Illegal iTunes Movie Apps

According to BBC News, many old Soviet-era Russian films are available to download and watch via Apple’s iTunes App Store. The only problem is that the original filmmakers and copyright owners haven’t given permission for the films to be distributed in this way, and aren’t seeing any money from them.

The affected titles include Gentlemen of Fortune, Assa, The Diamond Arm, Kin-dza-dza, and Cheburashka. All of which are considered favorites amongst Russians who lived through the Soviet era.

The copyright owners of the titles are film studio Mosfilm and the Joint State Film Collection. Neither of which is involved in the smartphone apps. Apple is investigating.

Criminal or Ignorant?

This is a strange story because Apple is usually very stringent when it comes to deciding what can and cannot be put up for sale on iTunes. Apps have been declined or removed for very slight nudity and other minor indiscretions. But it appears full on movie piracy is acceptable.

The question is whether the people involved in this practice are knowingly breaking the law with criminal intent or rather just a little ignorant to the facts. Vladimir Penshin, a Ukrainian programmer responsible for at least one of these apps, said, “I realize that this is wrong. Maybe I am breaking the law.” He is definitely breaking the law, but doesn’t seem sure.

Penshin added, “Of course, I do not have any license agreement. This is all very simple. The companies, who can have complaints, submit them to Apple and Apple notifies me that they have to withdraw the application.” Because putting the onus on the victim is fair in this case, obviously.

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Cord-Cutters Unite

According to a new survey from J.P. Morgan’s Imran Khan (via MediaMemo), 2011 is set to be a bumper year in terms of the number of people cutting the cord.

28 percent of those with a cable or satellite TV package stated they would consider switching to online video. If you replace “would consider” with “are considering” then this is a startling result. 63 percent of these people wouldn’t even be put off by the lack of live sports available on the Web.

Netflix appears to be the main source of this confidence in cutting the cord, with 47 percent of all active Netflix streamers stating they are considering making the move.

Khan consequently calls this move “a consumer-driven Tsunami.”

Cable Companies Denials

Flying fully in the face of the mounting evidence that cord cutting is real and is happening, cable companies and others continue to deny its existence. Comcast claims anyone dropping their service is just reacting to the recession, while Nielsen had the temerity to brand the whole thing “a myth.”

I guess it’s natural for an industry facing a struggle to retain its customers to try and mask the truth. There’s an obvious fear that admitting such a revolution is afoot could result in even more people checking out the alternatives and choosing one over cable.

But at the end of the day burying their heads in the sand isn’t going to get them far.

Conclusions

Cable companies need to admit the truth while forming a strategy for retaining their customers or adapting their businesses to stay relevant in the Web-lead world we now inhabit. Otherwise they’re destined to lose control like the major record labels have done.

Apple TV Rebooted

Apple was one of the first major tech companies to realize the potential of bringing online video into the living room. Unfortunately, its first attempt at providing the hardware to make this possible didn’t really take off in a big way, eventually leading to Apple CEO Steve Jobs reclassifying Apple TV as “a hobby.”

However, after going back to the drawing board Apple saw fit to try again, and Apple TV 2.0 was born.

The new Apple TV is smaller, cheaper, and built along different lines. Gone is the hard drive, replaced by a flash memory drive designed to deliver streaming content from the cloud. So, very different, but better? And more importantly, more appealing to mainstream consumers?

Impressive Sales Figures

Early reviews for the Apple TV were mostly positive, although many still don’t seem to get the device. And yet, according to Barron’s, the Apple TV is doing rather well at this stage of proceedings.

JMP Research analyst Alex Gauna states that the new Apple TV has sold out in stores across the U.S. He believes the $99 price tag “is resonating with consumers.” Consequently, the Apple TV is estimated to be selling at a rate of around 1 million units per quarter.

While that doesn’t compare to Apple’s other big launch of 2010, the iPad, which is selling around 4.5 million units per quarter, it’s impressive nonetheless. That is if it continues beyond the first couple of months.

All Apple products sell well initially because of the number of fans the company has. Apple also aids this demand by running supplies short. So I’d reserve judgment for a couple more months.

