Techdirt. Stories filed under "fox"

Fox Responds To 'Piracy Surge' By Answering A Different Question

Mike Masnick — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 09:57:28 PDT

Exactly as we predicted, when the Fox Network hid its TV shows online behind various paywalls and delays, the rate of infringement on those shows shot way up. Eriq Gardner, over at THResq spoke to a Communications VP at Fox to get his response about all those people going to unauthorized means to get their content, and in true "Communications VP" fashion, Scott Grogin deftly ignores the key question and focuses on a secondary claim from the original TorrentFreak article, the suggestion that these delays were about getting people to watch TV live:

The TorrentFreak blog post is a little over the top. The story indicates that we 'took this drastic step in the hope of getting more people to watch shows live and thus make more revenue.' Nothing could be further from the truth.

Authenticating viewers is not about making sure they only watch live...in fact, quite the opposite—we support a 'TV Everywhere' proposition and are working with our distribution partners to benefit our businesses. It's about receiving fair value so we can continue to produce this expensive and high quality programming. We are pursuing a strategy where the 90+ million households who pay to watch our programming via cable/satellite/telco will ultimately receive maximum benefit. They can watch live, via DVR, on VOD, online, or through one of the various tablet apps that allow in-home viewing.

We are actively in negotiations with all cable/satellite/telco providers regarding authentication of their customers. We hope to announce several more agreements before the start of the new television season in mid-September.

The issue of watching "live" or not is really a side matter, and was perhaps a bit of hyperbole from TorrentFreak. What those guys clearly meant was that this is a weak effort by Fox to keep people watching via TV or via a big cable/satellite provider. And, I'm sorry, but this line is pure bull:

We are pursuing a strategy where the 90+ million households who pay to watch our programming via cable/satellite/telco will ultimately receive maximum benefit.

Anyone who claims that to offer maximum benefit to one set of people, you have to take away features from others isn't being particularly honest. To offer maximum benefit, you offer maximum benefit. Could Fox offer new additional features to such subscribers? Sure. That would be interesting and perhaps a good strategy. But taking the content away, when it's so readily available via unauthorized means doesn't help provide maximum benefit to subscribers at all. It drives more people to unauthorized means of access (where Fox gets no money at all), and actually takes away value from those subscribers. That's because one reason why people watch hit shows right away is so they can discuss them with friends. Fox has now made it more difficult to discuss with friends because it's that much harder to watch its shows.

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Of Course: New Fox Delay Means More Unauthorized Downloads Of Fox Shows

Mike Masnick — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 12:24:54 PDT

Back in July, when the Fox Network announced plans to block or delay many of its popular shows from going online, we predicted this would increase the number of unauthorized downloads. This just seemed stupid. People want to access it online and they will access it online. Why not offer it to them in an easy and convenient manner that can be monetized. Of course, when others pointed out the same thing, the geniuses at the MPAA threw a hissy fit about how even admitting that Fox's stupid business decision might increase unauthorized file sharing was the equivalent of praising "stealing."

So, um, I wonder how the MPAA's brilliant strategists will respond to the news that, in the first week of Fox's delays alone, unauthorized downloads of some of its most popular shows increased massive amounts, doubling or tripling what they were before. In fact, that article notes that many of the people viewing it through unauthorized means left comments about how they tried to watch via legal channels, but couldn't.

So I'm wondering how the folks at the MPAA might explain this. Are they going to throw another tantrum and blame "reality" for supporting file sharing? Or will someone there finally buy a clue and recognize that not providing consumers what they want is a bad business decision. I guess that would require someone at the MPAA to actually have experience in business -- but they all seem to be lawyers or political flunkies.

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Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Cablevision For Depriving People Of Fox On TV

Mike Masnick — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 12:43:00 PDT

It seems the whole retransmission fight in NY between Cablevision and Fox gets sillier by the day. After Fox accused Cablevision of pointing people to websites with unauthorized streams of various sporting events, Cablevision announced that it would reimburse anyone who ordered Major League Baseball's internet playoff package to watch the World Series (legally) over the internet. Apparently, that's not enough for some people, who have filed a silly class action lawsuit against Cablevision for not discounting their bills during the Fox fight. They're claiming this was a breach of contract, because it represents a "material change" to the service. I can understand why people are annoyed, but this certainly feels like yet another class action lawsuit which is just about lawyers trying to squeeze money out of a company, rather than any serious public concern. Adding weight to that claim is the fact that they're asking for a whopping $450 million -- saying that the customers are seriously harmed by missing Fox's "distinctive viewpoint in the political speech arena... just days before a critical mid-term election." Oh and, of course, being deprived of The Simpsons, Glee, and football and baseball are seriously damaging to the psyche. Or something like that. Update: Surprise, surprise. Now it's coming out that the lawyer behind the lawsuit has long term connections with News Corp. going all the way back to when Murdoch first set up the Fox Network.

