloid article?) and TV has almost certainly left Newspapers alone for fear of being investigated themselves. A journalist may get berated by their Editor and superiors if a story ends up costing the paper a libel action in the courts or an enforced public retraction or apology, but the public rarely see any of this, (particularly in the case of the latter).
I've long been a critic of dubious editing whether it be TV, photo editing or quotes out of context. I've often had to make a case to a producer that editing a person's quote in a particular way would shift it's meaning or the (false) impression of that person it makes on the viewer. Fortunately in all cases I've never had much complaint, although sometimes the entire quote may have had to be taken out. Editing does have a reason for being after all.
My hope is that once the smoke clears on all this, both TV and Print will emerge better and stronger. Transparency is a trend, and greater checks and balances within the media industries will have positive and far reaching benefits for all.
After effectively going into hiding in France, David Chase has given an interview about the final episode of the Sopranos and the controversy it has created. He certainly doesn't dismiss the idea of a Sopranos movie.
Last night was the final episode of the Sopranos, as aired by HBO in the States and as watched by countless tens of thousands all over the world through bittorrent.
If you didn't watch it by one of these means then you will have had a hard time steering clear of any mention of it today online - it's been talked about everywhere. Three times today I nearly caught a spoiler before watching it.
So spoiler alert notwithstanding, here's my take on the end of this incredible series. (This posting has been updated at the end)
The final episode itself was, unquestionably, a rip off to fans. To take arguably the best television programme of all time and to end it in the way it did, with a sudden black screen in the middle of nothing (the family meeting for dinner) was such a cheap exit as to be almost worthy of calling a hit on the producers.
It was one of those 'oh so different and arty but ultimately what a load of nonsense' endings that could do little to disguise the fact that it was poorly written and conceived. And they've had 7 years to plan this!
The truth of the matter is that David Chase, the show's producer must be tired and weary. Tired of continuing a series he probably would have liked to have ended 2 seasons ago, now that he's made his money and proven his genius. He clearly couldn't bring himself to write one last piece of brilliance.
The show's 'owners' also couldn't stand the idea no doubt of killing off Tony Soprano, so in classic TV style they've left things open for a movie or another series, or christmas special, or who freaking knows. But the problem is that the Sopranos was loved because it eschewed classic TV stereotypes. This is why fans are so upset. Message boards and blogs are awash in anger and fans are crashing the HBO website by deluging it with vitriol.
There are many subtle and creative theories over the possible significence of the ending - the idea I like most is that the sudden black screen was a 'hit on all the viewers'. This is apt as I feel like I've been shot in the stomach.
I'm sure David Chase has a nice explanation in his mind that 'explains' his ending. It doesn't take away from the fact that viewers feel extremely cheated. They wanted more than this, not a simple cop out by a creative - too easy.
The good news is however it does mean there may be more to come from everybody's favourite Mafiosi.
UPDATED JUNE 17th
Blogger Bob Harris has detailed an impressive analysis of the ending of the Sopranos. It shows the possible clues as to what might have happened - that thing we didn't see. It shows the 'Masquerade' style detective work that a former TV writer (experienced in writing death scenes) went through to arrive at his certain conclusion that Tony was shot and killed and the final frame of blackness was Tony's Point of View.
It's impressive work and has certainly caused me to revisit my feelings a little. If even partly true, and if David Chase confirms it in the future, and we never see Tony Soprano alive on our screens again, I will probably feel a little embarrassed.
But frustrations remain. I consider myself a pretty full on Sopranos fan. I may not have dissected the symbolism of every episode with others, nor taken part in Sopranos fan websites or web forums, but I did watch every episode and made a point of doing so. I can't remember the last time I showed such dedication to watching a TV series.
The Sopranos was great because it left little to the imagination. It was harsh, it was in-your-face, and it served up equal does of brutality and sensitivity that were weirdly reassuring in a world that is pretty brutal. You didn't need to turn on your thinking cap to watch it - you could be a thug and join in.
