Diggnation Episode 102 - The "Early Download" Debate (keep it all in one place)

[killerofkiller]

haha, i love how kevin finally addressed the ********.net issue

[ch28-kid]

The guys at pirated diggnation site should give out statistic.

For those who are downloading there, they should download diggnation again from Revision3 on Tuesday so they can get the numbers for the advertiser.

[godmode]

according to the pirate site, they do provide stats to Rev3

[hsbsitez]

and they dont charge for the content... I cant believe kevin cant even understand the concept for the site.

Donations is the same as what occurs on this site, you need money to pay for the bandwidth, except you make it so members get the show ealier than those who dont donate. Where as the other guy does not do that, donations is just people way of helping with the bandwidth

[logant]

and they dont charge for the content... I cant believe kevin cant even understand the concept for the site.

Donations is the same as what occurs on this site, you need money to pay for the bandwidth, except you make it so members get the show ealier than those who dont donate. Where as the other guy does not do that, donations is just people way of helping with the bandwidth

Why would someone donate to that site when you could donate to Revision3?

[tjpeople]

I doudt that many people do donate to the site in question. Its comman for just about any site to have a "donate" button just in case people do wanna donate - doesnt mean people actually do.

Buts its not a "pirate" site - diggnation can be distributed under Creative Commans. According to the site in question (in thier forums) the admin has some troubles with stat logging but has now sorted it and PM's Jay here. They reported stats up till episode 89. But then had problems - with the stats not reflexing actual download and therefore being useless.

I didnt like the way in the epsisode they sort of implied you payed for downlods from this site - you can donate which is optional.

[billpickle1]

Why would someone donate to that site when you could donate to Revision3?

The only show on revision3 that requires a membership to get it early is Diggnation, which is kinda stupid because none of the other shows have this option and i'm guessing they get most of their money from sponsors. If they just let everyone have the show at the same time they wouldn't have this problem of losing stats.

[heaven]

I guess the question is... Is charging people to be a "Member" of Revision3 really worth it in loss of advertising numbers?

So thats why you download from another site where you can get it for free and you dont have to pay for the show.

Suggestion. Get rid of "Members" get it 2 days early... Problem Solved.

[blazes816]

I pay to get it a few days early and it's worth it. My pirating stops at awesome shows from awesome companies that provide it for free. Although I will say, I would definatly enjoy more members perks. :)

[logant]

Yes give the members more perks. Make us feel special.

[woofcat]

Why would someone donate to that site when you could donate to Revision3?

Maybe because they believe that it should be free for everyone, at the same time?

Donating to them benefits the community where donating to rev3 only benefits yourself, Also. How can they possibly complain that much about funding. Each ad they run they get about $10,000. I got that from that news program that did a story about diggnation. Plus all there beer is paid for with donations and they must get a fair dime off people they sucked into paying to download early.

[jay]

DIGGNATION FANS:

Regarding downloading our content from any other source than our servers:

To quote Alex: "At the end of the day, it just hurts us."

To quote Kevin: "Download it when you're supposed to, and don't support the guys who don't get us these numbers and all that stuff."

Someone just posted this:

Donating to [the site which redistributes our content without our permission] benefits the community where donating to rev3 only benefits yourself, Also. How can they possibly complain that much about funding. Each ad they run they get about $10,000. I got that from that news program that did a story about diggnation. Plus all there beer is paid for with donations and they must get a fair dime off people they sucked into paying to download early.

Imagine you're Kevin and Alex, and you read that. Why should they keep doing this for you?

Whoever you are, who posted this, you have no idea what you're talking about. If you don't like us, and you don't want this business to be successful, why should we let you watch? You have no idea what our business costs are, so how you spout out figures and assume we're all swimming in wealth just is inflammatory and wrong.

Let's get something straight: Revision3 is *NOT* profitable, we spend more money than we make. Even if we raise money, in the REAL world of business (as opposed to the fantasy world that the ethics this poster were coming from) that money isn't just play money you can spend on anything you like, it's a lifeline. It runs out. You need to earn more cash than you spend, or you'll go out of business, and investors won't be very happy.

From your post, it would seem you think that if someone buys an advertisment on Diggnation it goes into Kevin's pocket and we all have a party. Who pays our camera people? Our editors? Our technical team? Our advertising sales people? Our leases? Our talent contracts? Our bandwidth costs? Our finance people? Our web development?

How do you feel about being so unfair to the loyal fans who pay us monthly for the right to watch on Saturdays? Don't you feel at all bad about that?

If you have any business experience, you would know that STEALING our content from the private members, which is protected under the 2.5 version of Creative Commons, then asking for DONATIONS is unethical. This is simple: This isn't benefitting the "community," it is taking our creative work and profiting from it.

FANS OF DIGGNATION, let me make this clear: Downloading from anywhere but Revision3 HURTS US because it commoditzes our memberships and horribly interferes with our ability to REPORT OUR NUMBERS to our advertisers.

Kevin and Alex are appealing to you: Please stop downloading from anywhere but Revision3's servers. You can use any client you like. You don't have to pay a dime for it. But please, use our infrastructure.

If this continues, we will have to change our licensing to copyright and close down early downloads. Please, loyal fans, don't force us to do this.

Thanks,

-Jay

[popltree2]

Ignore the flamebait, Jay. You have some loyal subscribers here that want to see Rev3 thrive and prosper. Seeing as how that was woof's first post, I am guess "troll".

[max-pl]

good episode.

i guess i'll stop downloading from ********.net

go revision3!

[eminemdrdre00]

******** claims they do give the download numbers to Revision 3...

[vash]

Damn I thought they did give numbers to revision3. I feel bad for downloading from them, and will stop now. Well as a loyal fan of revision3 I'll be sure to make a donation or become a member soon! Rock on Jay and all at Revision 3!

[tokenuser]

******** claims they do give the download numbers to Revision 3...The people that need to the numbers to provide to advertisers say they DON'T receive them, and the people that provide the early down CLAIM they give them to prove legitimacy for their "service".

If paying a subscription fee bothers you (not aimed at anyone in particular - this is a generic "you") so much, wait until Monday to download the episode.

[travislopes]

If this continues, we will have to change our licensing to copyright and close down early downloads. Please, loyal fans, don't force us to do this.

I don't know about everyone else, but if that happened, that would cause me to cancel my "subscription" since that was the main reason I subscribed.

[jay]

Maybe I need to be a bit more technically specific, so as to clear up some confusion:

Revision3 uses a couple of CDNs (content distribution network services), namely Cachefly and BitGravity, to host our content.

If you use iTunes, or your own RSS reader, or you right click/save as on one of our links, or watch the flash file, you use one of these two service providers.

That means that every time the file downloads, progressive or completely, we see it.

Even with our Bittorrent feeds...the trackers are maintained by us, so we see that.

Now, let's say you take the downloaded file and redistribute it... Obviously, we dont see those numbers. Now, this 2nd tier distributor could report back those numbers... However, if they do not maintain tight control, and abide by the same reporting standards we do, we have no way of verifying the methodology of those reports. Some advertisers are not willing to accept those numbers.

Revision3 works with many alternative distributors who all ultimately point to our servers in the downloads, so we know how many people are watching.

It is true that the largest creator of this problem (we all know who it is) was asked many times to take his service down. He refused, which is weird, since if he's a fan, you would think he'd be wiling to help us out. When we realized he wasn't listening, we said "at least give us the stats you have," so he did put up a website that tracks the downloads. Unfortunately, it doesn't use the same methodology we do, and furthermore, we know of at least four mirrors that take his distribution and distribute it again... Therefore, we lose track of all these downloads.

The mere act of redistributing on Saturday, regardless of whether or not you try to get us the metrics or not, results in the file being massively re-distributed without our visibility into the metrics.

There's not much more to say... We've said this repeatedly, and frankly, David Prager, Kevin Rose, Alex Albrecht, and all fifteen of us... We're really frustrated and disappointed with this situation, and we want it to stop.

Thanks for listening...

-Jay

[woofcat]

14 shows on revision3. There are many that are discontinued. (Broken, Ctrl-Alt Chicken, Mystery's of Science)

I can't comprehend how you can hire 8 people full time. 40 hours a week for 8 people? That means if each show was in production each week each staff person would spend 14 hours per show. Take out the 3 i listed and thats 18 hours each.

Now with 8 staff, that means each episode of each show takes 144 hours? I hardly think so.

Diggnation is shot start to finish no cuts, so you record it, and encode it and handle distribution.

Either this is a business set up to pay your buddies. Or the 8 people don't really work full time.

[nelsonmaud]

i downloaded it 1 time from that that sight now i feel bad and understand and will wait till it downloads on my tv tonic the regular day. thanks for explaining it thanks jay:o:) keep up the fun shows good episode

[logant]

What's with all the newbies registering and talking out of their ass?

[glugory]

I've said it before and I'll probably say it again, the way I do it is I download it from the "other" site on Saturday, and then I download it again on Tuesday from Rev3. This way everyone gets what they want... sort of. Obviously this is still probably "bad" since I AM getting it early and I'm not paying member, but I'm downloading it the second time to make sure you guys still get my download in your stats.

One question I do have for anyone from the Rev3 crew, is it better for me to download one particular version of the show over another? For example, do you get more money for downloads of the high quality quicktime as opposed to downloads of the mp3 version of the show?

[tjpeople]

I've said it before and I'll probably say it again, the way I do it is I download it from the "other" site on Saturday, and then I download it again on Tuesday from Rev3. This way everyone gets what they want... sort of. Obviously this is still probably "bad" since I AM getting it early and I'm not paying member, but I'm downloading it the second time to make sure you guys still get my download in your stats.

One question I do have for anyone from the Rev3 crew, is it better for me to download one particular version of the show over another? For example, do you get more money for downloads of the high quality quicktime as opposed to downloads of the mp3 version of the show?

Good question. I would guess its all the same - the shows the show. Maybe the MP3 version is worth less...

I very much doubt the website in question "profits" from donations - people are MUCH more likely to donate to Rev3, wherever they download from.

Maybe if there was the option of a donation option that was cheaper and not monthly that enabled early episode download BUT not member perks. which you could then upgrade if you wished for the member perks. I'm also guessing the /month plan scares alot of people off.

[tokenuser]

I very much doubt the website in question "profits" from donations - people are MUCH more likely to donate to Rev3, wherever they download from.You'd think that was the case, but some people have this strange sense of entitlement (http://tinyurl.com/2mo6n5).

[logant]

You'd think that was the case, but some people have this strange sense of entitlement (http://tinyurl.com/2mo6n5).

I like how that guy likes to watch Diggnation but doesn't like to support the guys who made it. Makes sense. And to be honest I signed up for two reasons: Member exclusives, and that site which shall not be named didn't always work.

[tjpeople]

You'd think that was the case, but some people have this strange sense of entitlement (http://tinyurl.com/2mo6n5).

Yes - well there are always gunna be people downloading it else where - its never gunna be stopped totally - I just think there might be more ways to may becoming a member more attractive....and the idea that they profit..is unlikely the bandwidth bill are probs massive...

OFF TOPIC: tokenuser : CAPTION JACK!! nice to see the quote. Was soo happy to see him back in Dr Who yesterday!

[jay]

Yes - well there are always gunna be people downloading it else where - its never gunna be stopped totally - I just think there might be more ways to may becoming a member more attractive....and the idea that they profit..is unlikely the bandwidth bill are probs massive...

I agree. We should be offering more to paying members. We have a few projects in the works to offer shows to members (like we did with that behind-the-scenes from LA) that we *never* show to the general public.

I think now that we're hiring more personnel (contrary to woofcat's strange math and understanding of how many people it takes to run our business) to the pre-production and production teams, we'll be able to get out weekly, or even daily material.

A good way to think of it is that we're moving from a garage operation to something that looks and is staffed more like a television network. We will hire as fast as we can, bearing in mind budget and our ability to sell advertisements.

We're building out a new studio (we never had one) in San Francisco as we speak, and offices to support all our new personnel. I think the paid members will be very happy with what we offer them in coming months.

-Jay

[popltree2]

I agree. We should be offering more to paying members. We have a few projects in the works to offer shows to members (like we did with that behind-the-scenes from LA) that we *never* show to the general public.

I think now that we're hiring more personnel (contrary to woofcat's strange math and understanding of how many people it takes to run our business) to the pre-production and production teams, we'll be able to get out weekly, or even daily material.

A good way to think of it is that we're moving from a garage operation to something that looks and is staffed more like a television network. We will hire as fast as we can, bearing in mind budget and our ability to sell advertisements.

We're building out a new studio (we never had one) in San Francisco as we speak, and offices to support all our new personnel. I think the paid members will be very happy with what we offer them in coming months.

-Jay

Ooohhhh! I am excited. If I lived in SF, it would be AWESOME to work for/with you guys. What kind of people are you hiring?

[logant]

One thing: I don't mind if they make money. I really would like to see this become a great business.

[popltree2]

14 shows on revision3. There are many that are discontinued. (Broken, Ctrl-Alt Chicken, Mystery's of Science)

I can't comprehend how you can hire 8 people full time. 40 hours a week for 8 people? That means if each show was in production each week each staff person would spend 14 hours per show. Take out the 3 i listed and thats 18 hours each.

Now with 8 staff, that means each episode of each show takes 144 hours? I hardly think so.

Diggnation is shot start to finish no cuts, so you record it, and encode it and handle distribution.

Either this is a business set up to pay your buddies. Or the 8 people don't really work full time.

What about the lower-thirds, inlays, etc? Those take time too. And you would be surprised at just how long the encoding process can take, especially with the different formats.

[heaven]

I'll continue to download from that site until things change, I'm a fan so I want to see it when its available. I dont want to pay to watch it when its out for 1 show on revision3. Diggnation is not the only show I watch so I'm not going to spend the money just for diggnation. Untill there is a real reason to be a "Member" of revision3 I'll continue to support that site.

And, just because someone is a fan of something doesn't mean they should pay to be a fan.

[logant]

I'll continue to download from that site until things change, I'm a fan so I want to see it when its available. I dont want to pay to watch it when its out for 1 show on revision3. Diggnation is not the only show I watch so I'm not going to spend the money just for diggnation. Untill there is a real reason to be a "Member" of revision3 I'll continue to support that site.

And, just because someone is a fan of something doesn't mean they should pay to be a fan.

No but you shouldn't donate to another service just to spite Rev3.

[drack]

I would like to put in my 2 cents about downloading Diggnation from other sites.

I watch The Totally Rad Show, Infected, InDigital, Systm, The Broken, Web Drifter (whenever an episode comes out), and Diggnation.

Now there is one big differents between Diggnation and all the other shows I mention and that is as soon as an episode is released I can download it on Revision3 and watch it but with Diggnation I have to wait till tuesday. Now I know that they like to get paid for what they do but I don't understand how all the other shows are free to view as soon as they are released and Diggnation you have to be a paying member to view it as soon as it gets released.

Kevin and Alex said themself that they get paid through the sponsers and they even have people sending them money for beer now, even I can afford a six pack a week and I'm willing to bet that these guys make alot more money then I do.

I think if they want people to download the episodes through Revision3 I think they should drop the paid membership part of it.

Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about but if your charging people a membership fee and then asking them to also buy you beer just sound like you guys are getting a little greedy.

If I'm completely wrong about this I'm sure someone will put me in my place.

Drack

[tjpeople]

The money for beer was a solution to a problem - they had to much beer and people where wasting their money sending it.

So its best off - if you want to send beer - send beer money instead. It doesnt really fit into this situation.

[popltree2]

Also beer donation money goes to us, the fans. They have said a number of times that they will buy a few rounds for everyone that shows up at a live taping.

[oosterhouse]

I'll be subscribing as a member soon, the $50 a year membership seems VERY reasonable. I love diggnation, so I want to see it succeed and continue. That's what a real fan would do.

[dom]

FANS OF DIGGNATION, let me make this clear: Downloading from anywhere but Revision3 HURTS US because it commoditzes our memberships and horribly interferes with our ability to REPORT OUR NUMBERS to our advertisers.

Jay,

I want to say that I love what you guys do at Rev3. But this situation is entirely of your own making.

Firstly, Kevin stated that this web site "charges people" for downloading Diggnation. This is absolutely not true. They provide a *perfectly legal service.

He also said "we don't ever want to charge for our stuff". But it's precisely because you ARE charging (for 'early releases' of diggnation) that the situation exists at all. As far as I'm aware, there's no other benefits to Rev3 "membership". And in reality, all you're really doing is introducing an artificial delay before non-paying members have access to the content.

And then you have "Beer for Diggnation" which asks for donations in return for having your name read out. But most people don't actually get their name read out at all. And even asking for "donations" at all is a bit of an odd practice for any company.

And as for downloading from other sources "hurting" Rev3, I don't buy it. These other sources are saving you bandwidth. And while you may not get accurate viewing figures for advertisers... well, that's something old-fashioned TV stations have always had to deal with. You have no idea how many people watch a single downloaded copy of diggnation (or share it on) anyway.

But it's the whole 'early release' of diggnation that's the issue. I'm sure that there are many, many people who would be prepared to pay a small monthly subscription for good quality, regular content. But expecting people to pay for getting a single, creative commons licensed show a few days early is never going to work.

This strikes me as a slightly underhand way of guilt-tripping people into subscribing. But it would be much more effective if you just came out and said "please subscribe, we need the money" - and maybe offered people a little more for that money.

