[HN Gopher] Australian Open resorts to animated caricatures to b...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Australian Open resorts to animated caricatures to bypass broadcast
       restrictions
        
       Author : defrost
       Score  : 230 points
       Date   : 2025-01-16 00:50 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.crikey.com.au)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.crikey.com.au)
        
       | grajaganDev wrote:
       | "the Australian Open's own channel has streamed select matches
       | using cartoonish avatars of players instead of the actual
       | broadcast."
       | 
       | LOL - but why not? They need to do this for every sport.
        
         | defrost wrote:
         | There's a startup here for someone . . .
         | 
         | Could even work for CSPAN, QuestionTime, and other political
         | coverage ..
        
           | inglor_cz wrote:
           | Presidential debates... perhaps the viewers could even choose
           | their favorite skin etc.
        
             | bdangubic wrote:
             | it is always two clowns debating so this would TOTALLY work
             | :)
        
             | Fuzzwah wrote:
             | Monetize through hats and outfits...
        
             | lostlogin wrote:
             | Get the favoured candidate to say what the viewer wants,
             | and have the other person say the opposite. Then the system
             | would then be perfect.
        
         | teractiveodular wrote:
         | Then plug in another AI that maps the cartoons back to
         | deepfakes of the original players, and the circle of life is
         | complete.
        
         | nxobject wrote:
         | Instead of filling NFL game broadcasts with absurd amounts of
         | graphics overlaid on camera footage, we could go the opposite
         | direction and show minimalist renderings of live NFL games.
         | Revolutionary.
        
           | scripturial wrote:
           | I assume eventually there will be an upsell product that
           | allows you to watch with a 3D/VR courtside view. I'm kind of
           | surprised it doesn't exist already. I think Apple would sell
           | a few more headsets if they made this happen.
        
             | YokoZar wrote:
             | Somewhat halfway would be a slightly delayed version of the
             | game using much better-in-hindsight decisions about which
             | camera angles to show during a play.
        
             | Philpax wrote:
             | Apple are recording footage - there are immersive videos on
             | the AVP for MLS and a few other things, and they're
             | tremendous, but nobody is streaming them yet. It's a lot of
             | data, which I assume hasn't been cracked yet.
             | 
             | In addition, the real end-goal would be complete 3D
             | reconstruction that lets you view the stadium from any
             | angle, but I imagine that's a few years away still - lots
             | of technical problems to solve to create a scene and stream
             | it in real-time.
        
               | crooked-v wrote:
               | Yea, there have been a few events where the (very
               | expensive) Apple custom 3D rig has appeared courtside
               | with no details given. It still remains to be seen what
               | they're going to actually put out using it, since the
               | Apple 3D content so far is extremely limited.
        
         | ascagnel_ wrote:
         | They do, at least in the US, as viewership has dropped and
         | leagues have struggled to attract younger viewers.
         | 
         | - The NFL provided a SpongeBob-themed alt-cast for a game last
         | weekend -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcHIfPERX0s
         | 
         | - F1 has a similar graphics package+commentary for kids --
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xUBfP2-BEA
         | 
         | - The NHL used their new-ish player position tracking tech to
         | produce a real-time (or at least near-real-time) game themed to
         | Big City Greens last year, and is set to do another in a few
         | weeks -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCupuTnNmQ0
         | 
         | - The NBA has similar position-tracking tech, and used to
         | animate a game on Christmas, with Mickey Mouse watching --
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE68Q4oPcPs
        
       | voidfunc wrote:
       | Let's do this for baseball.. would probably make everything way
       | more interesting
        
         | oplav wrote:
         | MLB does something similar called Gameday 3D.
         | https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-gameday-3d-guide
         | 
         | The main difference is that it's rendered client side so you
         | can control the camera for yourself. You can watch in real time
         | during the season, the latency is around 30 seconds behind live
         | action.
        
