A Note On Friendship is Magic Episode Copyrights
For quite a while, it wasn't clear what Hasbro's copyright stance was on episodes of
Friendship is Magic uploaded to YouTube and other sites.
With their now more vigorous enforcement on YouTube and their DMCA cease and desist notice to the (now defunct) Pony Archive, their position can be
better understood.
Although they don't seem to have any problem with fan videos or similar derivative works, they do want to protect their distribution rights for the
episodes themselves, especially the HD versions, which are available for a price through iTunes at the following links:
(iTunes) My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Season 1
(iTunes) My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Season 2
Episodes may also be viewed on The Hub cable channel and their pony section on
Hubworld.com, although availability of episodes from these sources is
often limited in various ways.
Because I very much respect Hasbro's wishes in all this, I won't be posting any more links to the series episodes, though I don't plan to go back
through this thread and remove any either unless asked (many of them are broken now, anyway).
I also ask that fellow members not post links to unauthorized copies of videos or anything related to subverting, bypassing or otherwise violating
Hasbro's right to protect them. They ponied up the dough to make them, and have every right to decide how they should be distributed and used.
Of course, I do plan to continue commenting on them, because Season Two is turning out to be an amazing season and the show only continues to grow in
popularity and reach. And since Hasbro doesn't seem to mind fan videos, I'm sure I'll link to plenty of those as well.
Also, since screen captures and short snippets of video reasonably fall under Fair Use provisions of copyright law, I don't plan to stop using those
either.
After all, the ponies must get through!
Singing A Different Tune
As a fan of the show and a supporter of intellectual property rights who doesn't watch cable TV (or any TV, for that matter), I've been anguishing
over various philosophical and ethical questions related to how I watch
Friendship is Magic. The short version is that I want to do the right
thing.
For the record, I absolutely, positively
hate iTunes. I tried it a few years ago and uninstalled it because it is some of the worst, most
obnoxious and most invasive bloatware on the planet. Shame, shame, shame on Apple for not making it more friendly to users who like to run an
efficient, clean and non-bloated system. I have made a distinct point of avoiding it and other software of its kind like the plague.
Thus the fact that I downloaded and installed iTunes (and Quicktime, et al) on my computer yesterday is no small matter, and though I did use a method
for reducing
some of the bloat, iTunes 10 is now on my machine, I now have an Apple ID and downloaded my first episode of
Pony from the
store yesterday.
The Digital Rights Management encoding that comes with iTunes videos is a pointless hassle, in my opinion, but the HD versions of the episodes are
clean, free of the commercials, promo banners and sprites found in the broadcast episodes, smooth as silk and are absolutely, positively
stunning. Far and away the best way to watch ponies in their pristine, natural habitat.
So there it is. I now have iTunes on my computer, am buying my
Friendship is Magic episodes from the iTunes store (I recommend the season
passes which, for fifty bucks, come out to a little under two bucks an episode) and have allowed Apple's groping tentacles into my computer, all
because of this. Oh how the mighty have fallen.
Confound these ponies. They drive me to madness!