If TV Companies Released Authorized Torrents With Ads, Would You Download Them?

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110831/02402915749/if-tv-companies-released-authorized-torrents-with-ads-would-people-download-them.shtml

by jsherry • 15 years ago

144 114 15 years ago

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jeffool2• 15 years ago

Absolutely. I was recently kicked off my cable provider's ISP for excessive DMCA violations (torrenting) after DVRing and their OnDemand services proved too shoddy to actually watch. (And I forgot to DVR one show, to be fair. That one's completely on me.)

It seems that they could ask you to sign in to a service, offer free show in segments, and build in local (or at least relative) advertisements.

I'm told web ads cost less than traditional ads. With growing numbers watching plus interactivity, I don't get that. But even so, for generations TV has made its job to take in insane amounts of money on the back of free programming. I find it amazing that given the ability to spread their show faster and cheaper the more people watch it, they're now having trouble with this.

Please, let me give you my time and eyeballs. Stop suing because we want to watch the shows you've told us are available for free, our entire lives.

sliverstorm3• 15 years ago

Stop suing because we want to watch the shows you've told us are available for free, our entire lives.

Amen. They should be thrilled their product is getting torrented so much- it means people like their product so much, they will commit crimes to get it. Few businesses are blessed with the problem of too many rabid fans.

teamonkey3• 15 years ago

It's only great if you can monetize it.

w1ntermute3• 15 years ago

> I was recently kicked off my cable provider's ISP for excessive DMCA violations (torrenting) after DVRing and their OnDemand services proved too shoddy to actually watch.

I get around this by using a seedbox. Downgrade your internet service to save some money and share the seedbox with a few friends - you'll end up spending the same amount per month.

You can use SFTP to get the files from the seedbox to your computer and you'll be able to completely avoid detection by your ISP.

joeguilmette• 15 years ago

Yes. YES YES YES YES YES.

pakeha• 15 years ago

Yes, primarily because I wouldn't need multiple content subscription sources any more (HBO, Hulu, Netflix). Obviously I'm making some assumptions about how such a system would work, but I'd rather pick and choose content than pick and choose providers.

sliverstorm3• 15 years ago

So long as the ads are a small portion of the video and the recording is high-quality, of course! I could probably even be talked into ignoring the equally high-quality rips without ads- I would love to encourage such a forward-thinking model.

Now, if we're talking 10 minutes of content and 20 minutes of advertising,... no.

pan692• 15 years ago

Also, the audio of the commercials shouldn't be louder than that of the content.

vectorpush• 15 years ago

People would just skip the ads.

Vivtek• 15 years ago

Damn straight I would. Not that anybody seems to be willing to do that.

ikawe• 15 years ago

TV companies don't want "an advertisement". They want a stream of advertising. This is a lot less possible with bittorrent.

ryanwhitney• 15 years ago

I would, but unfortunately they'd never release torrents with ads unless they could stop you from skipping them.

The only way to do this would be a custom filetype and player, no? And the chances of of being able to stream that to your xbox or media player...

zizee2• 15 years ago

unless they could stop you from skipping them.

But with ubiquitous PVRs on the horizon (which will compete on their merits) the ability for the unwashed masses to skip ads automatically is pretty much upon us.

I think that the problem for television broadcasters is that they realise if everyone gets used to downloading shows to watch on demand, they'll become increasingly irrelevant. So, instead of cannibalising their existing businesses to reinvent themselves, most of them will kick and scream to try to delay the inevitable.

It's mostly amusing, apart from the fact that all the kicking and screaming ends up in pain for us because part of it involves bribing congress critters to protect the incumbents failing business models.

pan692• 15 years ago

I guess one of the issues here is localisation. If you insert a commercial in a video then everyone, everywhere needs to watch that same commercial.

Also, commercials tend to go stale. You want to switch commercials based on season or even current affairs. This doesn't allow you to do that, T.V. and streaming video does.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for it but I think these are two major issues potential advertisers will struggle with.

jeffool2• 15 years ago

I can easily see them using a custom client so that they can segment the shows and add localized/fresh ads even as you go back and watch reruns.

onedognight• 15 years ago

I can easily see them using a custom client

i.e. Hulu.

zokier3• 15 years ago

You don't even need a custom client. Bittorrent is based on pieces (or was it parts?), which are relatively small blocks of data. As long as your ads do not affect the file otherwise (and they shouldn't) people can seed the common parts (= the actual content), and the incorrect ad pieces would be ignored.

whichdan• 15 years ago

I would watch streaming TV shows with targeted ads, but I don't think I would download a TV show with generic ads. If there's an advertisement before a YouTube video plays, I'll avoid watching it, but if it means that I can watch a TV show without paying $2-3 per episode, I'd feel a lot warmer about the idea.

