Bill posted earlier somewhat chiding Hulu CEO Jason Kilar for talking like he’s his own man rather than ultimately accountable to ABC, CBS and NBC. Jason doesn’t want more ads.
I won’t chide Jason for the desire. From a product perspective, Hulu is a much, much better product than you would’ve gotten if you’d have let NBC and FOX (and now ABC) design it to begin with. And having fewer ads definitely makes for a much better customer experience. But barring some amazing shift, it’s not going to work for Hulu. Having a great product that customers love doesn’t matter much if you can’t make much money from it. Especially if its investors don’t like its direction or worse, feel threatened by its existence.
The networks want more commercials for online and On Demand viewing, not less.
As Bill noted, the TV networks (both broadcast and cable) are anxious for Nielsen to roll out its “TV Everywhere” measurement where they will be able to include the same national ads that ran on TV online and on On Demand services and be paid for the viewership of those commercials under the same C3 measurement currently existing for TV (live commercial plus 3 days worth of DVR viewing).
When Nielsen finally rolls this out, what you can count on is the same national ads (roughly 16 minutes worth for shows that are scheduled for one hour). This is a huge increase over what currently happens online (and not just for Hulu).
What does “TV Everywhere” measurement mean for Hulu?
Today, nothing. Nielsen isn’t planning on rolling the new measurement out until 2011. But pressure is mounting, particularly from some cable networks who have their big season in the summer to get it rolled out by summer 2010.
It will be interesting to see what Hulu will do. If Jason Kilar says “No, I’m not airing videos with 15 minutes of commercials in them on Hulu,” you can pretty much count on no new episodes of TV shows going up on Hulu for about four days.
If Hulu agrees, it will be interesting to see how Hulu would even be paid for showing TV shows loaded with the same national ads they aired on TV with since Hulu would’ve played no role in selling those ads.
Hulu Needs New Episodes of TV Shows To Continue Growing
Advertising Age’s Michael Learmonth did a write-up on Hulu’s recent traffic growth and how important popular TV shows (plus the addition of ABC shows) are to that growth. But the most chilling part of that write-up to me (at least if I am Kilar) isn’t the quote Bill used in his earlier post about how Kilar doesn’t plan to add more ads, but this analysis from Learmonth:
It’s also an indication that increasingly, Hulu is driven by the network hits — and not the long tail of library shows like “A-Team” or “The Lone Ranger.” The emerging rule of thumb: the more popular network TV fare on the service, the more viewing at Hulu.
In a world where the long tail of library shows was the primary driver of traffic for Hulu, Kilar would have an easier time setting the agenda. But Kilar doesn’t live in that world. For now, all Kilar can do is cite what a small percentage of the overall library the new shows are and hope nobody notices that the lion’s share of the library isn’t responsible for the lion’s share of the traffic. But, sadly for Kilar, it’s too late. People are already noticing.
Hulu Can’t Make Up Revenue Differences With High Premiums On Fewer Ads
Last TV season, FOX tried an experiment it called “remote free” where it ran only 10 minutes of national ads instead of 16 minutes for the heavily DVRd (at least on a percentage basis) Fringe and Dollhouse. The experiment did achieve its desired goal of having fewer people skip ads — fewer people changed the channel when commercials came on, and fewer people fast-forwarded if they were watching on their DVRs.
But FOX scrapped the experiment this year for a very good reason. It couldn’t sell the remaining 10 minutes at high enough premiums to offset the missing six minutes. Is that a solvable problem for FOX and the broadcast nets? Perhaps. But that’s going from about 16 minutes to about 10 minutes. Show’s that are scheduled for an hour on TV typically have only 3.5 minutes of commercials on Hulu, it would need to triple to get to even 10 minutes. If FOX couldn’t figure out how to offset 6 minutes of fewer commercials with premiums, I don’t see how Hulu can hope to offset 12 minutes.
Perhaps Hulu Isn’t Headed To The Deadpool, But It’s Heading Towards Being Less Relevant.
For now, the real money for TV advertising is with the ads that air on TV. That’s why the networks are so keen on Nielsen counting online viewing of the same ads that ran on TV within 3 days.
Even if Hulu DOES show those same ads for the 3 days after the shows aired, it added little to no value in the ad sales and so is less relevant in that world. If they don’t show the ads with the national commercial loads, more people will watch directly from the network’s web sites (I know some people will say that they will wait 3 days rather than use ABC.com’s player, but many people wouldn’t) and Hulu will be less relevant.
