Apple to Offer Monthly iTunes TV Subscriptions

sg3000 writes "Fans of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, rejoice! Reuters is reporting that Apple will provide monthly subscriptions to two of Comedy Central's most popular shows. One question, as TV shows become available for sale on the Internet, will this make it harder to share clips online, such as through Google Video? In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true."

Brilliant

[Scareduck]

In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true.

Thus the scientific basis for chiropractic, homeopathy, and items found in the Slashdot submission queue.

Win-win situation

[FlyByPC]

If prices weren't artificially high, I think a lot of people wouldn't bother pirating clips -- and the whole IP discussion wouldn't be as important. If, for example, you could download songs you liked at $0.10US each, why bother pirating them? Same for video -- let people freely trade small clips (say, 2 minutes or less) legally -- and add a link to the traded file to make it easy to purchase the whole episode for not too much money. Trading small video clips would become *good* for the companies that produce them, as it would get more people interested in the programs.

Rejoice, consumers!

[Urusai]

Another opportunity to make easy monthly payments!

Re:While good - why not unlimited I-Tunes pass

[Yahweh Doesn't Exist]

>Am I the only one thinking this is the first step to subscription music on the IPod

no, but you seem to be one of the people who are falsely under the impression that "subscription" means rental, which it does not in either the general case or the case of iTunes video passes.

here "subscription" has its tru meaning, as applied for example to magazines, in that you pay for something in advance (at discount) and receive the product periodically when it is actually published.

this is not to be confused with BS "subscription" services which take away what you already have when you stop paying.

I already have cable

[geekee]

and for $40 a month, I get a hell of a lot more content than 4 shows.

Legal starting to get more convenient than illegal

[brxndxn]

The whole point of piracy, imo, is to make all media (entertainment not limited by the economics of scarcity) more convienient than actually purchasing the media..

But, even with piracy, there's annoying costs involved.. It takes a user's time to find the shit. The user has to be skilled enough to extract it, run it, store it, convert it, etc.. Also, users have to rely on each other to package pirated media in convenient forms.

However, if one can pay a small fee to get ready access to their shows from anywhere, then piracy will die down. Once the actual media is more convenient than pirated media, piracy will be less of a problem. IMO, even most tenacious of pirates would rather have Google or Itunes store all their media so they could access it from their set-top boxes, Ipods, PSPs, cell-phones - all without having to take the time to convert it or store it on their own hard drives.

But then, since the media companies are so determined to prove piracy as a bigger problem than it is - as a display of greed not necessarily good for the media industry - they DRM the hell out of everything. So, most people that are used to controlling their own media just ignore everything with DRM.

Piracy, for consumers, IS A GOOD THING. The more consumers pirate, the more media companies will be FORCED to innovate and adapt. If the media companies were entirely in control, we'd probby be forced to listen to only the 10 most-popular songs on Clearchannel, watch reality tv with 1/2 the time being commercials, and call an 800 number to ask permission for every time we use the media.

IMO, what Apple is doing is a GOOD thing. It's just hilariously funny how Apple is doing it while becomming an unecessary middleman since the media companies have their heads so far up their own asses they can't realize that they are NOT in control of what the consumer wants - or even their own media once the consumer consumes it.

I support the principles of piracy.. I think it's morally acceptable to pirate when the pirated media is more convenient (with more features) than the regular media. The marketplace is about the consumer - not the producer. If I decide to put my Chiquita banana on a stripper's tit covered in chocolate and take pictures of it, Chiquita can't cry when I'm not consuming it like a normal monkey. I feel the same way about media companies..

If media companies had their way, they'd have control of our memories and erase everything they could re-sell us. So, we'd even forget we watched a movie or bought the DVD and blindly pay for it again. /end rant.. gonna eat a banana now.

Re:Win-win situation

[Overly Critical Guy]

There's no such thing as "artificially high." If the market accepts a given price, that's what a product will be at. Just because someone thinks the price of something is high doesn't magically mean they have the right to pirate it like some freeloading hippie without a job.

The Daily Show

[Eightyford]

The Daily Show was among the first TV shows to be freely available for download. This may just be the beginnings of an end of an era for free internet content.

