NBC Universal Drops iTunes 691
An anonymous reader writes "NBC Universal has cancelled its iTunes contract and will withdraw the television shows it currently offers through the service in December, when the current contract expires. This is a huge blow for the service, as NBC is the controlling interest in Apple customer-friendly intellectual properties like The Office, Battlestar Galactica, My Name is Earl and Heroes. From the article: 'The decision to withdraw the content follows disagreements between the two firms. Apple is thought to have rejected NBC's demands for more restrictive DRM and the introduction of flexible pricing. Apple was informed of NBC Universal's decision late last night. The report states that neither Apple nor NBC Universal would comment on the matter, but said they continue to talk, "free of acrimony".'" Hey NBC: I have chosen not to have cable, but want to pay you for Heroes. Guess what my only alternative will be if you pull it from iTunes?
Your only alternative? (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, watching it for free over-the-air?
Nice editorializing (Score:5, Insightful)
Use an Antenna (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Use an Antenna. It's called broadcast TV.
2) Go to a friends house. You do have friends right?
3) Go out to a public place that has Heroes on their TV.
4) Wait to buy the DVD's.
Most of these options don't even involve paying NBC.
Yes, a little hyperbole in my reply, but no more than "Guess what my only alternative will be".
Risky (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Your only alternative? (Score:3, Insightful)
My suburban HOA won't allow for an antenna that can tune in your signal well enough.
Re:Your only alternative? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a battle between how studios want to deliver their content and how consumers want to receive it. Before the web, there weren't options. Now there are, and the studios have to realize that this is a battle they will eventually lose. They could offer cheap, protected, legal access to their content, but instead they're daring users to circumvent the law. Aquinas noted centuries ago that human law cannot compel the obedience of conscience. It's not like they don't know they're going to lose--they just don't want to realize it. Screw 'em.
Only Alternative (Score:3, Insightful)
Buy DVD's?
Rent from NetFlix?
Watch it on your Xbox 360?
Or use that crazy thing called an "antenna"?
Re:Your only alternative? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't have any faith that this will get better because most people have cable (including me) and there really -isn't- another choice. (Satellite and cable are the same thing by different methods.)
In reality, the other options are:
A) Wait for it on DVD.
B) Watch it streamed from the site in a little 2" by 2" box.
C) Download it illegally and without commercials and in full quality, watchable wherever and whenever I like.
Gee... Wonder which most people would pick? If it wasn't for the waiting part, I'd cancel my cable service and buy the DVDs instead. I figure it'll cost the same per year (I only like a few shows) and it'll be better quality and more reliable. I just don't want to wait 6 months or a year and then try to talk to my friends about the eps... It doesn't work.
Re:Your only alternative? (Score:3, Insightful)
There are other businesses to support with your attention. That's my point. But breaking the US law (no matter how unfair the law is, and assuming you're in the US) shouldn't be the alternative. It isn't working. It's not a form of civil disobedience that seems to have the effect we need in order to call attention to unfair/unjust law.
W
Re:Use an Antenna (Score:5, Insightful)
2. I think your friends will get a little ticked off with the weekly vists.
3. HUH????
4. So I need to wait until the end of the season.
I think NBC is makeing a huge mistake.
1. More DRM on iTunes? People you BROADCAST IT OVER THE AIR. I make DRM free recordings of your shows on my computer NOW! They Torrents are out NOW. They are not coming from iTunes.
2. Flexible pricing? You mean jack up the pricing. Oh well. As I said I can get it for free now. I guess I will start recording more shows with my computer and buy less with iTunes.
Dumb...
Re:Your only alternative? (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean like offering the shows for viewing on their website? Oh wait, they do that already. But people like Zonk have decided that that's not good enough for him, so instead he'll resort to pirating it. I seriously doubt Zonk was purchasing the show from iTMS when it was available anyways.
Re:Your only alternative? (Score:3, Insightful)
It doesn't matter how entitled you feel to the entertainment. The constitution grants the copyright holder the right to make the distribution decisions. No matter how much you want that entertainment, circumventing that right is an infringement.
Err, try again? (Score:4, Insightful)
Getting cable.
I'm broke, and I have CHOSEN to not get a job, so my only alternative is to steal? Rubbish.
Re:Your only alternative? (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably watching it on DVD. Plenty of us realize that by pirating our entertainment, we essentially have cut out the ability for them to make more. Beyond that, lots of us also realize we aren't entitled to free entertainment, and frankly, it's not so important as to be a requirement.
In my opinion (here's where I become an asshole) it takes a particularly immature mind to believe that downloading commercially sold entertainment in an illegal fashion is somehow the morally superior alternative.