8plot• 15 years ago

I'd rather skip the ads and just pay some money directly for the shows I like and want to encourage to continue. Because I don't want to be tracked, I'd prefer bitcoin.

zizee2• 15 years ago

Because I don't want to be tracked, I'd prefer bitcoin.

Don't Bitcoin's encode all transactions that they have been used for into the coin? Unless you use some intermediary to launder your payment bitcoin provides the ultimate in publicising your spending. And if you use an intermediary they'll be tracking your transactions.

jarin• 15 years ago

No, you can generate a new address for each transaction.

rb2k_• 15 years ago

I can see the message already: "The torrent you're trying to download is not available in your country"

Thank you content industry...

ltamake• 15 years ago

This. But if they didn't do that, I totally would download them.

The advertising has to be short and not take up a huge portion of the video. Also, smartphone and tablet compatible formats, please.

ashconnor• 15 years ago

Then I have to mess around with HTTP headers just so I can watch The Daily Show.

dhughes• 15 years ago

I get a kick out of www meaning "world wide web" but it's used on websites where I can't see anything due to my location in this wide world using the Web.

SODaniel• 15 years ago

Thank you. I'm sorry to say this but the TV and music industry have time and time again shown that they are completely uninterested in new distribution models and if history rings true, they will never 'get it'.

hermannj314• 15 years ago

I live in Europe, but absolutely "need" to watch American television. My only option is Hulu via a US VPN or Usenet. Currently, I choose the Usenet route. I would be glad to pay for some 3rd option. I have disposable income to give away, but if giving it to you is worse than my 2nd best option, you lose.

I just forked over nearly $100 today to buy access to Big Ten Network live streaming of football games for the 2011-2012 season. I did this because I need this access and there was no better option. There were free options, trust me, a little googling and I can get any NCAA football game for free, but Big Ten offered the best quality of service at a great price.

Regular TV. Why can't you learn from the football guys? I honestly have no idea how to access American broadcast TV from Europe. Outside of waiting 20 years for reruns of Twin Peaks to appear on basic cable.

stevengg• 15 years ago

I have an honest question why should I pay when the product they are offering is inferior in every way to the setup I have been using for the last 2-3 years? For the past few years I have used a irssi script that is setup with the tv shows that I want to download and the quality i wish to have them downloaded in this takes about 5 minutes to setup and about the same to maintain every season after this five minute time investment I’m getting shows less then a half an hour after they air on the east coast in 720p with no commercials that means when I’m ready to watch them that night or later that year they are ready to go with no hassle no worrying about whether or not its on netflix or waiting a week to see it on hulu if i want to see breaking bad i can watch it 15 mins after its done airing on the east coast and be done before its even done airing in Texas until they can offer up something to match that I don’t see any reason to meet them half way.

fsniper2• 15 years ago

No. I would not do that. Advertisements are just distractions. Paying a reasonable amount for reasonable conditions (like no available way to recall or restrict media) and high quality would be a better and viable option for me

fsniper2• 15 years ago

Ofcourse with no adds.

rorrr• 15 years ago

If you do this, you might as well stream them on a hulu-like site, and even charge a little (do some A/B testing to find the "sweet spot").

It's actually easier to skip ads while watching downloads.

rheide• 15 years ago

I wouldn't. And I'm guessing a lot of other people wouldn't either. I think it's better if TV companies found different ways of making money rather than forcing their customers to watch ads that they don't want to see.

jrockway• 15 years ago

No. Why would I watch content with ads when I can already watch the same content without ads?

Content middlemen: you've lost. The 21st century has no place for you. Distribution is now dirt cheap and dirt simple. You can't add any value because you don't solve any hard problems. All you've done for the last 10 years is make content harder to pay for.

Content creators: make content, add it to your website, charge $2 (or whatever) for a DRM-free download, and enjoy money forever. People will pay you for making things if you let them. No, you won't get a billion-dollar lump sum just for coming up with an idea. Sorry, those days are over too.

(Also, I'm not willing to share my 'net connection with big companies. You have money, buy your own bandwidth.)

aaronbrethorst2• 15 years ago

$2 seemed way too little to me, but I just did some back-of-the-napkin calculations, and it looks like two bucks would actually be a huge bump in revenue for some TV shows...assuming they were able to maintain the same number of viewers.