Conclusions

Having said that, Apple TV has probably moved beyond the realms of ‘hobby’ and is now a legitimate Apple product that the company will invest in heavily moving forward. Which sets up what could potentially be the mother of all battles with Google TV, launching in the coming months.

Apple vs. Google for control of the Internet-enabled living room? Yes please.

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Apple Revolution

Apple is ultra-keen to bring online video into the living room in a mainstream way. With Apple TV providing the hardware to make this happen, all that’s now needed is content; lots of it, and at the right price.

Apple has already done this for music in a big way, with iTunes bringing the reality of albums and tracks available to purchase in a simple way to bear. And Apple has managed to persuade the music industry and major record labels that pricing is the key.

Unfortunately, the company appears to be having a tougher time persuading the television industry and major networks and channels that this is also the case for video.

Affordable On-Demand Video

Apple has been pushing to secure individual episodes of TV shows for 99-cents, with viewers able to rent the shows for 24 or 48 hours. Disney and News Corps. signed on the dotted line, but other big players are simply not interested.

Last month, Warner Bros. CEO Barry Meyer indicated this was a no-go for his company, although his wording that “we’d rather not” suggested there was some wiggle room and that things could change in the future. Others are being more resolute in their dismissal.

Time Warner Not Impressed

Step forward Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes who, according to The Hollywood Reporter, stated last week during the Royal Television Conference in London:

“How can you justify renting your first-run TV shows individually for 99 cents an episode and thereby jeopardize the sale of the same shows as a series to branded networks that pay hundreds of millions of dollars and make those shows available to loyal viewers for free?”

“These new entrants must meet a few criteria: They must provide consumers with a superior TV experience, and they must either support or improve the overall economics that funds and creates the programming in the first place.”

There seems to be one important element missing from this diatribe, and that is viewers. There was I thinking viewers were the most important thing in the whole TV/advertising/programming equation, but I must be wrong.

Conclusions

In Bewkes’ world viewers are bottom of the heap when it comes to what part of the industry to nurture. So what if Apple is trying to offer viewers a chance to see individual episodes at a reasonable price? They can watch it on conventional television when we tell them they can. Or they can go without.

Unfortunately for Bewkes, and fortunately for viewers, this is a view looking to the past rather than the future. Video on demand is the future, and the sooner some of these companies realize this fact the more secure their long-term futures will become.

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Apple TV

As with every new Apple product, the Apple TV received a lot of buzz in its early days. But the world both consumers and content owners) just didn’t seem ready for an online video set-top box to become mainstream.

Steve Jobs and co. soon wrote the whole thing off as nothing more than a hobby, while at the same time heading back to the drawing board and creating Apple TV 2.0. Which has now arrived.

The All-New Apple TV Arrives

The all-new Apple TV has started landing on doorsteps this week, and there have already been a healthy sprinkling of reviews around the Web. Most of them are mainly positive, but it doesn’t appear as if this Apple product will change the world in the way others have.

Fox News isn’t who I would normally turn to for a technology review, but as it posted its one before anyone else it deserves coverage. The review is very much from a mainstream perspective, with the reviewer referring to his mom and how she’d get on with it. The overall verdict is that while the new Apple TV is very promising, it’ll need some heavy marketing to actually achieve anything.

CNET gives the new Apple TV a good going over, as it does with all products it reviews. The bottom line of, “The Apple TV’s new low $99 price makes it an easy impulse buy for Apple fans looking to bring Netflix into the living room, but you may want to wait until more content–or Apple’s forthcoming AirPlay update–becomes available,” pretty much says it all. In essence, the review states that while the Apple TV is nice but a lack of content is costing it dear at this stage.

Engadget gives the new Apple TV the most thorough review of all. The image and sound quality tests are particularly interesting because they find that while the sound is strong, the image quality isn’t as good as Amazon content streaming on a Roku box. The comparisons with other set-top boxes continues, with the Boxee Box also getting a mention. Its conclusion is that Apple TV is a good simple option but not the be all and end all. In fact, it still feels a lot like a hobby.

Conclusions

It’s probably too early to truly tell exactly what the new Apple TV is going to bring to the table. Until the competition (Google TV and others) arrives then no one is going to truly know whether any service is going to be the magic pill which bring online video into the living room in a big way. Until then the Apple TV at least looks good.

