9 ms·

Blackout Forces Fred Wilson to Pirate The Knicks. What Would Congress Think?

90 points by bproper 15y ago

technoslut 15y ago
There's no question that Cablevision is acting like a bunch of jerks because they own the Knicks, Rangers and MSG. They have drastically increased their fees over the past decade like every other cable company has. That said, Fred Wilson is not paying for MSG technically so it is piracy if he doesn't get it from the MSG network. I've had to deal with many years of Cablevision fighting higher fees and blackouts from networks in which the fees are later passed onto the consumer. Frankly I have no sympathy.
- bproper 15y ago
  But he already pays for Time Warner cable, NBA League Pass, and Knicks tickets. Why should he suffer because MSG is greedy?
  - technoslut 15y ago
    1. He's not paying for MSG technically because Time Warner doesn't have the rights. 2. The League Pass is not for home teams. Every team has their own individual hometown deals and they want you to watch it on whatever network they make a deal with. The League Pass does not apply here. 3. Knicks tickets grant you a right to see the game in person and nothing else. Since Wilson is paying the price for season tickets that most spend their whole lives paying the same price for a house in NY, I'd suggest he go to watch them live. I don't agree with these policies but this is what happens when you let cable companies buy networks. It should've stopped during the Cablevision acquisition of MSG but it has continued onward with Comcast and NBC.
    - marknutter 15y ago
      You don't agree with these policies yet you say you have no sympathy? Odd.
      - technoslut 15y ago
        No, I don't have sympathy. My sympathy goes to people who are actually struggling in this world and not for an investor who can afford Knicks tickets that is complaining about not being able to watch them on TV for a few days or weeks in a season that has already been delayed.
        marknutter 15y ago
        Oh, so only those who are truly struggling get to complain. Gotcha.
        deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
        deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
    - epc 15y ago
      Technically he's paid for MSG for January (Time Warner pre-bills a month ahead, I just checked my bill). Neither TW nor MSG have offered us a refund of the January fee.
  - dodedo 15y ago
    Why? Because IP laws are incredibly unjust, that's why.
  - mitchellhislop 15y ago
    This is the point that I hope gets taken away from this - piracy is often a last resort or because of the company people are pirating from, not out of laziness, greed, or wanting it for free. Sure, that does happen, but I have seen a lot of people buy a game from EA, and then pirate it to get a DRM and Origin free copy, since those often work better and crash less than the DRM ones. EA could easily do away with it, and piracy would drop. Companies need to realize the cause and effect of piracy.
marknutter 15y ago
As a non-cable subscriber and a big NBA fan, I find blackouts unbelievably frustrating. There is simply no legal way to watch some live NBA games unless you pay for cable. I'm constantly having to route my NBA broadband league pass through a proxy to watch my home team, and the only workaround for nationally televised games is to pirate them from sites like sportlemon.tv. It's a classic case of frustrating customer experiences pushing users to piracy. If the NBA provided a way for me to legally pay to watch every game over the internet, I would gladly do so. In order to legally do this I have to have both a cable or satellite service in addition to a league pass subscription. I understand that a fair amount of revenue for the NBA is probably coming from the deals it made with TNT, EPSN, and Fox, but a viewer is a viewer, whether they're watching from the net or through traditional venues - why do they care, so long as their advertisers are getting enough eyeballs?
- MatthewPhillips 15y ago
  I actually have more respect for people who pirate to get things for free than people who pirate and claim that they're only doing it because X condition isn't met. X could be that it's not in the format you want, that it's not at the price point you want, or any number of other things. The publishers business model is their business model, good or bad. Own up to your decision to pirate.
  - Deezul 15y ago
    It's this line of thinking that will eventually send old media to the grave. They’ll hang on for a while, grasping at the golden years of yore, but if they don’t adapt to demands they will die. It’s not about “excuses”, it’s about reality, facts. If technology and the convenience it affords isn’t used as a medium to enhance customer experience it will be its demise.
    - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
      > but if they don’t adapt to demands they will die. No business can meet all demands. I think this is what annoys me the most about the "I pirate because I'm underserved" crowd. They act like not getting what you want is unique to our times. Unique to the internet. It's not. People in all walks of life, in all times, have had to deal with not getting everything they want. Had to deal with making compromises. In this particular case Fred had several options to see the basketball game. He has season tickets. He could have chosen a different way to pay for television (I don't live in NY but I'm assuming it has DirectTV or Dish Network or some other option besides just Time Warner). He made the choice that he made, but was unwilling to accept the downside it came with. In the business world we call these entitled customers. These are the types of people who bring back clothes 2 years after the purchase and get huffy when the store won't return them.