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Fox Accuses Cablevision Of Telling People To Go To 'Illegal' Sites To Watch Games Fox Is Blocking

Mike Masnick — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 08:46:33 PDT

I'm not quite sure I understand Fox's supposed (and very manufactured) "outrage" at the news that Cablevision employees are telling upset callers to go online to find streams of sporting events that they can't watch on Fox due to the fee dispute between Cablevision and Fox. After all, Fox is the one blocking Cablevision subscribers from seeing the content, so it really shouldn't be surprised to find out that Cablevision is helping people find the content. Also, while the particular streams may be unauthorized, it's a bit silly to call the sites themselves "illegal" as Fox's announcement states. Similarly, it's kind of silly that the Daily News, who is reporting on this, isn't naming the sites in question.

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Candidate Sued By Fox Notes That Much Of The Content Is Public Domain

Mike Masnick — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 17:58:52 PDT

We recently wrote about News Corp.'s slightly odd decision to sue a political candidate, Robin Carnahan, who used a clip from Fox News (of Chris Wallace attacking Carnhan's opponent, Roy Blunt). Carnahan has hit back, and beyond just arguing the obvious fair use defense (which seems like it should win), Carnahan points out that, first, Fox failed to register the copyright on the 2006 program until after it filed the lawsuit. As has been discussed here many times, while you get copyright automatically, if you want to sue over it, you generally have to have registered the copyright (the law is a little hazy here). Even worse, Carnahan's lawyers point out that a large segment of the clip that was used actually comes from C-SPAN, whose works are automatically put into the public domain. In other words, Carnahan's lawyers appear to be accusing Fox of copyfraud, in claiming copyright over public domain materials. If this gets anywhere, Fox and News Corp. may end up regretting filing this lawsuit quite a bit...

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Fox Gets Tons Of Attention For Banksy Simpsons Video... Then Pulls It Off YouTube

Mike Masnick — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 08:42:28 PDT

Late Sunday night, the talk of the internet was the extremely "dark" open sequence for The Simpsons, which was apparently done by famed artist Banksy, and which made a statement about Asian animation and manufacturing sweat shops producing both Simpsons animations and merchandise. According to various reports, there was a lot of back and forth from News Corp. about getting this approved, and even animators for the show initially refused to animate the opening. However, it eventually went out, and was an instant sensation. And, of course, once it's an instant sensation, lots of folks went online to see it, and Banksy apparently uploaded the video to his own channel on YouTube (where I saw it). However, as Benny6Toes alerts us, the video has now been taken down from YouTube, apparently due to a copyright claim from 20th Century Fox: Of course, the "official" video is available on Hulu if you're in the US, and you can find it elsewhere if you really want. But it seems rather pointless and petty for it to be taken down from Banksy's official account. Now, it could just be YouTube's ContentID system (in fact, I'd guess that's what it was) rather than an official DMCA takedown notice, but if that's the case, it again highlights the silliness of doing automated takedowns like that, where this seems like a case that Fox and the show are getting extra promotion by not just allowing the original video to air, but then to make it available for people to see...

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20th Century Fox Sends Takedowns Over Its Own YouTube Mashup Contest

Mike Masnick — Wed, 6 May 2009 11:51:00 PDT

We're seeing this all too often these days, but 20th Century Fox is the latest company to force videos offline over copyright infringement claims on something they officially endorsed. In this case, it involved a mashup contest promotion, where Burger King and 20th Century Fox created a promotion asking people to create their own mashups of Seth MacFarlane's online animated series Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy. So that's just what people did... and now at least one has had his account suspended due to copyright infringement claims from... 20th Century Fox. In this case, it was also a guy who had a vast history of using YouTube and all his videos are gone, with YouTube telling him he has no option to have his account reinstated. That'll really get people excited about participating in future contests. Update: Good news! Apparently all of the attention this has gotten has helped the user get his account reinstated. However, it's still quite problematic that it was taken down in the first place... and that it required publicity to get reinstated.

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