Hulu would still have value as a distribution hub, but the question is whether that’s the value the networks participating hoped to extract from it. Hulu can add more commercials, perhaps even at a premium, for the long tail shows, but if the long tail isn’t a significant portion of its traffic, that isn’t going to matter much.
Well, Robert, I know that you are more tech savvy than I am, but we can’t live stream at our house for whatever reason we can’t buffer sufficiently, so HULU is pretty irrelevent here already. We do DVR and buy episodes in HD (with no commercials at all) from Amazon.
I think hulu doesn’t approach advertising in an efficient manner. If one were required to register with relevent info the ads could be focused toward your demographic, versus now when I see ads designed for a teenage girl. The advertisers may see a much bigger return for a more limited amount of ad space.
Hulu’s goal, if it has any purpose beyond merely being an experiment, is to become a licensed subscription service for use on internet connected devices – much like youtube, mlb.tv, etc. That doesn’t mean the absence of ads but there is no realistic level of paid advertisements which will make the service profitable. Hulu has to find a reliable, regular revenue source. They could try a subscription model but licensing (essentially a subscription subsidized by a manufacturer) would bring in bigger money
The big question is whether the cable conglomerates will stand for it. Ultimately, I think the networks will have to cut the CableCos into the deal and Hulu will become a branded subset of the CableCos VOD package.
Maybe this is a dumb question, but what’s the difference between going to hulu to watch my shows, or just going to abc.com or fox.com? Doesn’t hulu just provide a link to those sites anyway?
Mel says:
“Well, Robert, I know that you are more tech savvy than I am, but we can’t live stream at our house for whatever reason we can’t buffer sufficiently, so HULU is pretty irrelevent here already.”
Similarly, Hulu went to hell for OS X 10.3.9 several months ago. Megavideo, on the other hand, provides dandy full-screen streaming and a more responsive interface.
I think more commercials are a good idea, even though I won’t like sitting through them. If Hulu wants to play with the big boys they’ve got to play like the big boys.
If it was successful, it would prove that this internet content delivery thing isn’t just a pipe dream. That really excites me. If it takes more commercials to make it happen, so be it. They should do it.
The problem with adding more commercials to Hulu content is that it will just drive people back to piracy. As it stands now there I spend less time watching commercials in a Hulu episode than it would take me to download the same show. Once that shifts there is no reason for me visit Hulu anymore.
Bob, that is an issue, but I don’t think it’s as big of an issue as you do. Time will tell.
Boris, you really need to upgrade.
Kevin is right. Even those who aren’t tech-savvy will recruit nephews, cousins or the neighbor’s kids to help them find their favorite shows. Product placement and pay-per-view are the ways to go.
The real question is how long will any of the online or on demand models that depend on commercial viewing work at all? DVR saturation is really going to decimate online and on demand viewing eventually, and piracy may just finish them off completely. Both of those avenues are still increasing on a regular basis, and there is no reason to think that the DVR won’t eventually reach a plus-90% saturation point. When that happens is anyone’s guess, but I can’t see any way that it isn’t invertible that the DVR eventually becomes as ubiquitous as the VCR and DVD player rolled into one.
And simple piracy (meaning the personal one time downloading, viewing and disposing of shows that one has missed) is also becoming easier and easier to accomplish. Kevin is right. It is now easier to download a show and watch it on your computer–or even burn it to DVD–than it is to sit through 16 minutes of commercials. And if you don’t have the ability to do that yet, you probably soon will. The availability of the internet speed needed to do so just keeps expanding monthly, and the tech requirements beyond having a fast connection are now startlingly simple. Anyone can do it.
So, it just seems that eventually the need to view anything at a network’s site will just sink to a very small subset of people. Those who can’t accommodate all their viewing needs via their DVR will be able to quickly and easily download and view any show they want on their own, without any need to interface with the network or HULU. So, who will be left to watch networks’ online and on demand ads, and how many of them will be in the demographic for which advertisers will be willing to pay?
This make take 20 years to accomplish, but it’s already going to take the networks years to adapt to the state of things just as they are today. They still have not been able to come to grips with the the technological advances that are eating into their business right now. The money being made online and from On Demand is nowhere close to off setting what they have lost from traditional viewing. They are bleeding like a sieve, and even the successful ones are getting kicked in the groin from the money they are not making thanks, at least in part, to people who are already able to watch their shows without being counted thanks to DVR use and/or piracy. It make take ten years for them come up with a serious and sustainable model that addresses today’s problems, only to find that tomorrow’s problems will make that solution almost irrelevant upon arrival. Online and on demand viewing are already behind the eight ball because their availability lags so far behind DVR and piracy availability, so making them more making unpalatable–thanks to more commercials–hardly seems a sustainable business model.