         | mopenstein wrote:
         | At one point data for every MLB game was available from
         | MLB.com. I started writing a RBI baseball simulator using said
         | data and the graphics from the NES game. But then I realized
         | I'm not that good at programming but I still think it would've
         | been neat to watch game 3 of the 1970 world series as played
         | out by 1985 video game graphics.
        
           | airstrike wrote:
           | this 100% sounds like a project I'd see at the top of the
           | front page on a Saturday
        
           | jitl wrote:
           | You can ask Claude / Cursor to do most of it these days
        
         | whartung wrote:
         | MLB StarCast generates ~7TB of data per game. I assume the bulk
         | of that is video from the high speed cameras.
        
       | pedalpete wrote:
       | Doesn't this harm the long-term value of AOs rights sales to the
       | broadcasters?
       | 
       | If I know AO is going to broadcast on youtube, why am I as a
       | European broadcaster going to pay them the same amount as I did
       | when they weren't trying to work against me?
        
         | tsujamin wrote:
         | I don't think long-term value is their guiding star, if their
         | previous NFT forays are anything to go by
        
         | yardstick wrote:
         | Yeah it very much feels like a case of biting the hand that
         | feeds. What's the long term goal of AO by doing this?
        
           | zmgsabst wrote:
           | Survival amid viewer shifts away from traditional broadcasts.
           | 
           | The people who they sell the rights to are less valuable
           | partners, so AO feels comfortable making them a less valuable
           | offer while pursuing other audiences.
        
           | tomhoward wrote:
           | It's weird how invisible tennis is on television in Europe.
           | 
           | I was traveling in Spain and Italy last year when Roland
           | Garros was on, which included major highlights like Nadal's
           | (likely) last ever match there and strong performances from
           | European players like Alcaraz, Sinner, Tsitsipas and Zverev
           | (indeed almost all of the current top ten men are European).
           | 
           | But it was only on the pay channel EuroSport, which many
           | homes (and thus Airbnbs) don't seem to have, and was only
           | available for us in one upmarket hotel in Spain we stayed in
           | for an indulgence for one night.
           | 
           | So the tournament promoters may be making the calculation
           | that if the current TV rights holders aren't ultimately
           | getting many eyeballs watching their events, they need to do
           | other things to build/maintain the profile of the sport with
           | a view to one day offering it only via the internet
           | (particularly if broadcast TV continues to decline and the
           | networks can no longer afford large rights deals).
        
             | Neonlicht wrote:
             | In the Netherlands we have moved on from using tax payer
             | money for live sports. Public broadcasting shouldn't piss
             | away millions on TV rights when the free market can do it.
        
               | tomhoward wrote:
               | This seems quite an accusatory comment!
               | 
               | Taxpayer-funded TV stations aren't showing major
               | commercial sport in Australia or anywhere else, really.
               | 
               | If it's not exclusive to pay television, it's on free-to-
               | air commercial networks. These are fully private
               | companies that pay a large license fee to use spectrum,
               | and fund their purchase of the sports broadcasting rights
               | by selling advertising (usually at peak rates as these
               | events are very popular).
               | 
               | In Australia, all four of the Grand Slam tennis
               | tournaments are shown on free-to-air commercial TV. No
               | taxpayer funding whatsoever but easily accessible to
               | everyone.
        
       | nxobject wrote:
       | If you missed the best at the bottom, it turns out that Tennis
       | Australia does VC investing too now:
       | 
       | > Tennis Australia has funded several startups through its
       | venture capital fund as it looks to push into the technology
       | space, including a failed flirtation with non-fungible tokens
       | (NFTs) that concluded last year.
       | 
       | > The fund, AO Ventures, is worth US$30 million (A$41.8 million)
       | and includes support from Tesla chair Robyn Denholm's Wollemi
       | Capital Group (which also has investments in the NBL and the
       | Sydney Kings), as well as Art Gallery of NSW chair Mark Nelson
       | and Packer confidante Ashok Jacob.
        