RexRollman 15y ago
It is an interesting question. For example: is it wrong to download MP3s of songs you already own on CD? I don't believe so, but I bet you the RIAA would consider it so, even though they got paid.
- mbreese 15y ago
  This isn't the same thing at all. In this case, someone wanted to watch the Knicks. However, he had no way to do so, regardless of how much he paid Time Warner. TW didn't pay MSG, so TW doesn't have a right to show the game. NBA League pass doesn't cover home games, so that option was out too. The only way he could have watched the game legally was to either A) go to the game, or B) figure out some way to hook up a satellite dish with DirecTV (who I think does pay MSG rates for some tiers), or C) rent an apartment in a different cable company's market and hook up a Slingbox (it would have to be his Slingbox and cable sub, not a friends for it to be legit). With the CD, you have a license to listen to the music. If you download MP3s of the music (assuming the source was identical to yours), all you have done is outsourced the conversion of the CD to MP3 format. The other person may not have the right to distribute those MP3s, but you should have the right to listen to them (however you obtain them). (The RIAA has argued otherwise - that you just get the physical media with no rights, but I thought they were found to be wrong in court, but I can't remember the case)
- drivingmenuts 15y ago
  Which is strange because it's actually easier rip them than have to hunt down a high-quality version, if you have some obscure titles.
- pyre 15y ago
  They would still try to nail you for distribution if you were sharing those mp3s or used bittorrent to download them.
- slowpoke 15y ago
  >I don't believe so, but I bet you the RIAA would consider it so, even though they got paid. If the RIAA had it their way, you'd probably be forced to pay every single time you play a track on your computer or hit the Copy command to put it on your PMP or phone.
illumin8 15y ago
As a non-sports fan, I find it depressing that it takes this level of stupidity to get the masses angry with the cable companies. I voted with my wallet (the cable companies don't get a dime of my money) years ago. Perhaps this level of stupidity on the part of the broadcasters is what it will take to convince the average congressman that SOPA is wrong.
- brudgers 15y ago
  As a rational adult, I find the moral outrage expressed over GoDaddy's stance in regards to SOPA misplaced when one considers the willingness of so many people to write checks every month to the media companies who are behind it as part and parcel of their cable subscriptions.
  - Bud 15y ago
    Misplaced? Most people can't afford to take moral stances on issues if they have to make an untenable choice as a result. GoDaddy can be replaced by another registrar quite easily. But cable providers tend to have a monopoly. Similarly, none of us like funding Exxon, but we still need cars.
    - brudgers 15y ago
      Unlike Godaddy's tangential interest, the cable companies and their media partners are the force driving SOPA. In addition, the amount of money cable subscribers spend doing business with these companies each month is typically an order of magnitude greater than what Godaddy sees from a domain registration each year. Cable TV is no more a necessity for the most vast majority of people who oppose SOPA than Godaddy. Instead, it is simply another convenience. Moral outrage over Godaddy is convenient, but are you seriously arguing that going without cable in order to oppose SOPA would cause one too much suffering?
    - r00fus 15y ago
      An example of an untenable choice is say skipping a meal a week so your kid gets to see the doctor. Losing your cable TV is not one, especially in this day and age of Netflix and AppleTV/Roku direct sports channels.
mbreese 15y ago
If the game was on NBA League pass, why couldn't he have watched the Raptors (vistors) feed? Even though it was broadcast locally on MSG, couldn't he have viewed the visiting teams broadcast online? Or do they check your IP address/cable provider in order to see NBA League pass (and thus blackout local games)? What about routing the game though a VPN? The only legal solutions I see would be: a) go to the game, or b) dump Time Warner and get a dish (not an easy prospect in NYC). It sucks to be a pawn in a larger game...
- marknutter 15y ago
  They base it on your IP address, and yes, going through a VPN or proxy solves this problem (although it technically violates their TOS).
jrockway 15y ago
