Adult films dominate download market

From X Biz

Adult entertainment accounts for the lion’s share of the burgeoning video download market, according to a recent report by market research firm NPD Group published in Forbes magazine.

According to the report, 1.2 million U.S. households purchased at least one video download from an online store during the third quarter of this year. But, the report said, five times as many households may have illegally downloaded video content from free file-sharing sites, with nearly 60% of the free content classified as adult material.

NDP analyst Crupnick said the video download model would continue to appeal to consumers in 2007: [Legal downloads] could double or triple within the next year as more content comes online, consumers acquire more video-enabled players and movies are offered that consumers can actually burn to DVD, he said.

   
Softcore 'cable versions' squeezed out from US cable TV

Full article at Cable 360

Last year Americans spent more on adult entertainment than they did to go out to the movies. So adult content and cable’s on-demand service have been making sweet music together in the US, with the niche raking in more than half of the VOD revenue pie. But VOD is also disrupting the relatively stable economics and content of the adult category.

Cable has been pressured to strip away its inhibitions and now offers much more explicit programming. The old 'cable version' softcore has now been replaced by an XX version where real straight sex is shown but anal and cum shots are edited out.

It is worth reading the full article at Cable 360

  Time Warner to offer download to burn movies

From AVN

Time Warner Inc. says it plans to offer download-to-burn movies over the Internet beginning next year.

Company Chief Executive and Chairman, Richard Parsons said that the company is moving forward with plans to allow Internet users to download and burn its movies onto DVD disks by consumers.

In July, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Pictures, Walt Disney Co.’s Buena Vista Home Entertainment and Metro Goldwyn Mayer signed a deal with CinemaNow Inc. which will offer more than 100 movies that can be copied onto a DVD disc for about $9 a movie.

The deal was a precursor to another deal worked out between the studios and Apple Computer Inc. which also provides Hollywood movies for downloading through its iTunes online shop.

These agreements mark a significant shift in the way Hollywood studios distribute its movies by giving consumers a chance to make their own DVD versions of popular mainstream titles.

  BT to launch IPTV service in December

From Silicon

BT is yet to detail how the service will be priced but users are likely to need a set-top box as well as a broadband subscription from BT. Users will be able to browse all the Freeview channels as well as pick up on-demand programming from BT's suppliers. Customers won't, however, have to pay an additional subscription for TV services.

Among those who have signed content deals with the telco are MTV, Paramount, Sony and Universal. BT has also won the rights to show Premiership football.

However, on-demand content from the BBC will not be available at launch, as the BBC has yet to agree terms.

From The Telegraph

BT is poised to clinch a deal with Hollywood's Warner Brothers that will allow British consumers to access the studio's vast catalogue of films and television shows through internet downloads to their TV sets.

The agreement, which could be announced as early as tomorrow, would be BT's biggest content deal yet and would form the cornerstone of a new line-up of products that the group will offer on its new combined television and broadband service.

BT is also due to announce that it has lined up EMI to offer customers access to recorded artists such as Lily Allen, Kylie Minogue and Coldplay. The new service, BT Vision, combines 40 free-to-air TV channels, a phone line, broadband and a digital video recorder, and an initial library of 1,000 hours of on-demand programming available for viewing on television screens rather than computers.

BT's on-demand content will be available either for a monthly subscription or on a pay-per-view basis. The company plans to significantly undercut rivals with the cost of its pay-per-view films. The price for new releases will be lower than the £3.50 per film charged by NTL and will also undercut high street chains such as Blockbuster.

  No adult content to start, eventually softcore rubbish

From X Biz

The new BT Vision broadband service will not initially carry adult content due to age verification difficulties.

BT is still working on secure age verification technology in order to provide 18-certificate content rather than anything more top shelf, a BT spokesman said

Once BT Vision solves its age verification problems, adult content will be offered on its pay-TV tier, where customers can purchase programming by both “one-off” and subscription billing formats.

The police have also been sniffing around the concept of somehow enforcing the repressive Video Recordings Act on download material. There is an article about this in the Adult Industry trade paper, ETO. But really I cannot even guess where they are coming from to suggest that the Act applies to computer communications.

From Hansard
See the full (uncorrected) transcript of the Session

David Cooke, the director of the BBFC, and Peter Johnson, Head of Policy had a session in the House of Commons with the Culture, Media And Sport Committee: New Media And The Creative Industries.

David Cooke

Our fundamental concern is about what might happen in the future, starting right now when things could be very different and we would face not so much a loophole but possibly a bypassing of the Video Recordings Act in quite a major way. Let me just try and explain this. Last year 17,000 titles were classified by the BBFC and 13,000 of those were DVDs, so that is very much the bulk of our business at the moment. In principle, all of those titles could at some point in the future migrate to distribution by download rather than in physical format.

Lawyers disagree about what precisely the impact of the Video Recordings Act is in that situation, but I think that the general view is that the Video Recordings Act probably would not bite. That has not been tested in the courts yet.

That could produce a situation in which our current, we believe, quite well respected and trusted system of age ratings and consumer advice would cease to apply and we know from our workload at the moment that there would be some very abusive material included in that content, and we have given some examples of some of that in our evidence. Self-regulation would obviously apply in that context but the question is really do we believe that that would be adequate or would we be in the kind of situation that we faced in the early 1980s with the concerns on video nasties.