Most viewers, I'm still pretty sure, (at least the people I know), are still feeling pretty cheated by the end. It may well turn out to be a brilliant piece of detailed symbolism and suggestion - dare say genius, but I guess I just didn't want to be left with a complex detective puzzle to solve at the end. A bit too 'old boys' network for me...
(Comments are welcome below)
I get these press releases from time to time. This one is more interesting than most...
Palo Alto, Calif. - April 5, 2007 - Azureus,a global leader in aggregating and distributing long-form, high quality video via the Internet's most popular media peer-to-peer (P2P) application, today announced that it will premiere the BBC's hit six-part series, Sorted, on its next-generation peer-to-peer (P2P) platform dubbed Vuze (www.vuze.com), which launched today. Sorted represents the first in a series of programs that Azureus and BBC Worldwide will make available in High Definition on the Vuze platform, as part of a distribution partnership announced December 2006, the first ever peer-to-peer (P2P) deal for BBC.
An interview worth reading, it gives some good insights into the mind of Google's Eric Schmidt. Some interesting nuggets about video and YouTube.
(via Wired)
I love YouTube, I really do. It's legitimized stuff I've been harking on about for years and made it possible for me to raise money for my own web video venture. For that I'm truly grateful.
But the party is reaching that slightly sketchy stage where the police are sniffing around the venue, and everyone is asking where the after-party is.
I refer of course to the virtual certainty that YouTube will implement some form of fingerprinting technology this year to identify copyright infringing works within seconds of being posted.
When you think about it, the movie studios and TV networks are right to be annoyed that this isn't happening already. The technology exists, it works, and if Google of all people can't implement a search and identify technology, well who can?
YouTube fans might say... Why would they do this? Why would they bow to the media companies' demands? Didnt' they refuse to hand over details to the Chinese authorities?
Well business is all about leverage, aka negotiating power. Google needs deals such as the recent one they made with Sky television in the UK, to extend its highly profitable ad business into TV land. Remember 99% of their revenue comes from advertising, and YouTube isn't making any of it.
And personalized TV advertising delivered via set-top boxes is a very viable route for the company that isn't getting much coverage. So if Google wants to be invited to that particular party, they've got to police their own. No police, no public performance license, no party.
The problem for YouTube, and they know it deep down in their water, is that the real, true reason for its success, is that people go there to see copyrighted material. When that goes, so will a big part of their audience.
I've written about the problems YouTube faces here and video fingerprinting technology here. The clouds are darkening on the horizon, and it will take some deft maneouvering to save the lighting and speaker rig from getting soaked.
Perhaps Google buying YouTube was all just a clever move to get face time with the media companies. Where I'm currently writing from, people readily pay $$$ to get a meeting with someone important or a government official. $4 billion is a big price to pay to get a few meetings, but it could just be chump change if the Google / Sky deal delivers on its promise...
The after party is where?
According to reports, YouTube and the BBC are working on a deal.
If true, I tend to agree with the writer's analysis that older shows and clips packages would be made available in an effort to spur DVD sales and raise awareness of programmes. Anything that will get them away from their very dubious dealings with Microsoft has to be a good thing.
A YouTube / BBC deal would make a lot of sense with the BBC's current push into commercial areas that sidestep the restrictions they have on doing overtly commercial ventures in the UK.
Be interesting to see how this one pans out. Original report here.
If your bag is tech, you could do a lot worse than head on over to MikeTV.
Hosted exclusively here on WorldTV, MikeTV is a daily dose of robot videos, gadget videos, technology videos and other geek friendly clips.
Mike scours the Internet for these videos so that you don't have to, and the first videos on the site include some really fascinating stuff.
There's the video of the four legged quadraped robot which survives being kicked in its side, a holographic television with the image hanging in mid-air, a multi-touch input screen with some mind altering demos (the same technology that's going to be in the iPhone), slow motion videos of a speeding bullet smashing through fruit, playing cards and drinks cans, a couple of fighting robot videos from Japan, a video of a water powered acetylene torch, and a video of the Da Vinci surgical robot that is revolutionising surgery procedures in hospitals.