Hell... if you need to, just change the licensing of diggnation to prevent it - but attacking a perfectly legitimate service and trying to make people feel guilty isn't the way to go.

(Of course if you want truly accurate viewing figures, DRM is the only way to go...) ;)

[jagtar]

i think it lame that the site in question doesnt give them numbers, but even if you just subscribe to the mp3 RSS rev3 will get the numbers and you wnt hav 2 d/l twice, but this is still lame on rev3.

however, after reading jays comments i would gladly become a member if there was a more compelling reason to do so, looking foward to the future!!

[sqlover]

Free and don't enjoy it. you = entitled to opinion

Free and enjoy it. You = a fan

Membership provides to little value to pay for early release. You = probably right

Membership provides to little value to pay and you download somewhere else that hurts the free service you are a fan of. You = a total asshole

Donating to said site for providing access to said service. FYAD

You guys think Jay is what...? Lying to you when he says there are real costs involved in production? I'm sure all of that free content is totally Rev3 trying to rip us off.

There is a free service provided. A really great free service. There are systems in place that allow generous people who enjoy the show and want to support it go ahead and do that.

The beersfordiggnation is an avenue that allows fans to support the show. The membership is a way we can support the show. You don't have to, you still get the same content at the same resolutions, you just wait a couple days.

Taking the benefits of someone else's generosity is appalling. It's not the RIAA we're talking about here. There's no mandatory payment.

PBS gives out thank you gifts to people who donate to the station. People don't BUY the packages to get Yani's lifetime album collection, they do it because they want to support the station. Would you think to yourself, "Holy shit, that Yani CD is NOT worth that $200.00 donation. They're robbing me! I'll go and pirate that CD, donate to the torrent site that allowed me to do it, and keep watching PBS because after all...Nova rocks" and then have the balls to question PBS's integrity?

Shame.

PS. PBS Sucks. Happy little bush.

[travislopes]

The folks at Revision3 need your help to keep bringing you great new episodes. The best way you can help us it to become a Revision3 Offical Member via the membership page. Once you agree to help support us, we'll return the favor by giving you advance direct downloads of all your favorite content before anyone else can get their hands on them![Source (http://web.archive.org/web/20051124100228/revision3.com/news/news_item.2005-09-19.1478432587/)]

What happened to that? I bet if that was still here, more people would be subscribing.

[logant]

Here's an idea: On Saturdays for Members offer Diggnation in 720p HD. But do the normal resolutions on Monday/Tuesday.

[travislopes]

Here's an idea: On Saturdays for Members offer Diggnation in 720p HD. But do the normal resolutions on Monday/Tuesday.

I bet everyone would love that, but that would be a lot of bandwidth. One 720p trailer from Apple's Trailer site that is 64mb and it's only 1:34 long. I don't think Revision3 could afford the bill.

[bb4034]

Here's an idea: On Saturdays for Members offer Diggnation in 720p HD. But do the normal resolutions on Monday/Tuesday.

An excellent idea. Increase the size of each episode to 4.38GB so that the show would be virtually impractical to host on lower, private mirrors. Plus at that size I'm sure no-one will be willing to spend that much time trying to torrent it.

[casework]

I bet everyone would love that, but that would be a lot of bandwidth. One 720p trailer from Apple's Trailer site that is 64mb and it's only 1:34 long. I don't think Revision3 could afford the bill.

That's the point of it being for members only. If they offer "true" premium content - there will be no bickering about a price. It would be a true option, not just an "if you feel like it" thing. The system is currently too laid back. Either the early Diggnation should straight up go away, or (more likely) much more needs to come into affect the decision to be a "member" - show, forum, and site perks to name a few areas of concern.

I've got a lot of ideas on the subject, and I know chuckles has noted a post I made a few weeks back regarding HD content. I have also forwarded messages to a few key people - here's to hoping they're listening!

:)

[tokenuser]

Now, let's say you take the downloaded file and redistribute it... Obviously, we dont see those numbers. Now, this 2nd tier distributor could report back those numbers... However, if they do not maintain tight control, and abide by the same reporting standards we do, we have no way of verifying the methodology of those reports. Some advertisers are not willing to accept those numbers.It is this tertiary distribution that is causing most harm? Definately believable.

This thread (http://tinyurl.com/3d972g) was started over at the "other site", where suggestion where made on how to lessen the bandwidth burden NOT on rev3, but on <site that shall not be named>.

Lets see the "ones that feel entitled to early downloads" come up with a business plan and a set of numbers on just how much production costs. I'd love to see those numbers :)

The irony is, the ones bitcing about the situation loudest, claiming to be fans, are just signing up for accounts today so that they can comment on this subject .... and they are anonymising their IP addresses via TOR servers.

Ah ... the power of an anonymous internet.

====

BTW - My take on HD content ... dont bother. Some shows benefit (inDigital product coverage, Pixel Perfect), but two guys on a couch? Not so much. If the show can be enjoyed as audio only, thata decent indicator that upping the quality of the video is wasted effort. How about more of that Dolby Headphone virtualisation stuff. Now THAT was awesome :)

[smes]

What Rev3 needs is a totally revamped membership system to entice more people into becoming members.

Or I hate to say it, some form of copyright protection.

And because of this I just became a member. That guy who runs that ******** site is a dick.

[logant]

An excellent idea. Increase the size of each episode to 4.38GB so that the show would be virtually impractical to host on lower, private mirrors. Plus at that size I'm sure no-one will be willing to spend that much time trying to torrent it.

I'm not talking about uncompressed HD. 720P H.264 would probably be around 1 GB or so.

[tokenuser]

And because of this I just became a member. That guy who runs that ******** site is a dick.The guy that runs the site is actually a reasonable guy, and back in the day, the "service" actually helped out a little, but bandwidth for Rev3 (though the use of th CDNs) is now outstanding (as a consumer).

Unfortunately, its the people that are attracted to the site that are the dicks :)

[logant]

Here's Macbreak in 720p (for the Apple TV)

http://tinyurl.com/3yp72c

An 18 minute show is about 330 MB in 720P. Multiply that by about 3 times for an hour the show would be around a gig or less considering most shows don't reach an hour.

The idea would be to offer 2 HD formats:

One for the AppleTV
One for the XBox 360

Mainly because the only reason people are going to want to download these is because they want to watch them on their big screen HDTV.

:)

[cheatrz]

I've been using the site in question ever since the URL trick got fixed here at revision3 to prevent non-members from downloading early. However, ever since using the said site, I have diggnation subscribed on iTunes, so every tuesday when it's out to the public, it gets downloaded from me (as I'm sure is a way that's been mentioned a million times already in this thread) and revision3 gets +1. I don't donate to the said site. They might be making something off of ads on the site, but, whatever. I'm not giving them anything personally. And I would donate to Rev3 to become a member here before even considering it, as it would make no sense to donate to them to download something I didn't want to pay for here.

[glugory]

I've been using the site in question ever since the URL trick got fixed here at revision3 to prevent non-members from downloading early. However, ever since using the said site, I have diggnation subscribed on iTunes, so every tuesday when it's out to the public, it gets downloaded from me (as I'm sure is a way that's been mentioned a million times already in this thread) and revision3 gets +1. I don't donate to the said site. They might be making something off of ads on the site, but, whatever. I'm not giving them anything personally. And I would donate to Rev3 to become a member here before even considering it, as it would make no sense to donate to them to download something I didn't want to pay for here.

I mentioned how I do this earlier and I'd still be interested to get a statement as to what the Rev3 guys think about us doing that.

I'd also be interested in the answer to the question I asked in the same post about whether they get more/less revenue for different versions of the show.

[darknessgp]

I would like to put in my 2 cents about downloading Diggnation from other sites.

I watch The Totally Rad Show, Infected, InDigital, Systm, The Broken, Web Drifter (whenever an episode comes out), and Diggnation.

Now there is one big differents between Diggnation and all the other shows I mention and that is as soon as an episode is released I can download it on Revision3 and watch it but with Diggnation I have to wait till tuesday. Now I know that they like to get paid for what they do but I don't understand how all the other shows are free to view as soon as they are released and Diggnation you have to be a paying member to view it as soon as it gets released.

Kevin and Alex said themself that they get paid through the sponsers and they even have people sending them money for beer now, even I can afford a six pack a week and I'm willing to bet that these guys make alot more money then I do.

I think if they want people to download the episodes through Revision3 I think they should drop the paid membership part of it.

Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about but if your charging people a membership fee and then asking them to also buy you beer just sound like you guys are getting a little greedy.

If I'm completely wrong about this I'm sure someone will put me in my place.

Drack


I have to agree. The membership stuff makes absolutely no sense right now with it only applying as early download of Diggnation... IMO, Rev3 needs to be all or nothing on memberships. Either all shows get an early release benefit along with other member only benefits (perhaps a special title on the forums, behind the scenes, and cutting room floor content) or they should offer none of that and do 1 release for all shows and any extra content is released to the public.

[blazes816]

The ones saying "I download it there, but also here so i'm fine.", that's better than nothing, but I see three big issues:

1) Rev 3 not getting the number (which the afore mentioned people are 'solving')
2) Money for Diggnation (ie, membership fees) going to the other site as opposed to Rev3
3) Nonpaying members stealing the benefits of paying membership.

Those are the three big problems I see. Yes early diggnation is the only benefit thus far, but as far as I know Rev3 is just getting started companywise, and i'm sure that there'll be more to come.

[logant]

The ones saying "I download it there, but also here so i'm fine.", that's better than nothing, but I see three big issues:

1) Rev 3 not getting the number (which the afore mentioned people are 'solving')
2) Money for Diggnation (ie, membership fees) going to the other site as opposed to Rev3
3) Nonpaying members stealing the benefits of paying membership.

Those are the three big problems I see. Yes early diggnation is the only benefit thus far, but as far as I know Rev3 is just getting started companywise, and i'm sure that there'll be more to come.

Quote for truth.

[ub3rgeek]

Lets use alex's movie pirateing logic:

He says that he is pirateing a movie that he would have never paid for anyway. So the company in question isn't loosing any money my him watching it.

I download form said mirroring site. Then every Tuesday iTunes downloads the show from your CDN again. Just like many other users have posted before me. Therefore you can track every episode i download and you can report to your advertisers and get paid.

Until revision 3 shows improve in quality (fell more like actual tv shows and not just two guys sitting on a couch talking about digg stories. Systm and The Broken are good examples but you cant pay for those.). Diggnation is not worth $5 a moth or $50 a year. Especially if it released for free a few days later.

Tell me again how im the bad guy?

[infraggable-krunk]

Hey guys, I've been a Diggnation fan since episode 1, was a lurker for a seriously long time and recently joined when there was a live LA taping.

For everyone who attended any Live Diggnation taping, can I ask you how much entrance was. Exactly this is a free show that is being offered to Digg and Revision 3 fans.

I just don't understand people's ethics anymore. This debate really should boil down to 2 simple options:

IF you have the money to donate to Revision3 and get the extra perk of downloading an episode earlier, than do it. No one is forcing you to become a member and pay. The same thing applies to the beer issue, if you can help donate then please do.

If you don't have the money to donate to Revision 3 , then please just do the right thing and wait. This isn't a piracy issue, its not about getting stuff for free, its about respecting the guys that put out these great shows.



If you've been to a live taping, and had a chance to meet Alex, Kevin, David and Joey you would see they aren't doing this for money, they are doing it for the fans and for the fun of it .

Look I don't know everyone's background, but I was a long time TSS fan. The only remnants of that show now are Revision3 and Twit. As a loyal fan, I'll do anything I can to support these shows, even if its not monetary.

[muffins]

I've been watching everything Kevin does since it was originally just thebroken. I support him in all his ventures and enjoy almost everything he is involved with. As one of the moderators was saying that some people are hiding their ips, well I'm not. (Although I do think its unfair to rag on people because of their regdate

Bare with me because I suck at making the points I want to.

While reading some of my reasoning you may want to make the "do as I say not as I do" point. Well don't. I thinks thats stupid.

Some prerequisite knowledge that you need to agree with me on before reading forward.:

1. Kevin and Alex are always talking about cable tv and the cost.
2. Kevin has a very obvious liking to pirating things. Alex too.
3. Kevin does a show which contains things "a little bit shady, a little bit underground" called thebroken.

First off, as many other people have said, Diggnation is the only show that is available early when you become a member. This membership, $5. When you tack that $5 on top of all the other monthly things I subscribe to it really starts to add up. And unfortunately all that $5 does is give the illusion that the member is getting the show earlier, while in reality there is still a 7 day wait till the next one whether you get it on Saturday or Tuesday. This would be acceptable if, and only if, there is more content that is exclusive to members. So far I believe there have been maybe 3 or 4 videos that were member exlusives. This whole subscriber system is probably hurting them more than benefiting. (Although I have no idea for sure. Just my logical guess.)


Secondly, the attitude of Kevin and Alex on pirating. They love it and its obvious. Now I understand that it doesn't make it right for anyone here to download it through another service, but you simply have to understand that their are some people completely oblivious to that and will continue to do so.

Thirdly, and I might be wrong about this, but it seems that the idea of making content licensed for all to pass around everywhere doesn't work in the end. Maybe there is a reason that content is copyrighted by television networks? I'm not saying anyone wants it that way, but unfortunately there will always be people who will take advantage of you if they are able to.

And lastly as I play the devil's advocate, Jay asked why Kevin and Alex should keep doing this. Well to be honest in the very beginning of all this Kevin and Alex did this with less professionalism (although I'm sure Kevin was bent on making a profit on it eventually). Its just that everyone got this feeling that Kevin wanted to do what he loved and make it available to us since we enjoy watching what he does. I understand he has to make a profit now but theres still that leftover feeling from the earlier days.

I've been downloading diggnation "early" from [forbidden site] for a while. I never really thought that it would be hurting them that bad, but now that you brought it to my attention I don't plan to do it anymore, and I plan to go back and re-download all the ones I can from Revision3, including this weeks.

This is just a foggy post put together @ 6:30am on 2 hours of sleep but I think I got my ideas across. I'll edit if I feel necesarry later when I can comprehend what I wrote.

[casework]

This whole subscriber system is probably hurting them more than benefiting. (Although I have no idea for sure. Just my logical guess.)



This is actually something I was going to suggest.

While the "easiest" way to justify costs is to simply give more perks and reasons to become a member, would nixing the required fee for early downloads help Revision 3 more? If thousands(?) of people are downloading Diggnation elsewhere, would the jump in "legal" downloads make Rev3 more money? Obviously there could still be an optional donate button, and as seen with the beer, Rev3 should know their fans do generally love to support them.

Just something to think about. I'm not trying to turn this place into a free-for-all, rather, if the "illegal" downloads take away that much money, maybe it just makes sense to do everything you can to get as many legal downloads as possible. There could also be other perks to donating, which I think should be a large part of the model anyway.

[tjpeople]

The irony is, the ones bitcing about the situation loudest, claiming to be fans, are just signing up for accounts today so that they can comment on this subject .... and they are anonymising their IP addresses via TOR servers.

Ah ... the power of an anonymous internet.


I don't think many people are really "bitcing" just putting there point across. what's wrong with signing up today? So what if they are new to the forum? Surely more discussion is a good thing? I find it hard to believe anybody bothers to anonymous their ip .... whats Rev3 gunna do? Ban you ip for a post saying you download from [naughty site :p] ?

[darknessgp]

The ones saying "I download it there, but also here so i'm fine.", that's better than nothing, but I see three big issues:

1) Rev 3 not getting the number (which the afore mentioned people are 'solving')
2) Money for Diggnation (ie, membership fees) going to the other site as opposed to Rev3
3) Nonpaying members stealing the benefits of paying membership.

Those are the three big problems I see. Yes early diggnation is the only benefit thus far, but as far as I know Rev3 is just getting started companywise, and i'm sure that there'll be more to come.

Some counter point to your points.

1) As you said some have in effect solved this by redownloading.

2)Unlike what Kevin and Alex were spewing on the show, the site doesn't force anyone to pay, and actually has a "If you like Diggnation then please donate to Revision3." linking to rev3's register page. Followed by a paragraph about why you should donate to them over this unnamed site. Then there is a small paypal donation button for donating to said site. This is hardly paying someone else. I'm sure you know the quote of Alex on pirating and how it doesn't see it as wrong when it's something he'd never pay for anyways.

3)What "benefits" is that? The early release stuff is for 1 show, and to get it 3 days early... If anything it kind of feels like they are punishing non-paying members. I mean, the show is about the WEEKLY stories. How does it make much sense to release it to everyone on a Tuesday when it was filmed usually on Thursday, although this one made reference to the upcoming Wed. being too late to see Alex's grandma's art... which makes me believe that it was filmed on Mon or Tues... so somehow we get a WEEKLY show a full week after release?

I'm still of the opinion that membership stuff needs to be extended to all shows or cut out completely.

[imperceptible]

I've been downloading it from that site for a while now. The main reason I do it is because I have nothing else to watch on a Sunday afternoon (in Australia). I've already watched crankygeeks, TRS, twit, windows weekly and the 2 eps of dl.tv. I don't feel guilty since I have already donated to rev 3 before and since I live in Australia, I don't think the advertisers care much for me watching. Also I was under the impression that the site was telling rev 3 the numbers, which seems to be all fixed up now.

