The piracy bit is such nonsense. There is no widespread piracy of iTunes videos. They're much safer than DVDs or TV broadcasts.
The issue isn't piracy of itunes videos, I think that's pretty much non-existent. It sounds like NBC wants iTunes to somehow recognize a video from bittorrent and either block it from working or report the user.
I don't see how that's technologically possible, how would iTunes be able to tell a pirated movie or TV show from something released free on the net, or a users own home movie?
Seems like a ludicrous and completely unrealistic request from NBC.
And I have to agree that I'd probably use something like Hulu or the other sites streaming TV shows, but so far there's no way to watch them on my TV set. Get together with apple and make them appleTV compatible, and you'll get my business.
Even if they could fingerprint every illegal video, it would be trivial to write a program that would subtly adjust the video to avoid the fingerprint. They've been using the same theory themselves to hide data in video and audio for tracking... Apple would have a dud player if they ever did this.
Does this mean I would not be able to store my own music and video in my iTunes library? How will they determine what is blocked? I hope Apple does not give into this. I for one would look for an alternative.
On a side note, Hulu is not a bad product; however, I just don't watch long videos on my computer. I want something I can sync to my Apple TV or iPod.
I must say, this plan reeks of technical unfeasibility, complete lockdown, and big brother spyware nonsense (pick as many as you like). How will they determine that the CD I am ripping is not one I bought in a store? How do they know which MP3s I bought from Amazon.com and which I downloaded after someone else put them onto file-sharing networks?
In my ignorance of high-level programming, I can't see a reasonable way to do this, besides locking the ecosystem down to nothing but that which is purchased in the iTS. It's crap, and I'm sure half the people on the board understand DRM better than he.
Now today they're simply repeating that mantra, but with the added lie that loading a legally-purchased DRM-wrapped video clip onto an iPod (an action explicitly permitted by the EULA) somehow constitutes piracy.
Unless I missed it, they're not saying that (correct me if I'm wrong). They're just talking about people pirating movies and shows from torrents and wanting iTunes to somehow block those from iPods and aTV.
Quote:
Originally Posted by studiomusic
How about content makers putting a watermark on their creations or coming up with a way to secure what they make? That way there's no need for a gatekeeper. Why should they need to rely on Apple???
And how would they do that? How would such a thing be possible with any video, much less broadcast TV?
"We'd love to be on iTunes. It has a great customer experience," Kliavkoff said. "We'd love to figure out a way to distribute our content on iTunes."m ][/url][/c]
This goes to show these Crapexecs have no idea what consumers like. They don't realize that a gatekeeper would totally ruin the experience. Why re-invent the wheel?
I, personally, never watched NBC's line-up before it was put on iTunes. Once on iTunes, I never made a purchase of their content either. Now that they are gone from iTunes, I don't miss them and I think NBC is finding out that those who did "enjoy"some of NBC's programming, and upset that it was taken out of the iTunes store, they don't miss it either because they never followed it to Hulu or NBCdirect or where ever!
What NBC wants is completely possible, unlikely to be implemented by apple, and also ridiculous.
The iPhone uses code signing to prevent unsigned apps from running, the same could be done on iPods or iTunes, even for non-drm tracks. You simply insert a cryptographic signature in the ID3 tag of an MP3 or the file metadata for a video, certifying that this specific file is signed by Apple or some other company, and thus the device will play it. DRM isn't required at all, the file will in fact play anywhere, but devices will ONLY play such signed files.
A video from Bittorrent has to be converted from DivX/XviD to H.264 most of the time anyway. Really, who are they fooling? Besides, for people that want to watch stuff on their iPods, it takes WAY too long to convert stuff. I'm pretty tech-savvy, but I can't think of an easy program off the top of my head that will download a show, re-name it, auto-convert it, then add it to my iTunes library for free. And that lack of convenience is why iTunes TV shows continue to sell like hotcakes.
Now today they're simply repeating that mantra, but with the added lie that loading a legally-purchased DRM-wrapped video clip onto an iPod (an action explicitly permitted by the EULA) somehow constitutes piracy.
Doesn't sound like he's saying that at all.
Most likely he is referring to the comments by Steve Ballmer
"About half the music on iPods is music obtained illegitimately either from an illegal peer-to-peer networks or from ripping friends' CDs, which is illegal."