We think that there are probably two broad approaches to tackling this problem.

We are certainly not pitching to trespass on anybody else's patch or to rub up against other regulators and we are certainly not pitching to try and regulate all downloads, which will constitute a huge and variegated mass of material, but we do think it would be possible to look quite carefully to seek to identify that part of the download market which would be very similar to DVD retail and DVD rental and to seek to bring that within the Video Recordings Act. That would be one approach. We can well see that that would be controversial and would be against the tenor of some of the other discussions you have had in the Committee.

Another approach which could be considered, either in conjunction or separately, would be to look at what kind of co-regulatory offerings were possible in this new environment. We believe that our expertise and the trust which BBFC ratings and consumer advice have and the high recognition factor that our ratings have, are the kinds of things that would enable us to play a part.

See the full (uncorrected) transcript of the Session

From Yahoo News

Private Media Group noted for  premium-quality adult films, and erotic media ag announced a multi-year agreement for the supply of Private and erotic media ag content to the VOD  platform "nightclub.de" in Germany.

The deal includes access to 130 titles, at any point in time during the term, from each of Private's and erotic media's movie libraries and it includes new releases as well as classic titles and represents the first extensive video-on-demand package available to adult subscribers in Germany.

"nightclub.de" is a separate section for adult entertainment of the recently launched video-on-demand platform "maxdome". Additionally the adult service is also available via dedicated "maxdome" ready, plug and play TV set top boxes,

erotic media ag is a Swiss company specializing in marketing erotic movies both through its own TV channels and third party channels. The company is the market leader in Germany and operates the only German XXX 24hr Satellite and Cable TV Pay-TV channels in the country. The channels are transmitted in both Germany and Austria and they are branded "Blue Movie", "Blue Movie Extra" and "Blue Movie Gay".

Thanks to Rainman on  The Melon Farmers' Forum

All this talk of alternative ways to view/download R18 material, to bypass the current repressive Christian legislation and ripoff merchants, I thought I`d share a couple of sites that stream R18 content for free:

• www.live-online-tv.com/television/
• www.romaniainedit.3x.ro/playboytv.htm

From Paul

Just a little note informing you that LiveXXX.tv is ripping us off on their site by having no one at all on the live cameras and charging £19 per month for the privilege.

The site should be pulled!

From the bgafd forum, spotted by Rustinn Mann

Regarding SexStation Website: have they given up the ghost already?

The last few nights none of the girls seem to have bothered to do anything on the webcams. Mind you, the majority of the time they just sit there looking bored seemingly unaware that what subscribers are left are watching. The only girl to seem any idea of the fact that some of us actually paid is Karina who put on a fine show the other night but she now turns up so rarely.

Also noted that an advertised link to a `live show` actually redirects you to the Babestation website .

We`ve had the `technical problems` excuses but it now seems they are past caring although we are still being encouraged to sign up but for what? Maybe we might get a token effor to keep people interested but how long will that last? Try complaining to the website or billing company and you will get no help if you get a reply at all.

Oh well, we live and learn

By the way, you left the telly on in the webcam studio last night.

And then in the same thread:

Although it is accessible via sextationtv.com it merely redirects you to the sadly neglected livexxx site.

It`s main attraction is that during the TV broadcast one of the girls would disappear off to the room nextdoor (the old LiveXXX studio) and supposedly get down to some `hot filthy action` on a live feed via the website. More often than not, they would just sit there looking bored doing nothing. Some of the girls made an effort but only if they got a phone call. So you pay to subscribe to the channel but somebody had to pay more with a call for them to perform.
Now they don`t seem to bother going in there at all.

There`s a few galleries of the girls (with a great numbre of the pictures showing the girls clothed!) and a handful of recordings of old shows.

The fact that they have an active link off to a `rival`, Babestation, suggests that SexStation is now affiliated to them.

As I said, the concern is the website is plugged, then you find you have to pay, then - as has happened of late - there`s nothing there.

From Blog Maverick

The expectation that broadband video delivered over the internet is going to be a viable alternative, or as some future gonzos are suggesting, a future replacement for traditional delivery of TV is crazy!

The first problem for broadband is bandwidth. DVD quality at 1Mb/sec is fine today, but have you noticed you cant do live consistently for any size audience at even this minimum bandwidth level?

If someday the internet can support live delivery of 1Mb/sec unicast streams, the cost will be prohibitive (every live stream requires a direct stream from source to end viewer), It adds up very fast. 1 stream per person. X number of streams per server. All the routing and internal backbone equipment to get it on the net. All the monitoring equipment to make sure it gets to the viewer in some semblance of decent quality. All the people to make sure that all works. That's big bandwidth and overhead and hosting costs. Which is why 350k simultaneous streams at 300k quality for march madness and a concert were considered huge events in 2006. Every single incremental user for a 300k stream of a 2 hour event can cost more than $1 PER USER. (Don't think so? call a broadband video provider and ask them how much they will charge to stream a live 300k stream to 350k simultaneous viewers with TV level quality of service).

