NBCUniversal Pirates NBCUniversal SNL Skit That NBCUniversal Refuses To Put Online

from the right-hand,-left-hand dept

Tue, Feb 7th 2012 10:51am — Mike Masnick

Danny Sullivan has an amusing blog post about his attempt to track down a Saturday Night Live skit that he wanted to watch online. Given how key the online audience has been to SNL over the past five years, you would think that, by now, NBCUniversal would have this process down cold, and would have all the skits easy to access and ready to go. Instead... for whatever reason, it doesn't have this particular skit that Sullivan wanted ("Downton Abbey Meets Spike TV"). He checked the official SNL page. No luck. He checked Hulu. No luck. Then he went digging... and he found lots of unauthorized versions, including in two unlikely places. One was on Time's website -- which is owned by Time Warner, a major media competitor to NBCUniversal. Time Warner also was a backer of SOPA/PIPA. Perhaps it should be careful about posting unauthorized versions of competitors' TV shows on its own site...

But, even more interesting? Sullivan found an unauthorized copy at iVillage -- a site owned by NBCUniversal:

Yup. That embed at the bottom? Unauthorized version uploaded to YouTube. Posted on an NBCUniversal site... because NBCUniversal won't post it itself.

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Filed Under: downton abbey, skit, snl
Companies: nbc universal, time warner

30 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 7 Feb 2012 @ 11:18am

If there's one thing that large content owners have taught me it's this: THAT'S STEALING AND IT'S WRONG!!!
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Feb 2012 @ 11:22am

Re:
Let's cut off their funding and seize their domains!
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Yogi, 7 Feb 2012 @ 11:24am

Cannibalism?
This is digital cannibalism: when a greedy and stupid 20th century corporation pirates its own material because it is too dumb and lazy to actually upload the material it produced to the internet so that society can continue to build culture upon it.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Feb 2012 @ 11:28am

Left Hand Right Hand
Is this one of those the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing?

Or are they not knowing what they are paid to not know?

Any other choices?
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Feb 2012 @ 11:31am

Where are the stories about the piracy advocates who purchase content? In fact, all piracy advocates should be exposed as frauds if they are caught watching network television, accidentally listening to radio ads, using YouTube to view authorized content, etc...

Let's be fair about this.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Feb 2012 @ 11:34am

Re: Left Hand Right Hand
They are hypocrites.
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Another AC, 7 Feb 2012 @ 11:37am

Learned behavior
They have been hanging out with the government for so long that they have become just as efficient. Not to mention, with all this extra work it must have created a job or 2, right?
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Feb 2012 @ 11:39am

Doesn't this quite defeat their argument that Google should be able to detect and block any and all infringing content?

If they (content owners) can't even police their own websites, why should anyone else be forced to?
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:Lobo Santo (profile), 7 Feb 2012 @ 11:40am

Re: Durh
Why yes, that makes perfect sense.

Additionally, ip maximalists should send money to the tv/radio station every time they listen to the radio & watch broadcast tv.

Also, they should be entirely barred from every using any product which in any way stems from open-source or public-domain anything.

Thankfully, since that list includes most things related to wheels, electricity, & electronics we'll luckily never again hear from said ip maximalists ever again.

You douche...
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Feb 2012 @ 11:42am

Re:
There could be stories.....there could also be stories about me having a sandwich for lunch today. But no one cares about those because they're boring and happen every day.

failtroll is fail, go back to bribing politicians and trying to make our lives worse with your idiocy, since you obviously can't cut it with actual facts.
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The eejit (profile), 7 Feb 2012 @ 12:04pm

Re: Re:
Change funding for heads and domains for genitalia and you have either the craziest SNL skit ever or a bizarre TSA-like aristocracy.
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The eejit (profile), 7 Feb 2012 @ 12:05pm

Re:
For the HORDE!!!!....of money, of course.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Feb 2012 @ 12:12pm

Isn't that technically an implied license.
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hothmonster, 7 Feb 2012 @ 12:16pm

What ICE missed this? For shame!
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Mike Masnick (profile), 7 Feb 2012 @ 12:23pm

Re:
Huh?

