NBC's iTunes return may hinge on offline piracy filtering
NBC made it clear this week that it would like to resume selling its television programming through the iTunes Store, but only if Apple makes changes to its client software that would allow it to serve as the gatekeeper for all forms of potentially pirated media.
"If you look at studies about MP3 players, especially leading MP3 players and what portion of that content is pirated, and think about how that content gets onto that device, it has to go through a gatekeeping piece of software, which would be a convenient place to put some antipiracy measures," he said "One of the big issues for NBC is piracy. We are financially harmed every day by piracy."
Since Apple already embeds digital rights management (DRM) software within each audio and video file it sells, it appears that Kliavkoff is requesting that the company go a step further and police every piece of digital media a user imports into his or her iTunes library, regardless of its origin.
Oddly, when NBC Universal yanked its TV shows from iTunes last fall, the primary issue was reported to be pricing, not piracy. It's now clear, however, the television studio is seeking concessions in both areas.
"We'd love to be on iTunes. It has a great customer experience," Kliavkoff said. "We'd love to figure out a way to distribute our content on iTunes."
In addition to the added anti-piracy measures, NBC wants the right to determine the cost Apple pays for its programming, not the other way around.
"They can mark up the price and make a profit or use it as a loss leader to get people in the door," Kliavkoff said. "It's really difficult for us to work with any distribution partner who says 'Here's the wholesale price and the retail price,' especially when the price doesn't reflect the full value of the product."
Prior to the fallout between the two parties, NBC supplied the iTunes Store with over 1,500 hours of programming that accounted for more than 30 percent of the service's television show revenues, including three of the 10 best selling shows during the summer season.
100 Comments
Guess who would stop using the iTunes/iPod ecosystem if this happened?
The piracy bit is such nonsense. There is no widespread piracy of iTunes videos. They're much safer than DVDs or TV broadcasts.
The piracy bit is such nonsense. There is no widespread piracy of iTunes videos. They're much safer than DVDs or TV broadcasts.
If you ask me, this is a sure early sign that Hulu isn't working, and NBC wants to come back to iTunes in the worst way. But they're trying to save face by attacking Apple again.
This guy played his hand, and lost big time. Steve called his bluff.
Give it a year, at most. Kliavkoff will be fired, and NBC will be back on iTunes, with none of these draconian measures implemented. There's simply no way Steve will agree to any of it. Not the variable pricing, not the anti-piracy. None of it.
So how are they going to determine whether it's legitimate content or not?
I'm sure there are a lot of iPods with mostly pirated material. The rest of the non-itunes sourced stuff may be legitimate format-shift or time-shift material.
It doesn't matter what NBC does, or what iTunes does for NBC (or themselves for that matter), it's going to be impossible to stop the illicit distribution,
It's all pretty silly once you consider that NBC is broadcast "in the clear". Hamstringing the iPod is only going to drive the file traders to buy Chinese brand players that will just play just about any pirated format.