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Show Doing Well On BitTorrent? We’ll Buy It, Says Media Giant

Fairfax’s head of video Ricky Sutton has admitted that his company’s acquisition strategy is in large part based on what content is popular on BitTorrent. Not only is Fairfax using BitTorrent as a market research tool, the company also admits to advertising their content offerings directly on BitTorrent sites, in an attempt to convert pirates into paying customers.

It’s no secret that most media companies are not thrilled about BitTorrent piracy.

However, instead of fighting a futile battle to eradicate all unauthorized downloads, BitTorrent can also offer a unique insight into the viewing habits of millions of people.

Fairfax, one of Australia’s largest media outlets, appears to realize this.

At a government broadband conference in Sydney, Fairfax’s head of video Ricky Sutton admitted that in a country with one of the highest percentage of BitTorrent users worldwide, his company determines what shows to buy based on the popularity of pirated videos online.

“One of our major ways to get content is going to BitTorrent, and other BitTorrent sites, and find what people are illegally downloading to then go to the content owner and say, ‘hey, I watched this last night it’s going awesome on BitTorrent’ and then say ‘how about giving it to us?”‘

In other words, BitTorrent serves as one of the main market research strategies for the Aussie media outlet. And it doesn’t stop there as The Australian reports.

Fairfax says it also advertises to BitTorrent users, sharing the revenue they generate from converted pirates with the BitTorrent platforms.

“We then bring [the video content] over here and we advertise on BitTorrent that it’s legally available on our platform, and then pay some revenue share based on it. That’s worked quite effectively,” Sutton says.

Sutton didn’t name any of the platforms where they advertise their content, but we assume that he’s talking about BitTorrent sites since BitTorrent Inc., the San Francisco parent company of the popular uTorrent software, informs TorrentFreak they are not working with Fairfax.

It’s refreshing to see a high media executive admitting that BitTorrent trends offer useful insights, although it’s certainly not a new approach. P2P-intelligence has been used for more than half a decade in the entertainment industry.

Leaked emails from the piracy “intelligence” company MediaDefender previously showed that record label Interscope used piracy data to determine what single to release next.

Fairfax’s decision to share revenue with BitTorrent platforms, however, is more controversial and will certainly raise some eyebrows at other media outlets.

As can be seen from their video programming, Fairfax mostly buys independent content that’s doing well on BitTorrent, not any of the major U.S. TV-shows.

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  • thedude321

    Now these people, are smart. When I first read this, I was giggling to myself. But then I realised, that it was something that any smart researcher would do! :P

    • http://torrentfreak.com/ Rob8urcakes

      Quite so dude, and what we need now is for far more similar Companies and organisations to operate in this manner.

      Because those fools who still try to fight us Pirates are on the losing side of this stupid battle brought about by their own greed and outdated business models unfit for the 21st Century.

      Well done Fairfax – all power to you guys.

      • Guest

        Rob, again, what’s with the “us Pirates” comment? You say in your profile that you are “wrongly labelled “a pirate”" yet you post calling yourself a pirate.

        • http://torrentfreak.com/ Rob8urcakes

          OK, you deserve a decent explanation and thanks for this apparent dichotomy my friend.

          It’s really quite simple though, as I reckon you’d expect ;)

          I simply resent being called a Pirate by these CopyWrong trolls when all WE’re doing is filesharing culture freely at no cost or charge to others.

          Whereas on the other hand, I’ve joined the Pirate Party UK (and even bough their mugs), hence the “we Pirates”. It’s a political move to reclaim the word Pirate and an attempt to turn it into something positive.

          Get it now, or would you (or any others) need more?

        • http://bit.ly/QAYGzr wanda.creek

          @An entertainment company using their brains? Im making over $7k a month working part time. I kept hearing other people tell me how much money they can make online so I decided to look into it. Well, it was all true and has totally changed my life. This is what I do,..NDOQESB.Tk

      • Guest

        Thanks Rob, so you ARE a pirate but you take exception to being called one.

    • Farnsworth

      This is good to hear and smart indeed. I’ve had a theory for a while now that the traditional means used for figuring out viewing habits is no longer accurate and actually hasn’t been for a while now. The younger generation are more tech savvy, meaning more likely to use non-traditional means of getting their shows. The older generation, whom tend to be less tech savvy, are more likely to use the traditional (as in monitored) means and as a result are having an undue influence on ratings. Taken as a whole, the interests of these two age groups tends to be quite different and may very well explain why we’ve seen such a massive skew towards reality based shows. Like I said though, it’s just a theory. Hopefully more attention will be paid to bittorrent numbers in the future and some semblance of balance will be restored to the airwaves.

      • yello

        Dear Fairfax:
        Im glad i can help you….. alot….
        but sadly, i will not be converted into a “paying customer”
        but thanks for the effort

        • Farnsworth

          We’re seeing obnoxious advertisements played during TV shows increasingly often these days, meaning torrents are no longer a means to avoid them. I would argue this gives true fans incentive to buy a show they love on DVD/BR. I certainly don’t mind buying the exceptional ones on blu-ray. The difference in sharpness and color definition on a large HDTV is quite noticeable, plus you don’t get the posterization one tends to see on downloads that are frequently over-compressed to keep file sizes down. You also get the special features, extended cuts, and sometimes a cool statuette or other knick knack.