Short term, no doubt, force all the ads you can on people. But they better be thinking of a long term solution at the same time. Because, in the end, those ads only drive people to adapt to the existing and freely available technologies that are already making those ads increasingly meaningless.
The nets may wake up one day to find that their own initial online and on demand strategies only ended up accelerating their own downfall.
Ahh, it gives me chills.
A few points:
1. Hulu (and the networks, for that matter) could improve commercial delivery by making the commercial the same screen size as the program (and thus, not having the viewer shrink for commercials, when you’re watching in full screen). They can also make commercials contiguous with the programming by eliminating the “Click to continue” after the ad, going for no more than 30 second per commercial. That’s one of my biggest pet peeves with watching online, especially if I’m watching on my big screen TV (hooked up to a computer).
2. They should be able to get advertisers to pony up more for online commercials because: a) they can’t be skipped, and b) in short bursts, people aren’t likely to switch screens and do something else while the commercial airs. Computer delivery of ads is much, much different than TV delivery, and the networks and advertisers MUST recognize this going forward. Those watch on the computer are a captive audience, unlike those watching live or with a DVR. Even by switching screens during an ad, you’re still hearing it.
If Hulu and the network sites were to fix the problems I pointed out in point #1, I would be willing to watch up to 10 minutes of commercials per hour. That’s not excessive. 16? No. The networks need to get advertisers to buy into point #2, which is a very valid point, and pony up a premium for online to make up for (some) of the additional minutes. When all is said and done, at no point is the viewing of a TV show going to be primarily through Hulu or online. Not now, not in 10 years. Thus, the networks can’t expect to make the same amount of money online as they do live. It’s setting themselves up for disappointment.
Doug, I agree with you about point 1. I understand where you’re coming from with point 2 and agree with much of it, but I think it’s much easier said than sold. advertisers technically don’t pay for people who don’t watch the commercials under C3 measurement. That’s average commercial viewing, not program viewing. Your points about a captive audience still hold, and ultimately there should be more viewing of each commercial spot. To a lesser degree, FOX accomplished the same thing with “Remote Free” for Fringe, but couldn’t offset the lost revenue of fewer commercials with premiums on the remaining spots.
The other thing that will make it difficult is the networks really want C3 measurement across TV, online, and On-Demand. The only way that works is if the exact same national ad spots run everywhere. If there’s truly more money to be made on the captive online audience, ultimately that can be overcome.
The networks don’t expect to make the same amount of revenue for online viewing as TV viewing. But they want the “ratings” for online viewing to count the same way C3 does.
Hulu as part of C3 would not make it less relevant. Hulu ads can replace network and local spots.
Many people already wait 8 days for FX shows. Some wait a month for South Park.
The on-demand content model is not going anywhere but needs a revenue model to go with it. The easier you make it the less DRVing and downloading and piracy over time.
I really think that a paradigm shift in both advertising and content revenue will have to happen.
I personally think that advertising has to change to be more integrated into the content. The 3-4 minute commercial break will not survive long term. There are just too many ways around this and will always be.
Maybe someday HULU will even make it to Canada…
With on-demand you could track what is being watching. This could lead to being able to provide upstream revenue on a per view basis to the content creator. Also you could profile the watcher and provide more directed integrated advertising that has more value. Also you could actually track what commercials that I have seen and not keep repeating them. There is real potential to drive more value in advertising here.
A new model based on subscription fees and product integration into programs seems to be the only real model that will work in the coming years. As Mike said, the 4 minutes commercial block will not survive long. It’s already too easy for the home viewer to self-eliminate it, and it’s only getting easier.
On Demand package deals as opposed to pay per view is what will become the winning model. It is the most profitable and the easiest to deliver. Hulu is the only service provider capable of delivering that right now. First to market is usually the winner.
Drastically increasing ad time on Hulu will drive away Hulu users — lengthy ads on a computer are more annoying than on TV. Why don’t the networks look at Hulu and on demand services etc. as a way to interest new viewers in a series or keep people interested who missed an episode?