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99-Cents Shows

Just before Apple unveiled the iPad for the first time, a rumor popped up that the company was seeking to offer TV content for as cheap as humanly possible.

In August this plan came to fruition, with Apple beginning negotiations with a number of companies to get episodes of television shows available to rent for just 99-cents.

An episode would be made available for 48-hours within 24-hours of it being aired on broadcast television. And there would be no commercials. All of which is designed to make the content as desirable to mainstream consumers as possible.

Warner Bros. Says No

Unfortunately not all of the big players are on board. In fact, just Disney and News Corps. have so far signed up. And it doesn’t look as though warner Bros. wants anything to do with the concept for the foreseeable future.

According to the L.A. Times, Warner Bros. CEO Barry Meyer had this to say when asked for his thoughts on Apple’s plan:

“We just don’t think the value proposition is a good one for us. [We'd rather not] open up a rental business in television at a low price.”

Is it me or is this short-term thinking of the highest order? The thinking is clear: Warner Bros. doesn’t want to risk DVD and Blu-ray sales of full seasons of its shows, so it won’t even consider offering consumers a choice in the matter.

I guess I can understand this position. But it totally disregards the viewers of these shows who may want to rent a specific episode after transmission.

Conclusions

Warner Bros. isn’t looking beyond its nose on this one, and I doubt it’ll change its mind anytime soon. But Apple has had huge success in turning the mainstream onto music sales via iTunes, and was clearly hoping to do the same for video content.

Can it be that the TV and movie industries are even more stuck in the past than the music industry?

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Boxee

Boxee is a company best-known for its cross-platform, open-source media center for all. Available on PC, Mac, and Linux, this is a media center designed to fill the gap between your TV and your computer, and many people use and love it.

However, in December 2009 Boxee announced it was entering the set-top box arena with an offering developed by D-Link. The Boxee Box (pictured above) is the result, and although it’s been delayed it’s now finally available to pre-order.

The Boxee Box

The Boxee Box was first scheduled to be released in the middle of the year, but in June the company announced a delay until November.

That target is still on course to be met, but the Boxee Box is available to pre-order two months before its official launch. It’s an Amazon.com exclusive and will set you back a hefty $200. I say hefty in relation to the $99 price tag attached to the all-new Apple TV.

The only thing that seems to have been altered over the past nine months is the processor powering the Boxee Box, with an Intel CE4100 Atom replacing the NVIDIA Tegra 2 that was originally the heart of the device.

The change was reportedly made as the Tegra 2 chipset didn’t support the number of video formats Boxee wants to offer. And the shifting from one processor to another was also the reason for the months-long delay.

Apple TV and Google TV

This delay could prove costly to Boxee, because although the product is almost with us, so are other similar devices. Including the cheap and very mainstream Apple TV, and the dark horse that is Google TV.

The Boxee Box has a lot going for it, and is sure to sell well to those who have grown to love the Boxee media center in recent years. But it’s not cheap, and I’d suggest anyone other than geeks will stick to what they know. Which is Apple and Google, both household names people trust and, in many cases, love.

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Apple TV

It’s fair to say the Apple TV didn’t exactly fly off the shelves when it was first launched. After some good early buzz, as there is with any new Apple product, the Apple TV was designated nothing more than a hobby. Which implied Jobs had accepted defeat.

It’s hard to put a finger on why the original Apple TV failed. It was definitely too expensive, and maybe the mainstream market just wasn’t ready for a set-top box able to stream and download video content.

Apple is hoping things have changed now, however, and that the new Apple TV will take off in a big way.

The New Apple TV

We’ve known Apple TV was getting rebooted for months now. Be it by design or not, Apple seems to have sprung a leak when it comes to forthcoming products. Steve Jobs finally revealed the new Apple TV on Wednesday, and there were no real surprises.

The new Apple TV is a small black box which has been likened to a hockey puck. It will cost just $99 to buy and will start to ship(initially in just six countries) in four weeks time.