The NBA is a great example of how individual consumers are not their customer. You want to pay money to watch NBA games, but you can't. The owners want money through ticket sales, so if you live in the "home market", you don't get to watch the game on TV. But, the owners also want money from TV deals. But they don't want your $20 to watch the game on TV, they want ABC's $3 billion (or whatever) for the right to charge you whatever ("watch these ads") to see the game. So there is no actual incentive to give you what you want; there is only incentive to sell games to networks at as high a price as possible. (Also, sell advertising, and modify the game's rules to ensure that there is extra advertising at the 7 minute and 3 minute mark.) Basically, at one end of the equation is some dudes passing a ball around. At the other end of the equation, is you watching that. In the middle, of course, there are the middlemen, and they all want a huge cut for doing absolutely nothing. Anti-piracy legislation is all about protecting the middlemen who realize that they do nothing and they need the government to bail them out.
- ryanhuff 15y ago
  Why should the NBA bother with messy details like dealing with fans directly when somebody (networks) gladly pays (up front) for the privilege?
  - marknutter 15y ago
    They already are. NBA League Pass Broadband and Mobile deliver their games in HD and work quite well. Their sitting on the tech and I can only assume that they are preparing for the day when they can kick the networks to the curb.
- slowpoke 15y ago
  >Anti-piracy legislation is all about protecting the middlemen who realize that they do nothing and they need the government to bail them out. Beautifully said. That, my fellow hackers, is copyright and anti-piracy legislation in a nutshell - to serve and protect that which provides no value at the cost of depriving everyone else of their rights. To slightly derive from a well known quote[1] from Henry Ford: If people understood this simple fact about copyright, it would be dead and forgotten before tomorrow morning. [1] "It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."
vectorpush 15y ago
The Daily Show and the Colbert Report somehow manage to get all my friends to watch every single night, commercials and all. That's because they type www.thedailyshow.com and then they can instantly watch the entire week of episodes for free, with Comedy-Central's advertising revenue still intact. The way forward seems pretty clear to me.
- nobody31 15y ago
  Except at some point enough people will watch on comedy central's site that cable companies will stop carrying comedy central - and stop paying them. At that point the site has to make enough from advertising to cover all the channel's costs.
- zdw 15y ago
  That works for timely shows totally owned by the network that broadcasts them. It falls down when there is more than one party involved - for example, shows that are destined for syndication or DVD sales. One example of this is the SyFy channel - they've basically cancelled or let expire all the programs that were being produced by 3rd parties (Universal's "Stargate" franchise, for example) as they paid top dollar for first showing rights, but the 3rd party made all the rebroadcast, serialization, etc. profits. See also how Netflix is starting to produce their own shows they can totally own and sell direct to customers. The future has no middlemen, just people making unique products (art, video, web apps, software, etc.) or money of of standardized interchangeable services (distribution, hosting, connectivity, etc.).
- astrodust 15y ago
  Except Canada...
nsxwolf 15y ago
I don't understand these blackouts. I would think that televising an event will get people excited and make them want to buy tickets so they can see the action in person. It seemed to work that way for the Blackhawks.
silverlight 15y ago
About a year or two ago, I still had cable (I don't anymore), and I had the premium package with all the movie channels. At the time, a new season of Entourage was starting and I wanted to catch my wife up on the previous season. This previous season was not available via HBO On-Demand, they were not showing any re-runs on HBO that I could find, and the DVD of this season was not available in stores yet. There was literally no way I could legally let my wife watch this content (even though I had watched it, legally, the previous year on our HBO subscription, and via on-demand). So, I downloaded it. And I got caught (via a warning letter from our ISP). Shortly thereafter we canceled our cable subscription. I cannot fathom why, as a company, you would make it so hard for someone who is willing to pay you for content to get it. I wouldn't have been happy about having to buy it on DVD since I already have a subscription to HBO (and in my humble opinion, their previous original content should be available via on-demand all the time, although I realize that's a pipe dream), but I would have. Instead, they alienated a customer and lost all my money. That was around two years ago, so at $15/mo. (not sure how much of that goes directly to HBO) $360 has now been lost by them/my cable company for that part of my subscription alone. If they ever allow you to buy into HBO Go (or whatever their online streaming option is called) by itself without a cable subscription I would consider it, but as long as they are stuck in their old-school ways they can forget having me (or most of my friends) as customers. I know this article isn't about HBO, but I just thought I would point out another example of the way that content producers continue to alienate the people who should matter most: the consumer.