[eminemdrdre00]

I respect Kevin Rose for saying something about the issue. However, when Alex starts to chime in as well, the whole "don't download early, we're losing money" thing means NOTHING. If you want to enforce this, someone needs to talk to Alex about being more professional. He has stated numerous times he pirates A LOT! I guess it doesn't feel good coming from the other side...

[godmode]

I think the solution is to simply get rid of the member subscription. Let people donate if and when they want to, and release to everyone at the same time.
You will get your proper numbers and those numbers are worth more than member subscriptions in the long run.

[tjpeople]

those numbers are worth more than member subscriptions in the long run.

Do we know that for sure? Jay?

[ryudo]

Look I don't know everyone's background, but I was a long time TSS fan. The only remnants of that show now are Revision3 and Twit..
Don't forget DL.TV...it is the closest thing to TSS out thereand has Pat Norton as host.

[crumbles]

If this continues, we will have to change our licensing to copyright and close down early downloads.
Jay,

First, let me say that if you have ever read my posts, you know how much I've *****ed at people for downloading from other sites, and/or donating to other sites.

I despise that Striker guy, just ask him.

However....

I've kept my mouth shut because the argument always came down to: The licensing says we can do it.

How do you argue that? I say just change it to copyright. Until then you are just complaining about something they are allowed to do.

[mara11jade]

The internet seems free right? Most of the websites you go to, you don't have to pay to view. You've got Wikipedia, YouTube, Digg, Google, etc... and Revision3 being an extension of Digg, I think naturally goes along the free vein in most people's heads. Along with that general thought is the fact it's media, and a lot of media on the web now, esp in the community that is going to seek out podcasts, is wheeled and dealed for free via YouTube and bitTorrent, etc. So, you've got a bunch of rebels with their only cause being that they're accustomed to getting media from whoever, whenever, and I think they largely forget the bigger picture.

What is the bigger picture? The numbers. Numbers, numbers, numbers. And voting with the strongest voice you have: your money.

I think a lot of people initially got fed up with big-box entertainment (stupid movies released, movie tickets are too expensive, sick of being spoon fed formulaic plots, WHATEVER the reason) and decided they were going to be all deviant and say F U I'm going to get your shit for free because frankly, it's not worth my dollar anymore.

The other face of that statement is SUPPORTING what you do believe and do like because wether it is the big guy or the little guy, everything on the internet is expensive to run and host (front page movie of the FREE YOUTUBE can cost almost 100k to buy for a DAY), and the only way anyone is at least breaking even, is by the numbers and the direct support you give.

It probably seems really easy to blow Jay off, because hey, "he's the CEO of Digg and Digg is worth xxxx" bla bla, but the man isn't lying. I mean, hell, Digg isn't even a Fortune 500 company. It's big, and it's seems really big to us because we do digg and are on the site all the time, and so it seems like they should be give away all of their stuff for free, but people really need to get beyond that.

Revision3 is trying to provide content that is curtailed to YOU because they are just like you with what they like, their interests, etc. Not because they are a big-box trying to make nothing but the latest show to generate ratings (numbers) to get more advertisers. They are also trying to provide shows with decent production value that are on par with those studios/networks that DO have money (money the studios/networks get because they get their numbers) and the Diggnation fans want to respond by taking away numbers? Taking away money to help produce shows already on a shoe-string budget?

I'm sorry, but shame on you. Grow up and put your money where your mouth is.

The end.

[shadowtech]

I download from digg down, but I will download in iTunes as well from now on to help with the numbers. That being said, as soon as you guys offer a Xbox 360 version in HD I will become a member. Deal?

[crumbles]

I download from ****, but I will download in iTunes as well from now on to help with the numbers. That being said, as soon as you guys offer a Xbox 360 version in HD I will become a member. Deal?
So let me get this straight. Your basically saying:

"As soon as you start supplying the brand of soda I like, I'll stop stealing this other brand and buy that one."

You're an idiot. Enjoy the red box.

[jagtar]

Some counter point to your points.

1) As you said some have in effect solved this by redownloading.

2)Unlike what Kevin and Alex were spewing on the show, the site doesn't force anyone to pay, and actually has a "If you like Diggnation then please donate to Revision3." linking to rev3's register page. Followed by a paragraph about why you should donate to them over this unnamed site. Then there is a small paypal donation button for donating to said site. This is hardly paying someone else. I'm sure you know the quote of Alex on pirating and how it doesn't see it as wrong when it's something he'd never pay for anyways.

3)What "benefits" is that? The early release stuff is for 1 show, and to get it 3 days early... If anything it kind of feels like they are punishing non-paying members. I mean, the show is about the WEEKLY stories. How does it make much sense to release it to everyone on a Tuesday when it was filmed usually on Thursday, although this one made reference to the upcoming Wed. being too late to see Alex's grandma's art... which makes me believe that it was filmed on Mon or Tues... so somehow we get a WEEKLY show a full week after release?

I'm still of the opinion that membership stuff needs to be extended to all shows or cut out completely.
gd point even tho its filmed on wednesdays

[shadowtech]

So let me get this straight. Your basically saying:

"As soon as you start supplying the brand of soda I like, I'll stop stealing this other brand and buy that one."

You're an idiot. Enjoy the red box.

If diggnation was worth as much as a can of soda, I wouldn't be "stealing" it. Sorry, not going to pay for diggnation in its current incarnation.

I remember Alex and Kevin used to say they didn't care if we downloaded the show from other sources. This drama is kinda ironic now, huh.

[tokenuser]

gd point even tho its filmed on wednesdaysAnd its released publically on Mondays ...

[ub3rgeek]

edit: yep im a dumb ass

[spanca]

Do you guys have a problem with an ISP re-hosting it on their servers (and thus not counting towards our download limits)? My cable plan ("unlimited"...) has a 10gig limit, and with the Rev3 shows I watch each week nearly a quarter of that is used up just downloading the H.264 Diggnation and TRS. To be able to get it without losing 25% of my downloads each month is a MASSIVE bonus. They keep track of the number of downloads, so if that really is a valid concern of yours about external downloads, then I don't see how this could be a problem.

The irony of Kevin & Alex always discussing piracy on the show, as well as the early days of promoting people sharing/getting the show by any means possible just to get exposure, is clearly not lost on many long-time viewers.

[goliath553]

I did not even know this service existed, I love the show, love Kevin and Alex, have been watching since day 1, and always simply wait till today for my download, however something about this whole situation seems somewhat ironic??

The 'Dark Tipper' has been hacked or at least his content delivery system?

I know this problem is annoying and will surely not cause the end to all of revision3 as we know it, but hopefully people will respect your wishes and either 'donate' cough *pay* cough for a membership or simply wait for Tuesday to get their copy of Diggnation...

Ps just received my digg hat from JINX, its pretty sweeet! I would fully recommend it to all those hat wearing ppl(nerds) out there!

Great show keep it up - love the witty banter!

[barley-malt]

People who can't spell should not try to make points e.g.("I don't see the differents"... And "Please bare with me"...) You just look stupid(stwopid?).

[logant]

I don't know why but it feels like this thread is filled with 90% newbies who recently just made an account or a long time ago and are now starting to post on their excuses for using the said site.

[gerrymac]

Do you guys have a problem with an ISP re-hosting it on their servers (and thus not counting towards our download limits)? My cable plan ("unlimited"...) has a 10gig limit.

I also have the same problem my "unlimited plan" is 10gigs (hardly unlimited) so I download my rev3 content through files.bigpond.com so it doesn’t count towards my monthly usage (Telstra big pond being my ISP), the content is not submitted at the early release date. The thing is that I watch diggnation, The Totally Rad show, Indigital, System as well as the occasional web drifter and the broken, so my monthly usage purely from rev3 is huge. Anyhow I the short of it is, that I cannot watch this content unless it is unmetered.

Many of my friends also do this.
Sorry to **** up your figures guy.

[spanca]

That's exactly the ISP I was referring to, but I didn't want to mention them in case Rev3 decides to contact them about it. As you said, if it doesn't get rehosted there, then I can't afford to devote that much of my bandwidth to watching Rev3 shows, and thus I just won't keep watching.

[rob5089]

I'm in the same boat as other Australian Digg fans. I simply can't devote my bandwidth to downloading Digg or any other Rev 3 content from websites that count to my precious 12GB bandwidth. Since my ISP Telstra Bigpond offer IPTV shows for download, it's a no brainier to use them so I can spare that bandwidth for something else.

Also not to mention that Bigpond servers are damn fast to download from as any international hosted content is slow in comparison, due to our crappy and expensive submarine fibre optic cables joining us to the world. It's expensive cause 70% Internet traffic in AU is from the US.

I'd support the cause if there was enough bandwidth to go around, but unfortunately there isn't. So I hope those at Rev 3 would appreciate that I bought a Diggnation T-shirt. To get it here cost me a good $32 AU.

[rkuchiki]

I respect and love Rev3 and like all the staff, but I do have to agree with the piracy thing. Both Kevin and Alex have admitted (although Alex more openly) that they are indeed pirates.

If you pirate, and you get pirated, sure, two wrongs don't make a right.
But perhaps, if anything, this will help Alex and Kevin understand what THEY are doing to OTHER COMPANIES.

With that said, I will just throw out here I never knew nor cared about any other site besides revision3.com/diggnation nor will I ever. I donate when I can afford it to enjoy the episodes early, and if I cant afford it, I'll listen to the mp3 if I'm that desperate, but usually I wait.

Anyway, I'd love to see Rev3's response to the "pirates being pirated" debate.

[imperceptible]

I also have the same problem my "unlimited plan" is 10gigs (hardly unlimited) so I download my rev3 content through files.bigpond.com so it doesn’t count towards my monthly usage (Telstra big pond being my ISP), the content is not submitted at the early release date. The thing is that I watch diggnation, The Totally Rad show, Indigital, System as well as the occasional web drifter and the broken, so my monthly usage purely from rev3 is huge. Anyhow I the short of it is, that I cannot watch this content unless it is unmetered.

Many of my friends also do this.
Sorry to **** up your figures guy.

When I was with BigPond I used to submit it to get mirrored as soon as it was on "the site in question", but it still took a day or two to get mirrored (I used to save all the emails of when my requested files got uploaded and I had around 400+ easy, with 80 of them probably being diggnation) . But I understand the problem you guys have, BigPond's usage quota is pathetic (we had 5 people using the net to). I have no worries now since we switched to iiNet ADSL2+ and get 60GB a month.

[rob5089]

When I was with BigPond I used to submit it to get mirrored as soon as it was on "the site in question", but it still took a day or two to get mirrored (I used to save all the emails of when my requested files got uploaded and I had around 400+ easy, with 80 of them probably being diggnation) . But I understand the problem you guys have, BigPond's usage quota is pathetic (we had 5 people using the net to). I have no worries now since we switched to iiNet ADSL2+ and get 60GB a month.

It's not just a Telstra problem. It's an Aussie problem. Other ISP's like Internode have had to scrap their big download plans because many heavy users are signing up to companies like Internode, iinet and Adam who offer good plans. What happens is customers who are light users only pay for 10GB or 20 GB, they subsidize the cost of those who are on the Big download plans like 80GB or more for only $30 or $40 more. However the ratio of heavy vs light users is too much and they can't pay the bills.

Lets pray things will get cheaper once the new fibre optic cable running to the US is put in place. It will give Aussies an extra 1.8Terabit of International bandwidth at lower cost.

[mrpopular]

it's not a donation when you are forced to donate.

[baldwhitedog]

Let me first start off by saying I have never posted anything in a forum in my life. However I wouldn't consider myself a 'noob' in any respect. I’ve been following diggnation since ep1 and really enjoy it.

Here’s my view on the whole ‘unofficial downloading of Diggnation’ for what it’s worth…

You guys no doubt enjoy Revision3's work, if you didn't you would be so passionate about Diggnation and other shows from Revision3 network.
So why not give credit where credit is due and download Diggnation from the proper channels. Is waiting those 4 extra days really that big of a request? After all, it isn’t costing you anything to watch the show. All they ask from you in return for all of their hard work is that you follow the proper procedures so they can get something back in return to allow them to can keep doing the thing they obviously enjoy doing for the people who obviously enjoy watching it. You the viewer.

If however you can’t wait the 4 extra days then pay for it. Surely it’s as simple as that. Isn’t it?

If you don’t like the idea of subscribing then don’t subscribe. However if you want to give something back and you feel you’d like to see more great shows from the Revision3 team help supporting them any way you can…
Then again that’s just by opinion….

BaldWhiteDog

[chuckles]

We have been releasing Diggnation to the public at 7:00PM Pacific Time on Mondays for about a month now so it is only 48 hours from Members Only to Public Release.

-chuckles-

[darknessgp]

...
You guys no doubt enjoy Revision3's work, if you didn't you would be so passionate about Diggnation and other shows from Revision3 network.
So why not give credit where credit is due and download Diggnation from the proper channels. Is waiting those 4 extra days really that big of a request? After all, it isn’t costing you anything to watch the show. All they ask from you in return for all of their hard work is that you follow the proper procedures so they can get something back in return to allow them to can keep doing the thing they obviously enjoy doing for the people who obviously enjoy watching it. You the viewer.

If however you can’t wait the 4 extra days then pay for it. Surely it’s as simple as that. Isn’t it?

If you don’t like the idea of subscribing then don’t subscribe. However if you want to give something back and you feel you’d like to see more great shows from the Revision3 team help supporting them any way you can…
Then again that’s just by opinion….

BaldWhiteDog


As said above, it's only 2 days not 4. You do make a good point, but others have already claimed to visit the unofficial site and get it and then when it is released to the public to grab it again from Rev3 so that Rev3 can get their +1 download. Isn't that a solution to what you are saying?

Chuckles brings up a good point. Why again are people paying at least $50 a year to get 1 show only 2 days early? Look, this is more than just a site "ripping off" Rev3. That site exists because some people don't see the value of paying to get 1 show 2 days early, and until something at Rev3 changes I honestly don't see it going away.

[baldwhitedog]

We have been releasing Diggnation to the public at 7:00PM Pacific Time on Mondays for about a month now so it is only 48 hours from Members Only to Public Release.

-chuckles-

The fact that it’s only a 2 day wait merely etherises my point of why not just wait.

Bottom line: If you like the show why not give it the respect it deserves by following the rules waiting to download it through the proper channels.

Just my opinion.

BaldWhiteDog

[baldmonkey]

it's not a donation when you are forced to donate.

What the hell do you mean? How are you forced?

[darknessgp]

What the hell do you mean? How are you forced?

He's saying that Rev3 calls these membership fees "donations" but that they can't be "donations" if you are forced to pay it to get the membership.

BaldWhiteDog, I understand what you are saying. But what does it hurt if someone gets it from a different site and then re-downloads it from Rev3 when it goes public? It's not hurting anyone, it's going through the proper channels, etc.

Seriously though, I'm of the opinion that they need to either go full force with early release for all or most shows with a membership or they need to get rid of membership and early release completely.

[baldmonkey]

He's saying that Rev3 calls these membership fees "donations" but that they can't be "donations" if you are forced to pay it to get the membership...

I understand that, but still no one is forcing you to pay. Just wait 3 days and watch it then if you dont want to pay for it.

[muffins]

One thing I wanted to add.

Heres why your only choices is to either drop the premium membership or start DRMing your files:

Revision3 caters to the geeks and nerds of the world. Therefore, most of the fans are very tech savy. No matter what site you shut down there will always be people who have another way of sharing the files early. If its not on [forbidden site] then it'll be on someone else's. If you get it taken down from there it'll be on torrent, private boards, etc...

[spiri]

One thing I wanted to add.

Heres why your only choices is to either drop the premium membership or start DRMing your files:

Revision3 caters to the geeks and nerds of the world. Therefore, most of the fans are very tech savy. No matter what site you shut down there will always be people who have another way of sharing the files early. If its not on [forbidden site] then it'll be on someone else's. If you get it taken down from there it'll be on torrent, private boards, etc...
That is a good point. But as far as I have understood the license on Diggnation is a CC, which allows people to redistribute it. That means that they can not have this site shut down.
I must say that I find it pretty weird to "sell" something under a "go-share" license - but then again, I might have misunderstood something

Oh, and BTW, I agree with darknessgp on the dual-downloading point.

[blazes816]

The ones saying "I download it there, but also here so i'm fine.", that's better than nothing, but I see three big issues:

1) Rev 3 not getting the number (which the afore mentioned people are 'solving')
2) Money for Diggnation (ie, membership fees) going to the other site as opposed to Rev3
3) Nonpaying members stealing the benefits of paying membership.

Those are the three big problems I see. Yes early diggnation is the only benefit thus far, but as far as I know Rev3 is just getting started companywise, and i'm sure that there'll be more to come.


Just because they give you a reward doesn't mean that it isn't a donation.

[sqlover]

Just like my PBS comment.

[klitzy]

(Deleted)....

[klitzy]

You'd think that was the case, but some people have this strange sense of entitlement (http://tinyurl.com/2mo6n5).

.....Yeah....Great...Just link more people to it. Even though I still stand by striker. He's been doing it before it was a problem.

[klitzy]

What the **** diggnation....I just watched that episode and saw the part where Kevin and Alex put on this mask as if they are these helpless victims of Strikers evil.

