Might the television networks get it?
November 14, 2005 by FredMy theory is that Warner (and the rest of the television industry) doesn’t want to make the same mistakes that their older (as well as rage filled) sister made by suing everyone on the net into oblivion before they realize the utility and profit potential of the Internet. So they’re planning on releasing thousands of unairing, cancelled, and old television episodes for free over the internet. The shows will have brief ads which will drive revenue, but the network executives obviously see internet distribution for what it is — a cheap and easy way to release content for free in order to drive interest in other products.Though the shows won’t be really downloadble, open, or even comercial-skippable, this is a step in the right direction. They could be spending their time and money suing BitTorrent trackers, but instead they’re going into legitimate competition with those sites. This how it should be. The New York Times has a full article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/14/business/14warner.html.
-fcb
