LocateTV Blog

Back in the early days of online content distribution and peer-to-peer file sharing, it seemed that most films and TV programmes would soon be freely available to web users with less-than-scrupulous consciences. Defenders of illegal P2P activity such as CNET reader Bretbb0 claim that the money internet piracy costs the industry is insignificant compared to ‘corporate thieves who have been ripping off artists and consumers for decades‘.

However, The Motion Picture Association of America, MPAA, filed it’s first raft of lawsuits against TV trading hubs in May 2005, and networks, distributors and artists are fighting their corner harder than ever. Back in July, anti-piracy firm MediaDefender set up a fake video-download site called MiiVi to entrap potential file-sharers, while P2P file-sharing network eDonkey was closed in September. The struggle also continues on a very personal level; Miinesota woman Jammie Thomas has recently been fined $222,000 for illegal music downloads.

Last week, NBC CEO Jeff Zucker declared an all-out war on piracy that must be fought on all levels, from the government and international embassies to internet service providers, university network operators, user-generated content sites, search engines, auction sites and even consumer electronics and home networking device manufacturers and businesses.

Zucker highlighted the recent findings of economist Stephen Siwek that global and domestic copyright infringement costs the U.S. economy $58 billion a year and deprives U.S. workers of nearly 375,000 jobs a year.

On a more self-interested note, TV and film fans may be reluctant to download illegal content (or indeed buy pirated DVDs from sites such as eBay) because it impacts on the quality of the programming produced. The CEO of MPAA Dan Glickman has said: “Every television series depends on other markets [such as] syndication and international sales to earn back the enormous investment required to produce the comedies and dramas we all enjoy. Those markets are substantially hurt when that content is stolen.”

LocateTV doesn’t host any content at all, acting as ‘middle-man’ between TV and film viewers and the content they want to locate, but nonetheless we only link to providers of legal online content. We’ve been asked why a few times, and of course the answer is: rules is rules. We rely on the producers of all the content that we love to provide us with their data, and it’s only fair that people keep hold of their intellectual property.

We’re strictly legitimate, and anyway, we wouldn’t want to do anything that might jeopardise the quality of Sarah Jessica Parker’s outfits in the upcoming Sex and the City movie. Hopefully HBO will feel that bit safer to invest in manolos rather than MediaDefender.

Lottie