Sure, it's possible, but it would also block legal content such as legal material released without DRM and the user's own home movies. Obviously, that would be completely unacceptable to everyone.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dagamer34
A video from Bittorrent has to be converted from DivX/XviD to H.264 most of the time anyway. Really, who are they fooling? Besides, for people that want to watch stuff on their iPods, it takes WAY too long to convert stuff. I'm pretty tech-savvy, but I can't think of an easy program off the top of my head that will download a show, re-name it, auto-convert it, then add it to my iTunes library for free. And that lack of convenience is why iTunes TV shows continue to sell like hotcakes.
There isn't one app that does the whole thing, but it can be done very easily with a couple free or cheap apps. I'm sure people are converting and watching on ipods all the time - they're already taking time to download, what's a bit longer wait for a conversion? And I wouldn't be surprised if as aTV catches on more, people will increasingly pirate things in iPod/aTV compatible formats in the first place.
If you ask me, this is a sure early sign that Hulu isn't working, and NBC wants to come back to iTunes in the worst way. But they're trying to save face by attacking Apple again.
This guy played his hand, and lost big time. Steve called his bluff.
Give it a year, at most. Kliavkoff will be fired, and NBC will be back on iTunes, with none of these draconian measures implemented. There's simply no way Steve will agree to any of it. Not the variable pricing, not the anti-piracy. None of it.
I think they're waiting for the Blockbuster set top box that's going to be the ATV/iTunes killer.
They're going to sell them in their nice new CC stores which will revolutionize retail. An Apple store killer, you know.
The studios are so desperate for an alternative to iTunes and Apple that they really go to unusual lengths to distance themselves.
Unless I missed it, they're not saying that (correct me if I'm wrong). They're just talking about people pirating movies and shows from torrents and wanting iTunes to somehow block those from iPods and aTV.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris_CA
Doesn't sound like he's saying that at all.
Most likely he is referring to the comments by Steve Ballmer
"About half the music on iPods is music obtained illegitimately either from an illegal peer-to-peer networks or from ripping friends' CDs, which is illegal."
That is the assumption of the AppleInsider editor.
Over at Ars Technica their editors believe otherwise - that NBC wants total control over where and when you play your purchases, and what ads you must see when viewing them - just like you get from Hulu.
There's absolutely no logic to them wanting Apple to impose measures to block piracy using non-Apple software. That's like saying you'll never fly American Airlines because Continental has a bad policy. The only thing Apple can control is content downloaded from their own servers. Given the fact that Apple has a very good track record of enforcing their DRM, their real complaint must be that they want to impose restrictions beyond what Apple imposes. In other words, they want their content to be as restricted as it is through other services.
Of course, you and I know that if Apple does that, the amount of purchases will immediately drop to be just as low as everybody else's. But movie studios are all about control. Money doesn't matter, no matter what they say. They would gladly flush a billion dollars down the toilet rather than allow a customer to use their own purchases as they want.
The statistics people use to prove how iPods are just so full of pirated material has always had a very high BS-quotient. It doesn't take into account the CDs the iPod owners already owned, and later purchased. And it also never took into into account that every time I buy a new iPod, I don't have to buy all my music over again. They like to divide number of tracks sold vs number of iPods sold. So if I buy a second iPod, I've somehow doubled my piracy value in those calculations.
The people who invented these statistics simply did something bogus with math, which seemed to support the argument they were already making... and for some reason, because math was involved, people just happily quoted the results without a lot of rational scrutiny.
It seems that everyone missed the push to HDMI with HDCP. Pretty soon your DVD player, TV Tuner, Cable Box etc will all talk to your TV via an encrypted signal. All it would take to stop recording broadcasts would for the DMCA to be extended to require all such devices to implement HDCP. I'm sure NBC and others are "lobbying" (aka bribing) congress at this very moment for just this very thing. [according to Wikipedia, the "broadcast flag" was struck down in Congress in 2004, but _is_ required in the EU for HDTV].
I've been holding off on purchasing an HDTV/BluRay player for now so I don't know if every device will actually encrypt the signal via HDCP, but it is certainly possible.
A video from Bittorrent has to be converted from DivX/XviD to H.264 most of the time anyway. Really, who are they fooling? Besides, for people that want to watch stuff on their iPods, it takes WAY too long to convert stuff. I'm pretty tech-savvy, but I can't think of an easy program off the top of my head that will download a show, re-name it, auto-convert it, then add it to my iTunes library for free. And that lack of convenience is why iTunes TV shows continue to sell like hotcakes.
iSquint converts almost any video format to iPod/aTV/h.264 and adds to the iTunes library automatically. It's very easy to use, works very quickly, and it's free.
That is the assumption of the AppleInsider editor.
