Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Piracy on Fox's shows goes up
episodes of some of its summer programs from free viewing on Hulu and
its own Fox.com website, illegal downloads of Hell's Kitchen and
MasterChef have surged.
Blog TorrentFreak said illegal downloads of Hell's Kitchen increased
114 percent in the five days after it aired last week, and MasterChef
downloads were up 189 percent following the enforced waiting period.
Fox last week announced it would delay its shows from airing on the
free sites for eight days, an effort, it said, to both protect the
value of its content and the business of its pay-TV partners. It did
strike a deal allowing authenticated subscribers of Dish Network
(Nasdaq:DISH) and premium site Hulu Plus to watch the episodes within
24 hours, but that's so, well, pre-Millennial. And, despite Fox's
attempt to rouse the rabble into pressuring operators via a virtual
mail campaign to adopt its TV Everywhere initiative, not a single
cable company or telco has joined the fray. With the launch of Fox'
new Fall season just weeks away, especially its big hit, Glee, that
can't be sending any feel-good vibes to Hollywood.
Is anyone really surprised that piracy is on the upswing? As
TorrentFreak pointed out, Hulu's increasing popularity has coincided
with a drastic decline in TV-show piracy. Viewers have generally been
comfortable watching the shows--and the advertising they
carried--legally on the website.
