NBC are saying that Apple must do more to address piracy before it will start selling its content on iTunes again. "One of the big issues for NBC is piracy. We are financially harmed every day by piracy," said NBC chief digital officer George Kliavkoff. In particular, they don't want their content to be playable on iPods.
Idiots. I am currently torrenting episodes of NBC's Battlestar Galactica precisely because I cannot buy them on iTunes, or anywhere else. I can't access them on Hulu (for free), because my IP address is outside the US, but then Hulu wouldn't let me watch them on my TV anyway.
I'd wager that most pirated copies of NBC shows come from TV rips, not copies on iPods purchased from the iTunes store. The quality of rips is higher (if you're ripping an HD channel) and it costs nothing. Boycotting Apple is therefore unlikely to be doing anything to reduce NBC's losses from piracy. If anything, it's probably making them worse.
How can they be so stupid?