I think the way networks provide content for Hulu, On Demand services etc. is foolish. They only pprovide 1-5 of the most recent episodes. That may be fine for current watchers of the show, but it’s not the way to draw in new viewers. Some people (like me) “try out” a new show on Hulu to see if it is worth watching on TV. To draw in these people, why not have the first few episodes of the entire series available so people can see the exposition setting up the plot and characters. People who enjoy those episodes might buy prior seasons on DVD and follow the current season on TV and DVR. It’s very short-sighted of them not to do this. I had been interested in trying several new series but lost interest when I could not find the first “set up” epiosde without buying it.
Also I’ve noticed that Hulu has been losing some older content; for example, it once had the first three seasons of Buffy but recently two seasons disappeared.
J.R.. it’s true, Hulu could make up the difference and the shows would then have exactly the same commercial loads online. But it would only count for a very small portion of the advertising revenue.
The 8 days delayed episodes of HOUSE are typically among the most viewed episodes on HULU for any given week, but lacking any equivalent data (number of streams & avg. minutes per stream) we don’t know how many are really watching.
I suppose the other side to this argument is C3 could be good for Hulu because shows that are typically delayed 8 days would no longer be delayed.
If I may throw in my two cents here. In my opinion, there is a yet small but growing group of people who are sick of TV in general. This, along with the tanked economy, have some people rethinking why they pay $100-150 for cable when they don’t watch 90% of what’s on it. I researched Hulu and other sites and found that the shows I like to watch are readily available, so I ditched my cable. Now, for no additional charge (so far), I can watch what I want, when I want. Even if Hulu does start a premium service, it more than likely won’t be as much as a monthly cable charge. It’s a win win in my world.
If Hulu wants to be the captian of its own ship it has to do what the cable channels figured out a long time ago. Meaning that compelling original content that is exclusive to Hulu should be king. Then they won’t just be an echo to whatever the broadcast nets are putting out. This would give them leaverage to get advetisers not dependant what ads the nets might want them to run.
Also if people ditching cable and willing to pay a small subscription fee for to be free of some or all of the ads why not use that as a revenue stream too?
As a small start, Hulu has anime shows like Naruto that used to show on the Cartoon Network. If they can make shows like that mostly exclusvie to Hulu they could drive a lot of traffic that will justify increased ad rates to advertisers.
Im a 22 year old male. When Hulu launched, it was a closed Beta, requiring registration. Hulu has my age and sex. So why am I getting shown a tampon ad? Hulu should target viewers better. As it is now, they dont even target by show. I get the same ads for Fringe that I do for Modern Family.
The real question is how long will any of the online or on demand models that depend on commercial viewing work at all? DVR saturation is really going to decimate online and on demand viewing eventually, and piracy may just finish them off completely. Both of those avenues are still increasing on a regular basis, and there is no reason to think that the DVR won’t eventually reach a plus-90% saturation point. When that happens is anyone’s guess, but I can’t see any way that it isn’t invertible that the DVR eventually becomes as ubiquitous as the VCR and DVD player rolled into one.
And simple piracy (meaning the personal one time downloading, viewing and disposing of shows that one has missed) is also becoming easier and easier to accomplish. Kevin is right. It is now easier to download a show and watch it on your computer–or even burn it to DVD–than it is to sit through 16 minutes of commercials. And if you don’t have the ability to do that yet, you probably soon will. The availability of the internet speed needed to do so just keeps expanding monthly, and the tech requirements beyond having a fast connection are now startlingly simple. Anyone can do it.
So, it just seems that eventually the need to view anything at a network’s site will just sink to a very small subset of people. Those who can’t accommodate all their viewing needs via their DVR will be able to quickly and easily download and view any show they want on their own, without any need to interface with the network or HULU. So, who will be left to watch networks’ online and on demand ads, and how many of them will be in the demographic for which advertisers will be willing to pay?
This make take 20 years to accomplish, but it’s already going to take the networks years to adapt to the state of things just as they are today. They still have not been able to come to grips with the the technological advances that are eating into their business right now. The money being made online and from On Demand is nowhere close to off setting what they have lost from traditional viewing. They are bleeding like a sieve, and even the successful ones are getting kicked in the groin from the money they are not making thanks, at least in part, to people who are already able to watch their shows without being counted thanks to DVR use and/or piracy. It make take ten years for them come up with a serious and sustainable model that addresses today’s problems, only to find that tomorrow’s problems will make that solution almost irrelevant upon arrival. Online and on demand viewing are already behind the eight ball because their availability lags so far behind DVR and piracy availability, so making them more making unpalatable–thanks to more commercials–hardly seems a sustainable business model.