People....You guys are ****ing hipocrites. Ever think about all those movies you downloaded Alex? Do you think they got their numbers? Do you think the tv shows that you downloaded got their numbers to show to advertisers. Have you not been watching your past 101 episodes where you talk about pirateing tv shows and movies. Give me a break people.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Don't ****ing tell people you download stuff illegally and then tell them not to download your stuff. It's like superman smoking in front of a 7 year old and expecting him not to do it.

Jesus people....

[blazes816]

Alex does admit to pirateing. But I've never seen were Jay or any of the other Rev3 staff have. Alex doesn't represent the whole of Rev3.

[klitzy]

Alex does admit to pirateing. But I've never seen were Jay or any of the other Rev3 staff have. Alex doesn't represent the whole of Rev3.

Yeah great....But the only show that anyone pirates is Diggnation. Who hosts Diggnation? Alex and Kevin

Next...Who was speaking about "numbers" on diggnation? Alex and Kevin

Jay and The Revision3 Team should have thought this out more when Alex and Kevin were yapping about how much they pirate.

Don't get me wrong...I love Revision3. The content, the sense of community, I feel like I know some of these people better than I know people I go to school with...But in this case, Revision3 can only blame themselves for this.

Someone correct me if I am wrong but....I believe striker was hosting ******** before Revision3 offered Diggnation early to paying members.

Like I said...I may be wrong about that.

[xibalba]

He and that other dude who had to stop due to cost were doing it way before the donation thing even came in to play. I use to the site but quit along time ago. Always going to be some way for people to get it early even if they DRM it.

[tjpeople]

I don't know why but it feels like this thread is filled with 90% newbies who recently just made an account or a long time ago and are now starting to post on their excuses for using the said site.

Whats wrong with posting? Surely more opinions are better? Whats a forum for but putting your opinion across? Don't be elitist.

I doubt Kevin would ever let them DRM.

[magunwarrior]

Don't be elitist.


But it's fun ;)

[rob5089]

I don't know if this is a bad idea or not...

In windows WMV files I've seen it where the file is free to download and use, however it does communicate with a license server and just gives it the OK to play. Now I have no idea if the stats can be obtained by the number of times a WMV version of the file obtains a free licence though I'm assuming you can.

If you can still make a file play with no license but contact a license server when there is internet connectivity then this would be ideal for those trying the play the file with no internet connection.

Perhaps Rev 3 should investigate how the codecs they use (mov,xvid, wmv, ogg) can report back to them and at the same time not restrict the user in any way.

[striker1211]

Someone correct me if I am wrong but....I believe striker was hosting ******** before Revision3 offered Diggnation early to paying members.

Like I said...I may be wrong about that.

I wasn't gonna post in this thread but yes Klitzy i did post transcoded xvid versions of diggnation that were about 50% smaller than the quicktime version they had at the time. There was a big "open up to other formats" movement going on back then... damn i cant believe its been like a year and a half...

[ok everyone pretend i wasnt here]

[logant]

I wasn't gonna post in this thread but yes Klitzy i did post transcoded xvid versions of diggnation that were about 50% smaller than the quicktime version they had at the time. There was a big "open up to other formats" movement going on back then... damn i cant believe its been like a year and a half...

[ok everyone pretend i wasnt here]

And he appears...;)

[syphondex]

first time poster, long time reader....

I cannot believe it comes to this, i would expect this petty BS from the sanctimonious slash-dotters but not the digg-nation (:P).
Come on guys, all they are really asking is that you get it from site/location A, B & C; instead of site D,E & F; why is this such a sticking point?? Friggin iTunes it for that matter, even simpler! I have the mp3 and large .mov coming down over itunes myself.

Getting it 2 days early is a "THANK YOU" for giving them your subscription/donation $$.
Its like when your parents let you open 1 Xmas/Bday present the night before because you've been really really good that week.
So Alex/Kevin/Santa is a pirate, so what?!

They are not saying they are going to charge. They are not saying they are going to DRM. They are asking us to get it from the official locations so that they don't have to do any of the above.

Striker i notice is a "Senior" member, which i presume is an automated forum title, but still, set an example dude, personally i don't know you or have a problem with you, but if you post/support enough to be a "Senior" member then keep supporting by making sure Rev(3) gets their numbers and DL's.

/rant of disbelief

-ZZZING!

[tjpeople]

And he appears...;)

Who?


;)

[logant]

Who?


;)

Voldemort.

[number_01]

I think the members for just diggnation is retarded. I think if you guys get more sponsors then your should be fine. That other site .....net is providing a good service allowing people who are poor like me to have the diggnation while the jokes are still fresh.

[syphondex]

I think the members for just diggnation is retarded. I think if you guys get more sponsors then your should be fine. That other site .....net is providing a good service allowing people who are poor like me to have the diggnation while the jokes are still fresh.

oh come on 2 days?! you can't wait 2 friggin days?!
THAT is retarded. If you don't want to pay for it, thats one thing, but don't trip out with the "im too poor" no one is forcing you to pay, they are merely asking you to wait a cpl days and get it from their "official" channels FOR FREE.

Said site may be a good service for themselves and *some* users but it does not appear to be helping the Rev(3) or Diggnation producers to get the show paid for and released so it is doing a disservice to a lot of people in the long run.

That said I do understand that this is like old-school Metalica and their support for copying/sharing and their sudden switch after getting popular to sharing is bad you are stealing from my unborn children.

[klitzy]

He and that other dude who had to stop due to cost were doing it way before the donation thing even came in to play. I use to the site but quit along time ago. Always going to be some way for people to get it early even if they DRM it.

Yeah....psx00. Exactly.

[klitzy]

I wasn't gonna post in this thread but yes Klitzy i did post transcoded xvid versions of diggnation that were about 50% smaller than the quicktime version they had at the time. There was a big "open up to other formats" movement going on back then... damn i cant believe its been like a year and a half...

[ok everyone pretend i wasnt here]

Yeah and before you was psx00. Its all coming back to me. So long ago.

[casework]

Getting it 2 days early is a "THANK YOU" for giving them your subscription/donation $$.
Its like when your parents let you open 1 Xmas/Bday present the night before because you've been really really good that week.


So those who don't donate are getting punished?

Ouch.

[darknessgp]

So those who don't donate are getting punished?

Ouch.

exactly. For those that haven't been around since the beginning or even before "memberships" Diggnation has ALWAYS had a Saturday release date... So how exactly can it be a "thank you" if what they did was push back the public release so they could provide paying members the content on the day that it was always launched? Sounds more like punishing non-payers than just providing content early.

[klitzy]

Im a paying member and I agree with darkness and casework...

[klitzy]

Also...Can someone explain to me how the flash player keeps view counts? If I just continuously reload the flash player will that count as a view?

[logant]

I think the members for just diggnation is retarded. I think if you guys get more sponsors then your should be fine. That other site .....net is providing a good service allowing people who are poor like me to have the diggnation while the jokes are still fresh.

Those jokes are about 48 hours old by the time it airs on Saturday.

[logant]

Also...Can someone explain to me how the flash player keeps view counts? If I just continuously reload the flash player will that count as a view?

Speaking of the flash player. Does anyone actually ever watch it in that? I gave an idea to allow non-paying users watch the flash version on Saturday.

[klitzy]

Speaking of the flash player. Does anyone actually ever watch it in that? I gave an idea to allow non-paying users watch the flash version on Saturday.

I watch every single episode in the flash player...

[logant]

I watch every single episode in the flash player...

Oh okay then.

[tokenuser]

I watch every single episode in the flash player...Why do I not believe that?

[jivetrky]

OK, I don't really understand what about the show is so time sensitive. So what if we can't get it until Monday or Tuesday without Subscribing? I usually check revision3.com a few times a week for new episodes of TRS, Diggnation, InDigital, and Systm. If I see there's a new diggnation and it's for members only I say "welp I guess I'll try again in a day or two"

What is so important about what Alex and Kevin are saying that you'll be missing it by not getting it Saturday?



I DO think that the paying members need much more than just a 2 day advance on diggnation. I think that any cut clips or outtakes should be available to the members. I also think maybe some content should be created just for them. IDK what exactly...but if you want them to pay monthly or however it works then you should give them something worth paying. Because I love Diggnation, but I don't think getting it 2 days early is worth paying. I'm not really one that can afford to spend extra money on things like a podcast subscription, but if there was entertaining or interesting stuff that was members only, I might find a way to swing it.


Oh and I really don't think that Alex and Kevin's speech on this subject was out of line. Sure they've both admitted to pirating in the past, but they weren't exactly saying that pirating was bad. All they are asking is that they get their proper advertising numbers. They kept it short and to the point, I don't think it was out of line.

[sqlover]

It basically boils down to two camps. Those who want to support the show and those who only care about themselves.

If you call yourself a fan and a supporter of the community I don't see how you can rationalize downloading the show anywhere other than through official channels. The CEO has spoken to you about it - the hosts have spoken to you about it... What more do you need to convince you it really is damaging?

So we have to assume that you know it's damaging and you choose to do it anyway, putting you squarely in the group that only cares about themselves.

That's pretty lame. Especially, like has been said a million times, it's a free service to begin with.

Lame to the ultimate guys.

[darknessgp]

It basically boils down to two camps. Those who want to support the show and those who only care about themselves.

If you call yourself a fan and a supporter of the community I don't see how you can rationalize downloading the show anywhere other than through official channels. The CEO has spoken to you about it - the hosts have spoken to you about it... What more do you need to convince you it really is damaging?

So we have to assume that you know it's damaging and you choose to do it anyway, putting you squarely in the group that only cares about themselves.

That's pretty lame. Especially, like has been said a million times, it's a free service to begin with.

Lame to the ultimate guys.

What about the guys that download it early from the unofficial site and then when it has a public release they re-download from Rev3 so that Rev3 can count their download? It's not a simple "who supports the show and who cares about themselves." As most fit into both. Some don't pay because they can't justify spending money on such a little kick back (it's not a donation, and I doubt anyone truly sees it that way.)

More convincing evidence would be for Jay or anyone from Rev3 to post what their projected loss due to unofficial sharing. Hell, even for one of them to come in this thread and actually say stuff would be nice. Seems to me this thread was made just so the forum wouldn't get loaded with threads about it. Not like they actually wanted to have us discuss anything, but just keep the forum clean.

[chuckles]

Hell, even for one of them to come in this thread and actually say stuff would be nice. Seems to me this thread was made just so the forum wouldn't get loaded with threads about it. Not like they actually wanted to have us discuss anything, but just keep the forum clean.

You mean something like this (http://revision3.com/forum/showpost.php?p=146599&postcount=12) and this (http://revision3.com/forum/showpost.php?p=146624&postcount=19)?


-chuckles-

[chuckles]

What about the guys that download it early from the unofficial site and then when it has a public release they re-download from Rev3 so that Rev3 can count their download? It's not a simple "who supports the show and who cares about themselves." As most fit into both. Some don't pay because they can't justify spending money on such a little kick back (it's not a donation, and I doubt anyone truly sees it that way.)

So then it is "okay" to go to a department store and "take" a pair of designer jeans because people cannot justify paying $199.99 for a pair of jeans?


-chuckles-

[shadowtech]

Regardless of the ongoing debate over weather or not it is "ok" to download early from digg down or other sources, I think it really boils down to this:

The welfare of their current donation-based business model depends on how much they can actually trust their "pirate" fans and their degree of willingness to buy into the irony, that is the self-proclaimed "pirate" hosts have suddenly turned against the pirate mentality when it began to affect themselves.

That is my view of it, anyway.

[syphondex]

So then it is "okay" to go to a department store and "take" a pair of designer jeans because people cannot justify paying $199.99 for a pair of jeans?


-chuckles-

That was a REALLY bad way of describing it. Id say flat out dreadfull way of describing it.

A better way would be downloading a TV show 2 days before it airs on the regular broadcast schedule. Which is just stoopid. (i know, ads, cut scenes etc. etc. blah blah blah). Actually that doesnt fit either but its at least closer.

And that is NOT the same as Downloading a show that is 6-12 months away from airing on the local channels.
Heck you're not really even getting it "Early" you're just getting it on a different schedule.


This is people being otherwise for the sh!ts of it. There is no really justifiable reason to download Diggnation early from "unofficial" channels when you can just wait a cpl days and watch it for free (no ads, no drm etc.) from the channels that help the show to get produced.

[rob5089]

By looking at this thread, all I can say is that rev 3 really need to look at improving how they can track things.

The world isn't perfect. Time for them to get together and brainstorm how they will be able to trace the majority of Diggnation viewers. I know I've said my 2c worth, I hope someone takes note...

[dom]

So then it is "okay" to go to a department store and "take" a pair of designer jeans because people cannot justify paying $199.99 for a pair of jeans?


For a Rev3 staff member to post a line this is completely out of order. You should know better.

$200 designer jeans do not generally come with a Creative Commons share-alike license.

Note to Jay: You *seriously* need to think about backing down on this standpoint and admitting you got it wrong. A lot of people here are quite prepared to pay a subscription for good quality content, but at the moment, all you're doing at the moment is alienating viewers who are doing nothing but abiding by the law and your own licensing terms.

[chuckles]

For a Rev3 staff member to post a line this is completely out of order. You should know better.

$200 designer jeans do not generally come with a Creative Commons share-alike license.

Note to Jay: You *seriously* need to think about backing down on this standpoint and admitting you got it wrong. A lot of people here are quite prepared to pay a subscription for good quality content, but at the moment, all you're doing at the moment is alienating viewers who are doing nothing but abiding by the law and your own licensing terms.

$200 designer jeans are also not distribute freely by the department store 2 days after release. Diggnation video formats are released to Members on Saturday night at 7:00PM and for the general public 48 hours later. We also publish the audio format to the public at the same time we make the video formats available to members.

We only request that for those who do not wish to pay or who are not in the position to pay to wait 48 hours and download directly from our servers. How is this "getting it wrong?"

-chuckles-

[klitzy]

Why do I not believe that?

...I really do. I dont even use ********, I pay $50 a year and have for a time now.

[chuckles]

...I really do. I dont even use ********, I pay $50 a year and have for a time now.

He was referring to watching every episode in flash. :)

-chuckles-

[klitzy]

We only request that for those who do not wish to pay or who are not in the position to pay to wait 48 hours and download directly from our servers. How is this "getting it wrong?"

-chuckles-

It is wrong or maybe not wrong but humorously ironic that the show you guys dont want people downloading early talks about downloading shows early.

Seriously...No one ever responds to my argument of. Did Alex and Kevin not think about "the numbers" when downloading a movie off of the internet? Is this just not a little payback?

I know my use of the word "payback" sounds like I want the show to fail but I honestly don't. My support for ******** comes froma few different things. First, ******** was here long before there was any membership. Second, and I beleive the most powerful argument is the hipocrite argument. It just doesn't make sense. Third, "taking over tv" is going to be hard if you charge for a show.

[klitzy]

He was referring to watching every episode in flash. :)

-chuckles-

No I know...I really do watch every episode in flash.

[darknessgp]

$200 designer jeans are also not distribute freely by the department store 2 days after release. Diggnation video formats are released to Members on Saturday night at 7:00PM and for the general public 48 hours later. We also publish the audio format to the public at the same time we make the video formats available to members.

We only request that for those who do not wish to pay or who are not in the position to pay to wait 48 hours and download directly from our servers. How is this "getting it wrong?"

-chuckles-

true and it's a non-point... Creative Commons lets people distribute Rev3 content, even if it is 2 days early and supposed to be for "paying" members. Rev3's official stance has been the same, asking people to not download if from non-Rev3 sites, which is fine. However, not everyone is going to follow those guidelines, as for 1 thing they can not be legally enforced.

But my point is not that the current system is bad, just that it is inherently flawed if the objective is to get numbers for sponsors. I offered a possible solution, i.e. making the membership worth more. Look, I like the fact that Rev3 is trying to do something to give back to people that "donate" I'm just saying you can't complain when people break your system, you just need to find a better way of getting them to do what you want.

Also, you are absolutely right. I would never walk into a store and just take a pair of designer jeans. But in reality a better analogy would be someone else getting free jeans, but having to pay a shipping cost. and then giving them to me. i.e. They were "free" to begin with and it doesn't cost the original seller any money. That IMO is a better analogy. It might hurt you to not report as high of a number, but you have any hard numbers of what 1 download not reported costs?

[yasihiko]

I don't post much but I watch each show usually on the following Monday or Tuesday and I am totally against these people who are esencially stealing the show and the profits from Rev3.

[jivetrky]

It is wrong or maybe not wrong but humorously ironic that the show you guys dont want people downloading early talks about downloading shows early.

Seriously...No one ever responds to my argument of. Did Alex and Kevin not think about "the numbers" when downloading a movie off of the internet? Is this just not a little payback?

I know my use of the word "payback" sounds like I want the show to fail but I honestly don't. My support for ******** comes froma few different things. First, ******** was here long before there was any membership. Second, and I beleive the most powerful argument is the hipocrite argument. It just doesn't make sense. Third, "taking over tv" is going to be hard if you charge for a show.


But do the movie theaters let you see the show for free after it's been out for 2 days?

[blazes816]

By looking at this thread, all I can say is that rev 3 really need to look at improving how they can track things.

Seriously. How stupid could they be to not be able to track downloads from another site.

[jay]

FWIW, I saw a digg post this morning claiming that Revision3 has authorized the site in question to redistribute our shows. That isn't the case, we've asked them to stop, but let's not belabor the point. We're really beating a dead horse.