The new Apple TV has no hard drive and is instead designed for direct streaming from the cloud. To make this possible, Apple is committed to offering HD rentals of TV episodes for just $0.99, but only ABC and Fox have agreed to the new pricing so far. Jobs insisted others will follow “once they see the light.”

New HD movies will cost $4.99, but for that you’ll get to watch a feature the same day it’s released on DVD and Blu-ray.

YouTube, Netflix, and others are also included on the device, and a new feature called AirPlay will allow the Apple TV to stream content to other Apple devices – such as the iPad tablet – around the house.

The only real surprise was the lack of renaming, suggesting the idea to call it iTV was either not real or halted by the threat of legal action.

Conclusions

Apple has gone back to the drawing board and produced something much more relevant to the way we now consume digital content. Will this be enough to take the Apple TV from being a hobby back to a core product in Apple’s line-up? Time will tell.

[Via Business Insider]

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iTV, iPad, iPhone

Apple is one of the companies best positioned to take advantage of the move to online and streaming video. Not only does it lead the way with its iTunes service, it also has a range of products on the market, or about to hit the market, able to deliver video.

Apple’s three mobile devices, the iPad, the iPhone, and the iPod Touch are all capable of streaming high quality video. The iPad in particular is a device designed with the delivery of content in mind.

Meanwhile, the Apple TV is all but dead, with the iTV set to replace it. This will be cheap, cheerful, and designed for the mainstream. Giving it a good chance of succeeding.

99 Cent Shows

According to sources speaking to Bloomberg, Apple is in negotiations with media companies, including CBS and Disney, in order to secure episodes of TV shows for just 99-cents. Talks with News Corp., owner of Fox, have so far come the furthest.

For 99-cents, customers would be able to rent an episode for 48-hours within 24-hours of it being aired on broadcast television. What’s more, there will be no commercials included. This was first rumored to be in the works in January on the eve of the iPad being unveiled.

As part of the deal, Apple is letting go of its plans for a monthly subscription service, with sources insisting, “the a la carte rental plan follows an abandoned effort to create a subscription television service.”

The plans for that subscription service were leaked last November. If it had come to fruition, customers would have paid a flat rate of $30-per-month for as much programming as they wanted. But it appears this was one step too far for the networks.

Conclusions

This will only work if the majority of networks and media companies agree to the plan. Which they should do if they know what’s good for them.

Sure, they’re still tied to the cable companies but the future is looking a lot different than the present. And keeping all their eggs in one basket would be madness.

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The Revolution Begins

In terms of the Web being accessed by computers, online video has made its mark. The likes of YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, and the iPlayer have all been massive hits and proved beyond any doubt that the consumption of digital media is the future.

So it’s now time to ramp the effort up, with the living room the next big target. The ultimate goal must surely be to disable the big TV and movie studios’ abilities to control the marketplace.

Rose Loves Apple iTV

If the rumors are to be believed, Apple is preparing to relaunch Apple TV as iTV, turning Steve Jobs’ hobby project into a mainstream, highly-affordable piece of kit designed to revolutionize people’s viewing habits.

Kevin Rose, the founder and CEO of Digg, believes iTV will “change everything.”

His reasons for thinking this include iTV apps, similar to the one for the iPhone and iPod Touch, a la carte TV stations, video sharing between family and friends, and the integration of Apple’s existing mobile devices, including the iPad.

I agree with Rose that should iTV succeed, then it will be an important part of the living room revolution. But Google TV and video games consoles also have a part to play.

Google TV & Games Consoles

Google TV is set to launch before the year is out, and the interface is so far looking great. The one problem Google appears to be facing is convincing content partners to sign up. Mainly because while Apple is happy to charge end users for services, Google prefers free, open-source products. And studios and networks will balk at giving much away for nothing.

Then there are games consoles such as the PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii. They have already proved their worth to the online video sector by offering a means of reaching living room audiences thanks to their in-built broadband connectivity. If anything, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo will likely fight for more partners as online video options give their console the edge over the competition.

Conclusions

Put these three products together – all of which are affordable and appealing to the mainstream – and you have a seemingly magic combinations.

2011 could be an important year for online video making the move to the living room, whether the current owners of the space support the revolution or not.