Mike says his focus will be stuff that is 'real' but has not yet hit the mainstream or public conciousness, with the occasional irreverant or funny clip thrown in.
We love it!
Three weeks ago the US District Court issued a subpoena against YouTube demanding the company hand over details of a user going by the name of ECOTotal. The action, brought initially by 20th Century Fox, was in reaction to the user posting videos of 24 on the site, before they had even aired on television.
While some reports suggest (and I think it is likely) that the episodes were already available on BitTorrent, and the user simply cross posted them to YouTube, the fact remains that this user is going to get a nasty surprise.
YouTube and its new owner Google face a big challenge this year. While there is no doubting the size and popularity of YouTube, the proverbial knives are being sharpened all around. There have been rumours of a 'YouTube killer', run by the television networks themselves, young people can very quickly turn against it (although sheer size here is arguably sufficient), and upcoming offerings from the likes of Joost may make this a difficult year for the company.
Google has been forced to back down after a group of Belgian newspapers sued the company over its linking to stories on its Google news site. Google says it will appeal but has already removed all links to Belgian newspapers in the face of a $32,000 a day fine for each day it continues doing so.
The issue is one of sour grapes. Newspapers have seen their ad revenues and control of the media dry up as dynamic Internet companies like Google and Yahoo have become the de facto gatekeepers to information in the new world. In old Europe, where countries tend to have a rather insular viewpoint to begin with, this loss of control has rubbed the wrong way. Instead of viewing Google as a necessary (albeit uninvited) partner, able to drive significant traffic and eyeballs to their websites, they'd rather put up big walls around their garden and hope Belgians abandon the Google lawn party next door.
It will remain to be seen whether this approach works for them or not. Google is claiming fair use doctrine and says it will appeal, lawyers predict it will be the start of many more lawsuits against the Mountain View company over the issue.
This weekend Chicago squares off against Indianapolis in the 41st Superbowl. As everyone knows, it's the largest TV advertising event on earth.
Close to 100 million viewers will watch with families and friends, and because it's live, marketers know that there is going to be very little ad-skipping through Tivo-esque devices. There's not much chance of that happening anyway... marketers have long convinced us that advertising during the Superbowl is the Oscars or Sundance film festival of advertising. We're hooked!
This year, the Year of You, marketers sat around marketing tables, thought YouTube, thought clever marketing thoughts, and came up with FOUR, no less, takes on incorporating user generated content into the Superbowl Ad Event.
All four are incredibly safe and in fact consist only of amateurs submitting ideas for commercials which are then shot professionally. There'll be no grandad in front of a video camera in his living room, no teenagers miming along to music.
The companies in question have all set up special websites and are Chevrolet, Frito-Lay, the NFL themselves and Alka-Seltzer.
Further coverage on this subject from The NY Times, Times of London, Campaign , Sports Illustrated and the San Francisco Chronicle.
Starting today, when you search in Google Video you will see results from both Google Video and YouTube. This is the first in what will be many integrations between the two sites in the months ahead.
Since Google bought YouTube there has been a lot of speculation about how the companies will merge their operations and this is the first clear sign of this process happening.
More on this at the official Google Blog.
Came across this rather randomly today and it's an interesting guide to TV in Italy. I particularly liked the part "Italians... generally seek to make a crisis out of every drama, and their approach to the dubbing of foreign cinematic material reflects this".
Quite illuminating, and also an interesting insight to Italy in general from the perspective of someone who lives there.
Strike one up for the power of the Internet and people power!
In a huge departure from the past, UK monopobroadcaster Sky (owner's of FOX and MySpace) has decided to throw in the towel and actually give people what they really want. Recognizing that large numbers of viewers in the UK are pissed off with having to wait months for popular US shows like Lost and 24 to turn up on British screens, and instead have been turning to Bittorrent to download the shows themselves, Sky has announced that starting in February, Lost will air 4 days after it's broadcast in the States. It's only taken 50 years, but finally the artificial geographical boundaries created by nonsensical TV execs, are finally giving way to simple common sense. Hooray!