       | DidYaWipe wrote:
       | Love it. I'm surprised they're allowed to use the audio, though.
       | In the USA, the licensing notices specifically prohibit use of
       | even "the descriptions" that appear in a broadcast.
       | 
       | I suppose they'll close that loophole in other countries.
       | 
       | The whole regime is a big F-U to fans, and to the taxpayers who
       | subsidize these teams out the wazoo.
        
         | randall wrote:
         | you can't copyright facts. descriptions of the broadcast might
         | be copyrighted, but stating facts of the individual events
         | can't actually be copyrighted, regardless of what the nfl and
         | olympics say in their disclaimer.
        
           | stonesthrowaway wrote:
           | > but stating facts of the individual events can't actually
           | be copyrighted, regardless of what the nfl and olympics say
           | in their disclaimer.
           | 
           | That's interesting. Does that mean someone could go to an NFL
           | game and broadcast the play by play of the game? Stating
           | facts like: "It's 4th and goal, mahomes drops back and passed
           | to kelce for a touchdown". You could legally broadcast that?
        
             | NhanH wrote:
             | The corporation certainly can kick you out of the stadium,
             | but any law that can make such broadcast illegal is
             | probably nigh unconstitutional in the US.
        
               | jkaplowitz wrote:
               | It's amazing how many constitutional rights are allowed
               | to be restricted by contract in the US. First Amendment
               | free speech rights are on that list.
        
               | drysine wrote:
               | >First Amendment free speech rights are on that list.
               | 
               | Do you think NDAs should be prohibited?
        
               | umanwizard wrote:
               | Obviously rights can be limited by contract. That's what
               | a contract is: two parties agreeing to things they're not
               | legally forced to do.
        
             | mattclarkdotnet wrote:
             | Legally? As in do you have a right to? No. You accepted
             | terms and conditions when you bought a ticket, and they
             | will prohibit you from broadcasting. So it's a breach of
             | contract if you do that.
             | 
             | I do wonder what the intersection of that with viewing
             | rights is. You can probably report what you saw on screen
             | in real time because that's happening in your home. But who
             | really knows...
        
               | Y_Y wrote:
               | But that's just a shitty contract of adhesion. There is
               | no "meeting of the minds", terms are not negotiated. The
               | enforcability depends more on the relative appetites of
               | the contracting parties.
               | 
               | The copyright situation is distinct, and may fall under
               | "hot news", but isn't affected by a clickwrap on the site
               | that sold you the ticket.
               | 
               | (See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_News_Se
               | rvice_v._... )
        
               | sandworm101 wrote:
               | A ticket to a football game will never be considered a
               | contract of adhesion. The terms are very much negotiated.
               | Nobody has any need to go to a game. Nobody is being
               | tricked or forced into anything. It is a one-time ticket
               | to watch a show or shows, with an agreement not to
               | rebroadcast that show.
        
               | Y_Y wrote:
               | Do we live in different realities? I've gone to lots of
               | football games of lots of kinds of football and I've
               | never negotiated the terms with the venue. I can't even
               | remember bringing my lawyer!
        
               | sandworm101 wrote:
               | Your negotiation occurs by you deciding to buy or not to
               | buy a ticket. You can go to a baseball game instead. Or
               | go skiing. There is no power imbalance. Compare
               | government-mandated car insurance, or water/sewage
               | service to your home, situations where one does not have
               | great choice in providers nor can one easily walk away.
        
               | Y_Y wrote:
               | Maybe it wasn't clear, but I'm using "contract of
               | adhesion" and "negotiation" in their customary legal
               | meanings. A negotiation here would be communication
               | between the parties in order to decide on the terms of
               | the contract. Since this doesn't occur (the venue has
               | already written the contract and only offers it as-is)
               | the contract is deemed to be one of "adhesion".
               | (Definitions vary among jurisdictions, and I'm only
               | familiar with some English speaking common law ones.)
        