The state of Revision3 has changed a great deal since we started the membership program. What began as the sole source of income for Revision3 shifted to what we intended to be a "perks" program as we shifted the business model to advertising.

Now that we are building cash flow on advertising, it's true that Revision3 doesn't require memberships to stay afloat. It's an additional source of revenue, and until the company is profitable, we were hoping to make memberships even more attractive over time (introducing tiers, or other incentives, to join). We want to show our loyal members that we appreciate their contributions to us during our growth.

In ages back (for the old time loyal fans), some may remember that when we introduced memberships we were asked the question of whether or not we would continue to have memberships once we had advertising revenue... Our decision was to keep it going, and try to create special content for members. We've failed to do that so far and we're very sorry about that. We still intend on doing that. I like the ideas I've heard about tiered memberships and other concepts, we're considering all these ideas.

The company has raised significant money at this point. We have capital with which to hire people, including additional ad sales personnel, with which we will sell even more ads. At the same time, we'll enhance the program schedule, rebuild the website, add more programming and keep growing.

Because of our increased spend, it will take longer to get to financial breakeven, but that's part of a normal funded business plan.

What we have to decide now is whether or not we should continue the membership program, given the abuse of sites like the site in question and others like it. Since they eliminate what perks we offer (regardless of whether you think it's valuable), until we have something else to offer, it's far too unfair to the members to allow the practice to continue.

One option is to only offer Diggnation on Mondays, and offer members something else. We're not sure what the members would think about that...I suspect it wouldn't go over well unless it was something truly great.

Another option is to pursue some legal options, we've been advised that we have a few if we want to go that route.

Finally, we could offer Diggnation on Saturdays and cut the whole members program.

In any case, all of this could be avoided if the site in question stopped what they are doing. Honestly, we had hoped that just because we asked it would be enough. Clearly that doesn't matter to them, so we move on.

Anyway, we'll come to some conclusions on this and inform all of you of our decisions.

Thanks,

-Jay

[rob5089]

Seriously. How stupid could they be to not be able to track downloads from another site.

If that was sarcasm then get stuffed. I've already voiced my opinion on how they could try to do it... rather than track downloads track licenses via the powers that some of of these video codecs and players provide.

or they could be come smarter and try to partner with those who host their content to give them figures. You might not get exact numbers, but you can at least get a better idea.

Other than implementing more propitiatory software (propitiatory to Rev 3) to view the videos, I can't think of any other ways.

[jivetrky]

If that was sarcasm then get stuffed. I've already voiced my opinion on how they could try to do it... rather than track downloads track licenses via the powers that some of of these video codecs and players provide.

or they could be come smarter and try to partner with those who host their content to give them figures. You might not get exact numbers, but you can at least get a better idea.

Other than implementing more propitiatory software (propitiatory to Rev 3) to view the videos, I can't think of any other ways.

So they should try to hire/become partners with the pirates?

[logant]

FWIW, I saw a digg post this morning claiming that Revision3 has authorized the site in question to redistribute our shows. That isn't the case, we've asked them to stop, but let's not belabor the point. We're really beating a dead horse.

The state of Revision3 has changed a great deal since we started the membership program. What began as the sole source of income for Revision3 shifted to what we intended to be a "perks" program as we shifted the business model to advertising.

Now that we are building cash flow on advertising, it's true that Revision3 doesn't require memberships to stay afloat. It's an additional source of revenue, and until the company is profitable, we were hoping to make memberships even more attractive over time (introducing tiers, or other incentives, to join). We want to show our loyal members that we appreciate their contributions to us during our growth.

In ages back (for the old time loyal fans), some may remember that when we introduced memberships we were asked the question of whether or not we would continue to have memberships once we had advertising revenue... Our decision was to keep it going, and try to create special content for members. We've failed to do that so far and we're very sorry about that. We still intend on doing that. I like the ideas I've heard about tiered memberships and other concepts, we're considering all these ideas.

The company has raised significant money at this point. We have capital with which to hire people, including additional ad sales personnel, with which we will sell even more ads. At the same time, we'll enhance the program schedule, rebuild the website, add more programming and keep growing.

Because of our increased spend, it will take longer to get to financial breakeven, but that's part of a normal funded business plan.

What we have to decide now is whether or not we should continue the membership program, given the abuse of sites like the site in question and others like it. Since they eliminate what perks we offer (regardless of whether you think it's valuable), until we have something else to offer, it's far too unfair to the members to allow the practice to continue.

One option is to only offer Diggnation on Mondays, and offer members something else. We're not sure what the members would think about that...I suspect it wouldn't go over well unless it was something truly great.

Another option is to pursue some legal options, we've been advised that we have a few if we want to go that route.

Finally, we could offer Diggnation on Saturdays and cut the whole members program.

In any case, all of this could be avoided if the site in question stopped what they are doing. Honestly, we had hoped that just because we asked it would be enough. Clearly that doesn't matter to them, so we move on.

Anyway, we'll come to some conclusions on this and inform all of you of our decisions.

Thanks,

-Jay

The man, the myth, the legend.

[rob5089]

So they should try to hire/become partners with the pirates?

Do you realise there are many more places that rehost Diggnation legally after its release date?

My ISP is one of them... and I know there are many other ISP's have specific content servers for their users.

There are more reasons why some people choose not to download from Rev 3 than just downloading it from the dodgy site everyone else is talking about.

Even if I had all the bandwidth in the world to download with, I'd probably sooner get it from my ISP since it's local servers are way faster than anything at rev 3 with dish out to me.

[logant]

Do you realise there are many more places that rehost Diggnation legally after its release date?

My ISP is one of them... and I know there are many other ISP's have specific content servers for their users.

There are more reasons why some people choose not to download from Rev 3 than just downloading it from the dodgy site everyone else is talking about.

Even if I had all the bandwidth in the world to download with, I'd probably sooner get it from my ISP since it's local servers are way faster than anything at rev 3 with dish out to me.

Well when are they offering them? Are they offering them when it is released to the public? Well then it shouldn't matter. If they are offering it on Saturdays when members get it, it's a problem.

[tokenuser]

Well when are they offering them? Are they offering them when it is released to the public? Well then it shouldn't matter. If they are offering it on Saturdays when members get it, it's a problem.Unless they are reporting the downloads, it is still a problem. Remeber the issue isn't really the early download part (though that is a part of it), t is counting the total downloads so that more accurate numbers are reported to the advetisers. More numbers = more ad revenue dollars = more cash in the kitty for Rev3 = expansion = more shows.

[klitzy]

Unless they are reporting the downloads, it is still a problem. Remeber the issue isn't really the early download part (though that is a part of it), t is counting the total downloads so that more accurate numbers are reported to the advetisers. More numbers = more ad revenue dollars = more cash in the kitty for Rev3 = expansion = more shows.

Hahahaha I love it.....Revision3 has a CreativeCommons license yet its a problem that other people are releasing it. Hahahahaha.

That is so off the wall I can't even think of an analogy to go with it.

[tokenuser]

Hahahaha I love it.....Revision3 has a CreativeCommons license yet its a problem that other people are releasing it. Hahahahaha.

That is so off the wall I can't even think of an analogy to go with it.Do you really understand what a Creative Commons License is or does it just mean "content is free" to you?? CC is not PUBLIC DOMAIN ... the content owner still has rights.

The rights that Rev3 are asking for are:

1. The the content for Diggnation be restricted to Members until public release.
2. That redistribution be accompanied by notification to Rev3 of the download numbers for that episode.

Its not rocket science. Its not legal mubo jumbo. Its pretty straight forward.

[rkuchiki]

... Another option is to pursue some legal options, we've been advised that we have a few if we want to go that route. ...

I don't see how, considering Diggnation is licensed under the CC, and acception donations for bandwidth fees is hardly a commercial use of the item.

While I'm no lawyer, I think the best option would be to clearly state that Diggnation is not licensed under the CC until Monday, when it is publically released. If possible, have a custom license between Saturday and Monday, and clearly outline this on the members-only download page.

[dom]

What we have to decide now is whether or not we should continue the membership program, given the abuse of sites like the site in question and others like it. Since they eliminate what perks we offer (regardless of whether you think it's valuable), until we have something else to offer, it's far too unfair to the members to allow the practice to continue.

Please don't call it "abuse". It's not abuse. Again, that kind of language just alienates fans.

However, I think you should continue the membership program - and expand it.

How about a couple of "channels" of mixed, *copyrighted* content. Maybe (off the top of my head) out-takes from all shows, behind the scenes stuff, interviews, etc.

You could even do something like release subSystm episodes (again, copyrighted) to members only. And maybe have an equivelent counterpart to Diggnation ("subNation?") where random digg staff talk about a few of the stories that have caught there eye this week.

Rev3 is a pretty innovative company, and I'm sure you have the imagination and creativity to produce a little extra content very cheaply, but make it compelling enough for people to subscribe.

Compelling content doesn't need to be expensive. But I suspect if you want people to pay, you will have to copyright at least some of you produce.

The current "early release" thing isn't particularly creative or innovative though.

[tokenuser]

Dom, did you realise that all the content is ALREADY copyright?

You do not need to have a little "(c) 2007 Revision3, Inc. All rights reserved" attached to content for it to be covered under copyright laws.

I would encourage everyone to actually read up on what the Creative Common licenses entail, and the difference between copyright, creative commons, and public domain before they open their mouths on this debate.

Let me help you ... http://creativecommons.org/

Now the issue here is that the creative commons license as it stands is not time sensitive, and does not adequately capture how Rev3 want their product to be used.

Under the CC license, Rev3 express "Some Rights Reserved". I am not a lawyer, but management have stated that the material is not to be released to non members before the general distribution date. They are expressing their rights as a COPYRIGHT holder in making this usage clause that they reserve the right to maintain the distribution channels and release schedule.

Sounds simple enough to me.

Why is there still an argument on this subject?

[rob5089]

Well when are they offering them? Are they offering them when it is released to the public? Well then it shouldn't matter. If they are offering it on Saturdays when members get it, it's a problem.

Yes they are offering after public release.

The thing is... the way I download it would affect the number of official viewers. So there is a problem!

Now I guess the thing is we don't know how many do it the legal way like me. I know already in this thread there are 2 other Aussies that download it from the very spot I do.

I guess the pirate site is probably causing the most damage. The thing is I haven't looked at it from the problem of "we need to screw this pirate site" I've looked at it from how can Rev 3 possibly track any video downloaded from anywhere.

Sure the pirate site is a problem, but it's a problem that will never go away. Piracy always finds a way. I wish rev 3 all the best against this pirate site, but I wouldn't try to focus too much energy trying to essentially stop what is the evil way of the internet.

[klitzy]

Do you really understand what a Creative Commons License is or does it just mean "content is free" to you?? CC is not PUBLIC DOMAIN ... the content owner still has rights.

The rights that Rev3 are asking for are:

1. The the content for Diggnation be restricted to Members until public release.
2. That redistribution be accompanied by notification to Rev3 of the download numbers for that episode.

Its not rocket science. Its not legal mubo jumbo. Its pretty straight forward.

Look at your above comment....You say it is a problem that people are re distributing it...even after the date. Yet the whole point of a creative commons license is so that the public does have the right to re distribute it.

[klitzy]

Dom, did you realise that all the content is ALREADY copyright?

You do not need to have a little "(c) 2007 Revision3, Inc. All rights reserved" attached to content for it to be covered under copyright laws.

I would encourage everyone to actually read up on what the Creative Common licenses entail, and the difference between copyright, creative commons, and public domain before they open their mouths on this debate.

Let me help you ... http://creativecommons.org/

Now the issue here is that the creative commons license as it stands is not time sensitive, and does not adequately capture how Rev3 want their product to be used.

Under the CC license, Rev3 express "Some Rights Reserved". I am not a lawyer, but management have stated that the material is not to be released to non members before the general distribution date. They are expressing their rights as a COPYRIGHT holder in making this usage clause that they reserve the right to maintain the distribution channels and release schedule.

Sounds simple enough to me.

Why is there still an argument on this subject?

Okay Mr. Smarty....Why the hell is ******** still up then? If revision3 has all these copyright shit on diggnation then ******** would be gone.....Its not like striker lives in Norway.

Second, come on TokenUser...Lets hear it. Explain to us everything about the creative commons license as it refers to diggnation since you think we are all so wrong.

My advice to revision3....Leave everything as it is. If you put a major copyright on diggnation and shut down striker....people will just take the torrent and put it on the piratebay.

Its a no win situation for you guys. Sorry...Thats how it is. You as well as anyone Jay should know how the internet is and how they are when they aren't happy.

[tokenuser]

Look at your above comment....You say it is a problem that people are re distributing it...even after the date. Yet the whole point of a creative commons license is so that the public does have the right to re distribute it.Once again. READ THE CREATIVE COMMON LICENSE. They come in many forms.

I am not going to teach you remedial English, Business 101, and Copyright for Software Engineers.

[phatlip12]

I don't know much about this so excuse my ignorance.

How legitimate is a creative commons license's legally speaking? It seems to be way to easy to get a license (fill a little form out online). How does this compare to getting something copyrighted the old fashioned way?

[tokenuser]

I don't know much about this so excuse my ignorance.

How legitimate is a creative commons license's legally speaking? It seems to be way to easy to get a license (fill a little form out online). How does this compare to getting something copyrighted the old fashioned way?

Thats part of the problem. People see CC as being a replacment for C. Its not. CC is a license that details how the copyright content can be used without the need to acknowledge an EULA (end user license agreement) or enter into an arrangement with the distributor (explicit or implied). BUT the thing people seem to forget is that the items covered under CC are ALREADY copyrighted.

Just by publishing your work, you are covered under copyright law. This is the old fashioned way ... and it is equally applicable to item LICENSED under CC.

[changelin]

always with the MOST respekt to the rev3 crew.

but...

seriously

/yawn

when can someone answer the question of:
if we download from itunes (or whatever client) when the episode is released to the "public", does i really matter where we saw it first?

because if im sober on a saturday night... im gonna watch diggnation. period. my itunes will still download it monday. so what if it gets deleted tuesday. they still get their numbers and i had something to do saturday other than try to get laid at a sh***y bar.

from what i understand, its a win-win.

finally, i have been a fan for a long time, and i see the lifestyle that you guys are living (kevin and alex). and you both have worked hard to get there...not that you are living fat, but when i eat ramen noodles 6 out of 7 days a week and work 60+ hours ... dont tell me that im hurting you. its a slap in the face. i PRAY that my BEST days are as good as your WORST days.



p.s. pirates do it for the booty

[dom]

I would encourage everyone to actually read up on what the Creative Common licenses entail, and the difference between copyright, creative commons, and public domain before they open their mouths on this debate.

Let me help you ... http://creativecommons.org/


I am aware of how Creative Commons licenses work. In fact, I worked with them to properly implement CC licensing on a large photo sharing site.

Yes, CC licensing works in addition to copyright, but the use of a CC share alike license automatically gives people the right to share/redestribute that content (within the terms of the specific license).

Under the CC license, Rev3 express "Some Rights Reserved". I am not a lawyer, but management have stated that the material is not to be released to non members before the general distribution date.

This "right" does not fall within the realms of a Creative Commons Share-Alike license.

If material is released under a share-alike license, that license cannot be revoked for people who have already downloaded the content.

What would be possible is two separate releases under two separate licenses. A Saturday release under a full copyright license, followed by a Monday release under a CC share-alike license. Alternatively, Rev3 may be able to get a lawyer to draft a specific, time-sensitive license.

Just do add to the confusion Diggnation does not currently advertise the license under which it is distributed at all, which is a little odd. (TRS, for instance is clearly marked as copyrighted content).

But the point is simple. A CC share-alike license is both non-revocable and non-time sensitive. Thus anyone who downloads content under such a license is absolutely within their rights to redistribute it.

[klitzy]

Thats part of the problem. People see CC as being a replacment for C. Its not. CC is a license that details how the copyright content can be used without the need to acknowledge an EULA (end user license agreement) or enter into an arrangement with the distributor (explicit or implied). BUT the thing people seem to forget is that the items covered under CC are ALREADY copyrighted.

Just by publishing your work, you are covered under copyright law. This is the old fashioned way ... and it is equally applicable to item LICENSED under CC.

Great TokenUser....Then they should be able to shut down ******** right?

[klitzy]

I am aware of how Creative Commons licenses work. In fact, I worked with them to properly implement CC licensing on a large photo sharing site.

Yes, CC licensing works in addition to copyright, but the use of a CC share alike license automatically gives people the right to share/redestribute that content (within the terms of the specific license).



This "right" does not fall within the realms of a Creative Commons Share-Alike license.

If material is released under a share-alike license, that license cannot be revoked for people who have already downloaded the content.

What would be possible is two separate releases under two separate licenses. A Saturday release under a full copyright license, followed by a Monday release under a CC share-alike license. Alternatively, Rev3 may be able to get a lawyer to draft a specific, time-sensitive license.

Just do add to the confusion Diggnation does not currently advertise the license under which it is distributed at all, which is a little odd. (TRS, for instance is clearly marked as copyrighted content).

But the point is simple. A CC share-alike license is both non-revocable and non-time sensitive. Thus anyone who downloads content under such a license is absolutely within their rights to redistribute it.

