Online piracy is here to stay

A common misconception is that NGeners download television shows on the internet because they don’t like paying for things. While this is true to some extent, the main reason (in my opinion) is because we already have too many choices for what to do at 9:00pm EST on a Thursday night to reserve that time for Grey’s Anatomy. Why don’t I get to choose when I want to watch my favorite show? (and for the record Grey’s is not my favorite show). Needless to say, for the NGen population we want to dictate our lives, on our schedule, and torrents or online piracy are the easiest way to make that happen. This isn’t even an NGen thing anymore, you’ll find many Gen X, and Baby Boomers looking for an “easy” way as well, because now they have their children who dictate their schedule. In short, online privacy is here to stay regardless of any new legislation that is dreamt up.

New metrics (Nielson Ratings = old paradigm)

“Television is reaching a milestone where online is veritably driving on air viewership.”
— Guinevere Orvis

No longer is the Nielson Rating the true indicator of broadcasting success. For the very reason mentioned above, Nielson Ratings cannot capture who is watching television shows outside of the broadcasted time. This introduces a new paradigm of online metrics: Facebook fan group size, mashups, fan art, and BitTorrent downloads Continue…