Online viewers prosecuted for not paying TV licence

People who watch television online without a licence have been prosecuted for the first time despite uncertainty about how the law works. The Telegraph reports.

According to TV Licensing, a licence is required to watch television “as it’s being broadcast” – even if the viewer is using a computer, laptop or mobile phone.

However no licence is required for viewers who are only using “catch-up” services online to watch programmes that have already been broadcast.

This fine distinction led to suspicions that it would be difficult to gather evidence to catch and punish online pirates.

Read full article.

Related:

-- Licence fee evaders' bizarre excuses revealed

-- TV licence trawl nets thousands of evaders in Bristol

-- UK Viewers who TV on computer face licence fee

-- License Fee Police may target UK users fr watching TV online

-- License Fee Police may target UK users fr watching TV online

-- 200,000 TV Licence Evaders Caught

iTunes rentals just tenth of Netflix

Video rentals from iTunes represent just a tenth or so of those recorded by Netflix, suggests Gleacher & Co. analyst Brian Marshall. [via iPodnn]

Apple recently revealed that people are buying or renting about 150,000 movies and 400,000 TV shows through iTunes each day.

Assuming that 75 percent of movies and 90 percent of shows are rented, says Marshall, Apple should be serving about 475,000 rentals a day versus Netflix's 5.1 million.

Read full article.

Sears Launches Movie-Download Service With Sonic Solutions

Sears Holdings Corp. has launched its online movie download service, Alphaline Entertainment, allowing Sears and K-Mart customers to download movies the same day they are released on DVD. The WSJ reports.

The service runs on Sonic Solutions' RoxioNow platform, and the companies are working on a rollout to make the services available on portable media players, mobile phones and high-definition televisions under a multi-year agreement. Plans for the service were first announced in June.

Read full article. Press release.

ISP won't reveal names of alleged porn pirates

Time Warner Cable, one of the nation's largest Internet service providers, has refused to turn over customers accused in a lawsuit by Larry Flynt Publishing of pirating one of the company's porn films, according to Flynt's attorney.

[via CNet]

A force behind the lower teen birthrate: MTV's '16 and Pregnant'

A new report from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy actually credits MTV's "16 and Pregnant" documentary series with lowering the birth rate in 2009, following a 5% increase from 2005 to 2007.

A spokesman for the study says: "Some critics say these shows glamorize teen pregnancy, but our survey data shows that's not the case – that not only do they not glamorize it, but teens who have seen it suggest it makes the realities of teen parenthood more real to them."

[The Christian Science Monitor via tvtatte]

MegaUpload Issues Response to RIAA Over Mastercard Cutoff

Follwowing the RIAAs efforts to get Mastercard to cut off payments to MegaUpload, ZeroPaid has received an exclusive response from MegaUpload on this news.

At issue specifically is the effort by the RIAA to get Mastercard to block payments to MegaUpload.

“MasterCard in particular deserves credit for its proactive approach to addressing rogue Web sites that dupe consumers,” Mitch Glazier, vice president of government and industry relations of the RIAA said. “They have reached out to us and others in the entertainment community to forge what we think will be a productive and effective partnership.”

It’s quite a statement that sparked an even more interesting statement from MegaUpload, one of the sites explicitly mentioned among these “rogue websites”.

Are payment processors trying to become the legislature of the new decade?” Bonnie Lam of MegaUpload Headquarters asks, “Will it be them, rather than elected governments, who decide what’s right and what’s wrong? Will ballots be replaced by wallets, will people cast their votes by choosing a conservative or a liberal credit card? First WikiLeaks, then cyberlockers – what’s next, and where will it end? Will you no longer be able to settle your ISP bill by MasterCard, as your carrier of choice may profit from copyright infringement?”

“We are watching the unfolding events with interest,” Lam told ZeroPaid, “but as the vast majority of our revenue is coming from advertising, the effect on our business would be limited.”

Read full article.

Related: - NYT on Banks and Wikileaks: "a troubling prospect"

Mad Men Tattoo

Spotted on Trendhunter, Amanda Wachob's Mad Men tatoo, at Dare Devil Tattoo parlour in New York.

We have become a society of watchers

An interesting opinion piece from the LA Times on how Americans are caught up in the spectacle of watching.

... In a nation riven by disagreements and political conflicts and niche markets and on-demand isolation, this unites us: Hungrily, aggressively, we watch, thanks to the explosion of the Internet and social media and cameras everywhere.

If you needed any more evidence that we've become a nation of watchers, look no further than 2010. From the spillcam to Snooki, from volcanic clouds to video ambushes, the spectacle that was the past year ensured that the image — the weird, wonderful, horrifying, mesmerizing image — reigned supreme.

Read full article. Image from the BBC.

Hollywood Has New Hero With Israeli Technology to Hunt Down Video Pirates

New technique by Tel Aviv University researchers detects pirated clips. The Media Line reports.

Hollywood’s search for a technical elixir that can curb the billions of dollars worth of lost revenue to people downloading television shows and movies from the Internet may now have a solution that mimics the techniques used to map human DNA.