Compare that with the cost of delivering TV today.

Then of course there is the consideration that if broadband will replace TV, what happens when we go High Def? Lets see we can get by with the lowest quality and only 6Mb/s of bandwidth.

It aint gonna happen anytime soon. Not this year. Not next. Not 5 years. Not 10 years.

Want to deliver the SuperBowl or American Idol in HD in realtime to 10s of millions of simultaneous viewers ? Not in this lifetime without some breakthrough technology that hasnt been invented yet.

Its feasible of course to do on demand, in a netflix type model. Let it download over night (equal to postal overnight). But it does tie up your PC, so shipping on a hard or optical drive is much more efficient, and that's not the internet.

But wait there’s more. You still have to pay for that bandwidth somewhere. Yes peer to peer helps save bandwidth at the originating end. But it doesn't help at the destination end. 100 peers on a network segment will still use the same amount of bandwidth on that segment as 1 destination with no peers. Net Neutrality will pretty much guarantee that this is a problem forever and ever.

You can hook any HDTV today up to pretty much any recent PC and use it as a conduit to get internet content to your HD set. You know how many people are doing it? Not many at all. I don't know of any families gathering around their brand new HDTV to watch internet content they just grabbed from Youtube.

The reward for connecting a PC to an HDTV isn't worth the hassle and that wont change for years. Dare I say, not even in 10 years, if ever.

From AVN

JM Productions has launched new Burn-to-Own purchase options for its DivX-based video-on-demand. The company has maintained a strong Internet presence for the past six years via its Web site, JerkOffZone.com

Now consumers with a DVD burner on their PC and a DivX certified DVD player (which are now commonly available at retailers everywhere) can download a full-length JM DVD with perfect video and audio quality and watch them any time on their home entertainment system.

JM webmaster Tony Malice said: Version 6.5 of the DivX player is available for free download from our website,The software contains integrated DVD burning functionality that lets you transfer your downloaded movie to disc in a very short time.

JM’s Burn-to-Own service has gone online with selections from the popular Gag Factor and Tough Love series and more titles will be added each week

So how long would it take the BBFC to pre-vet the 10,000 videos?

From The Guardian

A UK variant of Google Video was launched  yesterday along with seven other countries, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Canada. . As with the US version, which launched in January this year, Google Video UK features tens of thousands of videos showing everything from the latest glossy dramas to serious documentaries to teens goofing around in front of their webcams. Like its close cousin YouTube, fans say it is revolutionising broadcasting while critics claim it could unleash a torrent of unregulated material in dubious taste.

Google relies on users rating and recommending their favourite videos to allow the most popular to rise to the fore. Yesterday they all closely mirrored the American version but Google hopes they will quickly evolve to reflect local viewing habits and cultural mores.

The company has also signed deals with various media companies to distribute their content through Google Video. ITN, Disney, Barcelona FC, the Cousteau Society, the rights holders to Wimbledon tennis, English Test cricket and the Football League and Talkback Thames, the independent production company behind Green Wing and Smack the Pony, are among the first European content providers to sign up.

Google's European director of partnerships, Joanna Shields, said she believed it was well placed to succeed against the competition because of its scale, with 469 million users worldwide, and because it did not attempt to tie down broadcasters and contributors to particular formats or pricing structures.

Contributors can choose whether or not to charge for their content. Film trailers and pop videos may be provided for nothing in order to promote new releases while episodes of cult TV hits such as Star Trek carry a charge, typically around $1.99 (£1.08) in the US. Google makes money by charging advertisers to reach users in a specific context and in the US has already begun trialling video adverts.

While most media companies have been largely satisfied with Google's attempts to strip out material that breaches their copyright, some remain worried that it will become all-powerful. But Patrick Walker, head of content partnerships outside the US, said: Disaggregation of content isn't driven by Google, it's happening anyway. We're helping people find the needles in this giant haystack of content.

Others remain concerned that Google will find it increasingly hard to police the millions of videos on its servers for porn, violence and offensive material. Walker said no system was "bullet-proof" but believed Google had the human and technical resources to screen every video and stay on top of the problem.

From AVN, from a report in Variety

Playboy has landed the biggest fish in the cable stream. Comcast has begun rolling out Playboy's on-demand service to its 9 million digital subscribers (out of 21.5 million, which is more than any other operator), and Wall Street is taking notice.

Jim Griffiths, president of the Playboy Entertainment Group said that 30 hours of sexually oriented programming every month is the most likely programming to challenge the most popular VOD service, HBO on Demand showing The Sopranos and Deadwood.

Variety reported that Bank of America's Michael Savner has upgraded his recommendation of Playboy from neutral to buy, convinced that the Comcast deal could funnel an extra 25% to Playboy TV's operating income by the end of the decade.

Most cable systems already deliver Playboy TV via pay per view. Playboy wants to change that blueprint because the PPV service is much more unpredictable in harvesting revenue; customers are not locked into a monthly subscription fee but buy programming each time they want it. Playboy also faces serious competition in pay per view.

Griffith is having a drive to persuade other cable operators to follow Comcast's lead and take the dual package: Playboy TV and Playboy on Demand.