Case in point (and I know these numbers are a little faulty, but...):

The Simpsons in October 2010 charged $253,170 for a 30 second spot[1]. Meanwhile, during the previous season, they had an average viewership of 7.2 million per episode[2]. This works out to about $0.035 per spot per viewer.

[1] http://adage.com/article/ad-age-graphics/american-idol-spots...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Simpsons#Criticism_of_decli...

johntb86• 15 years ago

You can "buy" an episode of the Simpsons (SD) on amazon.com for $1.99, so that's probably a reasonable price.

teamonkey3• 15 years ago

Why would I pay $2 to watch content without ads when I can just download the same content from a torrent site for free?

officemonkey• 15 years ago

Well, there's the whole "I'd rather buy it than pirate it" thing. Plenty of people want to buy content, it's just that the content makers are stuck in old-fashioned business models.

eropple• 15 years ago

Because, fundamentally, most people aren't assholes.

I vacillate between both sides of the piracy issue. I used to pirate, when I was 14 and had no money. About the time I turned 16 or so I realized it wasn't a good idea and pretty much went without if I couldn't buy it; I saw no reason why other people couldn't do likewise, and got pretty annoyed at the casual piracy at the time. Having graduated from college and moved into a nice job, I buy stuff pretty much on the basis of "it looks interesting and it's only two bucks," and I can't bring myself to care about the pirates at all anymore. They're not part of my worldview.

If you can make the process of buying something simple enough and pain-free enough, I think that most people who can afford it will buy it. Others will pirate it because they can't afford it, and I think that there's a compelling argument to be made that many of those will eventually become regular consumers when they've got the money to do so. There surely is a group of dyed-in-the-wool douchebags who will never buy anything they can pirate because they are, at their cores, Bad People, but them's the breaks--I've come to the gradual understanding that these people are shitty human beings who will screw others so long as they don't have to look them in the eye to do so, and all you can do is write them off.

But I think that, for the most part, if you treat your potential customers right, they'll do right by you. (The same is not true, I think, of "donate what you want"--I strongly feel that method of revenue generation encourages people to pay as little as they can rationalize, and what even nominally 'good' people can rationalize is really really small. But that's another topic.)

cpeterso3• 15 years ago

People will pay money for convenience and speed. Media companies good delivery fast high-quality downloads with an easy one-click process. Joe User doesn't want to deal with slow downloads of torrents with unknown quality, sharing their bandwidth and possibly exposing themselves to malware.

zokier3• 15 years ago

Convenience. At least that's the reason why I used Spotify for a while.

Confusion• 15 years ago

I'd pay for the certainty that what I download contains what I want it to contain, in the format that I want, at the download speed I want. Downloading torrents is a game of chance, where you regularly end up with a version you don't want at a much lower speed than anticipated. I also pay for Spotify.

jerf• 15 years ago

Surprised nobody else has said this in the three hours this has been up, but: Can I skip them? Are they just embedded into an mp4 file that otherwise has nothing special about them? Yeah, sure.

Are they in some DRM'ed format with a player which mandates playing the ads without skipping? No, absolutely not.

It's a null issue anyhow because it's not on the table. Everybody wants to stream you stuff so you can't keep it, and can't accidentally derive any unanticipated value from it. I honestly have no idea what would get people to give up the idea of streaming stuff to you.

sausagefeet2• 15 years ago

The main problem I see with not doing the latter option is targeting ads. You simply can't give the same ad to someone in Boston as you give to someone in LA.

masaq• 15 years ago

I would. Presumably the less informed will have to endure the ads, but I and others like me with the know-how will find a way to skip them if they are too intrusive. One or two 30 second ads... maybe I wouldn't even bother skipping them.

I don't know what the situation in the states is right now, but in the UK the majority of the big channels have Flash-based streaming versions of their shows available online very soon (hours) after they've aired (in the case of the BBC some of the shows are available live). The BBC is publicly funded - so no ads - but ITV and Channel 4, the other big players, do have ads, and most people, anecdotally, have no problem with this given the convenience.

I still download episodes of US shows I or my partner enjoy regularly, but if the networks were to offer these shows on their sites with ads I'd be more than willing to watch them there.

