(Image: Andrew B. Myers)
My wife and I have cut the cord. Instead of a cable TV subscription, we have a laptop, which is connected to our flat screen LCD television, which we control while lying in bed with a little remote I bought for $19 at the Apple Store. Through this clunky rig we plow through entire seasons of HBO shows in mere days. We watch new episodes of 30 Rock, minus the ads, on the night they air. When we watch a movie, it’s often a new release, still playing in theatres. Sometimes we watch a movie weeks before it hits theatres. If a friend recommends an obscure old film to me over a beer, I’ll look it up on the spot with my Android. Then, with a touch of my finger, it will be waiting for me at home, in high definition.
You may consider me to be a pirate who refuses to pay for his entertainment. That would be half-right. I do pirate the things I watch, but I also pay for them. I just pay the wrong people.
Each month, a U.S.-based company called Giganews charges $14.99 to my Visa card. This fee allows me to access something called Usenet (an online network similar to e-mail or Web forums), which sends me video files at blistering download speeds. I used to avoid piracy, mostly because it was inconvenient. Speed and selection were spotty, files would arrive grainy or in low resolution or with Norse dubbing. But the files I get through Giganews are carefully labelled and the selection is vast. I can even subscribe to my favourite shows so they’ll download automatically. The result is nothing short of amazing—a personalized television service that lets me watch exactly what I want at any time I like and on any screen I own. I no longer watch lousy shows just because they happen to be on.
Giganews isn’t exactly illegal, but it isn’t exactly legit either. It relies on the “common carrier” defence, meaning it’s merely the conduit through which users connect to a public archive where anyone can upload or download whatever they want—mostly copyrighted material. One thing I can be sure of: Giganews doesn’t share my money with the people who make the things I watch.
If they did, I’d be willing to pay more. In fact, I’d pay double. Maybe even triple, just so that if I ever met Tina Fey in person, I could look her in the eye with a clear conscience. But no legitimate service offers what Giganews offers—for any price. If I signed up for the best cable TV package Rogers provides, which costs $169.84 a month, I would get access to less content, and I would wait longer to get it—no more watching a movie at home while it’s still in theatres. The only way to get the largest selection, the highest resolution, the fastest downloads and the newest releases is to steal.
Now, if I were living in the U.S., I would have access to legitimate services like the ad-based TV and movie site Hulu, and for-pay services like Amazon Video on Demand, Blockbuster on Demand, iTunes TV rentals, and the original version of Netflix, which offers a healthy selection of shows and movies. Between a Netflix subscription and various rental fees, an American with my viewing habits can sidestep cable, without becoming a criminal, for about $30 a month. But in Canada, all of these video services are “geoblocked”—visitors with Canadian IP addresses are weeded out and denied access. We now have a Canadian version of Netflix, but its library is a poor cousin of the original, with less desirable shows that tend toward the obscure (fans of Animal Planet’s River Monsters are in luck). Canadians are unable to rent TV episodes from iTunes, and instead must “buy” them at three times the price (Americans can watch this week’s Simpsons for 99 cents; we pay $3.49). Our own TV networks offer some streaming video online, but not much, and always through their decidedly lousy and hard-to-navigate Web sites. Again: if we want to have the most current and convenient selection, we have to steal it.
So why can’t we get decent, legitimate Internet-based TV in Canada? The big telecom companies blame the sorry situation on licensing complications. Securing the digital rights for the Canadian market is a slow and costly process, but if we’re patient, they say, Canada will catch up eventually.
The truth is, there is little incentive for Canada’s television industry to get with the times. Canadian broadcasters choose to lag behind, and deliberately sit on the digital rights that are often thrown in by distributors who sell them broadcast rights to movies and TV shows. After all, why should a station like CityTV help Canadians watch 30 Rock on demand via a $7.99 Netflix-like subscription when we could watch it through a $64 cable subscription to Rogers, its parent company? Why not instead shun and starve upstarts like Netflix, or, better yet, actively sabotage them?