- smokinn 15y ago
  HBO spends a lot of money on creating truly premium content. For that reason I would pay for HBO Go. But I can't because I refuse to pay for cable just to get HBO. What would I watch on cable? A bunch of crappy reality tv? No thanks, Netflix has more than enough content to keep me satisfied.
  - silverlight 15y ago
    Sounds like we're in exactly the same boat :-)
brudgers 15y ago
>"Mr. Wilson was unintentionally giving ammunition to the media companies behind the draconian Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), legislation that Mr. Wilson has been fighting so hard against." It's hard to see why this would be a big deal. Mr. Wilson has been giving money to the companies behind SOPA every month as a cable subscriber, and even more money by purchasing the NBA tier. Indeed, his financial support of Copyright Alliance member and a campaign contributor to SOPA sponsor Lamar Smith, Time Warner Cable, is significant. >"Our family spends hundreds of dollars a month with Time Warner Cable."[ http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/01/screwcable.html http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/01/screwcable.html] [Time Warner and Copyright Alliance: http://broadbandbreakfast.com/2010/12/copyright-alliance-picks-time-warner-lawyer-to-head-up-its-lobbying-efforts/ http://broadbandbreakfast.com/2010/12/copyright-alliance-pic...] [Time Warner Cable and Lamar Smith: http://maplight.org/us-congress/legislator/470-lamar-smith http://maplight.org/us-congress/legislator/470-lamar-smith]
GigabyteCoin 15y ago
Technically yes, since most cable is a commercial-subsidized form of media. Whenever I torrent the latest boobtube flick, it usually cuts out 33% of it's total running time or all of the adverts basically.
mbesto 15y ago
One of the big reasons you don't see overnight change/disruption in the cable media companies, is because they continue to sign multi-decade contracts...like this: From[1]: But, um, how much are the Lakers – all by themselves – getting from Time Warner Cable for its new regional sports networks? $5 billion. [1]http://www.ocregister.com/articles/lakers-329235-billion-new.html http://www.ocregister.com/articles/lakers-329235-billion-new...
jdminhbg 15y ago
A few people here seem to be positing that the point of local blackouts online is to increase attendance at games, but it's not. It's to maximize the value of the local TV rights deal, a twenty-year version of which recently netted the LA Lakers $5 billion: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/lakers-329235-billion-new.html http://www.ocregister.com/articles/lakers-329235-billion-new... Regional sports networks, especially those owned by local cable companies, love these deals because of the recurring revenue they get from people like me who would otherwise not have cable at all. Comcast Sportsnet in Philadelphia is the only local outlet for watching the Phillies, so I have Comcast cable.
- Killjoy 15y ago
  Two options for getting around the MLB local area blackout regulations. Both require the MLB.tv subscription, which is $25 / month for high def. (BTW, if you haven't tried MLB.tv, it's really a great product. Many PS3/BlueRay type players have an app for it, too) 1) MLB.tv experimented with a local area only package here in San Diego last year. $20 / mo for just the Padres. 2) Rather than that, I simply used one of my VPS' in another region to create an SSH tunnel through which to route the MLB.tv signal. They use your IP, not your billing address, to determine access.
tptacek 15y ago
This is, like, the 4th Betabeat story I've seen that tried to spin a whole epic news event out of something as insignificant as a single Twitter message. It seems to be their M.O. HN used to block bait sites like this with a much heavier hand.
- Bud 15y ago
  Disagree. Their stories may suck in general, but I find this one highly relevant to the HN audience. This issue infuriates me as a consumer and a tech person. Why do you find this insignificant?
finnw 15y ago
The only bit of "piracy" I have done in the last 5 years was an episode of QI ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QI ) They decided not to air it for political reasons - Jeremy Clarkson was on the panel and they wanted to keep him off the air during a row about something offensive he had said on another show. So I got a copy from an illegal source. I still do not see this as stealing as I had already paid for it (via the UK TV License.)
mhb 15y ago
It doesn't seem to take all that much to drive a respected venture capitalist to open piracy: http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/02/anatomy-of-a-pirate.html http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/02/anatomy-of-a-pirate.html
- finnw 15y ago
  I would just have bought the CD - I don't really understand his objection to that.
runjake 15y ago
My Google-fu is broken this morning and I can't find the context. Who is Fred Wilson and why is it a big deal he allegedly pirated a Knicks game?
- waterside81 15y ago
  He's a prominent VC in the NYC area.
antiterra 15y ago
I don't think anyone was 'forced' to pirate. It's just one basketball game, I'm pretty sure he could have lived a fruitful and satisfying life without seeing it.

