Law and Order in iTunes

I'm surprised Dick Wolf didn't create a whole new Law & Order show just for iTunes.

Law & Order: RIAA Investigations Unit
Law & Order: DRM
Law & Order: Cease And Desist Filer Department

When content is produced, it is owned by a producer, who makes deals for distribution. (Note that the producer could be a broadcast network.) Most of these deals are by country or region (depends on the distributor). There are deals for first-time showings (i.e., you get premiere and two additional showings within a year before anyone else can show it in your geographical area) and deals for subsequent showings (syndication is one form of that).

Producers make deals that can last years. So NBC may have contracted and given rights to some UK company that will last for 3 years. So NBC will have to wait until the 3 years are up before they can move it to iTMS, or go back and renegotiate (which the UK company may not want to do).

So don't blame Apple or any other site like Google, etc. And oftentimes, there's nothing a producer can do until the time is up. But things are looking up: for completely new shows being produced (but not new episodes of old shows), producers are now aware of this additional revenue source and will be crafting contracts more carefully to retain Internet rights.

the TV network may not have the contractual right to distribute shows outside the US.

no! i mean, um... apple just likes to screw people! they love watching you brits suffer!

oh yeah, big thanks to the BBC for restricting IT crowd downloads from US addresses. those bastards! ;)

another new show - can be seen on the ESPN channel page, but does not yet have a show page (probably will come later today or tomorrow) - KNIGHT SCHOOL

Wait... "if you surf around long enough, you can find one incarnation this show pretty much any time of the day or night."

and this is a bad thing WHY?

Jeez, and my comment about Fatty McFatFat gets deleted? No good, TUAW.

Yes, Wheels is right.

American TV shows and movies if released at all or usually released much later in other countries. Also, separate distribution contracts are usually signed for international distribution or sometimes per region.

It's out of Apple's control.
I'm sure they would want all the content to be available to everyone.

Even international distribution of Pixar content is governed by Disney's international distribution contracts.

Sorry, non-US fans. I don't think this will be changing anytime soon.

I think Wheels has hit the nail on the head. It's not Apples fault that the content is not available in the UK. It's the content owners. NBC, in this case. I think it has been pretty widely discussed. It is like clockwork though whenever there is an iTMS addition post here, someone has to say "well, it's not avilable in my country". I am sorry if I sounded snooty, but we get it at this point. Your iTMS sucks. Most of the these old shows are availabe on DVD. Buy the seasons on DVD and rip them. It will cost the same and you will have the DVDs.

Does it seem apparent to anyone that the lack, or delay, of equal content additions to other ITMS world stores may not be Apple's fault (GASP!). It may have to do with the production companies because they want US only contracts (better - for them - copyright protections?) I'm curious, are US television networks available in UK, and other foreign lands, by means other than by satellite?

Hey arkowi, just had a look at your site and it seems obvious you're a pretty big fan of things Apple, like most of us here.

So you don't like people bitching about lack of iTMS content in their own country.

I'm the same as doc - pretty tired of reading about things that Apple isn't making available to me because of my location. The main reason it p****es me off is becuase I don't know why.

Do you know? If so, maybe you could shed some light on this for those of us less fortunate, rather than resorting to bitching about someone bitching.

Might be a bit more constructive don't you think?