Canadian TV to Adopt DRM-Free BitTorrents 229
An anonymous reader writes "Canada's public broadcast network, CBC, is to adopt DRM free BitTorrent distribution of one of its major primetime shows, Canada's Next Great Prime Minister. The effort has already been hailed by Canadian copyright guru Michael Geist, who expects the decision to add fuel to Canada's net neutrality debate. A CBC producer behind the show told CNET that the motivation for the move was that CBC 'wanted the show to be as accessible as possible to as many Canadians as possible, in the format that they want it in.' As for DRM, she said 'I think DRM is dead, even if a lot of broadcasters don't realize it.' She added that 'if it's bad for the consumers, its bad for the company.'"
throttling from bell and rogers (Score:5, Insightful)
Finally, someone gets it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Add more shows! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Finally, someone gets it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Finally, someone gets it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Finally, someone gets it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Finally, someone gets it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not a good example (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Finally, someone gets it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Happiness is also getting superior customer service with being treated like a customer (as opposed to thief).
If it comes down for me to make a decision about getting some media and I can either pay for crippled set or download high quality free set, which do you think I'll get?
If you treat me like a thief, I'm'a gonna do it.
Re:Not a good example (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:CBC - It's Publicly funded (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it cutting out a revenue stream? Or increasing the size of the pie? How do you know they aren't embedding commercials in the bt version and making MORE money by telling advertisers they are reaching MORE eyes? Show me.
Even if we accept that they will make less money with this distribution method, is it going to be significant to overshadow the savings to the CBC by using bt as a distribution channel? About 1/3 of CBC's funding comes from non-taxpayer sources, according to their 2005-2006 annual report. Of that 1/3, only a fraction of it is from advertising. Of that fraction, only a smaller portion yet comes from TV advertising. Is that a significant amount? Show me.
Why are you so ready to draw negative conclusions so early?
Re:throttling from bell and rogers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:throttling from bell and rogers (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:throttling from bell and rogers (Score:2, Insightful)
It's never been about bandwidth, there's tons of bandwidth. It's about control.
Re:Oh Canada.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Technically it was a joke as I being an American would be the one most likley candidate to be offended by what I just said.
Its like saying that the reason the Canadian Government isn't as bad as the American Government is that the Canadian doesn't have American Politicians in it. Apparently someone took offense and none taking about that Cuba issue. Shame we Americans can't visit.
Re:No Offense (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:No Offense (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Oh Canada.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Americans have the right to bear arms.
Canadian women have the right to bear breasts.
I believe the reason for us getting everything right while the US gets everything wrong, is that section 15 of the Canadian charter of rights and freedoms only extends rights to 'actual persons', not 'legal persons' like the US system (corporations are classified as 'legal persons') so we don't have the same problem of having to constantly welcome our evil corporate overlords.
Re:CBC - It's Publicly funded (Score:3, Insightful)
Except that pretty much any good show is going to show up on your friendly neighbourhood torrent site anyway. A lot of the shows are available in streaming clips anyway. By putting up a torrent themselves, they can save on bandwidth and provide a show that isn't as limited in video and audio quality.