Over at Ars Technica their editors believe otherwise - that NBC wants total control over where and when you play your purchases, and what ads you must see when viewing them - just like you get from Hulu.
I think ars technica is jumping to conclusions - none of the quotes from NBC brass say anything about limiting ipod playback. I don't know where they got that idea, but there's nothing from NBC statements to support it.
They talk about piracy and being a gatekeeper. People watching pirated content on iPods are watching torrents, not pirated iTunes purchases.
Comments
The piracy bit is such nonsense. There is no widespread piracy of iTunes videos. They're much safer than DVDs or TV broadcasts.
The issue isn't piracy of itunes videos, I think that's pretty much non-existent. It sounds like NBC wants iTunes to somehow recognize a video from bittorrent and either block it from working or report the user.
I don't see how that's technologically possible, how would iTunes be able to tell a pirated movie or TV show from something released free on the net, or a users own home movie?
Seems like a ludicrous and completely unrealistic request from NBC.
And I have to agree that I'd probably use something like Hulu or the other sites streaming TV shows, but so far there's no way to watch them on my TV set. Get together with apple and make them appleTV compatible, and you'll get my business.
We'll offer our catalogue, once again, if you change your software to suit our needs.
We can't control the pricing but we now are going to control your software/business model?
Tough luck NBC. You blew it.
Does this mean I would not be able to store my own music and video in my iTunes library? How will they determine what is blocked? I hope Apple does not give into this. I for one would look for an alternative.
On a side note, Hulu is not a bad product; however, I just don't watch long videos on my computer. I want something I can sync to my Apple TV or iPod.
I must say, this plan reeks of technical unfeasibility, complete lockdown, and big brother spyware nonsense (pick as many as you like). How will they determine that the CD I am ripping is not one I bought in a store? How do they know which MP3s I bought from Amazon.com and which I downloaded after someone else put them onto file-sharing networks?
In my ignorance of high-level programming, I can't see a reasonable way to do this, besides locking the ecosystem down to nothing but that which is purchased in the iTS. It's crap, and I'm sure half the people on the board understand DRM better than he.
Now today they're simply repeating that mantra, but with the added lie that loading a legally-purchased DRM-wrapped video clip onto an iPod (an action explicitly permitted by the EULA) somehow constitutes piracy.
Unless I missed it, they're not saying that (correct me if I'm wrong). They're just talking about people pirating movies and shows from torrents and wanting iTunes to somehow block those from iPods and aTV.
How about content makers putting a watermark on their creations or coming up with a way to secure what they make? That way there's no need for a gatekeeper. Why should they need to rely on Apple???
And how would they do that? How would such a thing be possible with any video, much less broadcast TV?
And how would they do that? How would such a thing be possible with any video, much less broadcast TV?
EXACTLY!
"We'd love to be on iTunes. It has a great customer experience," Kliavkoff said. "We'd love to figure out a way to distribute our content on iTunes."m ][/url][/c]
This goes to show these Crapexecs have no idea what consumers like. They don't realize that a gatekeeper would totally ruin the experience. Why re-invent the wheel?
The iPhone uses code signing to prevent unsigned apps from running, the same could be done on iPods or iTunes, even for non-drm tracks. You simply insert a cryptographic signature in the ID3 tag of an MP3 or the file metadata for a video, certifying that this specific file is signed by Apple or some other company, and thus the device will play it. DRM isn't required at all, the file will in fact play anywhere, but devices will ONLY play such signed files.
Its ridiculous but technologically possible.
Now today they're simply repeating that mantra, but with the added lie that loading a legally-purchased DRM-wrapped video clip onto an iPod (an action explicitly permitted by the EULA) somehow constitutes piracy.
Doesn't sound like he's saying that at all.
Most likely he is referring to the comments by Steve Ballmer
http://www.news.com/Ballmer-iPods-pa...3-5395870.html
"The most common format of music on an iPod is stolen."
and by Real Networks CEO Rob Glaser
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/05...len_real_says/
"About half the music on iPods is music obtained illegitimately either from an illegal peer-to-peer networks or from ripping friends' CDs, which is illegal."
Its ridiculous but technologically possible.
Sure, it's possible, but it would also block legal content such as legal material released without DRM and the user's own home movies. Obviously, that would be completely unacceptable to everyone.
A video from Bittorrent has to be converted from DivX/XviD to H.264 most of the time anyway. Really, who are they fooling? Besides, for people that want to watch stuff on their iPods, it takes WAY too long to convert stuff. I'm pretty tech-savvy, but I can't think of an easy program off the top of my head that will download a show, re-name it, auto-convert it, then add it to my iTunes library for free. And that lack of convenience is why iTunes TV shows continue to sell like hotcakes.
