Vids.

With this blog I wanted to ask the question, how is the media audience changing?  I wanted to ask this because I think it’s most relevant to one of the biggest legal issues occurring on the internet; copywrite.  This area involves the most court time and monetary payouts, but why?

People are watching more videos on the internet than ever before.  If you reread that last sentence it will be truer still.  Re-read again and it will be even more true.  This is because someone somewhere has started watching videos on the internet where they had not previously.  An older person is getting to grips with “streaming” or a child is watching his first clip on youtube.  People are becoming increasingly used to watching videos and clips and movies and sketches and music videos and instructional videos and the weather and the news and their friends and their families’ holidays and adverts… on the internet.  With people getting so used to this way of consuming moving images people are searching for wider varieties of shows on-line, legal or not.  With so many people uploading so many of their own videos and so many films and television shows being hosted, the line between them is becoming increasingly blurred.  What’s the difference? The companies who produced it or bought it would argue copywrite.  It legally belongs to them and they should in some way be remunerated for their efforts.

What are they doing about this growing number of people who are watching their shows on the internet for free without any real care for its legality or not?  They have decided to offer a variety of ways to watch their things legally.  You have BBC’s iPlayer, 4OD, ITV Player to name but a few.  These are free to view but the shows are only hosted for a certain amount of time.  Does that make any difference to how you watch it?  Well yes.  Most people will watch their favourite show on those websites unless the show have been taken off and then they watch them on youtube again… illegally.  It doesn’t really make a difference how you allow people to watch your videos, they will be watched independently of your efforts.  It is far too easy to find a show or film for free for people to really bother whether or not it is legal.  Torrents and streaming sites are in huge abundance and, not forgetting, file sharing sites, where if someone has something you can download it from them, no matter what that something is.  A search for “Fraiser” the American comedy show will bring up options allowing you to download every episode ever made.  It is as easy as that.

The future of internet use lies with the children who are spending their lives on it.  Do they see it as their right to watch anything on the web?  I think they do.  They are far less concerned with the right or wrongs involved, if they want to watch something they will watch it.  It is the older audience that ascribe to the rights and wrongs of viewing legally.  Changing the mindset or habits of the younger generation of internet users may be a major factor.

So where does that lead us?

An interesting question.  It would be impossible to stop people uploading films if they want to.  There are far too many self taught computer wizards to create an un-copyable version of a programme.  In fact by allowing your show to be up on the internet you are almost allowing it to be copied with greater ease.  Instead of separating the internet from the broadcast it seems that the direction is to combine the two.  The computer is becoming more powerful and more important than ever.  Books are being downloaded and read on computers, it is possible to watch live TV on the internet, the computer has taken the place of the stereo and has engulfed the photo album.  With ever more focus on the whirring box of electricity it seems that companies will have huge hurdles to jump if they want to keep their precious property.

The internet has almost been left for too long on its own.  It has picked up bad habits, has been shaped by its users and has grown hirsute and wild.  Now people are trying to teach it manners, cut its hair and make it slender, fit and efficient and it is responding very badly.  It may well be too set in its ways to anything about it.

The problem may not be to change the internet but to change people mindset when they use it.