I paid for iTunes because it gave me what I wanted (Score:5, Insightful)
1) I paid for a ton of NBC shows on itunes the last few seasons, literally spending hundreds of dollars. I did this because I liked having them in reasonably high def, commercial free, reasonably close to the time of initial broadcast and using a program I already was comfortable with little or no work on my part past the initial purchase.
2) I had planned to do it again.
3) Now I probably will either not watch the shows at all. The next most likely solution is to download a torrent.
Its not that there arn't other ways to watch it. Its that none of the other ways to watch it provide the right mix of convienence, quality and lack of interruption. Having the shows on itunes didn't give me exactly what I wanted, but it gave me enough that I was willing to pay for it. If I have to install another program(and its associated additional drm and god knows what else), or put up with ads, or put up with low quality broadcasts, or put up with having to watch it at a specific time, or put up with a cable provider/dvr, or wait 6-18 months for a DVD or any of that other stuff, then its just not worth the time or the money.
I want it on my computer, when its released, with minimal hassle and no interruption. For that service, I'm willing to pay. Otherwise, its not worth it.
No low-cost option left (Score:3, Insightful)
Watch it free on NBC's website? No, they filter IPs and only allow americans.
Buy it on the iTunes Store? Nope, we still don't have movies and TV shows in the Canadian store.
My only other options are either cable or satellite, and both are forcing us to pay for "packages" that include 200 channels we don't want to get the 10 channels we want.
Guess what's my other alternative?
more restrictive DRM? (Score:5, Insightful)
If Universal would win that battle, then WE ALL lose out. Remember, this is the same network that f*cked with its time schedule so shows ended at 8:31 and such to try and f*ck Tivo owners. That shows you just what they think about the viewer. I'm sure the new DRM ideas would have us in mind, as in how can we make this experience more painful for the content viewer.
This will just make it more likely that I won't watch NBC shows. I am personally tired of networks dictating what time and where I should be watching their content. That's so last century thinking. Yeah, you can go to NBC.com, if you don't mind being tethered to streaming content, which sucks if you're not on the net when you have time/want to watch a show.
Re:Your only alternative? (Score:5, Insightful)
We are AMERICANS, not sheep.
I get the show "legitmately". I still like to download it due to the fact that DirectTV over compresses it's network channels.
In the end, it boils down to wanting to arrest people for eating their egg from the wrong end.
Re:Use an Antenna (Score:3, Insightful)
You have pretty shitty friends if they can't handle you for one hour a week. Or you're a pretty shitty friend. Either way.
Holy mealy-mouthed buzzwords (Score:4, Insightful)
re: iTunes/QT for Windows (Score:5, Insightful)
I know iTunes and Windows Vista had some issues - but that's not really shocking, considering how many other things aren't quite Vista compatible.
Overall though, geez... Quicktime player has been used in Windows since version 3.1, as a de-facto standard for playing multimedia files off CD. It's not exactly something Apple just "slapped together to say they had a Windows version".
Safari for Windows? Nothing special there, but it's also a very first attempt at doing it for the platform, and it's FREE software too. As others pointed out, it's probably relased right now mainly to allow easier development for the iPhone from a Windows box, plus giving people the option to use the same browser they have on their Mac, if they so desire. Apple's not auto-deleting your copies of Firefox and IE 7 just because you installed it or anything, so why the big fuss?
Re:Your only alternative? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Universal are smart and this is all they could (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Use an Antenna (Score:2, Insightful)
TV is free yet a lot of people spend valuable dollars on extra bandwidth, go through the trouble downloading torrents and watch TV in their uncomfortable chair. Why? Because despite all of that they find it more convenient than traditionnal TV.
Stronger DRM won't stop illegal TV show downloads (in fact, it has nothing to do with it). Affordable convenient legal downloads will.
P.S. A DVR might fit the bill but, depending on your viewing habit, it can be a whole lot more expensive than a season pass on iTunes.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Your only alternative? (Score:3, Insightful)
But in all fairness, the way I read it he wasn't even claiming it to be the morally superior method of watching, just the most convenient.
Re:Your only alternative? (Score:5, Insightful)
That makes no fucking sense whatsoever, especially for shows on NBC. I could see if you were talking about cable network shows like Rescue Me or Monk but you're talking about free OTA shows here. If "pirating" NBC shows is somehow affecting their sponsors, then DVR users are also pirates in your eyes or is that somehow different?
I have no sympathy for the networks losing money on this. They need to come up with less expensive shows (no one should be paid $1+ million an episode for ANY TV show).