There isn't one app that does the whole thing, but it can be done very easily with a couple free or cheap apps. I'm sure people are converting and watching on ipods all the time - they're already taking time to download, what's a bit longer wait for a conversion? And I wouldn't be surprised if as aTV catches on more, people will increasingly pirate things in iPod/aTV compatible formats in the first place.
If you ask me, this is a sure early sign that Hulu isn't working, and NBC wants to come back to iTunes in the worst way. But they're trying to save face by attacking Apple again.
This guy played his hand, and lost big time. Steve called his bluff.
Give it a year, at most. Kliavkoff will be fired, and NBC will be back on iTunes, with none of these draconian measures implemented. There's simply no way Steve will agree to any of it. Not the variable pricing, not the anti-piracy. None of it.
I think they're waiting for the Blockbuster set top box that's going to be the ATV/iTunes killer.
They're going to sell them in their nice new CC stores which will revolutionize retail. An Apple store killer, you know.
The studios are so desperate for an alternative to iTunes and Apple that they really go to unusual lengths to distance themselves.
Unless I missed it, they're not saying that (correct me if I'm wrong). They're just talking about people pirating movies and shows from torrents and wanting iTunes to somehow block those from iPods and aTV.
Doesn't sound like he's saying that at all.
Most likely he is referring to the comments by Steve Ballmer
http://www.news.com/Ballmer-iPods-pa...3-5395870.html
"The most common format of music on an iPod is stolen."
and by Real Networks CEO Rob Glaser
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/05...len_real_says/
"About half the music on iPods is music obtained illegitimately either from an illegal peer-to-peer networks or from ripping friends' CDs, which is illegal."
That is the assumption of the AppleInsider editor.
Over at Ars Technica their editors believe otherwise - that NBC wants total control over where and when you play your purchases, and what ads you must see when viewing them - just like you get from Hulu.
There's absolutely no logic to them wanting Apple to impose measures to block piracy using non-Apple software. That's like saying you'll never fly American Airlines because Continental has a bad policy. The only thing Apple can control is content downloaded from their own servers. Given the fact that Apple has a very good track record of enforcing their DRM, their real complaint must be that they want to impose restrictions beyond what Apple imposes. In other words, they want their content to be as restricted as it is through other services.
Of course, you and I know that if Apple does that, the amount of purchases will immediately drop to be just as low as everybody else's. But movie studios are all about control. Money doesn't matter, no matter what they say. They would gladly flush a billion dollars down the toilet rather than allow a customer to use their own purchases as they want.
The people who invented these statistics simply did something bogus with math, which seemed to support the argument they were already making... and for some reason, because math was involved, people just happily quoted the results without a lot of rational scrutiny.
NBC is broadcast "in the clear"
It seems that everyone missed the push to HDMI with HDCP. Pretty soon your DVD player, TV Tuner, Cable Box etc will all talk to your TV via an encrypted signal. All it would take to stop recording broadcasts would for the DMCA to be extended to require all such devices to implement HDCP. I'm sure NBC and others are "lobbying" (aka bribing) congress at this very moment for just this very thing. [according to Wikipedia, the "broadcast flag" was struck down in Congress in 2004, but _is_ required in the EU for HDTV].
I've been holding off on purchasing an HDTV/BluRay player for now so I don't know if every device will actually encrypt the signal via HDCP, but it is certainly possible.
Anyone else have more information?
A video from Bittorrent has to be converted from DivX/XviD to H.264 most of the time anyway. Really, who are they fooling? Besides, for people that want to watch stuff on their iPods, it takes WAY too long to convert stuff. I'm pretty tech-savvy, but I can't think of an easy program off the top of my head that will download a show, re-name it, auto-convert it, then add it to my iTunes library for free. And that lack of convenience is why iTunes TV shows continue to sell like hotcakes.
iSquint converts almost any video format to iPod/aTV/h.264 and adds to the iTunes library automatically. It's very easy to use, works very quickly, and it's free.
That is the assumption of the AppleInsider editor.
Over at Ars Technica their editors believe otherwise - that NBC wants total control over where and when you play your purchases, and what ads you must see when viewing them - just like you get from Hulu.
I think ars technica is jumping to conclusions - none of the quotes from NBC brass say anything about limiting ipod playback. I don't know where they got that idea, but there's nothing from NBC statements to support it.
They talk about piracy and being a gatekeeper. People watching pirated content on iPods are watching torrents, not pirated iTunes purchases.