Please learn basic logic before you open your mouth again to avoid looking totally clueless.
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GreaterPathMagi, 7 Feb 2012 @ 12:29pm

Can someone inform them of this...
Time Warner also was a backer of SOPA/PIPA. Perhaps it should be careful about posting unauthorized versions of competitors' TV shows on its own site...

How can we go about shutting down the Time Warner website for a month, to show Time Warner how to eat their own dog food?
I mean really, this is hypocrisy at its worst!
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DogBreath, 7 Feb 2012 @ 12:29pm

Can't wait...
for those at iVillage -- a site owned by NBCUniversal to be criminally charged for linking to an unauthorized copy of the video... oh, and supporting pirates and terrorism.

NBCUniversal, go SOPA yourself.

(Nice, SOPA is a four letter word too!)
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Berenerd (profile), 7 Feb 2012 @ 12:37pm

STRIKE ONE!!!
Call ICE to bring down the site...
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Feb 2012 @ 1:15pm

NBC has now blocked the youtube video
can't watch it now at all.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Feb 2012 @ 1:27pm

Re:
No. It wasn't posted by NBCUniversal, it was posted to YouTube by an unlicensed third party. NBCUniversal then linked to the pirated copy. The copy is still unlicensed, and NBCUniversal has now linked to a pirated copy of their own content, a clear violation of the legislation they keep trying to pass.
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Killercool (profile), 7 Feb 2012 @ 1:35pm

Re: NBC has now blocked the youtube video
So the insanity has come full circle.

They are now blocking videos whose only significant use is their own.
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DanZee (profile), 7 Feb 2012 @ 1:47pm

Infringement
It's only infringement if somebody else does it!
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Feb 2012 @ 1:48pm

A wonderful story, but see, Spike allows "user uploads", which means that one of the faithful sheeple trying to discredit big media saw a crack and quickly uploaded a copy, took a screen shot, and claimed success.

It's sort of like the anonymous dweebs claiming Tango Down on sites, when all they really did was overload a local router on their home ISP with their low tech "hacks".
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llortamai, 7 Feb 2012 @ 2:05pm

Re: Re:
He's right, you chubby ding dong! If piracy advocates do ANYTHING that is authorized or consume any media that they pay for they should be strung up in front of the pirate council. If you could stop advocating piracy for just a moment and think about it you'd understand.
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Ed C., 7 Feb 2012 @ 2:29pm

Re: Re: Re:
No, we understand that idiots like you use ad hominem's like "piracy advocate" to shout down others who don't agree with you because you don't understand the topic enough to make any sort of rational rebuttal.

Case in point, making up grand stories about "piracy advocates" and a "pirate council" not only shows how ignorant you are, but completely delusional too. Seriously, if you believe any of this tripe, I've got a bridge you'd be interested in buying.
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Ed C., 7 Feb 2012 @ 2:32pm

Re: Re:
Damn it! If we only had SOPA, we could have cut off payments and advertisers from these parasites and shut them down once and for all!

/sarc
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Anon and on and on and on, 7 Feb 2012 @ 2:42pm

Re:
0/10
Terrible. I nominate this statement for weakest attempt at trolling of the year. I know it's early, but I think it will hang in there with the best of the worst.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Feb 2012 @ 3:18pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Things would probably work out better if you learned to read the words i am a troll backwards.....
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Jimmy, 7 Feb 2012 @ 8:02pm

Entrapment
I truly believe that NBC takes part in entrapment. They put files out and watch who downloads and then sends out the "warnings" to the ISP ip address..
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Feb 2012 @ 7:37am

Re:
A wonderful story, but see, if you'd read the article, you would know that the only place Spike is mentioned is in the sketch itself.

The video of the sketch was not uploaded to Spike. It was placed in two separate articles by staff writers at iVillage and the Time website.

Nice try.
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