               | seanhunter wrote:
               | Certainly in the US there doesn't need to be a
               | negotiation for a contract of adhesion to be binding. Not
               | sure where you got that from - I'd be really interested a
               | reference that says that. I would have thought a lack of
               | negotiation is the defining characteristic of an adhesion
               | contract. You take it or leave it - there is no
               | negotiation.
               | 
               | A contract of adhesion is not binding in the US if it is
               | "Unreasonably one-sided". I think you would really
               | struggle to convince any US court that without a right to
               | rebroadcast the ticket contract was unreasonable.
               | https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/adhesion-
               | contract.asp
        
               | Y_Y wrote:
               | > Certainly in the US there doesn't need to be a
               | negotiation for a contract of adhesion to be binding. Not
               | sure where you got that from...
               | 
               | Not sure where you got _that_ from! The original question
               | was about the legality of reporting the facts of an
               | ongoing game by a spectator. I don 't think that
               | contracts of adhesion are in general unenforceable, but
               | only that they are not so obviously enforceable as
               | standard contracts or copyright law.
               | 
               | In fact I agree with everything you've said, except to
               | say that I can imagine an unreasonable clause in a
               | contract that prevents you from describing what you'd
               | seen. I guess it would depend on the particulars though.
        
               | AnthonyMouse wrote:
               | > I think you would really struggle to convince any US
               | court that without a right to rebroadcast the ticket
               | contract was unreasonable.
               | 
               | I don't know about that. Suppose something happens at the
               | game that reflects poorly on the organizers. Could they
               | then demand that all the fans who caught it on their
               | phones are not allowed to distribute it? That seems about
               | as reasonable as sticking a contract on the purchase of
               | any other product that prohibits the customer from
               | criticizing the product, i.e. not reasonable at all.
               | 
               | You're also stating it backwards. It isn't that the
               | ticket is failing to grant you a right to "rebroadcast"
               | the game, it's that it's trying to take away your default
               | right to relay things you've seen with your own eyes.
               | Notice that it's the presence rather than the absence of
               | a term which is causing the issue.
        
               | dehrmann wrote:
               | There are tall buildings near some baseball fields that
               | can see onto the field, and some even have bleachers on
               | the roof. There was no contract with MLB if you watch the
               | game from there.
        
             | foobar1962 wrote:
             | Famously, again in Australia, the ABC lost the rights to
             | broadcast football final games to a commercial station, so
             | two ABC comedians (Roy and HG) did a radio show where they
             | watched the game on tv live and added their own humorous
             | commentary. Viewers would watch the commercial TV channel
             | with the sound down and the ABC radio station sound
             | instead.
        
           | crooked-v wrote:
           | This doesn't have anything to do with copyright. This is
           | about contract restrictions, which would usually forbid
           | reusing the same audio in a case like this.
        
         | boredhedgehog wrote:
         | The audio of a tennis match is so interchangeable, I bet it
         | could be stitched together from some standard soundbites on the
         | fly if necessary.
         | 
         | * Racket Hit #12 * * Shoe Squeak #03 * * Audience Cheer #10 * *
         | "What a great shot!" *
        
           | netsharc wrote:
           | That reminds me of the anecdote of UK radio coverage of a
           | cricket match in Australia in the early 1900's, the
           | broadcasters were reading a transcript (telegraphed?) and
           | hitting the table with pencil to simulate the bat hitting the
           | ball.
        
             | gcanyon wrote:
             | Ronald Reagan used to tell a story like this from his
             | sportscasting days. In particular he mentioned one time the
             | wire system was delayed, and the only way to keep the
             | "game" going without possibly affecting the outcome wrongly
             | was to have the batter continuously foul-tip the ball, and
             | that time in particular "you've never heard of a player
             | executing so many foul tips in a row"
        
           | robertlutece wrote:
           | I believe this[1] 99% Invisible podcast episode talks about
           | foley during sporting events.
           | 
           | [1] https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-sound-of-
           | sports/
        
         | n144q wrote:
         | For once I think Google's NotebookLM could actually be useful
         | for something that benefits humanity.
        
