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Blackout Forces Fred Wilson to Pirate The Knicks. What Would Congress Think?

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Re: Blackout Forces Fred Wilson to Pirate The Knicks. What Would Congress Think?

#21

Post by MichaelGG »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #12
marknutter wrote: post #6

As a non-cable subscriber and a big NBA fan, I find blackouts unbelievably frustrating. There is simply no legal way to watch some live NBA games unless you pay for cable. I'm constantly having to route my NBA broadband league pass through a proxy to watch my home team, and the only workaround for nationally televised games is to pirate them from sites like sportlemon.tv. It's a classic case of frustrating customer e…

I actually have more respect for people who pirate to get things for free than people who pirate and claim that they're only doing it because X condition isn't met. X could be that it's not in the format you want, that it's not at the price point you want, or any number of other things. The publishers business model is their business model, good or bad. Own up to your decision to pirate.

Isn't pirating to get things for free just a special case of X condition not being met (where X = (price = $0))?

Re: Blackout Forces Fred Wilson to Pirate The Knicks. What Would Congress Think?

#22

Post by MatthewPhillips »

Deezul wrote: post #18
MatthewPhillips wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually have more respect for people who pirate to get things for free than people who pirate and claim that they're only doing it because X condition isn't met. X could be that it's not in the format you want, that it's not at the price point you want, or any number of other things. The publishers business model is their business model, good or bad. Own up to your decision to pirate.

It's this line of thinking that will eventually send old media to the grave. They’ll hang on for a while, grasping at the golden years of yore, but if they don’t adapt to demands they will die. It’s not about “excuses”, it’s about reality, facts. If technology and the convenience it affords isn’t used as a medium to enhance customer experience it will be its demise.

> but if they don’t adapt to demands they will die.

No business can meet all demands. I think this is what annoys me the most about the "I pirate because I'm underserved" crowd. They act like not getting what you want is unique to our times. Unique to the internet. It's not. People in all walks of life, in all times, have had to deal with not getting everything they want. Had to deal with making compromises.

In this particular case Fred had several options to see the basketball game. He has season tickets. He could have chosen a different way to pay for television (I don't live in NY but I'm assuming it has DirectTV or Dish Network or some other option besides just Time Warner). He made the choice that he made, but was unwilling to accept the downside it came with.

In the business world we call these entitled customers. These are the types of people who bring back clothes 2 years after the purchase and get huffy when the store won't return them.

Re: Blackout Forces Fred Wilson to Pirate The Knicks. What Would Congress Think?

#23

Post by jrockway »

The NBA is a great example of how individual consumers are not their customer. You want to pay money to watch NBA games, but you can't. The owners want money through ticket sales, so if you live in the "home market", you don't get to watch the game on TV. But, the owners also want money from TV deals. But they don't want your $20 to watch the game on TV, they want ABC's $3 billion (or whatever) for the right to charge you whatever ("watch these ads") to see the game. So there is no actual incentive to give you what you want; there is only incentive to sell games to networks at as high a price as possible. (Also, sell advertising, and modify the game's rules to ensure that there is extra advertising at the 7 minute and 3 minute mark.)

Basically, at one end of the equation is some dudes passing a ball around. At the other end of the equation, is you watching that. In the middle, of course, there are the middlemen, and they all want a huge cut for doing absolutely nothing. Anti-piracy legislation is all about protecting the middlemen who realize that they do nothing and they need the government to bail them out.

Re: Blackout Forces Fred Wilson to Pirate The Knicks. What Would Congress Think?

#24

Post by epc »

technoslut wrote: post #4
bproper wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But he already pays for Time Warner cable, NBA League Pass, and Knicks tickets. Why should he suffer because MSG is greedy?

1. He's not paying for MSG technically because Time Warner doesn't have the rights. 2. The League Pass is not for home teams. Every team has their own individual hometown deals and they want you to watch it on whatever network they make a deal with. The League Pass does not apply here. 3. Knicks tickets grant you a right to see the game in person and nothing else. Since Wilson is paying the price for season tickets t…

Technically he's paid for MSG for January (Time Warner pre-bills a month ahead, I just checked my bill). Neither TW nor MSG have offered us a refund of the January fee.

Re: Blackout Forces Fred Wilson to Pirate The Knicks. What Would Congress Think?