Re:-1 Redundant

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, it works for the President.

Re:Win-win situation

[scotch]

Exactly, because if sony won't sell me the latest Stevie Wonder song for a fair price, then a good free market businesman down the street will grow the song on his pop-hit tree and sell it for a lower price. Obviously, the free market will produce the optimal price point for a given copyrighted song based on supply of songs (sometimes there are only a few copies), and demand, which is perfectly elastic. Oh wait, copyright == monopoly != free market. Dang it.

Agendas

[alchemist68]

Corporations have agendas, that are motivated/governed by one or a select few individuals. In the case of Apple Computer, everyone knows who the steward of the Apple ship is, what his path is remains to be somewhat "foggy." Why is this? Well, that my friend is a trade secret, owned by the one soul in the universe with his own REALITY DISTORTION FIELD. At the age of 38 and as a long time Apple user, I could never predict very far Steve Jobs's visions, and that's the key to the success of Steve and Apple. Steve Jobs has a gift that is unique to the success of a business that he co-founded, that he is absolutely passionate about. Whether you or I like it or not, Apple Computer is on the verge of crossing a threshold, a boundary that will propel it farther than its competition ever imagined. The foundation of this success will be the quality of its products: the iPod, iTunes and the momentum of the iTunes Music Store, and lastly the quality of Apple's operating systems and hardware. Consumers want something simple to use that works flawlessly out of the box. Apple has already achieved that with its computers (with less than or equal to 5% market share - it didn't work economically, hardware was too expensive for the average consumer), so it ventured into digital music players - now very successful! Now Apple is transitioning to Intel processors, i.e. more or less generic hardware that it doesn't have to design and engineer itself - effectively "outsourcing" the Macintosh design to Intel. Through its digital music players, Apple has shown the massive consumer market that it can design and successfully implement quality software and hardware integration that works flawlessly for the consumer. I predict that over time, Apple will make steep inroads to consumer markets, and eventually corporate America and global corporate markets. This will be in combination and recognition to producing goods and services that meet both consumer and commercial needs. There will be some serious convincing in the corporate world, but as more and more people play with and experiment with Mac OS X and iPods, people will be purchasing more Apple products. Microsoft and Sony have already lost the media war to Apple, I'm glad in one way that I own Apple stock, fearful in another way that Apple may "think itself so large and influential that it can go into any direction that it wants." There is always uncertainty with any investment... but Apple is here to stay no matter what Microsoft and Sony would like otherwise, or anyone else.

The one factor in Apple's favor is that Steve Jobs is hell bent on being NUMBER 1, not just good enough, unlike Bill Gates who likes to be just good enough. The Borg is too large and the corporate culture is too much "set in place" for adequate change for a serious challenge to Apple's agenda and momentum. Looking at Apple's market share, both in terms of computer sales, iPod sales, online services, overall market share, Apple Computer is GROWTH COMPANY AND CASH COW waiting to happen! It's just a matter of time before maturity develops...

Re:While good - why not unlimited I-Tunes pass

[R3d M3rcury]

I think you're the only one.

I think subscription services for music will be a tough sell. First, you have over a hundred years of history going against you. For over a hundred years, people have been able to buy music (Player Piano Rolls [wikipedia.org]). That's going to be a tough sell.

Conversely, video has traditionally been a "pay to watch" kind of thing. You went to the movies and paid your money to see the movie. TV, while free to watch, came with commercials. So I think video will be easier to convince people to buy a pay-to-watch subscription service.

That said, I kind of like the way this works and it would be interesting to see Apple do more of this. For example, while I might not pay $40-some-odd dollars to watch a season of 'Lost', I might pay Apple $20 up front for a subscription to 'Lost'. The files can sit on my hard drive until I manage to get around to watching them in much the same way that they are currently sitting on my DVR.

Re:While good - why not unlimited I-Tunes pass

[TheRaven64]

I listen to the same audio track tens, if not hundreds of times. I watch the same video a maximum of two, maybe three times (except in exceptional cases). For the first, a purchase model makes sense. I buy a track, and then I can listen to it as many times as I like. For the second, a rental model makes more sense - I pay a monthly fee and I get to watch whatever I want.

