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The new wave of online piracy is all about TV -- and Hollywood is sending lawyers
MICHAEL SNIDER
News Corp.'s Peter Chernin cuts a confident figure at the podium, but he's worried. Speaking about the challenges facing media companies at a consumer forum two months ago, the COO of the Fox empire outlined his 10 rules for survival. Rule No. 1: consumers will always want to control how, where and when they get their entertainment, demanding maximum ease and convenience. But it's the last rule that's the clear crux of Chernin's message: "All the other rules are meaningless," he says, his voice growing more forceful, "if content is not protected from digital thievery."
Why is a TV executive so agitated about online pirates? Because he, like most media honchos, has seen the scary numbers indicating that the next big craze in illegal file-sharing is not music, not movies, but television. High-quality digital copies of popular shows such as Desperate Housewives, The West Wing and, well, pretty much anything else on the tube are available online a few hours after they air, many in high definition. Pirates with HD-ready TV sets can enjoy these shows in widescreen format and in better picture quality than what regular cable provides -- no need to spring for satellite feeds or specialty channels. All they need is a high-speed Internet connection, a modicum of computer know-how, a little patience -- and a willingness to risk a lawsuit. With the spread of personal video recorders like TiVo, "people are ignoring the old notion that you watch your program at 8 o'clock when CBS or NBC decides you should be watching it," says Mike McGuire, a digital rights expert with research company Gartner Inc. "And they're using the Internet to do that."
Much of this new wave of video downloading is due to an innovative file-sharing program called BitTorrent, which hit the scene two years ago and has quickly outstripped all others in popularity. Movies and TV shows tend to be very large files that took hours, sometimes days, to download using previous generations of peer-to-peer programs. BitTorrent grabs small sections of the files from different sources at once, greatly speeding up the process. It's the pirate's "killer app," and, according to a British Web study, it already accounts for one-third of Internet traffic at any given time.
Hollywood, not surprisingly, is very nervous. Most of the content filling both big screens and small is controlled by a few huge corporations such as Viacom Inc. (which owns CBS and Paramount Pictures) and Walt Disney Co. (ABC, Miramax Films). Piracy of movies is already a major concern for them -- current hits like The Incredibles and others, such as I, Robot, that have yet to make it to rental shelves, are readily available online. Now another major revenue stream is under threat from downloaders who can select from a smorgasbord of swiped offerings cleansed of commercials: brand new HBO and Showcase programs such as The Wire or Huff; shows not yet on Canadian TV such as the new Battlestar Galactica series; episodes of Enterprise, which show up online before their Friday night airtime.
Television piracy isn't exactly a shocker to the media giants. Hollywood has long conducted ad campaigns aimed at educating consumers about the evils of downloading copyright content. The latest is an anti-piracy poster blitz in video-rental shops, as well as a giveaway of free software to any computer owners who wish to identify and remove pirated content from their machines. The companies have also been lobbying the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to institute measures that would safeguard TV signals. Earlier this month, the FCC came through, ruling that broadcasters would be permitted to embed a computer code, known as a broadcast flag, in programming. Makers of consumer devices capable of receiving digital broadcasts will now have to include a card that will allow viewers to watch and make personal copies of shows on VCR or recordable DVD player, but not to share them over the Internet. "What's really at the heart of companies' concern is uncontrolled redistribution," says Gartner's McGuire. "The broadcast flags are meant to try to control that."
That's the polite part of the plan. There is also a more brutal strategy in the works. In his forum speech, Chernin said: "Consumers need to understand that stealing is wrong, and there are consequences." Those consequences are lawsuits. Last week, the Motion Picture Association of America sued an unspecified number of U.S. citizens who allegedly scoop movies online, asking for damages of up to US$150,000 per film traded. Hollywood hopes that a round of legal salvoes will pre-empt TV piracy before it goes mainstream. After all, when the Recording Industry Association of America launched cases against more than 6,000 music downloaders last year, the pace of file sharing seemed to slow. That impression may have been an illusion, however, even though record companies saw an uptick in CD sales after three years of losses. Industry watchers say file sharing is as strong as ever, and getting easier and more efficient. "Regardless of what people found in the early days of lawsuits," says Eric Garland, head of research firm BigChampagne LLC, which tracks Internet activity, "the consensus now is that file sharing is hitting all-time highs."
For the real solution, media moguls might refer to Chernin's first rule of survival -- the one about consumers wanting control, choice and convenience. Logging onto the Net and quickly downloading your favourite show in HDTV fulfills that principle. Until makers of entertainment can satisfy this desire, the piracy fight is likely to keep getting bloodier.
New technology promising to give you instant entertainment gratification:
• PVRs and DVD recorders: TiVo and similar gadgets save shows digitally so you can watch them when you wish; files can be easily transferred to a computer for uploading to the Net.
• Media hubs: store your digital entertainment -- music, movies, photos, recorded TV shows -- on huge hard drives.
• Extenders: wireless devices let you display on TV video you've stored on PC.
• Portable video players: iPods for video.
Desperate Housewives,
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