Short term, no doubt, force all the ads you can on people. But they better be thinking of a long term solution at the same time. Because, in the end, those ads only drive people to adapt to the existing and freely available technologies that are already making those ads increasingly meaningless.
The nets may wake up one day to find that their own initial online and on demand strategies only ended up accelerating their own downfall.
Ahh, it gives me chills.
@Matsuri – they cannot ever get exclusive rights to libraries of content. It would be exorbitant.
@Stumped – once Comcast has its version of the TV everywhere viewer (different than the measurement product) the cost of programming will increase. And, without cable subscriptions, carriage fees will wither, and program production will increasingly rely on coproduction from the UAE.
@CD – the networks aren’t the key, the cable providers are.
Robert’s argument is pretty on point in this piece, Hulu is a property in a media ecology that is rapidly growing. They are talking as if they are a keystone to that ecology, when they are not. The heart of the ecology is the flow of new material into the collective content library, which they could easily be iced out of.
Dan – Depends on the libraries of stuff you’re talking about. There aren’t a lot of broadcast outlets nowdays for anime shows nowdays. Cartoon Network used to be one of main places until they figured out its more profitable to produce more of their stuff in house. If Hulu can position itself as the place to go for shows like Naruto, the starved for exposure companies that would probably be willing to cut reasonable deals.
Anyway that was just a for instance example. The other route that the cable channels figured out is that Hulu needs to produce their own original programing.
Well as a net viewer of TV programming. I can tell ya right now that if I have a choice of watching a show online with one 15 second commercial in each break or full on commercial breaks I will watch the first one.
Frankly I think Neilsen must be on crack if they think people will want to sit thru all those commercials when they don’t have to.
One of the problems with the Hulu library is that there aren’t enough of the older shows on it. A user visits Hulu, browses through their library, and finds maybe three or four dead TV shows that they’re actually interested in watching. There’s a whole flood of garbage shows on Hulu because most of the popular dead shows are still selling DVDs.
Otherwise Hulu has a great TV viewer, consolidates the newest shows from three networks, and has useful features like setting up your queue. It’s no wonder people like Hulu for the new hits, it’s just a shame that there isn’t more there to watch.
Hulu is going to be around for awhile. They’ll make sure to protect their own existence. Right now we are in the golden age of online viewing because no one has cared enough to get their controlling hands on it. But now that networks are going ballistic, there will probably be a lot of changes in the coming years to how, when, and what we watch online. My assumption is that it will be exactly like watching it on TV now, except at the moment of our choosing.
It’s currently 18 minutes of ads per hour so I’m guessing that 2 minutes of those must be local ads. It’s totally DISGUSTING in my opinion. TV shows in the 60s only had 8 minutes of commercials per hour. They now have 18 minutes of commercials per hour for primetime. I know this since I archive shows I love (not that many) onto DVD via my PC after I cut out the commercials. It shocks me that sometimes the commercial breaks are longer than a TV show program segment.
The networks just don’t get it. No one that can help it and find a way around it is going to watch 18 minutes of commercials per hour. Essentially those commercials aren’t worth much because people aren’t watching them. If they had fewer commercials (no more than 10 minutes per hour) then people might actually not go to lengths to avoid them and they’d actually be worth something.
They can’t even show repeats of older shows without slicing them to death because their runtime was so much longer.
My guess is that in 10-20 years the networks as we know it won’t exist and neither will cable TV. It will all be on demand and you’ll pay a subscription through a provider. You don’t need 100 channels when most of them are showing repeats of older shows. There isn’t that much original programming to support many channels. With the remote and DVR, there isn’t much advantage to lead-in programs and a programming block which was a mainstay on network TV. It’s not like in the old days where you had to get up, walk over to the TV and turn the knob to change the channel. And it’s not like you don’t have enough time on a commercial break now to go put in a load of laundry. You don’t need to rush back not to miss part of the show because if you do the commercial will still be on these days.
And if you do happen to miss a show just wait less than 6 months and it will be out on DVD where you can buy or rent it and not see any commercials.
Clearly, this talk for me falls into the “who cares?” category. Can’t get Hulu in Canada. Can’t be bothered surfing around for episodes. Such junk on television these days; I have a standard cable package of more than, what, 150 channels? Ridiculous. I could live with about 10.
If the networks want C3 across the board rating system, what may need to happen is that they get Hulu to run the same ads as they do nationally and cut them in.