However, some cable operators may hesitate because they like the Playboy deal they have now. On Time Warner Cable in New York City, for example, a four-hour block of programming on Playboy TV costs $7.95, according to the report. Time Warner doesn't give any indication that its customers can buy a monthly Playboy subscription for just $11,

From Sky

Sky is planning to launch new broadband on-demand TV services for entertainment, lifestyle and kids programming within the next few months. Up to now Sky’s broadband service has offered only movies and sport but it plans to extend the service to other genres. The new services are due to launch at the end of August or early September.

Why would anyone pay for softcore rubbish when there is so much decent hardcore available on the Internet.

From X Biz

British Telecom confirmed plans to begin offering adult entertainment alongside its regular TV, sports and music content starting this autumn.

Through its BT Vision subsidiary, the telecommunications giant will offer customers what it calls softcore content on demand. According to a company spokesman, all content would have to comply with standards established by regulators and the company for taste and decency. BT added that only movies with an 18 rating would be available on BT Vision, and not films with an R18 rating.

In common with many U.K. entertainment providers and in response to anticipated customer demand, we expect BT Vision will carry some adult entertainment services, a company spokesman said.

Analysis from British telecommunications research firm Enders claims BT’s decision to begin offering adult content is driven by the company’s desire to retain its broadband customer base.

According to analysts at Enders, the lion’s share of PPV revenue comes from sports and adult content. Sports, which accounts for 60% of all PPV revenue and adult content, which account for an additional 25%, seem to be the only types of content consumers are willing to pay for, according to the research firm. Cable operators typically offer all other types of content free of charge to encourage consumers to incorporate VOD into their viewing habits, a spokesman for Enders said.

From Ofcom

The regulation of internet services is the subject of significant international debate. Consumers expect to be protected from fraud or other forms of harm; and their children protected from inappropriate content. To date, this protection has been provided largely through a framework of domestic and international statutory regulation which has been evolving for decades. However, the global reach and open nature of the internet gives rise to some well-known problems, which cannot be addressed by a translation of existing powers and structures. These problems include the ubiquitous availability of pornography and increased availability of illegal imagery (e.g. violent pornography, child abuse), and easier access to products and services otherwise tightly-controlled like gambling or prescription drugs.

As the UK communications regulator, Ofcom has oversight of the wholesale and retail markets for internet connectivity. We also have a statutory duty to promote media literacy, a role in encouraging audiences to connect to the internet, and in helping them learn how to manage the risks to which they are exposed when online. We therefore have a clear interest in the protection of consumers from harm when they use the internet. Furthermore, the current draft of the EU Audiovisual Media Services Directive proposed an extension of a broadcast-like regulatory framework to audiovisual content delivered in other ways – and might therefore require statutory content regulation to be applied to a broad range of internet services.

This document is a research report intended to inform the debate about the most appropriate ways to address the consumer protection challenges raised by the internet, such as those identified above. It is a broad survey of the key internet consumer protection issues and the national and international approaches taken to tackling those issues across the world. It does not include policy recommendations, though we do comment on the varying success of some of the initiatives adopted.

We can also draw some general lessons from the survey. There is no doubt that consumers will need to bear a greater degree of responsibility when they engage with internet services. Secondly, the broad range of internet services – from e-commerce to VoD to email – will require a broad and flexible set of regulatory solutions. There is no single answer to the issues to which the internet gives rise. However, there are already many factors contributing to consumer protection online, from the application of general law through to initiatives from individual internet players and collective industry bodies like the Internet Watch Foundation. We believe that such self-regulatory initiatives, allied to effective media literacy initiatives and supported by general law, will continue to be the most effective way to deliver consumer protection.

The full report can be downloaded from Ofcom

Press release from the BBFC

BBFC President Calls For Forum To Consider New Media Regulation

In light of the rapidly growing range of audio visual content on offer via a range of media, the President of the BBFC, Sir Quentin Thomas, has called on the Government to bring together commercial and creative interests along with those operating the regulatory regimes to consider how best to provide the public with the information they need to choose which content they wish to consume and how to protect children and vulnerable people from harm.

Writing in his introduction to the BBFC’s Annual Report Sir Quentin said:
As the audio visual content on offer to the public grows rapidly, with a marked diversity in the nature of the medium and in the means of delivery or access, it is perhaps not surprising that some observers of this dynamic but confusing scene conclude that there is little future for regulation and the attempt to maintain it seems like attempting to shut the stable door when the horse has bolted. At the BBFC we do not share this view.

The BBFC’s Director David Cooke said:
We are putting a good deal of effort into researching, and speaking to others about, the implications of the growth of new media for our system of regulation. We do not argue for regulation except where it is genuinely needed. But effective regulation has clear benefits: the prevention of harm; enabling informed choices; creating a safe environment within which to enjoy creative content. We regularly see and deal with material, whether so-called ‘extreme reality’, abusive pornography, or simply content which is unsuitable for the age group to whom it is addressed, where our intervention is clearly necessary. No-one should assume that such material will be confined to established platforms such as film and DVD. Whether in a regulatory or an advisory capacity, we believe we have unique expertise and experience to offer.

