19 September 2006

Kudos! Fox and Warner Get It!

Hey Universal and RIAA! Don't have a cow, man! Especially not after Fox has begun posting full episodes of the current season of The Simpsons on YouTube. Increases the popularity of their franchise, without decreasing the ad revenue from the televised version (my family will still be watching on Sunday evening). Here is this week's episode (two clips) with The White Stripes (who record on Warner Music). It's absolutely great that these content/distribution companies understand that there's no percentage in restricting their fans, or treating them like criminals. Kowabunga dude!

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

shoot. clips are down-- they must have changed their mind?

Mark Federman said...

It seems what they now understand is that there is nothing special about running TV via the 'net, and that there is potentially revenue involved. The major networks attempted to enter into a business agreement with GoogleTube (the same way that you enter into a business agreement with Tony Soprano), and then issued thousands of DMCA notices to have the clips pulled down. All the major networks are now, or soon will be, streaming their own content from their own websites (although you have to either be in the U.S. or use a U.S. proxy server to access them).

My guess is that this was an experiment to see if people would go for streamed episodes online, AND if so, whether it would cannibalize ratings (thereby reducing ad revenues). The answers seems to be yes, and no, respectively.