#25

Post by jrockway »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #22
Deezul wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's this line of thinking that will eventually send old media to the grave. They’ll hang on for a while, grasping at the golden years of yore, but if they don’t adapt to demands they will die. It’s not about “excuses”, it’s about reality, facts. If technology and the convenience it affords isn’t used as a medium to enhance customer experience it will be its demise.

> but if they don’t adapt to demands they will die. No business can meet all demands. I think this is what annoys me the most about the "I pirate because I'm underserved" crowd. They act like not getting what you want is unique to our times. Unique to the internet. It's not. People in all walks of life, in all times, have had to deal with not getting everything they want. Had to deal with making compromises . In this…

These are the types of people who bring back clothes 2 years after the purchase and get huffy when the store won't return them.

But in this case, it doesn't matter if the store accepts the return or not, he gets his money thanks to the pirates. When you are competing against free, it's bad business sense to turn away paying customers like this guy.

(The retail analogy is: this guy buys some clothes. He wants to return them, and you say no. The cash register opens and gives the guy his money back anyway. So you might as well take the clothes he's trying to return.)

Re: Blackout Forces Fred Wilson to Pirate The Knicks. What Would Congress Think?

#26

Post by MatthewPhillips »

MichaelGG wrote: post #21
MatthewPhillips wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually have more respect for people who pirate to get things for free than people who pirate and claim that they're only doing it because X condition isn't met. X could be that it's not in the format you want, that it's not at the price point you want, or any number of other things. The publishers business model is their business model, good or bad. Own up to your decision to pirate.

Isn't pirating to get things for free just a special case of X condition not being met (where X = (price = $0))?

Absolutely, but usually in that case the person doesn't have the sense of entitlement that I see from piraters who claim "i wanted to receive the content by carrier pigeon but because the option wasn't available I was forced to pirate".

Re: Blackout Forces Fred Wilson to Pirate The Knicks. What Would Congress Think?

#27

Post by MatthewPhillips »

jrockway wrote: post #25
MatthewPhillips wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but if they don’t adapt to demands they will die. No business can meet all demands. I think this is what annoys me the most about the "I pirate because I'm underserved" crowd. They act like not getting what you want is unique to our times. Unique to the internet. It's not. People in all walks of life, in all times, have had to deal with not getting everything they want. Had to deal with making compromises . In this…

These are the types of people who bring back clothes 2 years after the purchase and get huffy when the store won't return them. But in this case, it doesn't matter if the store accepts the return or not, he gets his money thanks to the pirates. When you are competing against free, it's bad business sense to turn away paying customers like this guy. (The retail analogy is: this guy buys some clothes. He wants to retur…

Show your math. It's easy to say Fred's pirating is a net loss for the NBA, much harder to prove it. For example if they were to do away with League Pass blackouts (which I pay for, by the way), surely this would have a great negative effect the next time they negotiate with MSG, WGN, etc.

Re: Blackout Forces Fred Wilson to Pirate The Knicks. What Would Congress Think?

#28

Post by vectorpush »

The Daily Show and the Colbert Report somehow manage to get all my friends to watch every single night, commercials and all.

That's because they type www.thedailyshow.com and then they can instantly watch the entire week of episodes for free, with Comedy-Central's advertising revenue still intact. The way forward seems pretty clear to me.

Re: Blackout Forces Fred Wilson to Pirate The Knicks. What Would Congress Think?

#29

Post by [deleted] »

marknutter wrote: post #11
technoslut wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't have sympathy. My sympathy goes to people who are actually struggling in this world and not for an investor who can afford Knicks tickets that is complaining about not being able to watch them on TV for a few days or weeks in a season that has already been delayed.

Oh, so only those who are truly struggling get to complain. Gotcha.

[deleted]

Re: Blackout Forces Fred Wilson to Pirate The Knicks. What Would Congress Think?

#30

Post by nobody31 »

vectorpush wrote: post #28

The Daily Show and the Colbert Report somehow manage to get all my friends to watch every single night, commercials and all. That's because they type www.thedailyshow.com and then they can instantly watch the entire week of episodes for free, with Comedy-Central's advertising revenue still intact. The way forward seems pretty clear to me.

Except at some point enough people will watch on comedy central's site that cable companies will stop carrying comedy central - and stop paying them.

At that point the site has to make enough from advertising to cover all the channel's costs.

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