How to end online piracy the right way (without SOPA, ACTA and PIPA)

We know it sounds weird, but we find that most the people that search for ‘illegal’ episodes of their favourite series online do so simply because they cannot bear to wait for local stations to broadcast them via the legal channels.

In a globally connected world, it’s shocking that it takes over a year for some seasons of TV shows to reach some countries, even after their popularity is clearly noted.

The main reason this occurs is because the longer a station waits to air a season, the less they pay for it. They obviously need to generate enough revenue from ads to cover theses fees or they will be put out of business.

The solution to this is simple… stream episodes online… from official distributors. There could even be two flavours, a pay-per-view approach and even an ad supported platform for example.

Local stations could even enable checks to ensure that viewers are in their jurisdiction and can even expand to new localities using  money generated from these new online revenues. Its a win-win-win scenario. Users get to see their favourite shows as they are released, or on-demand; studios continue to get, and potentially increase, their sales to the stations; and the stations make money from more interactive ads that can be tracked and take advantage of new semantic technologies.

People don’t mind adverts on television, why would they mind ads on high quality, official and working streams of their favourite shows?

Don’t get us wrong, we aren’t talking about ads that break the viewing experience like on television, but instead ads that enhance it. Imagine being able to buy the t-shirt that a character is wearing or to be able to browse an advertisers site whilst the show continues to play. Product placement could finally meet direct sales! Think about it, it’s massive!

The television industry is quick to attack the innovative online media sharing and streaming sector, instead of tapping into what we all know (thanks to Kim Dotcom’s must publicised seized riches) to be a multi-million dollar industry.

The internet hasn’t killed off traditional TV, yet. But it will, and those stations that adapt will thrive in the new on-demand world.

What do you think? Are we just dreaming or is this not a more effective way to kill off the piracy without endangering the liberties and privacy of a single internet user?

(Image Source: ~hyperessence)

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New Jersey, USA