Sir Quentin said:
There is no doubt that regulation must serve a relevant social purpose, and not needlessly be an impediment between the customer and the services available. Regulatory regimes must command and sustain public confidence and be fit for purpose. There is good reason for thinking that because of the nature of audio visual product and its potential impact the public is likely to expect some oversight, particularly with a view to the protection of children. We believe that there is also a strong commercial interest in demonstrating that product in this field meets accepted standards. Nonetheless, the rapidly shifting nature of the media scene, with new technological possibilities means that these issues need to be kept under review. We welcome the enquiry by the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee into new media and the creative industries and would welcome the establishment of a forum perhaps under the auspices of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to advance consideration of these issues.

The BBFC 2005 Annual Report includes the accounts for the year along with information about the work of the Board during the year. Copies of the Annual Report can be obtained from the BBFC, 3 Soho Square, London W1D 3HD or can be downloaded from the BBFC main website, www.bbfc.co.uk (select 'downloads' option on home page)

From The Times

The Times has picked up the above story and added a couple of comments:

Simon Davies, of Privacy International, which campaigns for freedom of expression said It sounds like the most stupid intervention since the registration of fax machines and photocopiers in communist China.

Sue Clark, a spokeswoman for the board, said that people should be able to make informed choices about what to watch. Regulation, in this case, doesn’t mean banning or cutting. It is about providing information.

Based on an article from The Guardian

Video content on the internet could receive certificate 18-style classifications from film censors under plans submitted to the government today. The proposals could see web videos rated for language, violence, sex and themes in the same way as films, videos and DVDs.

The BBFC said the huge growth of online video content risked making the regulation of old media redundant as more and more people get access to video over the internet.

Internet video has mushroomed in recent years, with the spread of broadband and content-streaming technologies making downloading high-quality footage easier. The video site YouTube sees 35,000 new clips added and 30m clips downloaded every day, while it would take almost 500 years to watch all the content currently indexed by Blinkx, which claims to be the largest online video search engine.

Sue Clark, a spokeswoman for the BBFC, said the government should be looking at ways of providing information to online viewers about the sort of material they were being exposed to: If there's some sort of standardised labelling system that people understand, then they know that it's material they can trust.

And shamefully added: We don't want to go down the route of cutting and banning things and blocking sites...BUT... a lot of the content that's out there on the internet is not something the majority of people would want to view. [...Which they WILL of course cut and ban...] She cited the example of Terrorists, Killers and Middle East Wackos, a compilation of video clips of actual killings and terrorist attacks. The compilation is banned on video or DVD in the UK because the BBFC believed it to contravene the Obscene Publications Act, but it is freely available on the internet through file-sharing sites.

And for an organisation that doesn't want to go down the route of cutting and banning things, it has been reported that 27% of softcore 18 certificate video works have been censored in 2006, along with 23% of hardcore R18’s.

The BBFC wrote to the department of culture, media and sport last month, asking the government to consider a system of classification. It said that the most likely scenario would see them advising companies providing video content on what material would be acceptable to viewers. [BOLLOX BBFC, you mean acceptable to the Government and to people who like to impose their views on others about what they should be watching. Eg spanking videos are obviously acceptable to informed viewers that choose to watch them, they are only not acceptable to people who would rather you did not watch them. ie the Government, nutters and censors!]

Based on an article from IT Week

Sue Clark, a spokeswoman for the shameful BBFC said that people recognised that the internet may not be regulated, ...BUT... expected certain types of content such as films to have passed through a classification process.

The BBFC knew of at least one distributor who sees video-on-demand as a way of getting around its controls on pornography: This guy has stated that he will be putting stuff out which the BBFC will not classify. He has to be prosecuted to stop that. [It should be pointed out that BBFC are censoring and cutting hardcore porn for a whole load of nonsensical reasons such as the the vague possibility that ice or a dildo may possibly cause harm if used in a whacky way by complete imbeciles. The BBFC view on what should be cut is proving near worthless and surely does not automatically infer that the cut material is obscene and liable to prosecution].

The Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee has set up an inquiry into new media and the creative industries, which Clark hoped would lead to legislation or the introduction of a voluntary industry agreement: We have not asked the government to consider this because we think that it necessarily needs legislation. It may be that the industry signs up to a voluntary system. [As far as I can see the creative industries committee is unsurprisingly more concerned with licensing, IPR, DRM, piracy etc rather than worrying about censorship concerns of nutters and film censors facing redundancy]

From The Guardian at Bobbie Johnson's Blog which also includes a lively dicussion

According to reports this morning, the BBFC says it envisages being able to censor what is on the net.

In its annual report, the BBFC says it may be worth having a voluntary system of rating - spinning off from its rankings of U, PG, 12A, 15 and 18 - that can help people surf the web safely.

According to the Times, it says: No one should assume that such material will be confined to established platforms such as film and DVD. Whether in a regulatory or an advisory capacity, we believe we have unique expertise and experience to offer.

Outrageous, cry the web's hordes. Freedom is our watchword, and we will not bow to censors.

It's a laudable position, of course, but one that's not entirely true. Censorship already abounds on the net - just ask Google in China or go back to Yahoo's continental court case about the sale of Nazi memorabilia. We accept some forms of censorship, where appropriate, and in many ways the BBFC recommendations are in this mould.