Recently, Rogers did just that. Two days after Netflix Canada was announced, Rogers drastically lowered customers’ monthly download caps. A popular plan offering 25 gigabytes of data was cut back to 15 gigs (roughly eight hours of HD video streamed through Netflix). By contrast, the giant American Internet provider Comcast provides 250 gigs under its cheapest plan. So while Netflix may seem a bargain to Canadians at $7.99 a month, if you’re on a 15-gig plan, once you’ve watched four movies you’ll pay $8 or so more per movie in “overage” fees—twice what it might cost you to rent a DVD. This could easily kill Netflix in Canada before it gains a foothold, and scare potential newcomers away from our market permanently. These are the kind of things that happen when your broadcaster and your cable company and your Internet provider are all the same guy. In a word, the problem in Canada is competition—or, more accurately, our lack of it.
We cut the cable cord in January and we haven’t regretted it yet. A good article that captures the mind set of a lot of households. Keep it up!
PS Wow, look at the astroturf fly!
March 14, 2011 at 4:30 pm | by AndrewIt appears that many of the people commenting on this article are missing Brown’s point.
Canadian’s are not being offered a fair market price for the media we want to consume.
Therefore we are stealing.
Pretending to protect the artist by supporting corporations who market high priced service plans is a pretty blatant misinterpretation of the issue.
March 14, 2011 at 4:30 pm | by MiriamBalanced Copyright for Canada is astroturfing this comment thread: http://twitter.com/mgeist/status/47392333641162752
March 14, 2011 at 4:31 pm | by EggsI love that the astroturfers are completely missing the call for a service that legitimizes what you are doing.
The piece plainly states that he would be willing to pay significantly more for legal access to the content he is currently stealing (as per his on admission), but that it is not available.
March 14, 2011 at 4:34 pm | by JamesTwhat a ridiculous attempt to get hits. And then Jesse goes on twitter to mobilize his followers to add some supportive comments…
You don’t have a leg to stand on here because you pollute your argument with so much drivel. For $30 a month you CAN’T get movies while they are still in theaters and unlimited HBO. HBO has basically sworn to never sell content to Netflix. Google TV has been blocked in the US by the large broadcasters. Canada is more complex due to Cancon requirements. Rather than pirating all your content why don’t you relocate to the US and see how green the grass is there.
March 14, 2011 at 4:36 pm | by moosebumpIf you don’t consider it piracy, Jesse – and in Canada there’s certainly a legal case to be made – then that’s what you should be talking about. Since you do concede that it’s piracy, it’s a pretty weak defence to start talking about how hard you find it to navigate CTV’s website. As a media critic, how would you regard “it’s way more convenient” as a justification for intellectual property theft?
(I’m not a Rogers drone or anything, by the way. Almost everyone I know is in the same boat as you – as I have myself on a couple of occasions – doing something they can’t intellectually defend because it’s so easy.)
March 14, 2011 at 4:41 pm | by GarfieldLogic of detractors in this comment forum:
“This is no different than downloading a car.”
Logic of author and other reasonable Canadians:
I would rather give $14/month to Giganews instead of 12x that to Rogers for an inferior product. Both are thieves, so I will make an economical rather than a misguided ethical purchase.
March 14, 2011 at 4:42 pm | by Murray Silverbaum@Rich – First off, I COMPLETELY agree that this article has no place being on Toronto Life! This is a website for Torontonian’s to discover new restaurants, find out about night life and other great forms of entertainment in our city. Not a site for someone to post their rant attempting to justify his theft of someone else’s content.
Jesse, if your logic is that enough people steal content, the company will be forced to lower their prices – then you need to take the plastic off that economics text book and actually read it this time! Even if there was logic to your theory of this (which there is Z-E-R-O), you still will never pay for it. Even if Rogers or Netflix lowered their prices to $1, that’s still $1 more than a thieving pirate like you would ever pay anyway.
If Toronto Life feels strong enough about this article to post it, then I’ll follow Jesse’s lead, go to a featured restaurant in your magazine, and skip out on the bill. If I get enough people to do it, eventually the restaurant will have to lower their prices so that people will actually pay for the food – right Jesse????? That makes perfect sense according to you, and your supporter, Toronto Life.
It would put such a smile on my face to see you in court and try to justify your crimes to a judge by telling them that you didn’t want to be a sucker. There is no crime in being a sucker, but there sure are crimes for being a thief!
March 14, 2011 at 4:44 pm | by Ian KWelcome “Balanced Copyright for Canada” astroturfers!