       | boomboomsubban wrote:
       | I like watching random sports on YouTube so saw this yesterday. I
       | could only manage a minute, it was just bizarre. It did make me
       | wonder how I could watch the Australia Open, but I wasn't willing
       | to subscribe to ESPN to see it.
       | 
       | Not bad advertising really.
        
         | Eridrus wrote:
         | ESPN+ is $12 for a month via Hulu. Seems pretty reasonable to
         | me.
         | 
         | Finding this info is ridiculous though.
        
           | ANewFormation wrote:
           | Of your primary interests in life where would you rank ESPN+?
           | Now multiply that by $12 to get an overall impact since
           | presumably you would be willing to pay at least as much for
           | things you value more highly.
           | 
           | This is why "just" $x per month is, in general, not a
           | sustainable model for most things for most people and why
           | 'piracy' is booming again.
        
             | apitman wrote:
             | Is piracy booming again? Google trends show interest in
             | Bittorrent has been flat since 2017.
        
               | shakna wrote:
               | Piracy is tending to happen via archive services now,
               | rather than torrenting. The pirates are less
               | sophisticated, so the distribution methods are "more
               | familiar" to them.
        
               | gosub100 wrote:
               | This is not my experience, at least for major motion
               | picture rips
        
               | defrost wrote:
               | Bittorrent use has declined, Piracy hasn't particularly.
               | 
               | https://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-is-no-longer-the-
               | king-of...
               | 
               | If traffic by application is of interest to anyone, there
               | should be a new 2025 Sandvine Global Internet Phenomena
               | Report out any day now.
               | 
               | See past reports at: https://www.sandvine.com/phenomena
        
               | NavinF wrote:
               | In the 2024 report file sharing was #4 in downstream
               | volume. 9% of total compared to 39% for video. Youtube
               | was 16%, Netflix 12%. Piracy is still way less common
               | compared to streaming, tho I do enjoy the unbeatable
               | quality of a 50GB bluray remux
        
               | defrost wrote:
               | > Piracy is still way less common compared to streaming
               | 
               | There's been a substantial uptick in pirate streaming -
               | dodgy IPTV Internet Protocol Television apps abound.
               | 
               | https://www.sportico.com/business/media/2024/sports-
               | stream-c...
               | 
               | Are you limiting "Pirating" to "File sharing" or are you
               | including pirate content on demand by means not including
               | either bittorrent of file sharing?
        
               | pkkkzip wrote:
               | i definitely use free streaming websites when i can't
               | find a show or region locked.
               | 
               | strange how much torrenting i used to do. theres just
               | more content on youtube thats interesting.
        
               | defrost wrote:
               | There's a lot of overlap and it takes time and resources
               | to determine the status of content.
               | 
               | eg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herb_and_Dorothy
               | 
               | via bitTorrent or eDonkey from MVGROUP:
               | https://docuwiki.net/index.php?title=Herb_and_Dorothy
               | 
               | on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnYcPLLiGFk
               | 
               | Is that a copyright violation on youtube? Do we care
               | enough to find out and or report it?
        
               | NavinF wrote:
               | I used pirate streaming websites as a kid, but I thought
               | fewer people use them today because the video quality
               | sucks. Any stats on the percent of people using them over
               | time?
        
               | defrost wrote:
               | Not really my focus, you'd have to hunt about.
               | 
               | This is current:                 According to research
               | conducted by NERA Economic Consulting and the US Chamber
               | of Commerce's Global Innovation and Policy Center, over
               | four-fifths of all online piracy-related activities are
               | linked to illegal streaming websites. This trend is
               | especially prominent in the TV and movie industry.
               | 
               | ~ https://dataprot.net/statistics/piracy-statistics/
               | 
               | but vague on details, there are many sources quoted by no
               | drill down on methodology, context, details that matter
               | to nerds, etc.
        