          My point is that if they still have a hold of your eyeballs, they still make money even if it’s not coming directly from you. This is either a downside or an upside depending on how one wants to view it. I see it as both and probably necessary in order for shows to keep being made. I could be wrong, but I think the BSG: Blood and Chrome wasn’t picked up specifically because it’s too expensive to make. Hopefully this kind of thing won’t be seen as a problem down the road once it’s realized advertising dollars are still worth something even when shows are pirated.

      • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003037095323 Jerilyn Nighy

        I would say the traditional means such as Nielsen were always highly inaccurate. I only ever found out one person I knew was a Nielsen “family,” and it turned out to be my uncle! Though he didn’t get picked until the late 90′s. I imagine it could be argued that via filesharing, we are finally seeing true data on viewing habits.

    • Scary Devil Monastery

      Yep. However, it would be sheer death for a number of currently incumbent clay feet colossi. When you’re talking about large productions you’re looking at dozens of stakeholders all locked down to the status quo by hundreds of incestuously recursive IP-license contracts.

      In short, you might need a hundred man-hours worth of expensive lawyer time for every stakeholder just to free up one production for release in another format without serious legal risk.

      Which just goes to show how very unwise betting on the ip-horse really is.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Alexander-Anderson/1094485930 Alexander Anderson

    An entertainment company using their brains? What is this witchcraft?!

    • Guest

      If MAFIAA and Government kill BitTorrent in the future how will they find “pirates” to convert? Will they force people to watch they crap even if they don’t want? Like… in Television!

    • Scary Devil Monastery

      Actually…the key word is “media”. Fairfax approach into entertainment started with journalism. It might just be that the people running the company are of the bent which sits down and starts by asking the question “So…where do we get the most accurate information…?”

  • Big K

    Hell just frozen over. I’m going to their site and buy first show I’ll see… Well, if they are available in my country by some mistake :p

  • http://twitter.com/bob_love Bob Love

    Seems the list of companies who “get it” just went up by another 1.

    • PlatinumC

      So are we up to 2 now?

  • Violated0

    I cannot fault this strategy. There is the market and the consumers, where popularity is what really sells, so tap the market for popularity and customers.

    Advertising to this market is more of a tricky one due to the infringement nature. This is why advertising is currently under attack when if popular websites get major advertising then the whole system becomes an accepted market.

    I can only wonder if we have ever seen a situation where official supply is so far removed from the demands of the market. Only US prohibition on alcohol seems to come that close.

    Well at least they tend to get there in the end kicking and screaming about how people no longer like what they were doing 10 years ago. Innovation killed my sales. Waa waa cry to my mommy.

  • Jay

    Basically free market research with a polling size that would cost a boatload to buy at any polling company.
    Good on them for embracing reality, and real nice of the boss there (if it’s accurate) that he lets them know his interest is based off of torrent numbers.

  • ScrewEwe2

    “At a government broadband conference in Sydney, Fairfax’s head of video Ricky Sutton admitted that in a country with one of the highest percentage of BitTorrent users worldwide, his company determines what shows to buy based on the popularity of pirated videos online.

    “One of our major ways to get content is going to BitTorrent, and other BitTorrent sites, and find what people are illegally downloading to then go to the content owner and say, ‘hey, I watched this last night it’s going awesome on BitTorrent’ and then say ‘how about giving it to us?”‘

    Uhhhhh, why is it OK for Ricky Sutton of Fairfax Media to say, ‘hey, I watched this last night it’s going awesome on BitTorrent’ and then say ‘how about giving it to us?”‘ If any of us admits to downloading copyrighted material to watch or to do “research” with, we get busted, but the right honorable Ricky Sutton can get away with illegaly acquiring copyrighted material and get’s a pass.

    OK, all the shit I’ve acquired has been done in the name of research, and my fucking name is Ricky Fucking Sutton, now piss off. That porno? That was research.

    • Qjo

      So how is that research going? We’re still waiting on your preliminary report. I’d say get a grip, but I suspect you’ve already got one :D

      • ScrewEwe2

        It went better than I expected. Time for a cigarette.

    • nom

      The way I read it; by saying ‘hey, I watched this last night it’s going awesome on BitTorrent’ he means that he watched the number of downloads it got on bt and not the actual show itself. ^^

    • Scary Devil Monastery

      Actually, I suspect that what happens is that he goes onto TPB and watches the seed/leech count. Or starts a client and just counts the number in the swarm. That puts him in the clear.

      Although to be fair that will only provide a good guesstimate, it’ll certainly be enough to tell him that a file with a seed/leech count of 100/10000 appears to be quite popular compared to one which has 2/200.

      And in the end all Fairfax really needs to know is “Which releases are the current top ten in popularity?”.