It clearly makes no sense that it's taken this long for them to wake up and smell the coffee beans. Viewers in the UK surprisingly DO actually visit entertainment websites in the US, and are constantly frustrated with the issue of plotlines being spoiled for them when they read what everyone else in the US is talking about around the water cooler. Says Sky's Hannah Barnes "We know the world is a smaller place. If we have customers aware of Lost storylines from the USA, we need to give them immediacy". Round of applause please! One small question... how is a 4 day delay immediate??
Other shows that will get the 'immediate' treatment include 24, The Simpsons, Standoff and Bones. For 24 and The Simpsons there will be a 7 day delay, and for Standoff and Bones, several weeks is the new timeframe. It's a significant step forward, albeit one we should have had years ago, but unfortunately as usual it stems from financial loss rather than people's satisfaction, something Sky knows very little about.
Heard the story about Sky/Newscorp stealing their user's MySpace URL's??
The saying 'no smoke without fire' comes to mind, but it will remain to see whether this is a real fire or a smoke 'screen'.
Techcrunch is probably the best place to stay on top of this one. The original post which kicked off the rumours is here.
Paul Neave is a UK based flash designer who may very well be the best flash programmer in the world. I've been following his work for a couple of years, including his flash versions of Tetris, Pac-Man and Frogger, and more recently his work on Flash Earth.
He has now launched an amazing video site which leverages Google Video, YouTube and Blip.tv at Neave.tv. For a study in how to build simple, intuitive interfaces that present a TV-like experience, it is in a league of its own.
Just picking this up via Cynthia Brumfield's excellent blog over at IPDemocracy. Seems the NFL and Yahoo! are going all out for the ex-pat and 'overseas viewing of NFL games' market.
It's costly, at $249 for an entire season, but fans will pay it.
It's a bold move, and to be applauded. But they should consider offering reduced quality services at lower price points (for people of more restricted means), and offer free or nominal pay services in countries where they want to develop a following. Otherwise very cool.
(via IPDemocracy.com)
There's now more than 100 video sharing websites, including the ubiquitous YouTube.
The popular format for presenting videos these days is Flash video. It's fast, it requires no installation for most people, and it allows site owners to build their own control interfaces (play, rewind etc) easily.
But a common complaint levelled at current video sites is one of poor picture quality. Although the video quality actually has nothing to do with Flash itself (if you don't believe me check out this demo), at least one company believes the answer to poor picture quality is... another video format.
Now normally this is about as far as I would get with this story, but the protagonist in this thriller is someone pretty special.
Enter DivX, the video compression format widely used for file sharing on Bittorrent. The eponymous San Diego based company is clearly feeling the heat a little bit with the success of browser-based video, and wants to do something about it.
They have decided quite astutely to launch their own video sharing site, making use of the DivX system. The proposition is an interesting one simply because of who they are. DivX is legendary, so much so, that more than 1250 consumer DVD players have the ability to play back DivX video.
Trying out the new service, which requires installing a free browser plug in, results in admittedly very high quality video, and there are a growing number of high quality clips available, including the infamous Dancing around the World video, brought up to date for 2006.
It will remain to be seen how successful this endeavour is, and I would certainly not dismiss their chances out of hand. DivX has a very good image among savvy Internet users, and the ability to download clips and play them on a DVD player is a definite plus. But I can't help but think that Jo Internet user does not want to install any more plugins, and will simply revert to YouTube as soon as they get that 'click here to download plugin' message.
Industry people have a tendency to overestimate people's strength of feelings about high technical quality - look at the continued abundance of AM radio for instance. But if DivX can attract enough exclusive content and traction, they may just pull it off.
Bear in mind that every video sharing site using Flash, including YouTube, can up the quality level at any time, if only they can sort out their bandwidth headaches...
While on the subject, and in the interest of completeness, two other sites going after the high quality video market are the just-now-launching Dovetail.tv, and the excellently named Instant Media.
Via GigaOM
A new development over at YouTube sees Paris Hilton with her own custom branded channel. This is the first of what is expected to be many deals with artists and other commercial entities wishing to exploit the YouTube phenomenon.
