04/16/2008, 7:30pm, EDT
Wednesday, April 16th
NBC reconsidering iTunes, wants anti-piracy measures
NBC is again considering distribution of its TV shows through the iTunes store, pending a more rigid anti-piracy stance. According to CNET, George Kliavkoff, chief digital officer for NBC Universal, says that digital piracy hurts the company to the point where it is not viable to distribute its content digitally. The statement comes after NBC Universal pulled shows such as Heroes and The Office from iTunes over a pricing dispute between itself and Apple.
"If you look at studies about MP3 players, especially leading MP3 players and what portion of that content is pirated, and think about how that content gets onto that device, it has to go through a gatekeeping piece of software, which would be a convenient place to put some antipiracy measures," said Kliavkoff during an interview at the Ad:Tech conference.
Kliavkoff says this despite several movies from Universal being present on the store. "We'd love to be on iTunes," notes Kliavkoff. "It has a great customer experience. We'd love to figure out a way to distribute our content on iTunes."
NBC Universal still maintains strict requirements for pricing, with the company setting a wholesale price for sale to distributors, who can in turn sell the content for whatever they wish.
Filed under: industry
Other story tags: iTunes, store, NBC, distribution, anti-piracy
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Notes Kliavkoff, "It has a great customer experience. We'd love to figure out a way to distribute our content on iTunes."
Just agree to what you had before and sign again on the dotted line, you fool.
As predicted.
Kinda sad to watch, really.
If a given song or movie has DRM built into it, fine. Apple already does that.
If a given song or movie does NOT have DRM attached to it... what then? I'm thinking Kliavkoff would insist that any non-DRM'd MP3 or M2V should be presumed pirated? Because that's the only way I could think of that his idea might be practical.
(and what about music/video protected by a non-Apple DRM system? is he going to demand that Microsoft make its DRM available for use by Apple?)
But how do you differentiate between a non-DRM bit torrented song/video which is pirated, a non-DRM bit torrented song/video which is legally ripped from one's library of purchased, legal music/films, and a non-DRM song/video which is an original creation?
You can't. iTunes can't, not without draconian treatment of non-DRM media which would be hugely unpopular with consumers.
So either he really doesn't know what he's talking about, or he's trying to pretend that the issue is really about piracy (because I have never heard this argument before from NBC) so that he can save face while going back to Apple with his tail between his legs, signing the same deal he had before NBC had its hissy fit.