Researchers at Tel Aviv University say they can hunt down pirates by using what they call the video’s “genetic code.” The system is designed to search videos as quickly as search engines seek out texts. Its developers say the technology will let film producers’ trawl the vast ocean of the Internet in the search for video pirates.

... The illegal downloading and streaming videos of movies on the Internet are responsible for up to 40% of the movie industries losses to piracy, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. The rest comes from illegal DVDs and other physical means of storing and transferring video content.

... The most pirated video this year, according to The Hollywood Reporter, was the American-produced science fiction hit Avatar, which was downloaded over 16 million times. Even after such monumental theft, the movie still was the highest grossing box office hit with $2.8 billion.

Read full article.

The death of TV as we know it

An interesting read by Geoff Pevere for The Star, on how television has been unshackled from traditional means of viewing, and how rise of the fan has changed more than what we watch.

Although TV is watched by more people more often now than it ever was — with 2008-09 marking an all-time average high of 4½ hours per day in the U.S. — it isn’t watched the same way it used to be and this is profoundly changing what we watch.

Boomers had a right to worry about the passivity induced by TV, considering that they tended to watch their nearly 20 hours per week in a state of sedentary absorption: on the couch doing nothing else.

Today, viewers are increasingly watching TV on their computers and mobile devices, and while using their computers and mobile devices.

When younger viewers do watch TV, they are less likely to watch it in real broadcast time than their parents, and far more likely to download it and watch it on their own time. They are also more likely to tune into TV on YouTube, and more likely to tune out if something more interesting — like a text, for instance — pings their sphere.

Read full article.

YouTube reinstates Palestinian Media Watch channel

Following a report in The Jerusalem Post on Sunday, video-sharing website YouTube reinstated Palestinian Media Watch’s channel on Monday.

YouTube had removed the channel, which exposes anti- Israel incitement broadcast on Arab media, for violating its community guidelines on hate speech. PMW director Itamar Marcus claims Palestinian Authority officials were behind the move.

[via The Jerusalem Post]

Google TV products pulled from CES

Google has reportedly asked manufacturers to delay announcing support for its television platform, just weeks before the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

[via informitv]

Targeted TV Ads Set for Takeoff

This sounds horrifying, from The Wall Street Journal.

After years of promises and false starts, TV commercials targeted at individual homes may finally be ready for prime time.

DirecTV Group Inc. is planning the biggest rollout yet of "addressable ads," allowing advertisers to reach close to 10 million homes with commercials tailored to each household. Dog owners, for instance, could see ads for dog food, not kitty litter, while families with children could be shown minivan spots.

Read more.

MasterCard willing to cut off pirate sites

MasterCard, is willing to stop processing transactions from sites trafficking in pirated music, movies, games, and other digital copyrighted content. News.com reports.

Lobbyists working for MasterCard have told trade groups from the entertainment sector that the credit card company is supportive of The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act, an antipiracy bill introduced into the Senate last September.

The bill authorizes the Department of Justice to shut down domain names of U.S.-based Web sites judged to be dealing in pirated content and also have the power to order Internet service providers, payment processors, and online ad networks in the United States to cease doing business with overseas pirates sites.

Opponents of the law say it will give the government sweeping powers to censor U.S. citizens.

Read full article.

Related:

-- Paramount to stop online movie piracy at the source - To tackle the pirates, Paramount is working with PayPal and other payment vendors to shut down payment routes.

YouTube removes Israeli media watchdog’s channel

YouTube removed from its servers Sunday a video channel operated by Israeli NGO Palestinian Media Watch for severe violations of YouTube’s community guidelines.

The channel, which featured videos of Palestinian incitement against Jews and Israelis, posted by the group in order to expose Arab media undercurrents, was removed for repeatedly airing hate speech.

[via The Jerusalem Post]

Related: - Israeli Defense Forces launches YouTube channel

Skyfire Shows Off iPad App with Flash, Facebook Features

Skyfire, which offers an app that brings Flash to the iPhone, provided a sneak peak this week at a version for the iPad, "coming soon." PC Mag reports.

Like its iPhone counterpart, Skyfire for iPad will function like a Web browser, converting Flash video into HTML5 and playing it back in a separate window. That window can be expanded to full-screen mode to take advantage of the iPad's 9.7-inch screen.

The iPad version will also include many of the social-networking components Skyfire recently added to its Android app. The bottom menu bar will include links to Facebook, Twitter, and Google Reader, so users can read and interact with their news feeds or followers within the Skyfire app.

A "Fireplace" option, meanwhile, will pull up all the links Facebook friends have shared, so you can open up news stories or watch videos within Skyfire.

Read full review.

Virtual spheres speed up skimming through mobile video

Users often have to download an entire online video to find out what's in it. A new skim-viewing interface from Telcordia Technologies - which will be previewed next month at CES in Las Vegas - could speed things up.

[via New Scientist]

Paramount to stop online movie piracy at the source

Organised crime is behind movie pirates illegally making millions of dollars a year online, says Chris Carey of Paramount Pictures, reports TechRadar.

"Suing your customers isn't a winning strategy, you've got to stop it at the source."

Sites like MegaUpload.com are making millions of dollars from distributing movies illegally, gathering profit via subscription fees and advertising revenue.

