dannyman.toldme.com

Battlestar Galactica Paid Download

[From an e-mail I sent to the Sci-Fi Channel . . .]

Hello,

I don’t have cable, and my only access to TV shows has been via Netflix and Internet downloads.

I am very excited that you folks are now offering paid downloads of Battlestar Galactica! Bittorrent works great, but I’d like to see you guys compensated for the creative work and production costs, right? And since I only watch a few shows per month, the $2/episode is definitely a better value than buying Cable access, which is overpriced for my needs.

UNFORTUNATELY, the iTunes store is a closed, proprietary system, that can not be accessed from my home entertainment center, which runs on FreeBSD. So, even though I own a video iPod … I can not easily obtain the downloads from your vendor … and if I do somehow get to the iTunes store, I have no idea if they’re DRM-protected, which would block me from watching your show on my entertainment center anyway. :(

Please … please try to either:

a) Convince Apple to open up iTunes access to third parties. A while back, the open source community reverse-engineered the iTunes protocols so that Linux users could access this resource, but Apple locked these consumers out again.

b) Consider adopting Google Video as a sales channel — they have the capability to sell videos via traditional web browsers, which would allow ALL computer users to access your content, increasing consumer accessibility and sales for Battlestar Galactica.

Failing that … can I Paypal you guys $2/week for the episodes I have been obtaining via Bittorrent? :)

Thanks,
-danny