Why is everyone so concerned about this damn license? Whatever license it is....people are still going to download it whenever it comes out.

[phatlip12]

always with the MOST respekt to the rev3 crew.

but...

seriously

/yawn

when can someone answer the question of:
if we download from itunes (or whatever client) when the episode is released to the "public", does i really matter where we saw it first?

because if im sober on a saturday night... im gonna watch diggnation. period. my itunes will still download it monday. so what if it gets deleted tuesday. they still get their numbers and i had something to do saturday other than try to get laid at a sh***y bar.

from what i understand, its a win-win.

finally, i have been a fan for a long time, and i see the lifestyle that you guys are living (kevin and alex). and you both have worked hard to get there...not that you are living fat, but when i eat ramen noodles 6 out of 7 days a week and work 60+ hours ... dont tell me that im hurting you. its a slap in the face. i PRAY that my BEST days are as good as your WORST days.



p.s. pirates do it for the booty

It matters because your getting the content early without paying. They want you to pay to get it early but your not doing that. So in return, Rev3 is loosing money.

[changelin]

It matters because your getting the content early without paying. They want you to pay to get it early but your not doing that. So in return, Rev3 is loosing money.


DIGGNATION FANS:
FANS OF DIGGNATION, let me make this clear: Downloading from anywhere but Revision3 HURTS US because it commoditzes our memberships and horribly interferes with our ability to REPORT OUR NUMBERS to our advertisers.

Kevin and Alex are appealing to you: Please stop downloading from anywhere but Revision3's servers. You can use any client you like. You don't have to pay a dime for it. But please, use our infrastructure.

Now that we are building cash flow on advertising, it's true that Revision3 doesn't require memberships to stay afloat.

i AM using the infrastructure and at least from me, they get their numbers. so where is the problem? i may not be seeing the forest thru the trees, help me to understand.

[jivetrky]

i AM using the infrastructure and at least from me, they get their numbers. so where is the problem? i may not be seeing the forest thru the trees, help me to understand.

Yes they are getting their numbers, but people pay to get the eps early. So you are cheating Rev3 out of that money and you are also kind of cheating the people that have to pay to get it early.


But yes, at least they are getting their advertising numbers

[darknessgp]

Yes they are getting their numbers, but people pay to get the eps early. So you are cheating Rev3 out of that money and you are also kind of cheating the people that have to pay to get it early.


But yes, at least they are getting their advertising numbers

you are assuming that he'd be willing to pay for it early. Hardly cheating if he wouldn't pay for it early to begin with... sounds like something Alex said once.

[jivetrky]

you are assuming that he'd be willing to pay for it early. Hardly cheating if he wouldn't pay for it early to begin with... sounds like something Alex said once.

Yeah but in this case you only have to wait TWO days. It's not like a movie where you have to wait several months for it to come to DVD (not that is makes it right either though).

[klitzy]

you are assuming that he'd be willing to pay for it early. Hardly cheating if he wouldn't pay for it early to begin with... sounds like something Alex said once.

Wow....Totally pwnd. Awesome dude.

[phatlip12]

i AM using the infrastructure and at least from me, they get their numbers. so where is the problem? i may not be seeing the forest thru the trees, help me to understand.

The only people that should be watching early episodes of Diggnation are people with paid memberships to Revision3. Your getting it early without paying. If you want it early, you should pay and your not. Since your not paying for the product Revision3 is offering you are hurting them.

[logant]

Wow....Totally pwnd. Awesome dude.

This is Kevin Rose's company. Not Alex's.

[ub3rgeek]

The only people that should be watching early episodes of Diggnation are people with paid memberships to Revision3. Your getting it early without paying. If you want it early, you should pay and your not. Since your not paying for the product Revision3 is offering you are hurting them.

Ya but what kevin and alex were referring to is that people are paying ******** and that they are not getting the numbers. We are not talking about weather or not it is morally wrong to get the show early. I download the show early and i re-download it again on mondays. I want to know how im *hurting* revision3. Yes I may be cheating some people but just as you say its only two days till its released and i don't think its worth $5 a month to see.

Tell me, how am I *hurting* revision3 and diggnation by downloading it on saturday night and re-download it on monday night?

Edit: Oh and another thing, the reason i download it early is because the content is time sensitive. If I wait till Monday I wont have time till later in the week and I want to watch it while the stories they are talking about are fresh in my mind (and by the time im getting it its still a few days old). I want diggnation to continue being produced. Thats why I go out of my way to make sure they get the numbers they need to get paid.

[klitzy]

The only people that should be watching early episodes of Diggnation are people with paid memberships to Revision3. Your getting it early without paying. If you want it early, you should pay and your not. Since your not paying for the product Revision3 is offering you are hurting them.

You still didn't address the argument above....

"If I would never pay for it anyway, then whats the harm of me downloading it early?"

[rlith]

I typically pull Diggnation from TVTonic, do they report numbers to rev3?

[spanca]

When Digg has its podcast section and someone listens to a podcast through that, do they (the makers/owners of that podcast) get their numbers reported back to them in a way that is appropriate to their accounting method? If not, that's ****ing hypocritical to bag one site for rehosting when Digg does exactly the same thing. And that seems to be the crux of the problem here (as you describe it Jay), the reporting of numbers.

[phatlip12]

You still didn't address the argument above....

"If I would never pay for it anyway, then whats the harm of me downloading it early?"

Sure I did, I'm repeating myself over and over again. The product Revision3 offers on Saturday night isn't free. They offer early downloads to people that PAY. If you obtain a copy of Diggnation during this time period without paying then Revision3 is loosing money. This isn't rocket science, its common sense. It doesn't matter if they get there numbers or not. There is no denying they are loosing a sale because you are getting the early download (which is NOT free) elsewhere for free.

[phatlip12]

Ya but what kevin and alex were referring to is that people are paying ******** and that they are not getting the numbers. We are not talking about weather or not it is morally wrong to get the show early. I download the show early and i re-download it again on mondays. I want to know how im *hurting* revision3. Yes I may be cheating some people but just as you say its only two days till its released and i don't think its worth $5 a month to see.

Tell me, how am I *hurting* revision3 and diggnation by downloading it on saturday night and re-download it on monday night?

Edit: Oh and another thing, the reason i download it early is because the content is time sensitive. If I wait till Monday I wont have time till later in the week and I want to watch it while the stories they are talking about are fresh in my mind (and by the time im getting it its still a few days old). I want diggnation to continue being produced. Thats why I go out of my way to make sure they get the numbers they need to get paid.

Then wait, we don't live in a world where everything is free. Thats like saying "I stole the computer because I didn't have money". If you want the early download that bad then get a job. Welcome to the real world.

Revision3 is charging you for a product that you steal from another source. Your hurting them because there not getting that $5 a month. They are putting a price on the product they release on Saturday and you refuse to pay it and steal it from another source.

[phatlip12]

When Digg has its podcast section and someone listens to a podcast through that, do they (the makers/owners of that podcast) get their numbers reported back to them in a way that is appropriate to their accounting method? If not, that's ****ing hypocritical to bag one site for rehosting when Digg does exactly the same thing. And that seems to be the crux of the problem here (as you describe it Jay), the reporting of numbers.

Digg doesn't host the content, they link to it.

[darknessgp]

Sure I did, I'm repeating myself over and over again. The product Revision3 offers on Saturday night isn't free. They offer early downloads to people that PAY. If you obtain a copy of Diggnation during this time period without paying then Revision3 is loosing money. This isn't rocket science, its common sense. It doesn't matter if they get there numbers or not. There is no denying they are loosing a sale because you are getting the early download (which is NOT free) elsewhere for free.

wow, so I'm going to guess you were not completely awake when posting? The main point of the argument of "If I would never pay for it anyway, then whats the harm of me downloading it early?" is that if someone would never pay for the content, it can't possibly be counted as a loss. Let me explain in more detail...

Let's take the movie example, as it's simple to explain and is the example Alex used when he said this argument and I've followed this reasoning before. Some person won't ever pay for the content, so if this free place wasn't there then said person wouldn't ever watch that movie, EVER. It's not a deal of "If you want to watch it, you must pay $X." It's a case of someone saying, "If it wasn't for a free thing, I would never ever watch that movie."

Does that get the point across enough? Yea, Diggnation is offered (2 days) early to people who want to pay at least $50 a year. You know hotmail offers a premium account stuff for $20 a year and I see that as a better investment, as it offers more than one sub par membership perk. Jay has said that they are looking to make more membership stuff. Which IMO is great, but for the time being there are a lot of people who don't think it is currently worth it.

Also, isn't it interesting how we are talking about getting the video early, when it seems all they are concerned about is getting their numbers. So why are we talking about early video stuff? We really shouldn't be, as it's the same problem if I get it from said site early on Saturday or on time on Monday. And still no one has addressed the question ub3rgeek asked of "how am I *hurting* revision3 and diggnation by downloading it on saturday night and re-download it on monday night?"

[muffins]

You still didn't address the argument above....

"If I would never pay for it anyway, then whats the harm of me downloading it early?"

Klitzy, I get what your saying and I'm with you, but phatlip is saying that unlike a movie, you get Diggnation for free on Tuesday. You can obtain Diggnation 2 days later without any problem. If you don't pay to see the movie in the theatres they are never going to give it to you for free. (Unless it was a really famous one and it came to TV 4 years later.)

If you're downloading Diggnation on ******** Saturdays, but then also re-download from Rev3 on Tuesdays - Revision3 gets there numbers and all is good.

But what does any of that matter? You're not actually getting Diggnation early. No matter when you get it, there is still 7 days until the next one.

[tokenuser]

I have a solution.

From now on, all Diggnation podcasts are only available from the Diggnation website. That means members get to watch it in advance, and the rest of us need to wait for the free to air release 2 days later.

All other versions have to be pirated in conventional ways ... like smuggling a camcorder into a chinese cinema so that you get:

a.) crappy picture quality.
b.) crappy over dubbed chinese.
c.) sub titles.

Any thoughts?

[mikejones78]

What happened? When did things change? I specifically remember the episode when Kevin expressively said it was OK if non-members get Diggnation early from members. That he cared not how we got it just that we do get it. I don't however recall an episode when Kevin or Alex said its NO LONGER OK for us to do so. So please direct me to a post or publication or episode after which I should have known better. Otherwise, please ask us to change our downloading habit instead of scolding us for not doing the right thing. Please, you do the right thing.

Thanks

[chuckles]

I typically pull Diggnation from TVTonic, do they report numbers to rev3?

Yes they do.

-chuckles-

[masherscf]

Please, you do the right thing.

Thanks

Kevin also said, "If you like it, pay for it."

[comhcinc]

b*tch, b*tch, b*tch

[mikejones78]

First let me say, I LOVE the show, never missed an episode. And still I say, if you told me I could, why scold me when I do. Is it because now it has become big business to you??? Ask me to change because....whatever your reasons. I've been around since day one. I will admit that I DO get the show regularly (almost always) from the site mentioned. I want to see the show as soon as possible. And since I was told that I could, I did. So what I am trying to say is that I DON'T feel bad that I did it. I sorry that Revision didn't get get the info and data that they needed. And I wish that they had.

And with Jay spewing threats of changing the licensing from creative commons to copyright, it seems as if Digg/Revision3 is no longer the peoples company. Just as many feel Google is no longer the company they had originally preached they would be. And I think with great power, arrogance is most times a byproduct. Hopefully not at Digg/Rev3.

Its fine to do what is necessary to maximize your income, but say you are changing your policies. Don't scold us your fans and users.

That said, thanks for a great show.

[ub3rgeek]

I have a solution.

From now on, all Diggnation podcasts are only available from the Diggnation website. That means members get to watch it in advance, and the rest of us need to wait for the free to air release 2 days later.

All other versions have to be pirated in conventional ways ... like smuggling a camcorder into a chinese cinema so that you get:

a.) crappy picture quality.
b.) crappy over dubbed chinese.
c.) sub titles.

Any thoughts?

What about DVD screeners?

[logant]

I think one of the other problems of *********** is that they don't only offer episodes early. They also offer the special membership only stuff early too. Including the snowboarding clip and the pre-show to episode 92. That's really unfair to the people who are paying to see this content. You can't just redownload that on Monday.

[logant]

I think one of the other problems of *********** is that they don't only offer episodes early. They also offer the special membership only stuff early too. Including the snowboarding clip and the pre-show to episode 92. That's really unfair to the people who are paying to see this content.

[ub3rgeek]

Then wait, we don't live in a world where everything is free. Thats like saying "I stole the computer because I didn't have money". If you want the early download that bad then get a job. Welcome to the real world.

Revision3 is charging you for a product that you steal from another source. Your hurting them because there not getting that $5 a month. They are putting a price on the product they release on Saturday and you refuse to pay it and steal it from another source.

Did you even read my post? I WANT revison3 to get paid. They ADVERTISE in their products. Advertisements are based on numbers. The more numbers (and the more people using the promotions in diggnation) the more they get paid. I resize this and that is why I download it again from revison3. SO I CAN SUPPORT THEM.

Dont tell me what I am doing is morally wrong or not. Tell me HOW AM I TAKING MONEY OUT OF Rev3's POCKET? Tell me how and I will stop downloading on Saturday nights (I let it download all night and then watch it sunday cause I dont usually have a lot going on on sundays.) and start only downloading when it is released on monday.

Can anyone PLEASE answer this?

[phatlip12]

I can't believe you guys don't understand this. Have you never bought something in a store?

1) Does Revision3 charge for early downloads

-Yes, $5 a month

2) If you download it somewhere else is Revision 3 NOT making a sale?

-Yes, your getting it free somewhere else and not paying.

Is this not hurting Revision3? It doesn't matter if they get the correct numbers by you downloading again on Monday. That doesn't change the fact that there not getting $5.00 from you for watching the video early. Answer me this very simple question. By you not paying $5 and watching the video early...did Revision3 miss out on making $5 from you. No matter which way you twsit it the answer is yes. YOU ARE HURTING THE COMPANY.

If you want the video early so bad then get a job and pay for it. Otherwise quit complaining. I repeat myself...

Welcome to the real world.

[ub3rgeek]

Im not walking into Target, grabing a copy of "diggnation" off the shelf and then walking out of the store with it.

It is true. They are not makeing a sale that they would have never made.

Oh and WHY on EARTH are we talking about makeing "sales" Revison3 asks ONLY for donations. DONATIONS (http://revision3.com/donate )
donate
verb [ trans. ]
give (money or goods) for a good cause, for example to a charity : the proceeds will be donated to an AIDS awareness charity.

So if I am not doing anyting the only thing im not doing is I am simply not donateing. If revision3 took out the ads and me donateing money was the only way to keep it afloat then yes I would take some of the money I make with my job and hlep pay for it.

But Jay said himslef that the ads alone are enough to keep the show afloat.
Now that we are building cash flow on advertising, it's true that Revision3 doesn't require memberships to stay afloat.

The need to donate isnt there anymore. (not with the current "perks")

I repeat my self,

Tell me how I am hurting them again?

[phatlip12]

Im not walking into Target, grabing a copy of "diggnation" off the shelf and then walking out of the store with it.

It is true. They are not makeing a sale that they would have never made.

Oh and WHY on EARTH are we talking about makeing "sales" Revison3 asks ONLY for donations. DONATIONS (http://revision3.com/donate )
donate
verb [ trans. ]
give (money or goods) for a good cause, for example to a charity : the proceeds will be donated to an AIDS awareness charity.

So if I am not doing anyting the only thing im not doing is I am simply not donateing. If revision3 took out the ads and me donateing money was the only way to keep it afloat then yes I would take some of the money I make with my job and hlep pay for it.

But Jay said himslef that the ads alone are enough to keep the show afloat.


The need to donate isnt there anymore. (not with the current "perks")

I repeat my self,

Tell me how I am hurting them again?

Nice try. Donating qualifies you as being a member of Revision3. Only members are permitted to download the videos early. You give Revision3 money and you get something in return. The video's clearly say that it is only available to paying members only on Saturday night.

You just admitted defeat with this statement:

" It is true. They are not makeing a sale that they would have never made. "

1) There not getting the sale, there not getting the money. Your not paying them for the early download (a service) so you are hurting them.

It doesn't matter if they NEED the money to keep the show afloat or not. They are a business and they are here to make money. Why are you so persistent on preventing that? Why wont you pay them for the service (early downloads) they are offering you? There putting a price on the early download ($5 a month) yet you refuse to pay so you steal it elsewhere. Why is that? You don't have the money? Do you need early Diggnation episodes to survive? If not...whats your point?

There offering you a service (early downloads) for a price. Your not paying. There not getting money from it. Thats the bottom line.

[ub3rgeek]

But they are getting money from it. Regardless of the poit if I "steal" it from else where before it is "officaly" released I redownload it from revision3 when it is officaly released. Think of it as you download and albumb from your favorite band before it comes out. And then the day it comes out you go and buy it.

As I said before if memberships were there only source of income I would subscribe. But there not. The relase it for free. And I download it form them when its free. The act of downloading it stright from the source is an at of support. Im helping their advertising funds (and yes i have bought several domains using the digg promo codes and use other advertised serverses such as nexflix).

So yes maybe I am "stealing" something that is free two days early. But what Kevin and Alex were talking about on the show was the fact that they werent getting their numbers. They were most hurt by that fact. They did mention that they release it early for paying members but their bigset gripe was that they werent getting numbers from it (and that people are paying for the content on ******** wtf?)