Re:Misleading title.

[freeweed]

So in other words, it's EXACTLY like a subscription.

As opposed to the bullshit newspeak definition of "subscription" we've been hearing lately.

Re:Sign me up!

[Nugget]

iTMS DRM is acceptable because it doesn't impact my usage of the media. I'm quite able to do all the things I expect and want to do with songs and videos I buy from the iTMS. So the DRM is just fine by me.

How is that a hard concept to grasp? It's a product I want at a fair price that arrives in a form which does everything I expect it to do.

you'll still be able to get it for free...

[Malor]

You'll still be able to get it for free... in fact, the more it's distributed for free, the more Apple will make.

They're not really selling the bits, although they're pretending to. What they're selling is convenient, automated delivery, and super-convenient playback. It blends many of the best elements of the computer and a VCR. So the more available it is online, the more people will be interested, and the more will sign up for the automated delivery service.

This is the first really definite step toward the Holy Grail of convergence.

I might even subscribe. It'd take more than 10 bucks' worth of time to find and download these episodes anyway.

Re:Win-win situation

[kklein]

You really said it there. What the *AA types don't get is that they might actually be able to increase revenue by LOWERING prices. I mean, look at Wal-Mart. Look at Best Buy. In these two commodity/retail giants, offering products at margin-kissing low prices has provided them ridiculous economies of scale.

Now think what the same model could do IF YOUR PRODUCT COST YOU NOTHING! Okay, not NOTHING, but server space and bandwidth have nothing on actually paying money to people to manufacture physical goods!

I buy all my music (on CDs no less), but I pirate the crap out of TV. Why? Because paying $30 for a DVD of a season of a show I could have seen and recorded for free a couple months ago just strikes me as insane. But if the prices came down, I wouldn't bother with rummaging around on torrent trackers and P2P crapholes; I'd happily pay to get the file from a trusted source, and I wouldn't even whine too much if it had some light, iTMS-style DRM on it (but I'd still whine).

Re:Win-win situation

[timeOday]

There's no such thing as "artificially high." If the market accepts a given price, that's what a product will be at.

No, "the market" is a set of man-made (artificial) rules and not a law of nature. The price of content depends on an elaborate system of laws, courts, and police to make sure nature doesn't take its course. The natural price is the cost of copying information, which is near 0.

None of this is to say that copyright is bad, necessarily. Just don't act like questioning the market is blasphemy, when it's really no different than questioning a tax rate.

Re:Wow...

[The Mad Debugger]

Actually, I think it was an attempt to reference the Colbert Report. Steven pretends he is a Fox News-style pundit, who prefers the council of his "gut" to the facts.

The fact that it also works as a perfect description of the Slashdot crowd is just gravy.

Re:Win-win situation

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no such thing as "artificially high." If the market accepts a given price, that's what a product will be at.

And thriving black market is a sign of the market not accepting a given price.

Now THAT was insightful

[SuperKendall]

So in other words, it's EXACTLY like a subscription.

As opposed to the bullshit newspeak definition of "subscription" we've been hearing lately.

That was the most insightful thing I've read on Slashdot all month. In the real world, when you subscribe to something you get something you can keep - like magazines or a CableTV feed you can record (by law, since it has to include firewire output).

Newspeak has "subscription" taking on the meaning of the peep show, where you can see whatever you like - as long as you keep putting in quarters. The moment you stop you have nothing, and indeed can legally not even try to keep anything.

What a great summary of the ripoff that modern "subscription" services are. $10 a month for eternity is not cheap in my book.

Re:What about those recording t.v. and fair use?

[Antony-Kyre]

Copyright laws are out of control it seems like. In my OPINION, the below would be just fine.

First of all, make media (such as music, movies, television, etc., not books or e-books) have commercial copyrights expire at 50 years, personal use copyrights expire at 10 years, and educational use copyright non-existant.
-
Commercial use as in making money off of it, like using it in a movie, selling it to someone, etc.
Personal use should be self-explanatory. Maybe I should say home use. (Selling tickets to a home viewing would be illegal since it's commercial use, not personal/home use.)
Educational use such as in doing research, I guess.