Web pages and content have the ability to contain tags that promote an age rating. Parents can already employ web monitors like NetNanny to shepherd their children online and block unsavoury or unwanted information. Why not just crank up the regulation and make sure that every site has a rating?

The problem with such schemes, of course, is that the internet is a global phenomenon. How do you enforce censorship across nations? If you force any material hosted on British servers to carry advisory ratings, then some people would just move elsewhere (it's very easy to do). And if you don't enforce the rules, then those who do want to exploit them will just plough ahead and lie, or avoid the ratings altogether.

The ultimate problem, though, is how to regulate what people do in their own homes; how parents interact with technology and with their kids. While it's clear that an 18 certificate for a movie in a cinema stops a seven-year-old child watching the movie on the big screen, the private situation is far from clear. How effective, after all, is the 9pm watershed? How many pre-teens have watched 18-rated DVDs at home? How many kids play Grand Theft Auto with their parents' consent?

Even recent attempts to solve the conundrum have fallen foul of the very people who would welcome the BBFC's comments. When the porn industry suggested a .xxx domain name to house adult material (easily spotted by nanny programmes and blocked by parents), it seemed like a fair idea, but it was shot down by the Christian right - the same people who would no doubt welcome the BBFC's proposals. Why? Because pornography should never be legitimised, and creating a .xxx suffix would do exactly that.

So we're stuck in a world where the veto goes to those who want to have their cake and eat it while ideas are flung about for forcing new rules on producers and consumers alike. Any net censorship would be expensive and almost certainly unsuccessful - and in any case, it would be far easier and cheaper to teach people how to use the tools that already exist. But that would just be too simple, wouldn't it?

From the New York Times

Andy Steward became exasperated when trying to watch his favorite sport on television. There were a few half-hour recaps of some major sailing races, but they were always shown late at night.

Steward looked into creating a sailing channel on the Sky satellite service in Britain, but his idea was soon dead in the water. He would have had to pay £85,000 (nearly $150,000) to start the channel and £40,000 a month (nearly $70,000), as well as the production costs. That was a lot of money for an untested concept.

But in January, he did introduce a sailing channel, one that is rapidly filling with sailing talk shows, product reviews, programs on sailing techniques and, most important, intense coverage of the sort of smaller races that don't make it onto traditional television.

His new channel, however, will not be available over the air. And it won't be found on cable or even on satellite, at least not yet. The channel, called Sail.tv, is broadcast only on the Internet, which enables video to reach a much larger worldwide audience at a much lower initial cost than a satellite channel. Because we didn't have any idea how big the audience would be, Steward said, he wanted to keep his expenses as low as possible: Internet television is an investment we can grow into.

It is interesting that there  are the thousands of producers whose programming would never make it into prime time but who have very dedicated small audiences. It's a phenomenon that could be called slivercasting.

In 2004, Wired magazine popularized the phrase "the long tail" to refer to the large number of specialized offerings that in themselves appeal to a small number of people, but cumulatively represent a large market that can be easily aggregated on the Internet. Plotted on a graph along with best sellers, these specialized products trail off like a long tail that never reaches zero.

The next wave of media is to unleash the power of serving people's special interests, said John Hendricks, the chief executive of Discovery Communications, which is developing a series of specialized video services.

Already, there are specialized video services serving hundreds of specialties, including poker, bicycling, lacrosse, photography, vegetarian cooking, fine wine, horror films, obscure sitcoms and Japanese anime. There is also a growing market for Webcasts of local news and entertainment from every country and in every language, aimed at expatriates.

We're adding two or three new channels a week, said Iolo Jones, the chief executive of NarrowStep, a company in London that provides technology and support for specialized Webcasts. Among his clients is Sail.tv, which says it attracted 70,000 viewers in its first month.

Perhaps a few of our regulators and broadcasters should take note. Surely this will be the of Ofcoms human rights abusing ban on hardcore. And who wants to watch Sky's mandatory PIN protected films when one can skip the whole bollox of control freakery.

From the Korea  Herald

The start of Web-based television in Korea may still take some time with the confrontation between the nation's IT regulator and broadcasting sector over the service's legal boundaries showing no signs of ceasing.

The Korean Broadcasting Commission and the Korean Cable TV Association on Friday lashed out against Information Minister Chin Dae-je's comments earlier in the week that he is willing to approve cable TV system operators to engage in internet phone service business in return for a prompt launch of internet protocol television, or IPTV.

Though technically ready, commercialization of IPTV has been delayed for more than a year in Korea amid a turf war between the nation's telecommunication companies and broadcasting sector.

The nation's broadcasting sector has called for an "industry restructuring" as business domains of the telecommunication and broadcasting industries increasingly overlap with advancements in the IT field. The broadcasting industry says related laws must first be refurbished to ensure a fair business environment before IPTV is introduced.

IPTV, which distributes television contents over the high-speed internet, is considered a killer application for the future internet industry, however, with countries around the world racing to introduce it.