Re:Your only alternative? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, that's worked real well for the proponents of marijuana legalization. AFAIK, I have one life --- one. I'm not going to waste it in vain trying to change laws drawn up by millionaires. I actually don't have a problem with copyright. I do have a problem with it being extended until past the end of time, and with DRM and the DMCA, etc. These sons of bitches go too far. And who benefits? The citizenry? Of course not. Now, the ultimate seat of authority in the U.S. is we the people not we the handful of privileged wealthy with access to the higher levels of lawmaking machinery. It would appear that we the people want some changes.
Re:Your only alternative? (Score:5, Insightful)
I can not get television, cable or satellite TV where my house is situated in Alaska. I can barely get 1 Mb/s DSL. I have chosen to go the route of purchasing my shows off iTunes and watching them on my AppleTV. I do NOT want to watch the shows in a fucking browser window, in Flash or stutter-streamed, on my laptop! Those shows that I am interested in that I can't get legally from iTunes, I choose to get "illegally" from Bittorrent or from friends/coworkers who are able to record the shows. I put illegally in quotes because in this case it's truly a victimless crime. I want to pay for it, but they won't let me so I'm not taking revenue away from them. I am also not re-sharing it (any more than I can help since I don't seed with bittorrent) so I'm not keeping anyone else from buying it.
If the greedy fucks at NBC don't want my $2 per episode for Heroes and the Office, etc., I'll be glad to pirate them and won't feel the least bit guilty about it. I know that I don't have a "right" to watch the show, but if it's a show that interests me and everyone else is talking about it at work, I want to watch it - close to the time they watch it, not a season later when it comes out on DVD. The only reason I won't be able to watch it now is that they want to charge me more for content that is more restricted/broken than before and Apple is rightfully calling bullshit. Since I only download the shows to my iPod and AppleTV, restrictions aren't a big deal for me (it's the principal of the thing!), but I am not willing/can't afford to pay more than $2 for an episode and if they bundle crap I don't want, I won't buy it at all - I *will* pirate it. Sue me!
They are just proving over and over again that pirated goods are far superior to their DRM'd crap anyway. It's cheaper, often available sooner, in better quality and gives me the freedom to use it as I see fit. They are driving *me*, a grown adult and professional, their paying customer, away to piracy. I say good riddance to them. Stick to your guns Apple! I want to buy shows a-la-cart if I want and I am not willing to pay more! I will reward those studios that see the light. The rest can take their chances with draconian DRM, end-to-end Vista-like content controlled crap and the like. The deserve what they will get!
Any one have a contact email for these pricks?
Re:Your only alternative? (Score:5, Insightful)
How is it that your HOA can restrict your means of obtaining this content for free, and you're OK with that, but NBC pulls one venue for obtaining this content for a fee, and you feel violated?
The option everyone's forgetting (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course there are, but they all revolve around NBC wanting more money and more control over how, where and when you can watch their shows.
I bought every season available of Heroes, Battlestar Galactica, The Office, and My Name is Earl on iTunes. I like the shows, but apparently, that's not good enough. Apparently, NBC wants me to be so desperate to watch the shows that I would support their outright greed.
Well I for one am not a slave to my television. Unless NBC shapes up and gives me the opportunity to pay a reasonable price for seeing their shows in a timely manner and in a fashion that I wish, I guess I won't be watching them any more. Oh well, I guess that frees up more time that I can use for other interesting things.
These networks and media companies just kill me. They act like if they only provide one expensive and inconvenient legal avenue for me to watch their shows, I'll just have to suck it up because they say so. Then you have the people like the submitter who imply that they'll just resort to illegal avenues to watch the show.
Everyone seems to be forgetting option number three, the option I'll be choosing should NBC keep this silliness up: Simply don't watch the shows. Frankly, it looks to me like that is NBC's ultimate goal, and if that's the case, I'm happy to oblige.
Re:Your only alternative? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Your only alternative? (Score:5, Insightful)
Change this from a TV show to a software package released under the GPL, would we be as self righteous about violating the licensing.
Re:Your only alternative? (Score:3, Insightful)
I wouldn't be surprised to see NBC come crawling back to iTunes. NBC will miss the money they were making on iTunes. People don't schedule their lives around TV any more.
Re:Your only alternative? (Score:4, Insightful)
I hope you're lying about the work thing and are only ten years old, because to call your attitude "adolescent" does a disservice to normal teenagers.
Re:Your only alternative? (Score:2, Insightful)
That might be the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Law doesn't mean right and wrong. Look at some of the U.S. laws we've had in the past, slavery, segregation, etc. I'm not saying EVERY law (or even this one) should be broken, but abiding by a law, no matter how unfair, is not a good idea.