Fair use would be making personal copies for one's own use. Someone has already legally bought a copy, and regardless of what the license says, it should be legal, and isn't immoral, to make a copy for oneself. Maybe someone bought a new DVD. I think it's perfectly reasonable to make a back-up copy.

Someone giving a copy away to others should be a civil matter on both parties. Civil as in sueing for the price of the DVD plus legal costs among other things. Either way, it'd be way below that $250k fine or whatever.

Someone selling a copy should be a criminal matter.

Re:Sign me up!

[Overly Critical Guy]

Wow, you are out on the fringe.

DRM is just fine. It's not "against the constitution" because you don't have a right to buy something without DRM. You have the choice not to buy it. DRM is simply another product.

DRM isn't bad or immoral. It's not anything, as it's just another product you can buy or not buy. It's just copy protection to combat piracy, which itself is bad and immoral, since that takes content without paying people for it. Blame the pirates for forcing content creators' hands.

DRM isn't based on the idea that you are a criminal. In fact, DRM doesn't do anything at all if you don't try to do something wrong like copy iTunes music to someone else's account. You might as well say locks are based on the idea that you are a criminal.

How do people find iTunes DRM acceptable? Because most people don't even notice it's there. It's that liberal a copy protection scheme.

You're just using emotive propaganda to attempt to spread an overly idealistic message. You may as well don a tinfoil hat. If you tried to argue your position rationally, I would be more willing to listen to your points, but as it is, you just went through the dictionary picking out words with emotional connotation behind them to drum up support. I just can't respect that as a debate position.

You must be real fun at parties.

I signed up for it...

[Kredal]

I'm over on an American airbase in South Korea, and I'm glad that I'm able to get the Daily Show from iTunes.

I've been downloading my favorite shows from BitTorrent sites, (including Mythbusters, Stargate SG1/Atlantis, Malcolm in the Middle, and The Simpsons), but I'd go nuts trying to download the Daily Show... Why? Because I'd have to find it every day. The other shows are all once a week.. I spend about a half hour Saturday morning grabbing .torrents, and by that evening, I have all the TV shows I'm interested in.

Now I'll be able to watch the Daily Show every day, without having to spend the time looking for and sorting out each episode with all the different naming conventions, and trying not to miss an episode. iTunes makes it easy, and is well worth $9.99 a month.

Hey, that's what hardship pay is for, right?

Re:Completely wrong

[OzRoy]

You mean like pre-purchasing 12 magazines that are released once a month and calling it a "12 month subscription"?

the BIGGEST difference is...

[nuckin futs]

if you ever decide to unsubscribe, you still get to keep the shows you already downloaded.

Re:Good for Apple, but US only?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I don't get why Apple only has permission to sell stuff only in certain regions - like lots of albums in the US store that aren't in the Canadian store.

There are two reasons for this. The first is that media publishers are greedy, rich, and have no ethics. The second is that politicians are greedy, bribable, and have no ethics. The reason Apple can't distribute the same music.shows in Canada as in the US is simply because since artists no longer hold copyrights (basically the big publishing houses force them to give them up if they want to reach an audience) they don't have the authority to grant the right to republish the show everywhere for a set price. Instead bodies like the MPAA, RIAA, etc. collect royalties in any given country and they set the price differently in each country to maximize profit. This means anyone wanting to resell a song or show needs to negotiate and sign one contract for every country in the world, which is prohibitively expensive and time consuming.

With physical media, it's not like if I zip across the border into Washington, the people at the store can't sell me a particular CD because they don't have permission to sell it to Canadians, so why is it the case with iTunes?

Selling copies of a song or show are not restricted by law, making copies are restricted by law. Thus, if a company has the right to copy a CD for a set price in the US, they can do so and most countries have a reciprocal agreement that says any of them imported are legal. However, when you are dealing with a digital transfer you aren't moving a copy, you're making a copy, thus the laws restrict it.

If you don't like it, talk to your politicians and get your laws changed.