90 points by bproper 15y ago

There's no question that Cablevision is acting like a bunch of jerks because they own the Knicks, Rangers and MSG. They have drastically increased their fees over the past decade like every other cable company has. That said, Fred Wilson is not paying for MSG technically so it is piracy if he doesn't get it from the MSG network. I've had to deal with many years of Cablevision fighting higher fees and blackouts from networks in which the fees are later passed onto the consumer. Frankly I have no sympathy.

bproper 15y ago
But he already pays for Time Warner cable, NBA League Pass, and Knicks tickets. Why should he suffer because MSG is greedy?
- technoslut 15y ago
  1. He's not paying for MSG technically because Time Warner doesn't have the rights. 2. The League Pass is not for home teams. Every team has their own individual hometown deals and they want you to watch it on whatever network they make a deal with. The League Pass does not apply here. 3. Knicks tickets grant you a right to see the game in person and nothing else. Since Wilson is paying the price for season tickets that most spend their whole lives paying the same price for a house in NY, I'd suggest he go to watch them live. I don't agree with these policies but this is what happens when you let cable companies buy networks. It should've stopped during the Cablevision acquisition of MSG but it has continued onward with Comcast and NBC.
  - marknutter 15y ago
    You don't agree with these policies yet you say you have no sympathy? Odd.
    - technoslut 15y ago
      No, I don't have sympathy. My sympathy goes to people who are actually struggling in this world and not for an investor who can afford Knicks tickets that is complaining about not being able to watch them on TV for a few days or weeks in a season that has already been delayed.
      - marknutter 15y ago
        Oh, so only those who are truly struggling get to complain. Gotcha.
        deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
        deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
  - epc 15y ago
    Technically he's paid for MSG for January (Time Warner pre-bills a month ahead, I just checked my bill). Neither TW nor MSG have offered us a refund of the January fee.
- dodedo 15y ago
  Why? Because IP laws are incredibly unjust, that's why.
- mitchellhislop 15y ago
  This is the point that I hope gets taken away from this - piracy is often a last resort or because of the company people are pirating from, not out of laziness, greed, or wanting it for free. Sure, that does happen, but I have seen a lot of people buy a game from EA, and then pirate it to get a DRM and Origin free copy, since those often work better and crash less than the DRM ones. EA could easily do away with it, and piracy would drop. Companies need to realize the cause and effect of piracy.

marknutter 15y ago

As a non-cable subscriber and a big NBA fan, I find blackouts unbelievably frustrating. There is simply no legal way to watch some live NBA games unless you pay for cable. I'm constantly having to route my NBA broadband league pass through a proxy to watch my home team, and the only workaround for nationally televised games is to pirate them from sites like sportlemon.tv. It's a classic case of frustrating customer experiences pushing users to piracy. If the NBA provided a way for me to legally pay to watch every game over the internet, I would gladly do so. In order to legally do this I have to have both a cable or satellite service in addition to a league pass subscription. I understand that a fair amount of revenue for the NBA is probably coming from the deals it made with TNT, EPSN, and Fox, but a viewer is a viewer, whether they're watching from the net or through traditional venues - why do they care, so long as their advertisers are getting enough eyeballs?

MatthewPhillips 15y ago
I actually have more respect for people who pirate to get things for free than people who pirate and claim that they're only doing it because X condition isn't met. X could be that it's not in the format you want, that it's not at the price point you want, or any number of other things. The publishers business model is their business model, good or bad. Own up to your decision to pirate.
- Deezul 15y ago
  It's this line of thinking that will eventually send old media to the grave. They’ll hang on for a while, grasping at the golden years of yore, but if they don’t adapt to demands they will die. It’s not about “excuses”, it’s about reality, facts. If technology and the convenience it affords isn’t used as a medium to enhance customer experience it will be its demise.
  - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
    > but if they don’t adapt to demands they will die. No business can meet all demands. I think this is what annoys me the most about the "I pirate because I'm underserved" crowd. They act like not getting what you want is unique to our times. Unique to the internet. It's not. People in all walks of life, in all times, have had to deal with not getting everything they want. Had to deal with making compromises. In this particular case Fred had several options to see the basketball game. He has season tickets. He could have chosen a different way to pay for television (I don't live in NY but I'm assuming it has DirectTV or Dish Network or some other option besides just Time Warner). He made the choice that he made, but was unwilling to accept the downside it came with. In the business world we call these entitled customers. These are the types of people who bring back clothes 2 years after the purchase and get huffy when the store won't return them.