And the only thing im stealing is value from paying members.

[jagtar]

wow ..

i would just like to chime in, wouldnt a way to get people to become members is to offer something more appealing than just early download? Even though most people are "tech savy" enough to figure out how to get it early, they would be willing to pay for extra quality content.

[rabidbadger]

Dudes: do the math...

If the eps average about an hour, and they charge 5 bux a month, and there are 12 months in a year, each month having roughly four weeks, that makes around 3120 minutes of entertainment goodness per year. That's 0.86666666667 cents per minute.

compare that to a Movie at the theatre. Say you go to a first run feature every weekend. Two hour movie, ten bucks... X 52... oh god I don't know, I suck at math. Masher help me out :)

Anyway, if you love the show it is a huge entertainment bargain.

[scarson]

Wow. This dead horse should have decomposed to the point that there is nothing left to beat.
Maybe the ones b1tching are too young to have a credit card and can't pay
$50 for a year membership. My wife and I look forward to Saturday night.
I didn't want to screw around with a monthly membership.. so I did the $50 for
a year. $4.17 a month for one of our favorite shows..My cable tv bill is way higher than that.
I don't mind helping Rev3 out. I get that warm fuzzy feeling and all...And we can't wait for the public release.
So I'll take my lunch to work one day a month to help offset my donation cost. Instead of eating out.
Kevin and Alex are household names in my home.
We were in Kmart and I picked up a shirt that said "squirrels, nature's little speed bumps"
My wife said "Kevin would so hate that shirt"...Like Kevin was one of our close friends.
My point....If you like the show and want to see it on Saturday, make a donation.
If you are too poor, then wait a few days. Rev3 doesn't owe anybody anything.

[mikejones78]

I sincerely promise that if Alex and Kevin sincerely promises that they will stop pirating movies, I will stop watching early. I think its ironic that the guys that hint that they do pirate movies, and sometimes blatantly makes it obvious that they do, are complaining. I do think its funny. :D I have mostly gotten the show from the other site, and no I have never given them a penny. I can't help myself, I must see it as soon as I can. I really hope that guy gives them the numbers they need. So if they, Rev3, considers this pirating, sorry guys but I learned it from you guys ;)

Love the show! Hope to see it tonight

Cheers

[phatlip12]

But they are getting money from it. Regardless of the poit if I "steal" it from else where before it is "officaly" released I redownload it from revision3 when it is officaly released. Think of it as you download and albumb from your favorite band before it comes out. And then the day it comes out you go and buy it.

As I said before if memberships were there only source of income I would subscribe. But there not. The relase it for free. And I download it form them when its free. The act of downloading it stright from the source is an at of support. Im helping their advertising funds (and yes i have bought several domains using the digg promo codes and use other advertised serverses such as nexflix).

So yes maybe I am "stealing" something that is free two days early. But what Kevin and Alex were talking about on the show was the fact that they werent getting their numbers. They were most hurt by that fact. They did mention that they release it early for paying members but their bigset gripe was that they werent getting numbers from it (and that people are paying for the content on ******** wtf?)

And the only thing im stealing is value from paying members.

It doesn't matter! Your not paying for the early service! There not getting the money. Stop trying to justify stealing the content. Unless your doing so for you starving family I don't want to hear it.

[wastinghope]

and my download speed is half (1.2MB/sec vs 770KB/sec) the speed of the mirror i was using the ******* way. you'd think i would get a faster download? what a joke!

[dom]

It doesn't matter! Your not paying for the early service! There not getting the money. Stop trying to justify stealing the content. Unless your doing so for you starving family I don't want to hear it.

Your grasp of the English language is second only to your grasp of the licensing of Diggnation.

However, I'll repeat the facts again as you're clearly having trouble comprehending them. The licensing of Diggnation allows - and actively encourages - sharing, regardless of where and when it was downloaded.

Unless and until Revision3 change the licensing of Diggnation, downloading early from any source is perfectly acceptable. It is *not* stealing. It's not piracy. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with it.

As to whether or not it hurts Revision3, that's an entirely separate matter. But the current stance is a little odd considering the viewpoints that staff and hosts have expressed in the past.

[rabidbadger]

The licensing of Diggnation allows - and actively encourages - sharing, regardless of where and when it was downloaded.

Unless and until Revision3 change the licensing of Diggnation, downloading early from any source is perfectly acceptable. It is *not* stealing. It's not piracy. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with it.

good points, and well expressed. Nothings gonna change til Rev3 changes it. The end.

[phatlip12]

Your grasp of the English language is second only to your grasp of the licensing of Diggnation.

However, I'll repeat the facts again as you're clearly having trouble comprehending them. The licensing of Diggnation allows - and actively encourages - sharing, regardless of where and when it was downloaded.

Unless and until Revision3 change the licensing of Diggnation, downloading early from any source is perfectly acceptable. It is *not* stealing. It's not piracy. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with it.

As to whether or not it hurts Revision3, that's an entirely separate matter. But the current stance is a little odd considering the viewpoints that staff and hosts have expressed in the past.

1) This is a web forum, not a paper I'm turning into my comp professor.

2) Personal insults, great way to start an argument. Have it be known starting your post with that caused me to stop reading anything else you had to say.

[jivetrky]

Stealing the show using the excuse that "Alex and Kevin pirate" is pretty ridiculous and juvenile. Just be a man and say that you steal the show because you want to. Why attempt justifying it by saying "well some else does it"?

[eminemdrdre00]

Stealing the show using the excuse that "Alex and Kevin pirate" is pretty ridiculous and juvenile. Just be a man and say that you steal the show because you want to. Why attempt justifying it by saying "well some else does it"?

Im saying that if they dont want us to download early, they shouldnt brag about all the stuff they pirate (mostly Alex). I would respect their request a lot more if they (again mostly just Alex) didnt talk about how much stuff they pirate. Its like having someone who smokes telling you not to do it.

[phatlip12]

Im saying that if they dont want us to download early, they shouldnt brag about all the stuff they pirate (mostly Alex). I would respect their request a lot more if they (again mostly just Alex) didnt talk about how much stuff they pirate. Its like having someone who smokes telling you not to do it.

I pirate stuff as much as the next guy but I'm willing to admit it's wrong. Yes, Snoop Dogg is rich enough but not buying that copy of "Gin and Juice" is money that doesn't go to him (or anyone else that contributed to it). I doubt piracy is as damaging as the RIAA would like us to believe, but there is no doubt it does damage.

Perhaps it was a long shot saying downloading the videos were stealing (morally speaking I think it is, but I think its a gray area legally speaking). However, I think there is no doubt in saying it hurts Revision3. Saying otherwise is pure denial.

[kingkilr]

"I wouldn't otherwise buy it therefore if I get it no lose"

Wow, that is the most bass-ackwards, lying, bullshit I have ever read.

You like it enough to get it for free, but not quite enough to pay...

How do you objectively determine how much you like it that it is worth watching but not worth paying for?

[mikejones78]

Anyone here who gets movies/music or anything free off the internet should have nothing to say here about how anyone gets the show. We all do what we want. I'm sure that we love and enjoy those other things we pirate just the same as we love Diggnation. And I'll say it again, Kevin in an earlier episode said it was OK for member who gets the show early to put it on Usenet, bittorrent, or whatever. Now that member sharing has gotten to be of substantial distribution, I'm getting scolded for downloading it? Please show a little respect and ask me to change my ways.

Compare this to Michael Moore's response to his EXPENSIVE, years in the making Documentary hitting the internet early. The guy said as long as it gets seen, he has no problem. Siko hit the internet weeks before it was released in theaters. Impressive.

Common people, don't RIAA me please.

[charliedigital]

People who want to support the show, will donate regardless if it's early. As said earlier in this thread, just release the show early to everyone and there would not be an issue.

Give members something like an HD-quallity download on the same day.

[muffins]

Compare this to Michael Moore's response to his EXPENSIVE, years in the making Documentary hitting the internet early. The guy said as long as it gets seen, he has no problem. Siko hit the internet weeks before it was released in theaters. Impressive.
common people, don't RIAA me please.

Michael Moore doesn't care because he knows he'll get millions from the theatre release from the buzz it will cause on the internet. Also Moore doesn't need anyones money - hes got plenty. Revision3 doesn't have an infinite wallet...yet.

[mikejones78]

Michael Moore doesn't care because he knows he'll get millions from the theatre release from the buzz it will cause on the internet. Also Moore doesn't need anyones money - hes got plenty. Revision3 doesn't have an infinite wallet...yet.

Yeah but Moore's movie has copyright licensing not creative commons licensing like Diggnation. If you don't know what creative commons licensing is, use Google. If you have read any of my previous posts you understand that I am talking about moral and principle.

[darknessgp]

...

Perhaps it was a long shot saying downloading the videos were stealing (morally speaking I think it is, but I think its a gray area legally speaking). However, I think there is no doubt in saying it hurts Revision3. Saying otherwise is pure denial.

1) I'm surprised at how low the qualifications to be a mod really are on this forum.

2) Yes, a very long shot that it could be considered "stealing"

3) Hurts Revision3? What if my friend as a membership and he regularly downloads the show and then lets me use his account to download it? Still "stealing?"

[tyler1175]

you shouldn't have to pay money to watch a podcast when it comes out especially when there's advertisements in it, and revision3 makes millions in investments like the 8 million i saw on digg that they got from greylock.

[phatlip12]

1) I'm surprised at how low the qualifications to be a mod really are on this forum.

That statment made no sense. The topic being discussed is diggnation early downloads, not "mod qualifications". What brought you to make this statment? Actually, what do you know about the "qualifications" Revision3 seeks for it's moderators or my qualifications for the matter? Again, that statment made no sense.

2) Yes, a very long shot that it could be considered "stealing"

Ugh...yea. Thats why I said it. Is there an echo in here?

3) Hurts Revision3? What if my friend as a membership and he regularly downloads the show and then lets me use his account to download it? Still "stealing?"

What are you referring to? Hurting Revision3 or "stealing". You mentioned both. I already addressed my "stealing" statement (which you so kindly pointed out again for us all to see) so I'll ignore that part of your question.

Does it hurt Revision3? Yes. It's costs $5 to get the content early. Your getting the content early without paying. Revision3 should be getting $5 from your friend and yourself (that makes $10 a month from the two of you). There only getting $5 from the two of you. Thats money there not getting for the service they are offering you. So in short, yes it hurts Revision3.

[phatlip12]

you shouldn't have to pay money to watch a podcast when it comes out especially when there's advertisements in it, and revision3 makes millions in investments like the 8 million i saw on digg that they got from greylock.

You don't HAVE to. It is free. Those who want it early pay for it (or are supposed to).

[phatlip12]

Anyone here who gets movies/music or anything free off the internet should have nothing to say here about how anyone gets the show. We all do what we want. I'm sure that we love and enjoy those other things we pirate just the same as we love Diggnation. And I'll say it again, Kevin in an earlier episode said it was OK for member who gets the show early to put it on Usenet, bittorrent, or whatever. Now that member sharing has gotten to be of substantial distribution, I'm getting scolded for downloading it? Please show a little respect and ask me to change my ways.

Compare this to Michael Moore's response to his EXPENSIVE, years in the making Documentary hitting the internet early. The guy said as long as it gets seen, he has no problem. Siko hit the internet weeks before it was released in theaters. Impressive.

Common people, don't RIAA me please.

Yes, lets live in a society where we all do whatever we want! We can all sit around, do no work and wait for things we want to show up at our doorstep. What works for Michael Moore doesn't work for everyone else.

[rabidbadger]

http://lolcat.net/d/1315-1/serious.jpg

[chinese-world-power]

Rev3 should just change the license and STFU, you americans always make things harder than they need to be (iraq)

digg.com/tech_news/Revision3_Raises_8_million_From_Greylock

[logant]

Rev3 should just change the license and STFU, you americans always make things harder than they need to be (iraq)

digg.com/tech_news/Revision3_Raises_8_million_From_Greylock

Hello Kim Jong-il.

[godmode]

http://lolcat.net/d/1315-1/serious.jpg

http://www.hfstival.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10148/normal_Internet-SeriousBusiness.jpg

[tokenuser]

http://yirmumah.net/strips/20060821.gif

[rabidbadger]

hammer, meet nail-head.

[flyryan]

I am a paying member of Revision3. However, the vidcast doesn't update until the episode is released to the public. The site in question has an RSS feed that updates every saturday.

Show me how to get Diggnation on my RSS feed on saturday, and I'll use it.

[madogre]

I'd like to download from Rev3, as I am a Member and I pay 5 bucks a month. It's not much, but hey, I'm paying something. The thing is, is that I can never actually get it before Wed. It always says I must be a member. WTF?
Hey, Kevin & Alex... you fix this and I'll only download straight from your fat pipes.

[mgjasper]

I have had it. I have been watching since day one and attended the San Diego blowout. Alex and Kevin would like to have both worlds, pay for content and pirate it also.

I am just over it. It was enjoyable for a hunderd or so episodes, bye!

[chuckles]

I'd like to download from Rev3, as I am a Member and I pay 5 bucks a month. It's not much, but hey, I'm paying something. The thing is, is that I can never actually get it before Wed. It always says I must be a member. WTF?
Hey, Kevin & Alex... you fix this and I'll only download straight from your fat pipes.

Please check your private messages.


-chuckles-

[shadowtech]

I have had it. I have been watching since day one and attended the San Diego blowout. Alex and Kevin would like to have both worlds, pay for content and pirate it also.

I am just over it. It was enjoyable for a hunderd or so episodes, bye!

You couldn't have said it better. I've also been a fan since day one, and even had my diggnation shirt pic featured on an episode (samurai sword guy). I've been checking this post for the last week or so to get a range of viewpoints on the issue, but now I'm done with the show for the exact same reason: the utter hypocrisy and lack of personal integrity of the show hosts.
Bye!

[logant]

I'm sure they really care.

It's not hypocritical. Kevin has said before that he doesn't pirate anymore. Alex is the one that pirates. Don't throw Kevin into something Alex does. Also you will get the show if you don't pay just a couple days after.

[phatlip12]

Hmm...

There sure are alot of new members posting in this (and only this) thread that think "early downloads" are no big deal. Dare I say these members come from a certain site that shall not be mentioned on these boards? :eek:

;)

[muffins]

http://yirmumah.net/strips/20060821.gif


What the ****. I've been trying to keep my mouth shut but why are the only people talking out of their asses the mods? Seriously go ahead and ban me. All you've done this thread is take shots at the fact that people want to argue and debate about something they don't believe to be clear cut. If you don't like whats going on then stop reading the thread and just make sure no ones posting links to ********.

Whether or not you acknowledge it, the people posting on these boards are real human beings. You could go up to them and talk to them in real life about this issue and its just the same as talking to them on here. So if you don't think that anything is serious on the internet then tell me why in the world you're a moderator on an internet forum?

[tokenuser]

What the ****. I've been trying to keep my mouth shut but why are the only people talking out of their asses the mods? Seriously go ahead and ban me. All you've done this thread is take shots at the fact that people want to argue and debate about something they don't believe to be clear cut. If you don't like whats going on then stop reading the thread and just make sure no ones posting links to ********.

Whether or not you acknowledge it, the people posting on these boards are real human beings. You could go up to them and talk to them in real life about this issue and its just the same as talking to them on here. So if you don't think that anything is serious on the internet then tell me why in the world you're a moderator on an internet forum?You object to a comic that captures the escalating war of words that has occurred in this thread? This IS the Internet. You need a thicker skin if that is all it takes to offend you or put you over the edge.

Yes. People on the forums are real people. So are the show hosts. So is the Rev3 CEO/President.

Both the CEO/President, and the show hosts asked that the downloading be stopped from various locations because it was interfering with them gathering accurate numbers for investors and advertising revenue.

Arguing a point is one thing. Beating a dead horse is another. People have been asked to stop. Not just now, but many MANY times in the past.

Creative Commons is NOT a replacement for Copyright. Rev3 explicitly say SOME RIGHTS RESERVED. Those rights are that the content NOT BE DISTRIBUTED TO NON MEMBERS PRIOR TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC RELEASE DATE. It is a simple concept.

Rev3 is trying to make a business out of this. It is a challenging area. Virgin territory so to speak, so the rules aren't so clear. So, they are learning as they go about what does/doesn't work.

If you want to be banned, that is VERY easy to arrange. I'd hate to do that though. There is nothing wrong with debate, except when it escalates into personal attacks, but there also comes a time when people need to respect the wishes of the Rev3 managment. If you can't respect them ... how do you expect them to resepct you? Its a two way street.

