Demanding Content

According to a new study, more of the Great British youf watch music videos on YouTube than traditional channels like MTV (57% of 15-24 year olds watched music on YouTube, compared to 56% watching them on TV). But poor ol' YouTube has had to take a load of music videos down after a row broke out about licensing fees.

Working in tech PR I've been listening to companies talk about content on demand for donkey's. And back when I first started in tech PR, I was rather taken with the first incarnation of Napster (is it illegal to admit that?).

I'll also admit another taboo...I find it hard to part with cash for digital content.

I don't get anything tangible in my hands. I pay my license fee because it's like a utility bill, I have a Lovefilm subscription because they post me things (DVDs to be precise, I don't have a special agreement with them). But when it comes of video on demand, if I want to see something, by hook or by crook I will make it happen.

But that doesn't mean I won't pay for it, it's just that option is more often than not unavailable, making it physically impossible to part with cash.

So why isn't it legally available - I said I'd pay for it, why can't I? Usually it's because the series/movie/whatever is only out in the States, not the UK, and as such I am expected to wait. Me? Wait? Outrageous.

But this is a problem for content owners - I am a problem. Piracy funds terrorism, we all know that right? Mickey Mouse working for the Taliban is an image conjured by many a political comedian ove rthe years. But the VOD services out there are simply not good enough. I want more than content on demand, I am demanding content.

Take last night as a case in point. Lovefilm sent me Disk 1 of Apparitions, a BBC series from last year that I'd never seen but had wanted to. I loved it, and after watching all 3 episodes over the course of the weekend, and being left on a cliffhanger edge for part 4, I realised that I needed that next episode. I'll have to wait a couple of days to get it from LoveFilm, and BBC iPlayer doesn't keep stuff from back in November. I was screwed, and found myself trawling the web for somewhere I could download it.

Now...would I have paid for that download? Yes. If I'd found it, I wanted to watch it so badly that I would have happily paid a couple of quid for it. But so too would I have broken the law and watched an illegal copy, because I wanted to see it - correction, I needed to see it.

The whole experience of watching and listening to things is so utterly different from owning a gadget or a gizmo that us mere mortals find it hard to check our morals when the desperation to find out what happens next takes over. It's like reading a book, you stay up late to get to the end, forgoing sleep and rocking up to work the next day broken and tired with a crick in your neck simply because you could not put the darned thing down.

So there's the rub. Traditional broadcasters have no choice but to change their business models because we're all 5 steps ahead of content on demand, we're demanding what we want, when we want it. These people have been talking about VOD for so long now, it's time to shape up or continue to lose money on stolen/pirated copy.

See what I did there? It's not my fault if I view pirated video, it's because I didn't have any other choice.

Epilogue:
I never managed to find Apparitions online, and so have ordered disk 2 from Lovefilm - it's the only one in my rental list on high priority so hopefully it's next to arrive this week.

For the Legal Eagles:
This blog does not condone the distribution or consumption of illegally obtained content.