What does Paris get? Well she gets her own page that is a lot snazzier than other YouTube users, and advertisers like Fox get the knowledge that they are supporting a page guaranteed not to have any 'dodgy' material on it. How the advertising is split between YouTube and her record company, we'll probably never know.
The page itself smacks squarely of MySpace, clearly no one is wishing to reinvent the wheel here. This should be an interesting development to watch...
A grassroots campaign has emerged in China to subtitle popular American TV shows into Chinese for download by Bittorrent.
In its two month trial of providing free, advertiser supported broadcasts of popular TV shows on the net, U.S. network ABC has announced that during the trial's first month (in May), more than 11 million downloads took place. Even better for them, some 87% of viewers were able to remember the advertiser that sponsored the download.
ABC execs seem pretty thrilled at the news and are now confident they will have no problem attracting advertisers for a permanent service expected to launch later this year.
By way of comparison, ABC has been selling around 670,000 episodes each month of the same shows at $1.99 each, through its partnership with Apple's iTunes. A quick, back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests, that an advertiser would have to pay 12 cents per download, to equal the money that ABC is making from selling its shows on iTunes, a very reasonable amount given the recall rate. You can see why ABC execs are so happy.
The upshot of the matter is that both pay-to-view and advertiser supported Internet television are clearly viable, and in great demand by viewers. Now that the TV execs know this, expect to see much more Internet TV in future. This is great news for consumers.
In a coup for Apple, CBS shows such as CSI and Survivor are now available for purchase on the iTunes Music Store. The cost is the standard $1.99, and as usual, not available to non US residents. Apple press release here.
According to a Wall Street Journal article this morning (subscription required), teenage sensation social networking site MySpace.com is to begin offering episodes of the Fox series 24 at $1.99 a pop. Two episodes will be made available for free thanks to a sponsorship with Burger King.
It's the first time MySpace has taken advantage of it's association with Fox, with both companies owned by News Corporation. Technical details were not available.
Catching up on a couple of stories from earlier in the week, this announcement from Tivo definitely catches the eye.
Tivo, makers of the eponymous PVR device, popular in the US (and to a lesser extent the UK), have inked a deal with Internet video heavyweights Brightcove. The deal basically means that producers of Internet television who are part of the Brightcove publisher network, can have their programming made available to Tivo users.
A Tivo user will be able to go to the website of a video publisher, and using their account information, initiate a download to their Tivo of that producer's video content.
It's a clever deal because it means the gap between Internet produced video and regular television is effectively bridged.
Expect the barriers to come down even more as the likes of Apple, Microsoft and others work to do the same with their media PC offerings.
Apple rumour site AppleInsider is today reporting two separate deals regarding purchasable TV content on iTunes. In the first, NBA Playoff basketball games will be made available the day after they appear on ABC. In the second, new shows from Fox such as 24, Prison Break, and The Shield will be sold on Apple's steadily growing service. Apple now has over 90 TV shows available for purchase to their U.S. users.
CBS has today launched a free original content streaming video service.
In a welcome move, they have decided to forego geo-restrictions (you can watch the service anywhere in the world), but the flip to this is that the fare on offer is currently pretty dire - part of a Letterman show featuring Pearl Jam, a made-for-net TV show called Greek to Chic, and a behind the scenes documentary called Beyond Survivor.
The service did not work for me with Firefox, so I had to access it through Internet Explorer.
When are these companies going to wake up and take note of what the Google and YouTube's of this world are doing with interfaces? Keep it simple!
Starting today, American network ABC is broadcasting up-to-date, free episodes of its hit shows Desparate Housewives, Lost, Alias, and Commander in Chief, on its website. The usual USA only restrictions apply, but I successfully connected from the UK without any difficulty using a proxy service.
This is a bold move for ABC, and they are supporting the service through sponsorship and advertising.
For more on using proxies to access sites that have geographic restrictions, see Step One of my post 'Accessing Movielink and Cinemanow from Outside the USA'. The same principles apply.
The service uses Flash 8 (like Google Video), and can be found here.