Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last 12 months, you’ll know that The Dark Knight has been absolutely huge this year. But the Batman movie is also the most pirated movie of 2008. Does this put answer Hollywood cries that piracy is killing its business?

The Dark Knight – Huge Success

Let’s be clear here – The Dark Knight has been phenomenally successful. It is the second highest grossing film of all time, with only Titanic managing to take more than the $1 billion the latest Batman film has already managed.

But the success story doesn’t end there. The Dark Knight also sold 3 million copies on DVD on its first day of release in the U.S., Canada, and the UK. It also managed record Blu-ray sales. And there are plans to re-release the movie in theaters around the world early next year for those who missed out the first time around.

The Dark Knight Pirates

The Dark Knight has also been a big player on the piracy scene this year. The first pirated copy made its way on to the Web just 38 hours after it was released. The fact that Warner Bros. saw this as a victory shows how rattled the movie studios are by the speed and efficiency demonstrated by online pirates time after time.

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Gossip Girl Synopsis

Gossip Girl is an American teen drama based on the book series by the same name and revolves around the lives of private school teenagers growing up on the Upper East Side of New York. Gossip Girl, an unseen narrator, spreads the town’s latest gossip on her blog.

The team behind Gossip Girl consists of writers Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage (from The O.C.) and director Mark Piznarski (from Veronica Mars). The cast, which mainly consists of private high school students, are Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively), Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester), Dan Humphrey (Penn Badgley).

Gossip Girl first aired in September 18, 2007 on CTV in Canada and now airs on The CW.The show is currently on it’s 2nd season.

• Watch Gossip Girl on iTunes
• Watch Gossip Girl on Amazon Video on Demand (U.S only)
• Watch On Demand at TheCW.com (Latest Few Episodes & U.S Only)
• Watch Latest Episodes on CTV (Latest Few Episodes & Canada Only)
• Watch Gossip Girl on Hulu (US, recent episodes only)
• Watch Gossip Girl on Fancast (Latest Few Episodes & U.S only)
• Watch Gossip Girl on ITV (Latest Few Episodes UK only)
• Search for Gossip Girl Episodes
• Find Gossip Girl Torrents
• See if you can stream this on Netflix

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The future may very well be Internet video, with a time when the Web is crucial to delivering video content not that far away. But until the questions remaining over advertising are answered, the industry cannot move forward.

Growing Industry

Internet video is an increasingly important part of the way media content is delivered to our homes. More companies than ever are seeing the benefit of at least having a Web video option in their line-up.

Just look at Hulu, which continues to grow at a phenomenal rate. Or the new ‘Game Rewind’ service from the NFL. Or even the increasing amount of deals being set up by Google to get professional content on to YouTube.

The Monetization Issue

But the big problem with all these new initiatives, along with all the other video start-ups you read about, is the question of how to monetize the content.

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Media companies and broadcasters are increasingly realizing the opportunity they are missing by not offering their programming on the Web. Whether it be sports coverage, weekly television series, or movies, Internet users are crying out for premium video content.

The NFL

The NFL (National Football League) has up to now a little behind in its thinking towards the Web, mainly because it has a deal with DirecTV that prevents the League from offering its programming through any other channel.

However, that clause in the $700 million deal that runs out in 2010 only applies to live coverage, with after-the-fact video on demand still available to the League to do with what they will.

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Kangaroo may be all but dead, but the BBC, ITV, and Channel 4 aren’t giving up on their joint plans to launch the definitive Internet video service in the UK. Enter Project Canvas.

Kangaroo Killed

The Competition Commission recently put the kibosh on Kangaroo, the joint online video-on-demand initiative from the BBC, ITV, and Channel 4.

While the venture may survive in some form, I expect it to evolve considerably. Possibly into the new venture currently being called Project Canvas due to its all-encompassing, inclusive nature.

Anti-Competitive

The main complaints from the CC, originally argued by BSkyB and Virgin Media, was that Kangaroo would be anti-competitive and basically kill off the plans of other broadcasters to launch their own VoD services.

The recommended course of action was to open up the service to other broadcasters, and that’s exactly what seems to be being suggested will happen by the BBC. Rather than Kangaroo though, this will be Project Canvas.

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While YouTube’s whole business is based on video, both of the UGC and professional kind, Facebook is first and foremost a social network. However, adding new video options means Facebook is now competing with YouTube on a fairly equal footing.

Facebook Vs. YouTube

YouTube has built, and continues to build, its business on video. Sure, the business so far isn’t proving very profitable, but Google is slowly but surely aiming to change that via a whole raft of new measures.

Facebook, on the other hand, has built its business on connecting people, offering everyone the chance to keep in touch with friends, message them, and generally provide an online diary/companion.

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YouTube has finally switched on its high definition option, with the old higher quality being replaced by true HD at last. This opens the door for true professional content to make its stand on the Google-owned video sharing site.

Widescreen And HD?

Two weeks ago, YouTube switched its default screen settings to widescreen with the 16:9 aspect ratio replacing the 4:3 ratio that had been the norm since the site launched. And now the reason for that move may have become more clear.

YouTube has been trying to move away from being full of user-generated content in order to tempt more professional broadcasters to allow their content to be aired on the site. Now, those broadcasters have the option of broadcasting in HD.

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