As many people are starting to realised TV-Link, a site which linked to TV programmes of many types, has been shut down and the man behind it arrested.

Details were reported last Friday, with FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft) being behind the action.

The site had been a firm favourite with those at Digital-Lifestyles, as it made available content that just isn’t available anywhere else.

To those of you who lived through the original rise of music sharing services, you’ll be experiencing a total sense of Deja-vu.



One of the major reasons that people resorted to using music sharing sites was that they couldn’t get access to the music in any other way. Many wanted to pay for the content, but just couldn’t get it.

The industry shouted ‘FOUL!’ because they saw it as theft of their content. The users responded with, “What do you expect?”

Having to resort to sharing network eventually bred a culture amoung the young that music didn’t have to get paid for – it’s the only way the knew when they grew up.

It’s just stunning to see that the TV and film world haven’t sorted themselves out by making their programmes available for people to watch online – in the time between then and now. The end result? People are bypassing the owners of the content and going to any source where they can find the programmes. Hence the rise of sites like TV-Link and AllUC.

Again we’ll see large media organisations shouting “FOUL!” and insisting that “Something must be done about this.”

If they hadn’t spent so much time worrying about trying to get DRM working – treating their customers a thieves – and more time getting the content ready to be available to their customers, they might not have been in this position.

Potentially it’s too late for the TV business to change like the music business is finally starting to do.

How many times does this have to be said before big business understands? – Technology is a steam roller, if you don’t get on board, you’ll end up getting crushed.

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