TV shows on demand and online
Written by Renata Valz, Production Associate
Tuesday, 29 January 2008
Video site’s shut-down spurs spread of superior kin
From Napster to Kazaa to BitTorrents clients, Internet users worldwide have been downloading media for a decade now. With the slew of online websites linking and hosting video files of new and old films, it has become quite possible to stay at home and completely avoid the long lineups and high prices of movie concession stands.
But what about activities that have always been done from home? There are no lineups to watch Law & Order in your living room. There is, however, the long wait between episodes and, for many, the inability to watch shows due to scheduling conflicts.
VHS and TiVo devices help many master television viewing, but those devices are outside the means of many people and cannot recover an untaped show once it has come and gone.
Enter the online video scene. While it was arguably YouTube that catapulted the world of online video to fame, the owners sold it to Google and made the posting of TV shows impossible due to studio crackdowns.
Then came websites like Alluc.org and TV Links with the answer. These new websites offer new and old shows on demand for viewers around the world.
YouTube answered to corporate bigwigs and their legal threats, but TV Links avoided the entire legal problem: instead of hosting their own videos, they provided links to videos on other sites.
This safeguard did not stop the corporations, and TV Links’ growing popularity brought it to the attention of legal departments everywhere.
In October 2007, David Rock, the site’s owner, was arrested and TV Links was shut down. Rock, a 26-year-old from Cheltenham, England, was eventually released with no charges.
Rock had been arrested under the section for trademark infringement in Britain’s Trade Marks Act 1994. This contradicted the claim by police that the arrest was due to copyright infringement. The tactic worked, however, and TV Links was all but forgotten.
Until now.
One of the Internet’s well-kept secrets is that TV Links is very much alive and kicking – down under. The website is now hosted through the Cocos Islands, an Australian territory, at www.tv-links.cc.
A visit to TV Links’ new home evokes a sense of nostalgia for its earlier look. The familiar coloured television screens with Xs in the centres beg to be clicked on, and once again, everything from MuchMusic to the old Zelda cartoons can be caught on this online tube.
While there are slight modifications to the earlier TV Links code, it is clearly meant to be as close as reasonably possible. It is unknown whether or not the site is also the creation of David Rock.
There was, however, a dramatic offshoot of the TV Links debacle: an explosion of similar sites offering the same service. TV Links’ return may, in fact, be unnecessary.
Much like how Napster’s death spawned a slew of similar P2P sites, most of which now run uncontrolled, online TV shows are all the rage. A new form of viewership has been born.
Top TV Link Sites
SideReel
SideReel, like TV Links, is a massive database of links to videos across the web. It even does much of the work for you by embedding videos from other sites into a handy page on their website. You also have multiple options for each show and episode, making viewing simple.
www.sidereel.com
Alluc.org
Alluc (all you see) also takes the TV Links approach. It compiles links to all the places around the web where your show can be found. Its results often vary from SideReel’s, making both a must-have.
www.alluc.org
Mr. Twig’s
This South Park-only site is for anyone who can’t stand the one-month wait between now and the next season. Mr. Twig has every episode of South Park ever made and is good at having torrents ready within half-an-hour after an episode debuts on Comedy Central.
www.mrtwig.net
Family Guy X
Like Mr. Twig, Family Guy X focuses on just one show. With its database of every Family Guy episode that has ever aired, Family Guy X will help you make an impression during your next social gathering by allowing you to memorize the entire show.
www.familyguyx.net
Websites like TV Links provide links to flash video forms of popular TV shows such as How I Met Your Mother (pictured). Screenshot courtesy of ouou.com
From Napster to Kazaa to BitTorrents clients, Internet users worldwide have been downloading media for a decade now. With the slew of online websites linking and hosting video files of new and old films, it has become quite possible to stay at home and completely avoid the long lineups and high prices of movie concession stands.
But what about activities that have always been done from home? There are no lineups to watch Law & Order in your living room. There is, however, the long wait between episodes and, for many, the inability to watch shows due to scheduling conflicts.
VHS and TiVo devices help many master television viewing, but those devices are outside the means of many people and cannot recover an untaped show once it has come and gone.
Enter the online video scene. While it was arguably YouTube that catapulted the world of online video to fame, the owners sold it to Google and made the posting of TV shows impossible due to studio crackdowns.
Then came websites like Alluc.org and TV Links with the answer. These new websites offer new and old shows on demand for viewers around the world.
YouTube answered to corporate bigwigs and their legal threats, but TV Links avoided the entire legal problem: instead of hosting their own videos, they provided links to videos on other sites.
This safeguard did not stop the corporations, and TV Links’ growing popularity brought it to the attention of legal departments everywhere.
In October 2007, David Rock, the site’s owner, was arrested and TV Links was shut down. Rock, a 26-year-old from Cheltenham, England, was eventually released with no charges.
Rock had been arrested under the section for trademark infringement in Britain’s Trade Marks Act 1994. This contradicted the claim by police that the arrest was due to copyright infringement. The tactic worked, however, and TV Links was all but forgotten.
Until now.
One of the Internet’s well-kept secrets is that TV Links is very much alive and kicking – down under. The website is now hosted through the Cocos Islands, an Australian territory, at www.tv-links.cc.
A visit to TV Links’ new home evokes a sense of nostalgia for its earlier look. The familiar coloured television screens with Xs in the centres beg to be clicked on, and once again, everything from MuchMusic to the old Zelda cartoons can be caught on this online tube.
While there are slight modifications to the earlier TV Links code, it is clearly meant to be as close as reasonably possible. It is unknown whether or not the site is also the creation of David Rock.
There was, however, a dramatic offshoot of the TV Links debacle: an explosion of similar sites offering the same service. TV Links’ return may, in fact, be unnecessary.
Much like how Napster’s death spawned a slew of similar P2P sites, most of which now run uncontrolled, online TV shows are all the rage. A new form of viewership has been born.
Top TV Link Sites
SideReel
SideReel, like TV Links, is a massive database of links to videos across the web. It even does much of the work for you by embedding videos from other sites into a handy page on their website. You also have multiple options for each show and episode, making viewing simple.
www.sidereel.com
Alluc.org
Alluc (all you see) also takes the TV Links approach. It compiles links to all the places around the web where your show can be found. Its results often vary from SideReel’s, making both a must-have.
www.alluc.org
Mr. Twig’s
This South Park-only site is for anyone who can’t stand the one-month wait between now and the next season. Mr. Twig has every episode of South Park ever made and is good at having torrents ready within half-an-hour after an episode debuts on Comedy Central.
www.mrtwig.net
Family Guy X
Like Mr. Twig, Family Guy X focuses on just one show. With its database of every Family Guy episode that has ever aired, Family Guy X will help you make an impression during your next social gathering by allowing you to memorize the entire show.
www.familyguyx.net
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