Form a personal standpoint, for me and many of my friends, we do not watch a show the minute it airs. I personally only watch commercials on HULU. I appreciate the minimum of ads and I sit through them without it bothering me. When I have a show on DVR (and I have some of the same shows on both) I do not watch the commercials.
Having worked in the Rental business for so long, I believe HULU works similarly. The studios wanted to not allow rentals of their product. They actually wanted it to be that you could only buy the movies and not rent them. When that was actually tried it was a disaster. People like to know what they are buying before they buy it. Rentals actually increase sells.
To me the HULU concept is the same thing. I use HULU to try things I would have never normally thought to watch in the first place. I now watch Modern Family, Community, and Cougar Town because of HULU. Had it not for being able to watch it that way, I would not be a fan. I hope the Networks realize the importance of this for sales of boxed sets and in residuals. Whatever they may think they lose because of not having some eyes glued during original airing, they more than make up for with the backend and word of mouth generated otherwise (including HULU).
The networks only run 11 minutes of ads in a one hour primetime program.
The remaining 6 to 7 minutes consists mostly of network promos and local time.
CD, why did you repost my entire comment?
@Matsuri – I agree in principle, but I question if the price points match up. In the anime example, the producer would need to have a large enough cut to make up for not being on multiple sites, but the revenue created by the stream wouldn’t be enough to make the deal sweet enough for all the parties involved.
@Carol – the empirical evidence says that your theory about commercials has been tested and it didn’t work. As for the end of television as a form, the demise of flow has been greatly exaggerated.
“I researched Hulu and other sites and found that the shows I like to watch are readily available, so I ditched my cable.”
This is exactly why Hulu has no long-term future.
In order to survive the broadcast networks must develop a meaningful revenue stream from cable affiliate fees.
But the cable operators will not pay, and have no reason to pay, if the programming they’re being asked to pay for is available online for free 24/7/365.
Inevitably cable operators will insist that online viewing only be available to users who can authenticate that they are paying cable subscribers.
Hulu’s future is as a password-protected site with the same commercial loads as over-the-air broadcasters.
Dan – For the anime example, revenue made from streamng video is just a bonus for the anime companies because most of their money is made from sales of DVDs and related items(did you know some bookstores sell Naruto energy drinks?). That’s the reason they liked it when Cartoon Network showed a lot of anime shows in the past: increased exposure to millions = big DVD sales later.
Original programing exclusive to Hulu doesn’t have to be costly. The Funny or Die site does this, sometimes with name brand actors and producers to boot. This would drive traffic even more and give Hulu a reason for being just an echo for whatever the ‘nets put out. Since personally for me the ony reason I go to Hulu right now is watch episodes of shows that I missed(which isn’t that often).
“Similarly, Hulu went to hell for OS X 10.3.9 several months ago.”
Mine works fine. Everytime Hulu stops working for me properly, I check the updates for Flash Player. Usually there is an upgrade required.
If there are too many ads on Hulu, I agree it will keep people downloading illegally and encourage more users to do the same. I’m already paying a ridiculously high bill for cable/internet living in Los Angeles. I’m not going to sign up for an additional subscription fee anywhere else.
They should try remote free with more popular shows. Not being able to get premium for Dollhouse and Fringe is unsurprising. If they were to do it for more popular shows it might be able to pull in more money.
@Julia: If I can scrounge up some 10.4 media (Apple won’t sell it to me), I may, but I’m not going any further than that with OS X. As an original NeXTstation owner, I was hoping for much more. A GUI that by design cannot competently handle point-to-focus doesn’t cut it.
@Kalena: If you’re updating Flash, you’re not using 10.3.9, for which Flash 10 isn’t available.
Hulu is irrelevant because as a more and more tech-savvy generation grows up and becomes the ones dealing with things, the less and less the hurdles towards pirate distribution will act to limit people from pirating things.
That’s not an ignoring the need for profit in the IP industry by any means — what it is is an acknowledgment that the entire system of IP reward needs a massive overhaul to make it into the digital distribution era. It’s clear from Cable TV’s business model that people are willing to pay for content. And if the nets got ten cents per viewer per show, that adds up to real money.
The existing system for copyright is dead — D-E-A-D — dead.
As John Perry Barlow noted in his Wired article “The Economy of Ideas” fifteen years ago: “It’s time to stop rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic of existing copyright law”.
Time to stop rearranging the deck chairs on the