For overseas viewers the problem, as other posters have mentioned, is region locking. If the show is sold to overseas markets they cannot then offer the show to viewers in that market. The model needs to change and incorporate revenue sharing with these other markets - but history has shown us these big businesses are unable to do this sort of thing in a timely manner. And that could ultimately be their downfall.

xenophanes• 15 years ago

It's the same as the answer to: Can I watch them in VLC?

Also I'm not actually going to watch the ads. It's not very hard to skip ahead. So how much can they really be paid for those ads?

cookiecaper3• 15 years ago

I think they can still get paid pretty well for them. For one, if these releases occur, they're better than nothing; right now, media companies derive no advertising revenue from torrented files with ads embedded because they don't offer them at all. Even if they have to sell for a reduced price, that's better than zero.

Furthermore, "skipping the ads" isn't that big of a deal. People do it on TV all the time by getting up to go do something else, changing the channel, muting the television, etc., when the commercials play. Those with DVRs or VCRs fast-forward, as a VLC user might. VLC doesn't really offer much better fast-forward features than the VCR; unless you also download a pre-defined chapter file (and I don't think many people hate ads that much), this is no different than using DVR/VCR and there's no point in paying less for these ads. VLC users will still visually see your logos, commercial, etc., while watching and I think that has value too, and again, the situation in that respect is no different from conventional methods.

I think the real logistical issue here is that it'd be much more difficult to insert localized ads. Hulu et al can use IP geolocation to target local ads (I don't know if they do or not, but it's possible), but a nationally distributed mp4 file would only have nationally distributed advertisements. This causes some havoc on the current pricing system, as it cuts affiliates, who manage the advertisements on conventional TV, out of loop. Perhaps the corporate guys like this, but as long as terrestrial broadcasts are the predominant form of distribution, corporate is always going to be careful not to disrupt the affiliates' revenue stream too much.

sausagefeet2• 15 years ago

How is it different from a DVR?

w1ntermute3• 15 years ago

No, not a chance. A lot of people say that torrents are inconvenient or unreliable, but that hasn't been my experience. If you use a good private tracker, you are guaranteed good & fast downloads, no strings attached.

After not watching TV except when with friends and using ABP in my browser for several years, I've become hypersensitized to ads. I simply cannot stand watching them.

cookiecaper3• 15 years ago

I would definitely do that. I'd be highly attracted and would use it instead of pirate trackers because there wouldn't be any potential negative legal ramifications. I can't stand the streaming experience provided by most vendors; I find Flash the most detestable component thereof, but I also strongly dislike being forced to redownload data if I want to watch again or even make significant seeks. I don't necessarily have a problem with ads.

However, I would prefer to patronize a tracker that required subscription fees and didn't display ads. I have thought about launching a startup that would provide media companies with the platform to do this. There are a lot of interesting possibilities for both producers and consumers there.

At the same time, advertisement is so deeply ingrained in the operation of TV companies that I am not really sure they'd ever be comfortable moving to a model of distributing TV that didn't rely upon an advertisement as a revenue stream.

As jerf mentioned, these companies love streaming because it gives the same kind of control they get from "streaming" the broadcast to your television; all the content is retained server-side and the user doesn't get their own copy without special initiative (DVR/VCR). They are still able to consolidate control of distribution under the streaming model (or the iTunes model, where they ask Apple to remove the file and it's apparently gone forever) and I find it unlikely that they'll be willing to give that up.

This is primarily hypothetical as I consciously avoid almost all TV and movies.

davedx• 15 years ago

This is what I don't understand about cable TV (as I've used it in the UK, Australia and the Netherlands anyway; not sure about the US model). It's rammed full of adverts, yet we're already paying a subscription for the service. I'm sure there is a simple explanation for this, but what gives?

cookiecaper3• 15 years ago

Essentially, they do it because they can. People expect advertisements on TV so they accept it even with a subscription to cable; cable offers value that otherwise wouldn't be available by offering a lot of channels that are not accessible over-the-air in any market. It's not like a website with a premium ad-free subscription where the content is the same, only without advertisements. Cable also prevents fiddling with antennae/reception, etc.

The cable company I'm sure would argue that your subscription fees pay only broadcast and signal transport costs and that the individual channels run advertisements to pay for their operation and production.

cgag• 15 years ago

Can't say that I would. I'd rather risk the small chance of legal trouble on a private tracker than have to skip ads or cut them out myself.

