It is estimated that NBC sucks.

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War Machine
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It is estimated that NBC sucks.

Post by War Machine »

NBC is a TV Network from the US that recently backed out of their contract with iTunes to sell their TV shows on the internet (through iTunes, of course). As a point of reference, in case you hadn't heard about this, here's the issued statement from Apple and the issued statement from NBC:

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/08/31itunes.html

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pi ... 7Te_sjiGug

And here's Daring Fireball's take on this situation which summed up most of my opinions:

http://daringfireball.net/2007/09/nbc_screw_up

Edit:
An update. NBC is going to sell their shows through Amazon's Unbox service now, which offers even more restrictions on their content than iTunes:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20 ... unbox.html

Again, here's Daring Fireball's take on this:
This just shows how moronic these NBC clowns are. You don’t have to be a nerd or obsessive to see how these restrictions suck — they’re obvious. No mixing means you and your spouse can’t both buy material for each other’s use.

What’s surprising is that Amazon, a company that grew to prominence specifically because of their reputation for great customer service and experience, would go along with such odious restrictions. Here’s a simple rule of thumb: if an honest customer has to even think about the rules, your DRM system is odiously restrictive.

Source: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2007/s ... e-04-unbox
And yet, there are far less restrictions on DVD releases of TV shows and they're far cheaper than their online counterparts.

Edit 2:
Another update.
The New York Times on NBC-Amazon Deal
Brooks Barnes reporting:

“'Amazon is a company that understands the value we provide as content owners to its business,' said Jean-Briac Perrette, president of NBC Universal Digital Distribution."

Translation: Amazon bent over and took it, and told NBC how pretty they are.

Barnes’s report makes no mention whatsoever of the fact that Unbox’s DRM restrictions are far tighter than iTunes’s. That’s a central aspect of the story, so no cookie for The Times.

Source: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2007/s ... 04-nyt_nbc
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