Chin has argued IPTV should be subject to minimum red-tape and quickly introduced because of national interests. The trade-off solution from Chin, however, has drawn heavy criticism from the broadcasting sector, which accuses the minister of favoritism: Chin keeps making comments favoring certain telecom operators like KT and hampering fair competition environment between operators of telecommunications and broadcasting, the Korean Broadcasting Commission said in a statement.

Meanwhile, analysts see the broadcasting sector eventually giving into the information ministry.

It is a global trend (to encourage the introduction of IPTV), said Kim Kyeong-mo, an analyst at Mirae Asset Securities Co.

From the BBC

Warner Bros to sell movies on the Internet. Films such as Batman Begins and TV series The OC are to be made available over the internet via peer-to-peer (P2P) networks by studio Warner Bros.

The firm will sell movies and TV shows over the internet in Germany, Austria and Switzerland from March. Its In2Movies service will use existing file-sharing technology. Warner Bros did not reveal price details but said it planned to widen its international use of P2P networks.

One of the most effective weapons for defeating online piracy is providing legal, easy-to-use alternatives, said Kevin Tsujihara, president of Warner Bros Home Entertainment Group.

New films will be made available to registered users of the service from the day they are released on DVD in the German language. Our initial efforts will focus on the German market, but in the months ahead we will leverage this technology to better serve markets around the world, Tsujihara added.

A later version of In2Movies will also enable viewers to store movies and TV shows on portable devices. The BBC is currently testing a similar service called iMP, which will enable viewers to watch BBC programmes up to seven days after they have been broadcast on TV.

From The Telegraph

Google, the giant internet search company, is to lead industry opposition to new proposals from the European Commission to regulate online content.

The company, which last week said it would self-censor its Chinese search engine to appease the country's government, objects to the commission's proposals to extend regulations in the Television Without Frontiers directive (TWFD) to cover video content shown on the internet.

James Purnell, the minister for creative industries, has backed Google's stance. He said: There is no benefit to the consumer that justifies this move. This increased scope could mean significant regulation of the internet and stifle the growth of new media services. That would raise prices for consumers and deprive them of potential new services.

Existing national laws that regulate TV broadcasting - for example, the British ban on tobacco advertising and child porn - were sufficient, he added.

If the proposals became part of European law, Purnell said: in 10 years our successors will bemoan the handicaps we gave to European industry and the restraints we put on free speech. For example, the proposals suggest that member states should ensure that media service providers. . . do not offer material which contains incitement to hatred on grounds of, for example, disability or age. I'm the last person to say that issues like this are not important and of course we have been discussing race and religious hatred in our own Parliament only recently.

But what that debate showed was that these are wide-ranging issues on which there are different, strongly and legitimately held opinions and where intervention must have the strongest justification. Some member states - and I don't just mean the UK - will have serious difficulties with such an approach on grounds of freedom of speech.

The plan to extend the scope of the TWFD is set to go before the European Parliament later this year. The new proposals, if implemented, will govern material shown on the internet which originates in EU member states. The internet industry fears that some content providers will move outside the trading bloc rather than submit to regulation.

The TV and internet industries are moving closer together as new technologies and faster download speeds make it easier to broadcast video on the web.

From The Times

Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, said yesterday that a European Union plan to introduce Internet regulation was unwelcome, arguing that new media were best left to themselves. If we want further regulation, then I believe the best approach is to rely as far as possible on self-regulation. She said that existing EU proposals in a draft directive were “as a whole … still unacceptable.”

The European Union is trying to overhaul the 1989 Television Without Frontiers directive, which sets out a baseline for broadcast regulation across Europe. Although Brussels insists it is producing a light-touch approach, it still wants to introduce new rules on the protection of children and the incitement to hatred. It is the first time that the Culture Secretary has taken a position on the subject, although her stance is in line with a speech made by Lord Currie of Marylebone, the chairman of Ofcom, in Liverpool last autumn. He argued that ordinary criminal law was a sufficient way to regulate the Internet.

From Digital Spy (More on their website)

Digital Spy's Alan Jay reviews Sky's new broadband and mobile services.

This is a project that Sky has been working on for almost a year, according to Sky’s developers. The service is available to those with two premium channels: a Sky Sports subscription gets you access to the sports streams, a Sky Movies subscription gets you access to the movie streams, and a Sky World subscription offers access to both.

To access the service, you log on to skybybroadband.com and input your address and Sky Card number. Each household may then download, onto a single PC, a copy of the Sky by Broadband software. The application looks very easy to use and it is a clean and simple interface that certainly looks very "Sky." Browsing the application is intuitive. Sky have built an interesting "recommendation" system to tailor the choices it recommends to you; it isn’t anything sophisticated but, it provides some way to focus your attention and with move movies and sports clips coming this will be useful.

According to Sky, 30,000 people have already downloaded it. They are pitching it as another bonus content delivery platform similar to the positioning of Sky+ as a "loyalty bonus" for subscribers who take a minimum of two premium channels.

Currently, hundreds of titles are available on the service. Sky plans to expand this to thousands of titles of movies and sport content as the service develops. In the future Sky hopes to have some content from Sky One available, probably in the next 6 months and probably starting with their US imports. Live coverage of the UEFA Champions League is also expected to eventually join the service.