I would however consider paying to download shows without ads if they were cheap.

ericmoritz• 15 years ago

Yes.

michaelbuckbee• 15 years ago

To some extent this is happening already with in tv show product placements, maybe that is just the future of things.

pessimizer• 15 years ago

I'm pretty sure that there's no way to do this without effectively just releasing pristine copies that somebody will cut the ads out of within 5 minutes of them being posted. They could use their own DRM'd file format and media player, but that would be broken in a week and have the effect of just releasing copies that somebody would cut the ads out of within 5 minutes of them beng posted.

I can't think of any scheme except maybe releasing content through torrents that no one would care about enough to cut the ads out within 5 minutes of it being posted.

Wait - maybe intense product placement/integration into television shows? It's inevitable really; with DVRs most people aren't watching traditional commercials anyway. Maybe content producers need to, as a group, get over the artistic squeamishness they have about setting scenes in a Taco Bell...

Maybe the answer might be as per jrockway's comment below: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2958478. Ditch ads, put up a massive torrent site with killer bandwidth, charge 50 cents a torrent. Entire season for 7 bucks, no risk of prosecution? Might be worth it to most people. Trickle of cash recieved in perpetuity? Might be able to finance pretty high quality shows.

OK - flight of fancy coming: How about an investment market for television shows and movies? People put together trailers, pilots, or maybe just announcements and attachments to a project, and people can buy shares in that project based on how many absurdly cheap downloads they think it can wrangle, and they buy those shares on the same site where the torrent will be hosted for download. The gambling prospect would be a pretty good incentive for people to already have credit card attached accounts when it comes to downloading, and good investments could pay for your habit, or even bring a return. These shares could be traded in perpetuity, and would pay dividends monthly of the download revenue minus the infrastucture cost.

Even farther down the rabbit hole: The cost per download could be determined by an (open) algorithm combined with a voting system by the current shareholders. If they're not liking their return, they could state what they think the ideal price would be to maximize that return, and that price would be weighted with their amount of ownership to determine the current price of that content. Maybe to simplify that system, they could be given simple upvotes and downvotes? I feel that the math could be worked out.

This would incentivize shareholders to market the content themselves in social and in blogs.

Completely crazy talk: Free downloads of collections of trailers. Shareholders of one film could vote to dilute and give shares in their content to the shareholders of content that is sure to attract a large group of eager downloaders, in order to have the trailer to their film or sample of their show included in a collection that the known anticipated content will also be on.

-----

Maybe this is an efficient way to motivate people to

1. Invest in the shows that they like, 2. Proselytize about the shows they like, 3. Watch (and pay trivial amounts for) content in order to be familiar with the market (especially obscure content, to get an edge.), and 4. Set by guessing the prices that people would be likely to pay for content.

For me, this might be the MMORPG/fantasy baseball from hell. I'd be futzing around with my investments and looking for new things that were coming out all day.

edited: for clarity.

cpeterso3• 15 years ago

Kickstarter for filmmakers? That sounds promising.

I've read of many promising films that never get made because they can't get funding. For example, Tom Hanks owns the movie rights to Arthur C. Clarke's 2061, MGM owns 3001's, and Morgan Freeman owns Rendezvous with Rama's. And who knows who owns Neuromancer.

As for downloads, some torrent sites offer "fast, direct downloads" for a fee. Someone is making money from bittorrent users and it's not Hollywood (but there's nothing stopping them).

bryanlarsen• 15 years ago

"I'm pretty sure that there's no way to do this without effectively just releasing pristine copies that somebody will cut the ads out of within 5 minutes of them being posted."

The scene will probably just ignore the bittorrent copies. Over-the-air digital is already a pristine copy at a much higher bitrate so would be the preferred source.

cpeterso3• 15 years ago

If I ran a media company, I would seed slow, low-quality (but not fake) torrents. That would boost the benefit of paying for fast, direct downloads of high-quality legit content.

notatoad• 15 years ago

no. their competition is torrents without ads. why would i volutarily choose a worse product?

i pay for netflix, because they have added value by being convenient and available on lots of devices without any fuss. simply being legal is not a real advantage, and certainly not one i am willing to pay for.

Qz• 15 years ago

If it was DRM-free and available immediately (no 8 day delay bs), then yes. Constantly refreshing TPB waiting for a torrent to pop up for a show that aired >3 days ago is more annoying than commercials.

wisty2• 15 years ago

I was reading a book called "Super Crunchers" (a book on industrial use of data-mining), and it mentioned a company called "Epagogix" which predicts movie profits (also covered less tersely by Malcome Gladwell - http://www.gladwell.com/2006/2006_10_16_a_formula.html).

