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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?

#41

Post by silverlight »

About a year or two ago, I still had cable (I don't anymore), and I had the premium package with all the movie channels. At the time, a new season of Entourage was starting and I wanted to catch my wife up on the previous season. This previous season was not available via HBO On-Demand, they were not showing any re-runs on HBO that I could find, and the DVD of this season was not available in stores yet. There was literally no way I could legally let my wife watch this content (even though I had watched it, legally, the previous year on our HBO subscription, and via on-demand).

So, I downloaded it. And I got caught (via a warning letter from our ISP). Shortly thereafter we canceled our cable subscription.

I cannot fathom why, as a company, you would make it so hard for someone who is willing to pay you for content to get it. I wouldn't have been happy about having to buy it on DVD since I already have a subscription to HBO (and in my humble opinion, their previous original content should be available via on-demand all the time, although I realize that's a pipe dream), but I would have. Instead, they alienated a customer and lost all my money. That was around two years ago, so at $15/mo. (not sure how much of that goes directly to HBO) $360 has now been lost by them/my cable company for that part of my subscription alone.

If they ever allow you to buy into HBO Go (or whatever their online streaming option is called) by itself without a cable subscription I would consider it, but as long as they are stuck in their old-school ways they can forget having me (or most of my friends) as customers.

I know this article isn't about HBO, but I just thought I would point out another example of the way that content producers continue to alienate the people who should matter most: the consumer.

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

#42

Post by marknutter »

mbreese wrote: post #20

If the game was on NBA League pass, why couldn't he have watched the Raptors (vistors) feed? Even though it was broadcast locally on MSG, couldn't he have viewed the visiting teams broadcast online? Or do they check your IP address/cable provider in order to see NBA League pass (and thus blackout local games)? What about routing the game though a VPN? The only legal solutions I see would be: a) go to the game, or b)…

They base it on your IP address, and yes, going through a VPN or proxy solves this problem (although it technically violates their TOS).

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

#43

Post by marknutter »

ryanhuff wrote: post #31
jrockway wrote: post #23

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 charg…

Why should the NBA bother with messy details like dealing with fans directly when somebody (networks) gladly pays (up front) for the privilege?

They already are. NBA League Pass Broadband and Mobile deliver their games in HD and work quite well. Their sitting on the tech and I can only assume that they are preparing for the day when they can kick the networks to the curb.

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

#44

Post by brudgers »

>"Mr. Wilson was unintentionally giving ammunition to the media companies behind the draconian Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), legislation that Mr. Wilson has been fighting so hard against."

It's hard to see why this would be a big deal. Mr. Wilson has been giving money to the companies behind SOPA every month as a cable subscriber, and even more money by purchasing the NBA tier. Indeed, his financial support of Copyright Alliance member and a campaign contributor to SOPA sponsor Lamar Smith, Time Warner Cable, is significant.

>"Our family spends hundreds of dollars a month with Time Warner Cable."[ http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/01/screwcable.html]

[Time Warner and Copyright Alliance: http://broadbandbreakfast.com/2010/12/copyright-alliance-pic...]

[Time Warner Cable and Lamar Smith: http://maplight.org/us-congress/legislator/470-lamar-smith]

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

#45

Post by brudgers »

illumin8 wrote: post #19

As a non-sports fan, I find it depressing that it takes this level of stupidity to get the masses angry with the cable companies. I voted with my wallet (the cable companies don't get a dime of my money) years ago. Perhaps this level of stupidity on the part of the broadcasters is what it will take to convince the average congressman that SOPA is wrong.

As a rational adult, I find the moral outrage expressed over GoDaddy's stance in regards to SOPA misplaced when one considers the willingness of so many people to write checks every month to the media companies who are behind it as part and parcel of their cable subscriptions.

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

#46

Post by 198d »

jrockway wrote: post #23

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 charg…

> You want to pay money to watch NBA games, but you can't.

This is what frustrates the shit out of me about EVERYTHING related to TV/Cable. I HAVE MONEY THAT I WANT TO GIVE YOU FOR A GREAT PRODUCT. I know I'm not the only one. WE have money we want to fork over, PLEASE take it. You know it just blows my mind. Everything I've ever heard about capitalism/business/economics/etc. that if there is demand, someone is supposed to step in and provide. Why is it taking SO long for this to happen in this particular space?

Slight rant, I know, but goddamn does it make my blood boil thinking about this stuff.

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

#48

Post by Androsynth »

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…

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.

Then Zappos comes along and eats your lunch.

The fact is that this is an outdated business model that is still around solely because of govt control and interference. If these laws were changed, dozens if not hundreds of people from this community alone would be eating their lunch.

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

#49

Post by GigabyteCoin »

jrockway wrote: post #23

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 charg…

Canadian here.

I paid NBA.com for their "broadband/league pass" package once. Never again.

Literally 50% of the games during the first and only week that I tried it were blacked out. I called them up and they refunded me immediately, they knew it was a crap deal.

Now I have resorted to using sites like chanfeed.com and myp2p.pe - the quality lags a bit, but I can get any and every game, for free, all on one screen. No blackouts, ever.

It's time for the NBA to get with the game.

Notice how I started out this comment by saying "I paid..."

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

#50

Post by zdw »

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.

That works for timely shows totally owned by the network that broadcasts them.

It falls down when there is more than one party involved - for example, shows that are destined for syndication or DVD sales.

One example of this is the SyFy channel - they've basically cancelled or let expire all the programs that were being produced by 3rd parties (Universal's "Stargate" franchise, for example) as they paid top dollar for first showing rights, but the 3rd party made all the rebroadcast, serialization, etc. profits.

See also how Netflix is starting to produce their own shows they can totally own and sell direct to customers.

The future has no middlemen, just people making unique products (art, video, web apps, software, etc.) or money of of standardized interchangeable services (distribution, hosting, connectivity, etc.).

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