Recognizing The Inevitable Future Of Television

from the slowly,-but-surely dept

Slashdot is pointing to Mark Pesce's sudden realization that, when it comes to TV, file sharing is a good thing for everyone except broadcasters -- and there may even be a space for broadcasters. Pesce notes how even in cases where file sharing occurs, it can increase the number of people watching the broadcast, by building up a word of mouth community around a TV show. This isn't new (despite the feeling that comes across in the article that he believes it is), but it's a good summary of many of the issues that lots of people have been discussing for a while. Unfortunately, it seems like the industry itself is not discussing these issues at all -- other than to sue certain sites. The basic conclusion that Pesce comes to, is that some combination of overlays and product placement will need to replace the 30 second spot -- and that it will make more sense for TV to be distributed via the internet and things like BitTorrent (again, not a new idea at all). Of course, the question remaining, is whether or not some of these new upstart internet video content companies will be able to capture much mindshare in this space or if it's going to take existing content makers recognizing their ability to route around broadcasters on their own to make this happen. Then again, perhaps Google will just own the space itself.

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