In Super Crunchers, it describes a meeting between Epagogix, some potential investors, and some Hollywood heavyweights. The investors quizzed the movie guys on why they didn't want to buy in - the movie guys said that even if Epagogix could get 100% accurate, they wouldn't use it. If they used it, they would lose some of their own influence, and so they wouldn't get invited to the right parties. The investors loved that response, because it meant that the market was ripe for disruption. Epagogix wasn't so happy, though.

When broadcasters control a channel, they don't just get to tax it. They get personal perks as well.

You might think that the purpose of toll boothes is to pay for roads. People who work in toll boothes might think it's the other way round.

TV channels are the same - you might think execs are there to ensure only good shows get access to limited screen-time, but they think that limited screen-time exists to keep them in a job.

dgallagher• 15 years ago

The giant elephant in the room is being overlooked: Advertisements have a lifespan measured in months, weeks, or days. Television content can stay relevant for decades.

Imagine it's the year 1997. Aliens from the planet GNU have gone back in time and provided us with bittorrent, and technology making dial-up modems a million times faster (but they still drop their connection if your mom picks up the phone). You just torrented and watched the latest Seinfeld episode, "The Muffin Tops", and have forever changed your muffin-eating habits.

While watching, you saw ads for Apple's "Think Different" campaign, McDonald's Arch Deluxe, and that "Da Da Da" Volkswagen commercial (which is now stuck in your head). You go out and buy the car, buy a Mac, and buy a Big Mac because the Arch Deluxe tastes like crap.

In 2007 you watch The Muffin Tops again. The old ads from 1997 are still embedded in the file. Apple's ad seems weird since the logo is all rainbows. You drive to McDonald's to get an Arche Deluxe because now you're an adult and it'll taste good, but they don't have it anymore, so you cry and drive home to sign a petition website to bring it back. Nobody ever reads it. Along the way your Volkswagen breaks down and you remember how that terribly sounding ad tricked you into buying such an unreliable piece of junk. You get a lift from the aliens, but they charge you one anal probe for the ride. Now you hate Apple, hate McDonalds, hate Volkswagen, and hate that the aliens didn't have the common decency to at least warm up their metal tools before use. Ouch.

LogicX• 15 years ago

Except this same scenario happened if you recorded off TV; or used a DVR like Tivo.

Now imagine the benefits of a torrent option where they have the option of updating the ads every 6-12 months; and releasing fresh torrents (or even better they use your IP Geo info when you fetch the torrent and have region-specific torrent offerings with different ads in them.)

Maybe if its a legit source, you're more likely to download it when you need it from the trusted source, instead of hoarding the file for 10 years, swapping it with friends through other means, etc.

Bonus for increased likelihood that you're swarming with people closer to you instead of slower connections on the other side of the globe

DannoHung• 15 years ago

Orrrr, even better, the container they send the show in dynamically changes the ads based on what advertisers are trying to sell.

voidfiles2• 15 years ago

Why not just provide streaming versions for free, and insert new ads whenever they feel like it. It could even be like a website where a Person could find lots of different streaming video programs. I would use that in a heartbeat.

kenkam• 15 years ago

This sounds like Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting. Nice writing!

jmonegro• 15 years ago

I don't think it'd go to that extreme. Sure, the ads would be outdated, but the brands are still there.

You're still exposed to the Apple brand, and are reminded that they've been (hypothetically) awesome since 1997 and beyond. You're still exposed to McDonald's and might head out for a Big Mac (I suspect that'll stay on forever).

Maybe Volkswagens will get better in ten year's time ;-)

mbreese3• 15 years ago

Or you get get inundated with ads from the next Pets.com...

ma2rten• 15 years ago

The problem is that no one is going to pay for you watching their ads in 10 years.

Ads are also really crafted at society at that given time. I heard a quote from a history professor who said he could teach American history using only Coca-Cola ads.

wslh2• 15 years ago

No, the best idea will be to insert those ads dynamically when you download the torrent.

mbreese3• 15 years ago

How would that work? They dynamically make a new version each time someone wants to download it from the "official source"? Would this be the same version over the entire day? The entire week? What if I wanted to download an old episode of Seinfeld, would I get current ads, or ads from 1996? Would the "official source" still have to be able to upload each episode? If not, you run the risk of having multiple versions of current shows (this week's ads and last week's ads) in the wild. And you lose the ability to have people who downloaded it last week help with distribution.