March 14, 2011 at 4:44 pm | by brianaryUnfortunately, the content providers in Canada have a monopoly (more accurately, an oligopoly) and they either can’t or won’t deliver that content in a way that makes it easy for modern consumers. Whether it is unethical or not, consumers are going to drift towards the easiest way to get the content they want and flipping through channels of drek is no longer that way. In the states, iTunes and NetFlix are viable models, making good money. Our versions of those are so limited that they still aren’t really worth it. Why not? Why do iTunes and NetFlix users in the States get access to a wide range of popular movies and TV shows and we don’t? Because the companies that own the rights to that content here in Canada still think they can control how we watch that content. As long as this situation continues, so will “stealing”.
And please, let’s not hear about lost jobs. Hollywood has had record-breaking year after record-breaking year.
March 14, 2011 at 4:45 pm | by walkerpThe sad thing, this is 100% correct. The CRTC is basically owned by the larger telecom companies, and our current gov. only stepped in cause of backlash from the people, and they did it after the opposition parties jumped on the wagon. The CRTC should be disbanded and a new group of people with the proper education, and no loyality to big corporation should be put into place, and they should have a shelf life on how long they are part of commision. telecom service providers should be forced to make public the actual cost of the service and how much they want to charge, which would force fairer pricing and more competition. And there should be no competition clauses stating where a company can and can not compete, cause that is leading to a monopoly by the big 4 who do backroom deals with each other!
March 14, 2011 at 4:45 pm | by ZumborroThis is actually the reality of widespread Internet piracy that telecoms don’t want to face: that people do it because of poor access. It’s true all over the world. I’ve lived in Europe; people there copyright because they get Hollywood movies at TV shows somewhere between six months and two years after they’re available in North America. Or they can get the pirated version, often with high quality subtitles, online almost immediately.
I cut off my Rogers cable last month after getting a PS3, a Netflix account, and an OTA antenna. The quality of the HD on the antenna blows away what I was getting through Rogers. The number of streaming sites I can use online aside from Netflix that display nice quality through the PS3 is staggering. Don’t call me a pirate; I actively tried to find alternatives to Rogers in Toronto, but since I rent my place I can’t put up a satellite dish and this is basically my only alternative. And frankly, I love it. Sure, I’d go back to Rogers. I’ll go back the second I can get all the content I was getting from them before I cancelled for $40 a month instead of $120. At that price it would actually be worth it.
March 14, 2011 at 4:47 pm | by Brian@moosebump
I’m glad you’re happy with yesteryear, but some of us would like today’s technology to work for us.
There is no clear answer here. I’m not going to pay for cable. I’m not. It’s a rip off. I know when I’m getting robbed. I’m sorry you don’t.
Who are you to tell me how I should consume the media I would love to pay for? I can do this with music now, why can’t I with TV and Film’s?
Do you not in any way find it strange that it’s easier and more convenient to pirate tv and films than it is to buy? This problem went away ages ago with music. Music stores are plentiful now. I have an eMusic subscription and for stuff not available there, I go to puretracks.com .
So my answer is pretty much to not consume these things. The last major movie I saw was Tron Legacy, and before that I can’t even remember. The movie industry has assured they are not getting any money from me. I don’t pirate movies, I simply don’t consume them at all now. Is that better? Are you happy that I’m not pirating and simply doing without all together? Is that also helping pay artists salaries?
How about we fix the problem, not shoot the messenger?
March 14, 2011 at 4:47 pm | by PaulAs Carter mentions above this writer is explaining exactly how he steals and admits to stealing and yet that’s okay with our current laws. This is the perfect example of how desperately we need to change these laws. I find that it’s becoming routine for people to steal music, movies etc… without a thought to how it impacts the creators. Canada wake up!!!
March 14, 2011 at 4:48 pm | by jraealcThis is a great example of out dated distribution models just failing.
March 14, 2011 at 4:51 pm | by RogerIt was noted in another article I read how sites like Giganews charge on average even higher $15 a month.
This shows how there is areal untapped market for a decent product. The only thing that comes close is netflix and you can see how there growth is explosive.
And how do the content providers treat netflix for actually marketing and selling their products well…like garbage.
Wake up content providers, proven market right here!!!!!