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South Korean youth dump TV programming for piracy

16 November 2007 10:34 by James "Dela" Delahunty | 3 comments

Reuters has an interesting report online about the consumption of entertainment content by the young people of South Korea. As an example, the report talks to University student student Seong-sun (last name withheld), who uses his laptop and mobile phone to watch all of his content. The Internet is his channel of choice to receive TV shows, movies and other entertainment content, and the source on the Internet is of course, peer-to-peer.

Seong-sun a low subscription fee to an Internet-based service in the country that provides him with access to thousands of Hollywood movies - often before their theatrical release in the country - and TV shows such as American Idol and Prison Break. While the local cable companies compete for the rights to show these huge TV hits, the Internet services post them, complete with subtitles, shortly after they originally air in the United States.

Such a service could not be based in most Western countries due to copyright law, but in South Korea, there is lax enforcement of the existing laws. Take that into account, and then add that South Korea has a high broadband penetration rate, and the logical outcome is a rise in the use of file-sharing services.

"So many people do this that I'm not scared of getting caught. Everyone else thinks the same thing, too," Seong-sun said. One of the most popular P2P resources is Mansal, which has nearly 50 million visitors. "I like to download stuff because I don't have to wait to watch something" Seong-sun said.

Chosun Ilbo, South Korea's biggest daily news paper, published the results of a survey earlier this year which showed that the average movie fan watches about two movies a month in theaters and about three new releases a month obtained by illegal downloading. To the South Korean youth, the TV set is becoming obsolete, and even though the trends are set by piracy, the TV manufacturers have no problem falling in line.

"The line between TV and PC is being blurred. Today's consumers no longer care about the conventional definition of a gadget. They just want one that fits their lifestyle," said Judy Pae, a spokeswoman for LG Electronics, one of South Korea's biggest TV makers, commenting on how LG's TVs will evolve for these viewing habits.

Source:
Reuters

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Discuss this article!
Tashammer (Newbie) 16 November 2007 20:08
i wonder if the "hard-headed" business leaders are even starting to get a vague notion of what is happening and will they ever be able to develop business practices to match rather than the ones coming from the 50's and earlier. They keep trying to force us into some prescribed mould and, guess what, we don't fit. Maybe a decent profit and low salaries with no bonuses for ceo's and those of their ilk. And a true apportioning of the royalties worth to the writer/composer/singer/player. Yeah. I know, too radical. Honesty doesn't fit with business does it. [ + quote]
P51ride (Newbie) 17 November 2007 4:05
Here are some interesting links and a premise about Bit Torrent downloading that hasn't been considered by the entertainment industry. The video is 200 megs in size and in QuickTime file format. article http://www.mindjack.com/feature/piracy051305.html video http://www.archive.org/details/PiracyIsGood Ideas ? Opinions ? Best Regards [ + quote] This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 17 November 2007 4:09
borhan9 (AfterDawn Addict) 10 December 2007 16:15
This is going to be the case for a lot of people due to the fact that normal tv does not show what we want to watch half the time and when it does we might be busy with something else so this way we can create our own tv schedule of sorts. I see this as common practice these days. [ + quote]