TV Piracy

There is a story below that shows the extent of TV piracy as of the start of the 2006-2007 TV season. My thoughts after the guff.

Web piracy hits foreign broadcasters – Reuters

Nothing seems to be safe from entertainment content thieves who now are causing even the international TV sector some major headaches.

Broadcasters are increasingly irked that expensiveHollywood TV shows are being downloaded off the Internet andexploited by pirates long before their scheduled broadcast intheir territories.

Piracy has forced the film sector to close the windowbetween domestic U.S. and international debuts. Now the samething is happening on the TV front. The debut in Australia ofthe CBS drama “Jericho” within hours of its U.S. bow a couple of weeks ago likely will pave the way for more “day-and-date”launches in foreign territories.

In fact, British broadcaster Sky One recently refined itsdeal with News Corp. sibling 20th Century Fox Television to airthe next season of “24” within a week of its U.S. broadcast.Research has identified “24” as the single-most illegallyviewed TV program on the Internet in the U.K.