  • Anonymous

    what this shows more than anything is that apart from being a great file sharing platform, torrent sites can influence media companies and help to determine which way for them to jump, rather than taking more risks than necessary. it also shows, as with other things, that when something suits, it suits. just because there is an illegal use, doesn’t mean there isn’t a legal use as well. the biggest reason the entertainment industry condemns torrent files and torrent sites is that it doesn’t have the control. if those industries had used any sort of business foresight, rather than doing their normal trick of saying that something will never catch on or work, and got hold of torrent when it first emerged, it would have been the dogs bollocks of programs! funny how jealousy can breed contempt, isn’t it?

  • WinxMoo

    Wow, see now thats exactly what I am talking about man.
    PrivacyTool.tk

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1181592098 Karan Shah

    now now,these guys really know how to do research!

  • wpgsweet

    A step in the right direction. Now we just need the rest of the entertainment industry to update their business models, and give us something we actually want to buy, at a decent price. I will not pay 70 dollars for a tv show season.

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  • Monster

    So he knows what shows he wants to provide. .. does it matter everybody going to still DL because its free. Everybody says all these companies need a better biz model but will it really make a difference? I feel safe saying that nobody here that comments on this site is going to pay for anything. I think if they truly felt they could get some money out of us with a new model they would all do it.

  • Mikemoore040404

    I though the reasons we pirated media is because it was crappy and overpriced. So now we’re willing to be converted into paying for “crappy” things that we already pirated? So if Sony Music Entertainment said it does it’s research at the Pirate Bay then we Torrent Freaks would say they are a great, smart company and start paying for their new releases?

    • Conservative

      Sony illegally hacked my PS3 with a Trojan and disabled it. They did it intentionally.

      I will not be buying anything from Sony again. Ever.

      • Cheesethief

        I’m sure they will be up shit creek without your custom

        • Scary Devil Monastery

          Actually…Sony has managed to generate such a pot of ill will amongst customers the sting is actually being felt quite harshly.

          When the PS3 was first announced one thing Sony did was to promise it would be unlocked – hoping to wean the part of the market which has hitherto been Xbox-aligned away (mainly IT-savvy people who liked using the xbox as a cheap server).

          Then they reverse that decision and piss off thousands of IT geeks and hackers who’d bought the PS3 exclusively in order to run it as an ultracheap mainframe server.

          As a result, said IT crowd sat down and started hacking the PS3, eventually succeeding, and then published the key. You may recall how well that panned out for Sony when it turned out that hacking the master key to the PS3 also gave access to Sony’s developer network and some of their customer master data.

          So Yes, Sony DID INDEED end up shit creek when they decided to remove the functionalities they’d promised their customers from the PS3.

          “Conservative”, above, is one of thousands of people, including me, who now view Sony as a horde of scumbag scam artists hell-bent on screwing their customers over for shitz and giggles.

          Added to their previous launch of the “Sony Rootkit” it’s not far-fetched to say that today any person going to a techie of their aquaintance in order to obtain purchasing advice will get “Just don’t buy Sony”.

          It’s the advice I give.

  • chronoss chiron

    and now that its bought you never will see it on bittorrent again….and then you will have to pay pay pay pay to see it….
    right is this what corproates have in store for torrents a ton of crap infested wannabe tv they want to shove at us and have us pay distribution costs of downloading?

    PAY ME to watch your crap should be the attitude…

  • Timer

    ” it’s certainly not a new approach. P2P-intelligence has been used for more than half a decade in the entertainment industry.”

    Actually, more than a FULL decade. BigChampagne started during the Napster 1.0 era selling data to the record companies about which songs and artists were downloaded the most. This was before iTunes, and at the time the only way for anyone to know what songs were popular back then was by mining “ILLEGAL” P2P – which provided a treasure trove of market research (millions of dollars worth) for free. It was so ironic that Big Music was mining Napster and Kazaa for market research at the same time they were trying to exterminate those P2Ps.

    • ScrewEwe2

      The Napster day’s were a lot of fun, although most of the time slow as hell because you could bet that anyone sharing 128 kbps mp3′s was on 56k dial up. It was like hitting the lottery though when you were able to browse someones shared folder and they had 1 or 2 thousand audio files and even better if they were on a T10 connection at a university. It was like an easter egg hunt.

  • tmc8080

    The MPAA’s been known to datamine for the main purpose to redirect advertising resources around popular media.. Also, the RIAA is no stranger to this.. after Whitney Houston’s death, Itunes purchases shot up.. which lead to some nasty price gouging of all her video & audio content.. Not to be left out.. they primed the pump of people’s wallets longer than it would have been if they did nothing.

  • pcGnome

    I’ve always known that bittorrent is like a “free range” Nielson box.

    pcG

  • PatternGuru714

    So why wouldn’t they screw everyone by spreading potentially good Indie films on P2P, driving down the price the films are likely to get from aftermarket sales, then offering to purchase at a discount? Then they own the rights for a tiny amount.

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