To tackle the pirates, Paramount is working with PayPal and other payment vendors to shut down payment routes, as well as notifying legitimate companies whose adverts are popping up on the illegal peer-to-peer sites.

Read full article.

"The Social Network inspires "The Good Wife"

Rita Wilson and F. Murray Abraham will guest-star in a February episode that’s inspired by The Social Network and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. [via InsideTV]

The episode focuses on a junior genius who launched a successful website that prompts a big movie about his life. He ends up suing the producers for defamation, however, because he’s not happy with the results.

[via tvtattle.com]

Streaming Video Destroying DVD Sales

According to In-Stat, home video retail revenue has fallen precipitously over the past five years.Worse yet, double-digit declines in annual retail sales of physical discs are expected, resulting in a drop of $4.6 billion from 2009 to 2014.

To replace retail DVD revenue losses, digital paid video download and streaming segment, either purchase or rental, is expected to show high revenue growth. Annual revenue is forecast to grow from $2.3 billion to $6.3 billion within five years.

[via ShellyPalmer Digital Living]

In-Stat press release, December 14, 2010. Internet Delivered Video Growth Continues to Drive Physical DVDs into Double Digit Decline

Internet Now as Popular as TV, Survey Shows

The average U.S. consumer now spends as much time online as watching television, according to new research by Forrester.

To technophiles, it might seem strange to think of people ever watching TV more than they surfed the Web. But the stat marks a big shift for the country at large; this is the first year in Forrester’s survey that people have reported spending equal amounts of time on the two activities — 13 hours a week.

Read full article.

YouTube is letting users decide on terrorism-related videos

Nudity. Sexual activity. Animal abuse. All are reasons YouTube users can flag a video for removal from the website. Add a new category: promotes terrorism. The LA Times reports.

YouTube and its parent company, Google, have been criticized by lawmakers for refusing to prescreen militant speeches and propaganda videos that have been cited in more than a dozen terrorism investigations over the last five years.

But rather than submit to policies that many argue would amount to an erosion of 1st Amendment rights, particularly in an open-access environment such as the Internet, YouTube is taking a decidedly more democratic path — let the customers decide.

Read full article.

Flagging on YouTube: The Basics (video 2008)

The Good Wife: Cooking up a hit show

Robert and Michelle King, a married couple who met when working at a shoe store, are the creators of network TV's most high-profile drama, The Good Wife.

[The Wall Street Journal via tvtattle

Youtube's Zeitgeist 2010: Year in Review

Spotted on Geek o System, Google’s annual Zeitgeist video, presenting a snapshot of 2010 as recounted through popular text, image, and video searches.

Rhianna, Eminem & Bieber Making Millions on YouTube?

Videos from artists like Rhianna, Eminem and Justin Bieber have the potential to rake in millions for the major-label owned video distribution platform VEVO, according to estimates from YouTube app maker MYU2B. GigaOM reports.

The Ohio-based start-up just launched a new site that tracks the view count of 13,000 YouTube channels, complete with daily revenue estimates.

Rhianna is currently the top earner, and her 4 million daily video views translate to roughly $3300 of revenue per day, which would add up to $1.2 million per year. She is followed by Eminem and Justin Bieber, who both bring in $2700 per day (close to $1 million per year each).

Read more.

Hulu Seeks Actors for Its Own Online Show

Hulu is looking to make its foray into creating its own TV show.

The Hulu original program will recap the entertainment scene for the day in five minutes. The show will air Monday through Friday. Hulu is looking for two hosts with one of them being a "very good looking female" in the late 20's to 30 range.

More Than 1,000 North Koreans Jailed for Watching Movies

According to a Seoul-based defector group, more than 1,000 North Koreans have been jailed for secretly watching South Korean TV shows and films.

[via AP]

Foursquare teams with Endemol to develop TV series

This news was all over the web this week. Location-based mobile social network Foursquare will partner with international television production and distribution company Endemol to develop a TV series based on the foursquare smartphone application, which enables users check in at local venues on their device, earning points and virtual laurels for visiting establishments on a regular basis.

Details on the series are scarce, but Endemol--best known for reality programming franchises like Big Brother, Deal or No Deal and Fear Factor--promises an "original format" incorporating the foursquare check-in model.

[via FierceMobile Content]

Hulu Open to New Investors for Global Expansion

Hulu wants to expand its online video service internationally and would be willing to take on new investors to help it do so, Jason Kilar, its chief executive, said in an interview Wednesday, reports The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Kilar acknowledged that launching Hulu in other countries could be challenging because foreign sales of U.S. TV shows are already a booming business.

Read full article.

BBC Plans Subscription-Only U.S. iPlayer On iPad

According to mocoNews.net, this is huge. BBC will launch the long-awaited global version of its iPlayer TV catch-up service on a subscription-only basis, and initially only on iPad.

The service, carrying BBC shows like Doctor Who on-demand, will likely be very popular in the U.S., generating new income for the BBC back in Britain.

The significance of the move is clear - it means the BBC will operate a subscription worldwide media channel that, in time, could become one of its biggest.

Read full post.