When Fox Television imposed an extended wait for catch-up viewers, which led to claims that the move has prompted a surge in illegal downloading. Fox have responded by claiming the reports are “a little over the top.”

Are Fox responsible for piracy surge?

Fox have put up an eight day delay on catch-up TV streaming to all non-paying customers, although subscribers to Hulu Plus or Dish Network can continue to watch TV shows and movies the day after airing.

This has obviously encouraged viewers to hit illegal downloading sites as reported by TorrentFreak, who said the move had made piracy levels rocket.

Responding to the reports, Fox Televisions senior vice president Scott Grogin said to The Hollywood Reporter, “The TorrentFreak blog post is a little over the top. The story indicates that we ‘took this drastic step in the hope of getting more people to watch shows live and thus make more revenue.’ Nothing could be further from the truth.”

Not sure what planet, Grogin lives on. But he continued, “Authenticating viewers is not about making sure they only watch live…in fact, quite the opposite—we support a ‘TV Everywhere’ proposition and are working with our distribution partners to benefit our businesses.”

The reality is that Fox only want paying customers to watch online content, he said, “We are actively in negotiations with all cable/satellite/telco providers regarding authentication of their customers. We hope to announce several more agreements before the start of the new television season in mid-September.”

So it looks like catch up streaming, which makes money using advertising, is being slowly taken away thanks to greedy networks. It seems that the strategy should have been decided from day one though, as taking away something that was once free will leave a bad taste and ultimately create more pirates.

Hi everyone my name is Kelly from the UK. Please let me know what you think of my posts by leaving a comment (or 2)

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