Re:Your only alternative? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The option everyone's forgetting (Score:4, Insightful)
1. They want it freakin' now, no waiting, not even for a few days (rules out DVD)
2. No ads killing the flow/suspense/illusion of the show (fuck you TV!)
3. Straight to their TV (AppleTV, xBox, WMC, HTPC, MythTV, etc)
iTunes is 2.5/3 (because of the DRM), DVD 1/3, TV 1/3...
Look what iTunes did to music, maybe it could do the same to TV series. I'd love for a production company to release their TV series directly to iTunes, no TV... (blu-ray/HD-DVD would be nice though, for rewatching it
aw screw it, rant off!
Re:Your only alternative? (Score:3, Insightful)
Now where the hell do you get that idea? From the shrill minority who populate Slashdot, the relatively small group that supports the Electronic Frontier Foundation or the huge number of people who pay $100/month for cable and buy DVDs every other week?
I'd like to think that people are up in arms over the fact that "Steamboat Willie" is still covered by copyright, but the truth is that most people don't care, or even know, about the situation. If "we the people" actually cared that much about getting US copyright laws fixed, it would come up in the mainstream media more than once or twice a year, and politicians would probably address the issue. As it is, "the people" probably think that the copy of Tale of Two Cities they bought from the bookstore last week is covered by copyright, and they don't care.
Re:Your only alternative? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Your only alternative? (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Your only alternative? (Score:2, Insightful)
I know it's a fools errand, but I'll be damned if I can think of a better way.
Re:The option everyone's forgetting (Score:5, Insightful)
Half hour show - 8 minutes of commercials - 4.8 million dollars. We'll double that for the hour shows.
2 million geeks...$1.99 each...even if they only get half of that they're increasing their revenue by 10 or 20%. The only way this could be bad for them is if their advertising revenue goes down at the same time (due to lower ratings).
Anyway, the most likely explanation of all of this isn't that it isn't worthwhile, it's that they've got their own distribution system coming down the pipe.
Re:NBC Universal is making their own store (Score:1, Insightful)
And [god of choice] help any show that starts with an 'F' in the name or has Nathan Fillion in it.
Re:Your only alternative? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, the problem with marijuana is that not only do a large proportion of people in this country not have any problem with attempting to enforce their stunted versions of morality upon the general population, but that those nanny-state proponents generally do not have the mental capacity to understand the actual issues involved, whether those issues are corporate welfare/pork sponsorship of Cannabis criminalization, the costs to our society for attempting the subsequent "War On Drugs", the incredible loss of revenue and resources due to our inability to legally grow Cannabis sativa, or other problems that result from these misguided policies, such as the suffering inflicted upon those whose use of marijuana (and while we're at it, we may as well include Papaver somniferum) whose greatly reduce the physical pains of dealing with chronic disease. I would hesitate to place marijuana in the same category as copyright infringment.
Re:Your only alternative? (Score:5, Insightful)
Replace "get to" with "have to". As the GP pointed out, we are all being systematically criminalized. You need to think for yourself now... try it.
Re:Here's what I says (Score:0, Insightful)
HBO subscription = 12$
Save $8 and watch better shows!
Re:Do the math (Score:2, Insightful)
NBC might be concerned that affordable access to ad-free versions of their shows will harm something they've worked very hard to program into their viewers: The concept of watching ads to get shows. A glimmer of that danger shows up in this article [guardian.co.uk]. Apparently, NBC is already finding it difficult to gain enough advertising to put on good drama during primetime. If the advertising money dries up entirely, NBC--and others--as a company will need to do something very different. The move they've tried to pull is likely to have been an attempt at preserving their business model.
Odd that some think Apple monopolies are OK (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me offer a variation on that. Buy them legally from a different online store. Why is it that only Apple can offer such products, why is a defacto monopoly by Apple OK? If NBC doesn't like Apple's terms they should backout, contract with a competitor who they can come to terms with, or start their own.
Personally I see history repeating itself. Apple pioneers something, validates the product or business model, develops a commanding lead with early adopters, then missteps and get beaten by others as the bulk of the market beings using the product or service. Apple has "been there, done that" with respect to personal computers, the graphical interface, etc. I wish it were otherwise, I wish Apple could come to terms and maintain their position as the bulk of the market enters, as they may have with iPod - we aren't that far beyond early adopters though, but its Apple so I am not optimistic - changing their position would go against Steve's vision.
Re:Your only alternative? (Score:3, Insightful)
iTunes doesn't have commercials.
Re:Your only alternative? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, no. The GPL's terms are binding because there's LICENSE file in the download telling you what your rights are WTG redistribution. I've never seen any type of license notice when I watch TV shows over-the-air. DVD movies have FBI and no-copying notices, yes, but TV shows do not. So I think your analogy is bad.