Once the software is downloaded and configured you select a film or sports clip to download. The program then does so in the background, with Sky estimating an hour for a 2 hour movie on a 2Mbps downstream connection. The files are between 800MB and 1GB in size and are compressed using Windows Media 9 Series codecs. In terms of resolution, the clips have around 540 lines although they plan to increase this by 20% for the next set of movies. In terms of bitrates, the movies are encoded with variable bitrates (running at around 800kbps), with sports running at a fixed 900kbps.

There are restrictions on what can be done with downloaded content. Burning it to a DVD is not permitted, and movies are automatically deleted after 30 days.

From AVN

Entice.TV will feature Pumpkin Pictures, the United Kingdom's largest producer of adult video and home of Cathy Barry, one of the country's top adult stars, on its adult broadband Internet protocol television service.

Entice.TV delivers DVD-quality video and high definition video via a broadband connection to a TV and PC, without the need for a set-top box.

Pumpkin's titles are consistently top sellers in the UK, and have featured some of England's most recognizable performers, including AVN Award-winner Angel Long, Jane Whitehouse and Michelle Thorne.

Barry, a busty female performer, appears in many of Pumpkin's videos.

But will the service feature real porn?

No doubt a tie up between two leading control freak companies will result in a service where the customers has no rights whatsoever.

From The Times

BSKYB has forged a deal with Microsoft allowing it to launch a video-on-demand service for personal computers next week, extending its push into broadband and giving millions of its subscribers access to films and sports highlights on a new format.

From Tuesday BSkyB subscribers who own PCs with Microsoft’s Media Centre software, a user-friendly version of Windows, will be able to access video-on-demand features through the recently announced Sky By Broadband service. The service will be available to BSkyB’s premium movies and sports subscribers.

Speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, said the tie-up with BSkyB, in which News Corporation, parent company of The Times was in preparation for the arrival of the much talked about “digital lifestyle”.

As Britain’s take-up of high-speed broadband internet connections has increased, media and telecoms groups are preparing for the internet to become the main source for television, music and telecoms services. Video-on-demand technology will allow viewers to watch what they want when they want.

Gates said that content from MTV, the US music channel, will also be made available through a similar partnership: We’re working with BSkyB and they’ll be setting up through our alliance a video-on-demand capability — they have got over eight million subscribers in the UK who will be able to do those downloads.

The announcement reiterates BSkyB’s interest in expanding its broadband offering. BSkyB has said that nearly half its satellite TV customers have broadband access.

In October, the company announced a £211 million takeover of Easynet, the broadband telecoms specialist. The Easynet deal enables BSkyB to offer “triple-play” services — a combination of broadband, television and telephony. This will help the group to compete with NTL and Telewest, currently in the process of merging, which both offer triple play.

But will the service feature real porn?

From CNET News

Google plans to sell television shows and sports programming that customers can download from its Web site, a source familiar with the deal told CNET News.com.

Users will pay an undisclosed fee to download content supplied by partners that Google has lined up. These include TV broadcasters and the National Basketball Association.

Mountain View.-based Google is expected to debut the new service at the Consumer Electronics Show Friday, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the story. A Google representative responded to an interview request by saying that the company anticipates "many exciting announcements" on Friday.

A slew of companies, including Apple Computer, are trying to seize turf in the tiny video-on-demand market, even though studies indicate that the public has remained cool on the idea of replacing their TVs with a PC.

According to a Jupiter Research survey, only one in four people were interested in downloading video via the Internet. Just 28% of poll participants between the ages of 18 and 24 had ever watched a video online.

It's safe to say that only a small minority of the population are doing anything with downloadable video, said Todd Chanko, a media analyst at Jupiter, adding that he had no reason to believe a surge of interest in downloadable video is just around the corner.

Nitin Gupta, a media analyst for research firm Yankee Group, said the surging interest in mobile products will spur sales of downloadable video and the market is too new to gauge public opinion: Services like this are the foundation for innovation. Companies here will find new ways to package video content, make interfaces more active...I don't know the economics of Google's model for this, but with their track record, I'm betting they have found a way to make money on this.

From TV Predictions

Entice.tv is taking its IPTV (Internet protocol television) to adult gay producers through a customized version of the company’s new on-demand adult entertainment service.

Entice.tv delivers DVD-quality video and high-definition video via a broadband connection to a PC and then to TV without the need for a set-top box. The player is customizable by video preference: gay, lesbian, straight, or any combination.

Users who select gay content will receive software for a player devoted to all-gay videos and images. The on-screen, remote-controlled guide is based on the chosen preference and includes such categories as twink, uniforms, muscle men, and “str8 bait.”

We are enthusiastic to add gay studios to our innovative service. Entice.tv offers gay producers a way to have their own studio-branded TV channels, much different than broadcast, but just as user-friendly, says Susan Keil, president of Entice.tv. Gay producers who’ve looked to distribute their titles through a venue with the video quality and ease of use of cable and satellite have been out of luck, until now. Hardcore gay adult titles can now be offered discreetly and conveniently, there’s no need to go out to an adult video store, wait for a brown paper package to arrive, or watch poor quality video on a tiny computer screen.