RexRollman 15y ago

It is an interesting question. For example: is it wrong to download MP3s of songs you already own on CD? I don't believe so, but I bet you the RIAA would consider it so, even though they got paid.

mbreese 15y ago
This isn't the same thing at all. In this case, someone wanted to watch the Knicks. However, he had no way to do so, regardless of how much he paid Time Warner. TW didn't pay MSG, so TW doesn't have a right to show the game. NBA League pass doesn't cover home games, so that option was out too. The only way he could have watched the game legally was to either A) go to the game, or B) figure out some way to hook up a satellite dish with DirecTV (who I think does pay MSG rates for some tiers), or C) rent an apartment in a different cable company's market and hook up a Slingbox (it would have to be his Slingbox and cable sub, not a friends for it to be legit). With the CD, you have a license to listen to the music. If you download MP3s of the music (assuming the source was identical to yours), all you have done is outsourced the conversion of the CD to MP3 format. The other person may not have the right to distribute those MP3s, but you should have the right to listen to them (however you obtain them). (The RIAA has argued otherwise - that you just get the physical media with no rights, but I thought they were found to be wrong in court, but I can't remember the case)
drivingmenuts 15y ago
Which is strange because it's actually easier rip them than have to hunt down a high-quality version, if you have some obscure titles.
pyre 15y ago
They would still try to nail you for distribution if you were sharing those mp3s or used bittorrent to download them.
slowpoke 15y ago
>I don't believe so, but I bet you the RIAA would consider it so, even though they got paid. If the RIAA had it their way, you'd probably be forced to pay every single time you play a track on your computer or hit the Copy command to put it on your PMP or phone.

illumin8 15y ago

As a non-sports fan, I find it depressing that it takes this level of stupidity to get the masses angry with the cable companies. I voted with my wallet (the cable companies don't get a dime of my money) years ago. Perhaps this level of stupidity on the part of the broadcasters is what it will take to convince the average congressman that SOPA is wrong.

brudgers 15y ago
As a rational adult, I find the moral outrage expressed over GoDaddy's stance in regards to SOPA misplaced when one considers the willingness of so many people to write checks every month to the media companies who are behind it as part and parcel of their cable subscriptions.
- Bud 15y ago
  Misplaced? Most people can't afford to take moral stances on issues if they have to make an untenable choice as a result. GoDaddy can be replaced by another registrar quite easily. But cable providers tend to have a monopoly. Similarly, none of us like funding Exxon, but we still need cars.
  - brudgers 15y ago
    Unlike Godaddy's tangential interest, the cable companies and their media partners are the force driving SOPA. In addition, the amount of money cable subscribers spend doing business with these companies each month is typically an order of magnitude greater than what Godaddy sees from a domain registration each year. Cable TV is no more a necessity for the most vast majority of people who oppose SOPA than Godaddy. Instead, it is simply another convenience. Moral outrage over Godaddy is convenient, but are you seriously arguing that going without cable in order to oppose SOPA would cause one too much suffering?
  - r00fus 15y ago
    An example of an untenable choice is say skipping a meal a week so your kid gets to see the doctor. Losing your cable TV is not one, especially in this day and age of Netflix and AppleTV/Roku direct sports channels.

mbreese 15y ago

If the game was on NBA League pass, why couldn't he have watched the Raptors (vistors) feed? Even though it was broadcast locally on MSG, couldn't he have viewed the visiting teams broadcast online? Or do they check your IP address/cable provider in order to see NBA League pass (and thus blackout local games)? What about routing the game though a VPN? The only legal solutions I see would be: a) go to the game, or b) dump Time Warner and get a dish (not an easy prospect in NYC). It sucks to be a pawn in a larger game...

marknutter 15y ago
They base it on your IP address, and yes, going through a VPN or proxy solves this problem (although it technically violates their TOS).