I think that the best solution is to have a container that automatically inserts ads at the appropriate times. In this case though, the task will be making sure someone doesn't just remove the ads from the container. This is a similar problem with DVRs, but since this would all be automated, there is a greater risk.

dimitar• 15 years ago

They can easily release news, commentary and talk shows programs on the Internet, including as torrents, because their value decays exponentially once they're aired.

rapind• 15 years ago

Then there's the other elephant; No one wants to watch traditional advertising anymore. We've seen the alternative (pay per view, dvr skipping, and pirated content) and we like it too much.

Be creative.

wisty2• 15 years ago

Solution - create new cuts of the torrents with updated ads every month.

Provide fast(ish) servers, so the new torrents will download faster.

Remove all links to the old torrents.

scrame• 15 years ago

Torrents don't work like that. Once someone has downloaded the old version and leave it to seed, it is accessible and can still be downloaded with the right link.

bane• 15 years ago

Reminds me of listening to old radio dramas, the actors or announcer often do the adverts themselves during the breaks. Nothing like wanting to go out and buy some Palmolive or make sure I'm honoring my sugar rations.

steve6212• 15 years ago

Product Placement. Product Placement. Product Placement. Product Placement. Product Placement. Product Placement.

I know it's kind of annoying/cheap sometimes when a camera zooms in on the Bud Light logo in a fridge, or when Don Draper says that he loves Smirnoff (lawl), but its the only choice that the studios have. They must turn to product placement as their primary source of advertising revenue.

Because if they just release it, realistically, somebody will just download the file, remove the ads, and reupload it so the net effect will largely stay the same. One huge difference is that people who normally dont torrent and stream (like my girlfriend and mom) would probably do this. Granted for every episode they download, I download 10, but its an improvement.

If they would offer torrents with ads, available IMMEDIATELY upon airing it (say the torrent is available the second the show airs or 20 minutes before or next week or whatever) and I could get it at a comparable speed (or faster) than TPB, then that would change things. Product placement is still much cleaner and more sustainable.

tomjen3• 15 years ago

Well that would be a good way to get me of watching new tv episodes, that is for sure.

I hate product placement because it breaks the story and my suspension of disbelief.

But hey, maybe I would get more done that way.

steve6212• 15 years ago

fair enough, but they would get better at it. they would (hopefully) get more subtle with the product placement and make it more natural.

or they could just mess it up terribly and ruin television forever.

vena• 15 years ago

i don't really see the point. i can't imagine the transfer protocol matters. otherwise, putting ads that have less capability than web streams (because they're contained in a local file) seems like a red herring. content companies have tried streaming and they've simply decided they don't like the internet.

it seems to me that content available online experiences immediate devaluation. why am i going to pay more to place an ad during your content when i can target the same audience for pennies elsewhere online? why am i going to pay the same for syndication or for physical media?

streaming license costs will continue to rise until they reach equilibrium with existing revenue streams with the corresponding rise in access costs, or decent quality streaming will cease to exist (legally). likely the latter will happen simply as a result of the former.

neilrahilly• 15 years ago

No. I'm tired of waiting for downloads, dealing with external hard drives, re-encoding video files, syncing my phone/tablet/TV, etc. Streaming is such a superior experience. Search, hit play, watch. Happy to watch an ad or pay a subscription for that convenience.

quellhorst• 15 years ago

Torrent isn't needed for authorized content. Ads can be updated and targeted without torrents.

younata• 15 years ago

I've taken to just buying a season/series on dvd, then ripping them to a hard drive.

I get the double whammy of 1) I feel all good and whatnot of making sure the content produces get some money (even if it's realistically, like, 10% of what I payed to get the series), and 2) I have rather high quality masters that I can then rip rather high quality copies to a hard drive.

Also, this is faster than just torrenting the shows at similar quality. (maybe a few days, regardless of the show compared between a day and more than a week, depending on the popularity of the show)

w1ntermute3• 15 years ago

> Also, this is faster than just torrenting the shows at similar quality. (maybe a few days, regardless of the show compared between a day and more than a week, depending on the popularity of the show)

Is it? In my experience, most DVD/Blu-ray rips of TV show boxsets are released online before their retail date because an employee at a Wal-Mart somewhere grabs a copy and sources it to a scene group.

