Wait, Now NBC Claims Video Piracy Is Under Control?

from the wasn't-it-just-last-week? dept

Wed, Feb 18th 2009 4:21pm — Mike Masnick

It may seem like it was just a week or so ago that NBC Universal's Chief Counsel Rick Cotton was freaking out about video piracy online. That might be because it was just over a week ago when he was feeding the NY Times quotes for a story about how "pirates" were "winning the battle." But, apparently he's had a change of heart. He's now said in a speech that video sharing, "from a rights perspective, it's under control." He used NBC's online coverage of the Olympics as an example -- though, that's actually a terrible example. Plenty of people were quite annoyed by the unnecessary hoops they had to go through, and others were pissed off that it was nearly impossible to see what they wanted to see unless they went to other sites where people had uploaded the unauthorized video. Either way, we're thrilled to hear that NBC Universal now thinks video "piracy" is under control. I assume that means that they'll stop their DC lobbyists from lobbying for more draconian copyright laws now? Because, last we heard they were still pushing for changes to the law...

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Filed Under: piracy, rick cotton, video
Companies: nbc universal

7 Comments

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SimonTek (profile), 18 Feb 2009 @ 6:14pm

Piracy
They need to stop suing people that download. I took the blue line metro here in LA today and at least 3 people came by and asked if I wanted to buy dvd's of the new movies. Clear out the illegal immigrants that are selling pirated dvds then go on if you want.
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- ToySouljah, 18 Feb 2009 @ 7:25pm
  
  Re: Piracy
  Clear out the illegal immigrants pirating DVD's? Ummm...hate to burst your bubble, but that might clear up only a few cases since most pirating is coming from suburbia. So how about this...they should start with all these white people pirating DVD's and then go on if you want.
  
  Not so nice huh? So please quit the BS about immigrants being the big burden on society when they are trying to just be free, live their life, and provide for their family. I have to laugh when people claim they are stealing jobs from Americans. I have never seen an illegal alien in any position of power so I think everyone is safe, but hey if they have the qualifications to fill a position then by all means may the best man win.
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  - inc, 18 Feb 2009 @ 7:59pm
    
    Re: Re: Piracy
    come on, he wants to download his free movies in the comfort of his home not buy some bootlegs from illegals.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 19 Feb 2009 @ 8:07am
    
    Re: Re: Piracy
    "I have never seen an illegal alien in any position of power so I think everyone is safe..."
    
    so...I'm guessing you've never been to Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, or Florida? The illegals can do quite well here. Not that they all do, but some do extremely well.
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ulle, 19 Feb 2009 @ 8:46am

Here in north Texas Time Warner cable has found a way to slow down video piracy, they now have capped us at 10 gig per month, plus any time after 2pm till at least midnight the connection slows way down, just opening techdirt in the afternoon can take over a minute versus just seconds in the morning. Trying to use utorrent, we might get lucky and get speeds up to 20kbs in the early hours of the morning, evening hours we are looking at 5kbs if we are lucky. For any streaming videos, it usually means 10 to 20 minutes buffering to watch 5 minutes then more buffering. I think as more ISPs start using caps and throttling the amount of piracy is going to decrease especially places like here where there is no alternative to cable broadband other then dialup.
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Riggs-, 19 Feb 2009 @ 11:57am

If I was paying for "broadband" and getting download rates at 5kbps I would be ripping some guy on the telephone a new a$$hole. I work in web hosting and anything over a 10s load time is considered unacceptable.
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adman, 28 Feb 2009 @ 8:25pm

if i was getting that treatment, simple. i would switch. i dont know about america but in australia no one rly buys dvd's, because so many people just download it. if i wanted to buy a pirated dvd, i would have to get the address off a friend then go their, and pay $10 to $15 for a movie. its stupid. why not just borrow it from the vid store.
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