jrockway 15y ago

The NBA is a great example of how individual consumers are not their customer. You want to pay money to watch NBA games, but you can't. The owners want money through ticket sales, so if you live in the "home market", you don't get to watch the game on TV. But, the owners also want money from TV deals. But they don't want your $20 to watch the game on TV, they want ABC's $3 billion (or whatever) for the right to charge you whatever ("watch these ads") to see the game. So there is no actual incentive to give you what you want; there is only incentive to sell games to networks at as high a price as possible. (Also, sell advertising, and modify the game's rules to ensure that there is extra advertising at the 7 minute and 3 minute mark.) Basically, at one end of the equation is some dudes passing a ball around. At the other end of the equation, is you watching that. In the middle, of course, there are the middlemen, and they all want a huge cut for doing absolutely nothing. Anti-piracy legislation is all about protecting the middlemen who realize that they do nothing and they need the government to bail them out.

ryanhuff 15y ago
Why should the NBA bother with messy details like dealing with fans directly when somebody (networks) gladly pays (up front) for the privilege?
- marknutter 15y ago
  They already are. NBA League Pass Broadband and Mobile deliver their games in HD and work quite well. Their sitting on the tech and I can only assume that they are preparing for the day when they can kick the networks to the curb.
slowpoke 15y ago
>Anti-piracy legislation is all about protecting the middlemen who realize that they do nothing and they need the government to bail them out. Beautifully said. That, my fellow hackers, is copyright and anti-piracy legislation in a nutshell - to serve and protect that which provides no value at the cost of depriving everyone else of their rights. To slightly derive from a well known quote[1] from Henry Ford: If people understood this simple fact about copyright, it would be dead and forgotten before tomorrow morning. [1] "It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."

vectorpush 15y ago

The Daily Show and the Colbert Report somehow manage to get all my friends to watch every single night, commercials and all. That's because they type www.thedailyshow.com and then they can instantly watch the entire week of episodes for free, with Comedy-Central's advertising revenue still intact. The way forward seems pretty clear to me.

nobody31 15y ago
Except at some point enough people will watch on comedy central's site that cable companies will stop carrying comedy central - and stop paying them. At that point the site has to make enough from advertising to cover all the channel's costs.
zdw 15y ago
That works for timely shows totally owned by the network that broadcasts them. It falls down when there is more than one party involved - for example, shows that are destined for syndication or DVD sales. One example of this is the SyFy channel - they've basically cancelled or let expire all the programs that were being produced by 3rd parties (Universal's "Stargate" franchise, for example) as they paid top dollar for first showing rights, but the 3rd party made all the rebroadcast, serialization, etc. profits. See also how Netflix is starting to produce their own shows they can totally own and sell direct to customers. The future has no middlemen, just people making unique products (art, video, web apps, software, etc.) or money of of standardized interchangeable services (distribution, hosting, connectivity, etc.).
astrodust 15y ago
Except Canada...

nsxwolf 15y ago

I don't understand these blackouts. I would think that televising an event will get people excited and make them want to buy tickets so they can see the action in person. It seemed to work that way for the Blackhawks.

silverlight 15y ago

About a year or two ago, I still had cable (I don't anymore), and I had the premium package with all the movie channels. At the time, a new season of Entourage was starting and I wanted to catch my wife up on the previous season. This previous season was not available via HBO On-Demand, they were not showing any re-runs on HBO that I could find, and the DVD of this season was not available in stores yet. There was literally no way I could legally let my wife watch this content (even though I had watched it, legally, the previous year on our HBO subscription, and via on-demand). So, I downloaded it. And I got caught (via a warning letter from our ISP). Shortly thereafter we canceled our cable subscription. I cannot fathom why, as a company, you would make it so hard for someone who is willing to pay you for content to get it. I wouldn't have been happy about having to buy it on DVD since I already have a subscription to HBO (and in my humble opinion, their previous original content should be available via on-demand all the time, although I realize that's a pipe dream), but I would have. Instead, they alienated a customer and lost all my money. That was around two years ago, so at $15/mo. (not sure how much of that goes directly to HBO) $360 has now been lost by them/my cable company for that part of my subscription alone. If they ever allow you to buy into HBO Go (or whatever their online streaming option is called) by itself without a cable subscription I would consider it, but as long as they are stuck in their old-school ways they can forget having me (or most of my friends) as customers. I know this article isn't about HBO, but I just thought I would point out another example of the way that content producers continue to alienate the people who should matter most: the consumer.