As for the actual download time, I'd say it's faster than ripping the DVDs as well, not to mention the hassle of inserting/removing 5+ DVDs is just annoying.

tjmc• 15 years ago

No. However I would pay for content if the bandwidth to stream it was included in the price. Here in Australia most broadband is metered. Globally, most 3G and 4G bandwidth is metered. I'd much rather stream something in HD that I can watch immediately rather than torrent a lower quality version because I don't want to blow my data allowance.

fractalcat• 15 years ago

No. Definitely not. However, I would pay money for a no-DRM HD video file released under some kind of CCesque license that gave me the legal freedom to, say, watch it with a friend. (I know this will never happen).

bluedanieru• 15 years ago

No, I hate sitting through commercials. They also cheapen the medium and you'll note that premium networks generally have better shows. What I will do is pay a flat rate to get access to whatever content that provider has the rights to that I can watch whenever I want.

For reference, I would regard access to every television show ever produced and streamed reliably, at high definition when available, as worth $150-200/month.

cabalamat• 15 years ago

I certainly would. I don't like streaming because the picture sometimes stops for the feed to catch up.

owaislone• 15 years ago

Definitely!

forkrulassail• 15 years ago

That would be great, but only after someone integrated this with SickBeard and has coded an automated script to remove ads at the defined locations in every video file.

rimantas• 15 years ago

Oh, how I hate this "ads will pay for everything" attitude. I'd pay for content with an option to get it via torrent. Torrent is mostly a convenience to me not a way to get something for free. Especially when something is not even available by official channels, for money or not.

akshat• 15 years ago

Isn't Hulu pretty much the same thing?

rglover• 15 years ago

I think something like this may be good as a supplement to an online streaming service. Since the users who will take advantage of such a thing will generally be more advanced than the average viewer, I think this would best fit as a premium service (perhaps strip the advertising). Pay a certain amount each month and you can download the episode for later viewing.

This is the kind of stuff broadcasters should start experimenting with now. Stop looking for a permanent solution and try things out. Why do you think fast food chains have test markets for new products?

mantalk• 15 years ago

Content thinks about this a little bit differently.

Here are a few factors that may make the proposed offering less favorable than the status quo, even if you factor in piracy:

(1) Windowing. First-run content is way more valuable than longer tail content. So sure, Simpsons episodes can go for $2 on Amazon and eventually come bundled on Netflix, but only after a wait. This is a more favorable situation for content. Different media and different windows command different fees, and this allows content producers to sell to different people at different times. In the case of Scrubs, for instance, Buena Vista/ABC produced the content, sold the first run rights to NBC (who paid ~20% of cost for first-run rights) and then later syndicates it to Comedy Central and others. They ultimately become available on DVD, iTunes, etc.

(2) Advertising revenue isn't enough. That's right, in many cases, only around half of value comes from advertisers. "But TV is free on my bunny-ears!" Sure...but not if you pay for cable. If you do, the cable guys have to pay retransmission consent to content guys, and those costs can be considerable. On cable, most if not all of the content revenues are from subscription fees.

(3) Bundling. Taking in subscription revenue allows content to take bigger risks on (potentially) great content, and to invest more in it upfront. Think about HBO. They cost a fortune, but I think that many would argue that they are worth it.

On a related note... I part of a new TV startup that addresses many of these issues. We're serious, we're venture-backed and we're disruptive. PM me if you're interested.

reustle• 15 years ago

They stole this question right off of AskReddit

jodoherty• 15 years ago

I would rather just pay them a small subscription fee to download their advertisement-free content via torrents after watching streaming advertisement-laced versions for free on their website and choosing which shows I'd actually want to buy and enjoy.

voidfiles2• 15 years ago

The question misses the point. Networks wouldn't care where there shows were distributed if they could make as much money from new distribution channels as old ones. That is really all they care about. If you have ever heard the term analog dollars, for digital pennies, it's talking about this exact problem.

InclinedPlane• 15 years ago

Let's not kid ourselves, the salad days of broadcast TV are over. They happened due to a quirk of technology that imposed unusual restrictions on the transmission and consumption of media for a few decades, restrictions that had not been present before or since. These unusual conditions made monetization of broadcast media far easier and far more lucrative than it would have been otherwise.

The result was an unusual era of TV content that was exclusively ad supported and also generated far more revenue than it should have. That era is now coming to a close. This is a catastrophe for the folks who have come to live on the anomalous gravy train that has been broadcast TV in the 2nd half of the 20th century. Nevertheless, distributing and consuming video content has become easier and cheaper than ever, the industry will survive and thrive as new business models take hold.

If TV Companies Released Authorized Torrents With Ads, Would You Download Them?

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