[shinobiwest]

i'm reminded of this part of Rev3's "About Us" : Revision3 is the first media company that gets it, born from the Internet, on-demand generation.

why handle the situation exactly the same way as the out of touch big wigs from the previous "revisions"? film box offices are still growing ( http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ic5575a8c4f61aadd68a0d344f476d5da ) despite alleged rampant unbridled piracy and they don't even release their stuff for free 2 days later!

especially with, well, us as the target audience of rev3... to paraphrase Jurassic Park: "Nerds will find a way." (09 F9 11 02 9D...)

there is already too long of a delay between a show's taping and its release ("It's all about compression"). artificially adding more delay onto it makes the news quite stale by the time it reaches the non-donating members. i can download an episode of "real" TV sometimes within an hour of it airing. this MIGHT work with scripted content as it's less time-sensitive but to have this for a show like diggnation doesn't make any sense to me.

remove the early download prohibition for one "special episode" and bring it back for the official #104 (or 105 or whatever). see if it makes much of a difference. at least you'll have data to judge it against now. if the projected improved advertiser numbers are better than the collectible member fees over say, a year... hell, if they're even close, just do away with it altogether.

imo, either these "alternative unreported distribution methods" are causing a big enough dent to make rev3 want to cut them out and "steal" their business or the cost of doing so isn't worth losing the precious $5/month from however many paying members it has. why not at least try to find out?

the "on-demand" generation doesn't want to wait for content to be a week old before it can consume it. it's well within your rights to ask them to pay up or wait, anyway, but to me a company that really "gets it" would get that they can win over a lot of hearts and minds (=> loyal viewers => ad revenue) by siding with the audience on that one, unlike the rev. 1&2 companies

1) non-continuity diggnation episode ("special") to compare reported viewership #s
2) find a way to compress & upload significantly faster. with how simple diggnation is, i'm frankly surprised it's not edited and posted within 24 hours of when it's taped. dedicated encoding machines (note, plural) might help with this or have a designated early-release format (flash?).
3) offer non-pirate-able (read: physical) perks to members -- swag? DVD compilations? online chat capability during a taping (definitely can't sell that one on another site)?
4) ???
5) profit.

even if you switched diggnation to copyright, how would you protect it? DRM? would you sue offenders like the RIAA/MPAA? rev3 should "get" that as long as media is able to, eventually somehow, reach the audience in an intelligible manner, there is no such thing as copy protection.

even before computers there were bootlegs. many artists should be so lucky as to have people clamoring for their work. as a primarily ad-supported group, revision3 should leverage that and use it to-- as above-- be on the audience's side. let the advertisers pay for the bandwidth.

p.s. is there a reliable way to track downloads through bit-torrent? maybe digg's coders could develop one ;) that's the primary way to cut down on bandwidth costs, after all, right?

[masherscf]

A few observations. I'll make them short of the attention challenged.


How it could "benefit the community" if Revision 3 isn't a viable business does not make sense.

Redistribution content for any remuneration with the consent of revision three is not a "perfectly legal service."

Kevin Rose has always maintained that that he didn't desire to require payment, but he has always said the if you liked the content you should pay for it.

Helping Revision 3 redistribute "diggnation" in order to help with congestion issues and bandwidth cost is a noble, if misguided, idea. However, doing so to directly sabotage a revenue stream is just F**King Revision 3.

I don't understand this. It doesn't benefit anyone but the leeches running the illegal site.

"The community" will certainly be pissed when Revision 3 can no longer afford produce "diggnation" or the other shows. But, every cent that you send to another site is a step slower to that reality.

[tokenuser]

p.s. is there a reliable way to track downloads through bit-torrent? maybe digg's coders could develop one ;) that's the primary way to cut down on bandwidth costs, after all, right?Its called a tracker. Provided you use the torrent files FROM THE REV3 SITE, their tracker maintains those numbers. The minute you use a torrent from another site, Rev3 looses the ability to directly see those numbers (unless the torrent provider supplies the numbers to Rev3 - which for torrents is doubtful).

[logant]

Let's say Kevin and Alex never said they pirate. I guarantee you guys would find some other bullshit excuse to get it early, without paying.

[mapcouch]

hey guys whats going on in this thread?

the movie kevin was thinking of "Good luck chuck" and the ass in question was jessica alba's.

apparently other stuff happens in the episode, i look forward to that

[kingkilr]

Let's say Kevin and Alex never said they pirate. I guarantee you guys would find some other bullshit excuse to get it early, without paying.

thats what pirates do, here are some of their excuses:

1) he did it first
2) i wasn't going to pay anyway so it doesn't matter
3) the companies are already rich
4) one person doesn't matter

Now for me to disect each of these:

1) Ok, does that make it right?
2) Ok, so instead of nobody getting anything, they don't get money and you get the product, yeah, that makes sense
3) a) rev3 isn't, b) that still wouldn't make it right
4) multiply one by a lot and you have something substantial, on top of that not making it right

[shinobiwest]

I think there is way too much attention being paid here as to whether it's morally acceptable to download "early" (from the perspective of an end user) when the focus IMO should be on whether there should be an "early" download (from Revision3's perspective).

Pirating copyrighted material is much more likely illegal/wrong/immoral, yet whether or not it is, though, it happens. Pragmatically, you can employ every "security" mechanism you want....copyright it, DRM it, encrypt the website, whatever... if someone wants it early, all they have to do is wait for a mirror to pop up. It will happen anyway. In fact, it will happen to some extent even if it's 100% free and general release is ASAP depending on some users' situation. The key is maximizing the monetization of the "legit" views, right?

So to me, it's a simple examination from a business standpoint. First, would Rev3 make less revenue if general release were "early"? Fairly easy to judge statistically. Second, as a growing business, would we be better served by getting material out to the public faster? This is more of a speculative decision.

Fact of the matter is, the fewer obstacles there are in obtaining your material, the more easily and quickly you will grow. I think Kevin and Alex even touched on this in a show: If you even have to register (for free!) it still acts as a deterrent for some and your content isn't as easily available to your potential audience. For a group that appears to be almost entirely ad-supported, and especially for a group that has supposedly yet to reach profitability, you still need that growth. Making it harder to increase your main source of income (ads) will only stifle that growth.

Kevin (on Cranky Geeks I believe?) once touched on the idea that a breaking Paris Hilton story was on Digg really quickly and Digg became a top destination for "paris hilton phone hack" or somesuch on Google. Staying current and relevant, quickly, easily, and freely available grew the audience. If Revision3 wants to be the Digg of video, it has to work on breaking things faster. If you tape a show Wednesday and it's not available until Monday, it is nearly a week old. I'm sick of hearing basically "by the time you watch this, I guess what we're talking about won't be relevant anymore."

Why should the internet be slower than traditional media?

You lose the advantage of being smaller that way. It doesn't matter if you catch something while it's still underground if it's hit the "slower" outlets by the time you post your netcast about it. I think this was considered already. Digg doesn't require membership to view stories. How quickly do you think it would have converted people if it did? Almost certainly much more slowly.

Unless Rev3 plans to bifurcate itself and have the old-school "members only" section, I see this as the only way forward. Focus on growing the audience, offering more TRS-quality shows, add some scripted content, find ways to keep bandwidth costs down, and get the content out there.

Homestarrunner.com doesn't even have ads and it supports itself just on merch. If you want to have "members," offer them something-- anything-- besides the content. If you restrict the content to paying members before you have a large enough paying audience to support only offering it to those who pay, you shoot yourself in the foot if not somewhere much worse.

[comhcinc]

so i don't feel like reading all this. as i gather this is what has happened

Rev3: please don't illegal download our stuff.

Cheap whinyass kids : boo!


it's going kinda funny to me when all this stuff goes away. then they will be whiny and blaming it on "the man". whatever

[darknessgp]

so i don't feel like reading all this. as i gather this is what has happened

Rev3: please don't illegal download our stuff.

Cheap whinyass kids : boo!


it's going kinda funny to me when all this stuff goes away. then they will be whiny and blaming it on "the man". whatever

Actually it was more like...

Rev3: Please don't download from anyone but us, even if it has already had a public release because we can't get our numbers.

Everyone else then proceeded to have a discussion about downloading it early... Which stupidly enough isn't what Rev3 was talking about. To Rev3, downloading it early or not from a non-Rev3 source hurts them because they either can't get numbers or can't trust numbers given to them.

Then there was some argument about people downloading it from non-Rev3 source early and then re-downloading it from Rev3 at public release so that Rev3 can get the download counted. Although this addressed Rev3's concern, it was followed by and lost in an onslaught of mods and users still arguing about the early download stuff being wrong.

then we make it to these last few pages, which are a decent read. But a must read IMO is shinobiwest's above post. He makes very good and compelling arguments, and I agree with him.

[glugory]

so i don't feel like reading all this. as i gather this is what has happened

Rev3: please don't illegal download our stuff.

Cheap whinyass kids : boo!


it's going kinda funny to me when all this stuff goes away. then they will be whiny and blaming it on "the man". whatever

Yes, what an amazing way to argue a point! Just bury your head in your ass and ignore everything else! That way it doesn't matter if someone refutes your argument (or already has for that matter), because you can't hear it, therefore you win! It's almost like watching Bill O'Reilly. :o

This debate is A LOT more complicated than the stupid little "summary" you posted. How about you pull your head out from your rectum, and pay attention? :D

[comhcinc]

ahh i see you would be firmly in the whiny ass kid camp

[phatlip12]

Yes, what an amazing way to argue a point! Just bury your head in your ass and ignore everything else! That way it doesn't matter if someone refutes your argument (or already has for that matter), because you can't hear it, therefore you win! It's almost like watching Bill O'Reilly. :o

This debate is A LOT more complicated than the stupid little "summary" you posted. How about you pull your head out from your rectum, and pay attention? :D

How is it complicated? Revision3 asked that you don't download content early without paying. It hurts the company, Jay stated this before (that and its commons sense). This "debate" is like talking to a brick wall.

[darknessgp]

How is it complicated? Revision3 asked that you don't download content early without paying. It hurts the company, Jay stated this before (that and its commons sense). This "debate" is like talking to a brick wall.

... yea, that's why this thread is 20+ pages. Cause it's a brick wall. and you got it wrong, Rev3 never said don't download early without paying, they said don't download from anyone but Rev3 whether it be early or not.

I think the main problem with this "debate" is that there isn't two clear sides, there are like 4...

1) Rev3 with the don't download from anyone but us (no matter if it's early or 1 year old) a.k.a. 1 side of the numbers argument.

2) Mods and a few users, that are arguing the don't download early from non-Rev3 site, a.k.a. 1 side of the membership argument.

3) Users arguing that they download from Rev3 on public release so Rev3 gets its numbers, even though they may be downloading from non-Rev3 for the members "early" side. a.k.a. the other side of the numbers argument

4) Users arguing that solely getting Diggnation early isn't worth the price of the membership. a.k.a. The other side of the membership argument.

Then there was somewhat of #3 being argued against by #2, even though IMO #2 (a.k.a Phatlip12) didn't understand what #3 was saying.

So in conclusion, Rev3 did a good job at containing all the possible threads that could have been made by making this centralized one. However, seems like there are/were many different views and confusion among people. The one thing I'm disappointed with, and I'm not sure why as I should expect it from Rev3, is the somewhat lack of response from them. Yea, I know most of the real staff (i.e. higher ups that could actually make the decision) never participate much on the forums.

I'll just now quote some things Jay said with some of my opinion...

"What we have to decide now is whether or not we should continue the membership program, given the abuse of sites like the site in question and others like it. Since they eliminate what perks we offer (regardless of whether you think it's valuable), until we have something else to offer, it's far too unfair to the members to allow the practice to continue."

This is the main issue with the membership perks... 1 site mirroring content eliminates it? Yea, he also said in that post they plan on doing more. But currently, it seems that these "perks" are very easy to "eliminate" mostly do to the fact that the perk isn't that great.

and this is for PhatLip12...

"FANS OF DIGGNATION, let me make this clear: Downloading from anywhere but Revision3 HURTS US because it commoditzes our memberships and horribly interferes with our ability to REPORT OUR NUMBERS to our advertisers.

Kevin and Alex are appealing to you: Please stop downloading from anywhere but Revision3's servers. You can use any client you like. You don't have to pay a dime for it. But please, use our infrastructure."

Notice how Jay NEVER says "don't download early" Yea, he mentions memberships, but he even says we don't have to pay a dime for content. So, the main focus is about downloading the content from Rev3 servers for the sole purpose of being able to report numbers.

[phatlip12]

... yea, that's why this thread is 20+ pages. Cause it's a brick wall. and you got it wrong, Rev3 never said don't download early without paying, they said don't download from anyone but Rev3 whether it be early or not.

I think the main problem with this "debate" is that there isn't two clear sides, there are like 4...

1) Rev3 with the don't download from anyone but us (no matter if it's early or 1 year old) a.k.a. 1 side of the numbers argument.

2) Mods and a few users, that are arguing the don't download early from non-Rev3 site, a.k.a. 1 side of the membership argument.

3) Users arguing that they download from Rev3 on public release so Rev3 gets its numbers, even though they may be downloading from non-Rev3 for the members "early" side. a.k.a. the other side of the numbers argument

4) Users arguing that solely getting Diggnation early isn't worth the price of the membership. a.k.a. The other side of the membership argument.

Then there was somewhat of #3 being argued against by #2, even though IMO #2 (a.k.a Phatlip12) didn't understand what #3 was saying.

So in conclusion, Rev3 did a good job at containing all the possible threads that could have been made by making this centralized one. However, seems like there are/were many different views and confusion among people. The one thing I'm disappointed with, and I'm not sure why as I should expect it from Rev3, is the somewhat lack of response from them. Yea, I know most of the real staff (i.e. higher ups that could actually make the decision) never participate much on the forums.

I'll just now quote some things Jay said with some of my opinion...

"What we have to decide now is whether or not we should continue the membership program, given the abuse of sites like the site in question and others like it. Since they eliminate what perks we offer (regardless of whether you think it's valuable), until we have something else to offer, it's far too unfair to the members to allow the practice to continue."

This is the main issue with the membership perks... 1 site mirroring content eliminates it? Yea, he also said in that post they plan on doing more. But currently, it seems that these "perks" are very easy to "eliminate" mostly do to the fact that the perk isn't that great.

and this is for PhatLip12...

"FANS OF DIGGNATION, let me make this clear: Downloading from anywhere but Revision3 HURTS US because it commoditzes our memberships and horribly interferes with our ability to REPORT OUR NUMBERS to our advertisers.

Kevin and Alex are appealing to you: Please stop downloading from anywhere but Revision3's servers. You can use any client you like. You don't have to pay a dime for it. But please, use our infrastructure."

Notice how Jay NEVER says "don't download early" Yea, he mentions memberships, but the main focus is about downloading the content from Rev3 servers for the sole purpose of being able to report numbers.

I'm a moderator here which means I have easier access to people such as Jay then you do. We have a hidden forum that moderators and administrators use to discuss managing the forums. Several months back, the issue of the site in question that distributes Diggnation early came up. When questioning Jay on the issue Jay said that it hurts Revision3 and asked us to not allow links to that particular site to be posted.

And for the record, you quoted Jay out of context. Jay also said:

DIGGNATION FANS:

Regarding downloading our content from any other source than our servers:

To quote Alex: "At the end of the day, it just hurts us."
Downloading from anywhere but Revision3 HURTS US because it commoditzes our membershipsSo whats the issue here? The fact that we made the name of the site in question censored and don't allow links of it to be posted on the forums should be proof enough that Rev3 is against the type of behavior.

THIS IS COMMON SENSE.

[muffins]

But the point people are making is that no one ever said don't download it early. Just as long as you download it from Rev3 once its released theres no problem.

The only way I'm hurting Rev3 is by not paying the $5 membership charge that I wasn't going to pay even if ******** didn't exist. Either way I wasn't going to pay $5 for it so what does it matter if I get it early?

And to use what I just said above as a reference, people are pissed that Alex expects us to not do to them what he does with movies and television shows.

Those are the points that no ones answering. Here they are in summary if even that was too much for you.

1. We get its hurting Revision3 if we don't download from their servers when it is released to the public because we've already seen it through ******** we don't get how its hurting them if we get it early from ******** and then download it also from Revision3.com

2. Our argument for not paying the membership is exactly the same as Alex's argument for not paying to see a movie or a television show (and actually most of the primetime shows are on basic cable, so it is free). We know two wrongs don't make a right but this doesn't make a bit of sense.

[masherscf]

All the CC arguments are bull****.

Regardless of how you acquire it, if you like "Diggnation", you should pay Revision 3 for it.

Anything else is just ****ing Revision 3.

That is, you may not be stealing, but your still an ***hole.

I get tired about these adolescent lawyery arguments about why downloading "Diggnation" early is not wrong.

It's wrong to circumvent the wishes of the content creators...end of story. I don't care what elaborate fables you've spun for yourself.

Anyone who either downloads "Diggnation" for a third party or supports doing so is morally bankrupt. There is nothing right about it.

Having sex with your sister might not be illegal, but it is still wrong.

[phatlip12]

All the CC arguments are bull****.

Regardless of how you acquire it, if you like "Diggnation", you should pay Revision 3 for it.

Anything else is just ****ing Revision 3.

That is, you may not be stealing, but your still an ***hole.

I get tired about these adolescent lawyery arguments about why downloading "Diggnation" early is not wrong.

It's wrong to circumvent the wishes of the content creators...end of story. I don't care what elaborate fables you've spun for yourself.

Anyone who either downloads "Diggnation" for a third party or supports doing so is morally bankrupt. There is nothing right about it.

Having sex with your sister might not be illegal, but it is still wrong.

I think it's funny considering Jay personally told us to not allow links to the site in question to be posted. He said something along the lines of

"It's unethical and it hurts us."

[crumbles]

We have a hidden forum thats hiddenHidden forum that's hidden? Damn, that's impressive. Then how do you know about it?

[logant]

Hidden forum that's hidden? Damn, that's impressive. Then how do you know about it?

Because he's a moderator?