smokinn 15y ago
HBO spends a lot of money on creating truly premium content. For that reason I would pay for HBO Go. But I can't because I refuse to pay for cable just to get HBO. What would I watch on cable? A bunch of crappy reality tv? No thanks, Netflix has more than enough content to keep me satisfied.
- silverlight 15y ago
  Sounds like we're in exactly the same boat :-)

brudgers 15y ago

>"Mr. Wilson was unintentionally giving ammunition to the media companies behind the draconian Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), legislation that Mr. Wilson has been fighting so hard against." It's hard to see why this would be a big deal. Mr. Wilson has been giving money to the companies behind SOPA every month as a cable subscriber, and even more money by purchasing the NBA tier. Indeed, his financial support of Copyright Alliance member and a campaign contributor to SOPA sponsor Lamar Smith, Time Warner Cable, is significant. >"Our family spends hundreds of dollars a month with Time Warner Cable."[ http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/01/screwcable.html http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/01/screwcable.html] [Time Warner and Copyright Alliance: http://broadbandbreakfast.com/2010/12/copyright-alliance-picks-time-warner-lawyer-to-head-up-its-lobbying-efforts/ http://broadbandbreakfast.com/2010/12/copyright-alliance-pic...] [Time Warner Cable and Lamar Smith: http://maplight.org/us-congress/legislator/470-lamar-smith http://maplight.org/us-congress/legislator/470-lamar-smith]

GigabyteCoin 15y ago

Technically yes, since most cable is a commercial-subsidized form of media. Whenever I torrent the latest boobtube flick, it usually cuts out 33% of it's total running time or all of the adverts basically.

mbesto 15y ago

One of the big reasons you don't see overnight change/disruption in the cable media companies, is because they continue to sign multi-decade contracts...like this: From[1]: But, um, how much are the Lakers – all by themselves – getting from Time Warner Cable for its new regional sports networks? $5 billion. [1]http://www.ocregister.com/articles/lakers-329235-billion-new.html http://www.ocregister.com/articles/lakers-329235-billion-new...

jdminhbg 15y ago

A few people here seem to be positing that the point of local blackouts online is to increase attendance at games, but it's not. It's to maximize the value of the local TV rights deal, a twenty-year version of which recently netted the LA Lakers $5 billion: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/lakers-329235-billion-new.html http://www.ocregister.com/articles/lakers-329235-billion-new... Regional sports networks, especially those owned by local cable companies, love these deals because of the recurring revenue they get from people like me who would otherwise not have cable at all. Comcast Sportsnet in Philadelphia is the only local outlet for watching the Phillies, so I have Comcast cable.

Killjoy 15y ago
Two options for getting around the MLB local area blackout regulations. Both require the MLB.tv subscription, which is $25 / month for high def. (BTW, if you haven't tried MLB.tv, it's really a great product. Many PS3/BlueRay type players have an app for it, too) 1) MLB.tv experimented with a local area only package here in San Diego last year. $20 / mo for just the Padres. 2) Rather than that, I simply used one of my VPS' in another region to create an SSH tunnel through which to route the MLB.tv signal. They use your IP, not your billing address, to determine access.

tptacek 15y ago

This is, like, the 4th Betabeat story I've seen that tried to spin a whole epic news event out of something as insignificant as a single Twitter message. It seems to be their M.O. HN used to block bait sites like this with a much heavier hand.

Bud 15y ago
Disagree. Their stories may suck in general, but I find this one highly relevant to the HN audience. This issue infuriates me as a consumer and a tech person. Why do you find this insignificant?

finnw 15y ago

The only bit of "piracy" I have done in the last 5 years was an episode of QI ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QI ) They decided not to air it for political reasons - Jeremy Clarkson was on the panel and they wanted to keep him off the air during a row about something offensive he had said on another show. So I got a copy from an illegal source. I still do not see this as stealing as I had already paid for it (via the UK TV License.)

mhb 15y ago

It doesn't seem to take all that much to drive a respected venture capitalist to open piracy: http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/02/anatomy-of-a-pirate.html http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/02/anatomy-of-a-pirate.html

finnw 15y ago
I would just have bought the CD - I don't really understand his objection to that.

runjake 15y ago

My Google-fu is broken this morning and I can't find the context. Who is Fred Wilson and why is it a big deal he allegedly pirated a Knicks game?

waterside81 15y ago
He's a prominent VC in the NYC area.

antiterra 15y ago

I don't think anyone was 'forced' to pirate. It's just one basketball game, I'm pretty sure he could have lived a fruitful and satisfying life without seeing it.