               | gosub100 wrote:
               | Modern piracy sites have 1080p standard. Many titles are
               | in 4K and 720p.
        
               | DaiPlusPlus wrote:
               | Normies don't pirate using BitTorrent, especially for
               | live-events streaming (which BitTorrent doesn't support):
               | they'll find some dodgy website offering a proxy'd (and
               | downsampled) video stream for free (with ads overlayed)
               | or for a modest one-time fee via PayPal or a cryptocoin,
               | especially when some big event has an extortionate pay-
               | per-view fee.
               | 
               | Music piracy was killed-off by Spotify.
               | 
               | For movies/TV, they'll turn to publicly-shared Plex
               | libraries - I only found out about this a few weeks ago:
               | so in 2025, with more-and-more people having high-upload-
               | bandwidth Internet connections it turns out that now you
               | don't need a distributed DHT-based swarm of chunks of
               | files with hundreds of seeders: all you need is a couple
               | generous individuals running an open Plex box that's
               | served-up behind a cheap offshore VPN provider, using the
               | official Plex App from the Samsung TV app-store.
               | 
               | ...I've no idea how long that's going to last: running
               | behind a VPN means the MPAA (et al.) can't do much
               | against those sharing their collections publicly like
               | they did with BitTorrent (c.f. PeerGuardian), and Plex
               | has somehow survived this-far given it does have
               | legitimate uses, and the apps don't violate any app-store
               | policy I'm aware-of, so I'm concerned the MPAA is going
               | to lobby for some laws outright prohibiting
               | apps/software/technology that facilitates piracy for
               | nontechnical users _somehow_.
               | 
               | (Or they could follow GabeN's advice and start offering a
               | superior service and convenience to the user with a
               | cooperative consolidation of all rightsholders under a
               | single branded tent, but we all know that's not going to
               | happen)
        
               | pmontra wrote:
               | > Music piracy was killed-off by Spotify
               | 
               | I've seen many places playing music from a YouTube
               | playlist, with ads included. And anybody can download the
               | audio stream from YouTube with a minimal software setup.
               | There used to be browser addons that added a Save As
               | button to YouTube pages. I'm not using them, maybe Google
               | banned all of them from its store but there are many ways
               | to do it.
        
               | n144q wrote:
               | > And anybody can download the audio stream from YouTube
               | with a minimal software setup.
               | 
               | That's the issue. Almost nobody downloads music anymore,
               | however easy it is. Because streaming apps like Spotify
               | make the experience so much better. You are in the middle
               | of the song and wants to cast to your living room
               | speakers? Two clicks. You want to transfer that from your
               | phone to your computer? Just a few clicks. Want to
               | quickly jump back into an album or get recommendations of
               | similar albums? It's all there on the home page. It's
               | hard to beat this experience. The only exception I know
               | is people who rip/pirate FLAC files because they want the
               | best quality possible and don't care about anything else.
               | That's like <0.01% of the users these days.
        
               | gosub100 wrote:
               | By "places" do you mean physical establishments like bars
               | and restaurants?
        
               | xboxnolifes wrote:
               | qBittorrent has been on a very gradual climb. Though,
               | most people pirate through streaming sites, not torrents.
        
             | mitemte wrote:
             | The Australian open runs for two weeks, solely in January,
             | so you can subscribe for a single month. ~$12 is roughly
             | the price of a single beer at a game. If you can get 2
             | weeks of entertainment for $12, I think that's reasonable.
        
             | Neonlicht wrote:
             | Sports is a multi billion industry. You want to watch your
             | favourite football team you pay up. It seems to be pretty
             | sustainable.
        
             | Eridrus wrote:
             | This is the sort of thing I used to think when I was a
             | student with no money. Now I have a job in tech and I can
             | afford many multiples of $12 a month, thousands even.
        
               | mmooss wrote:
               | What about your time, which is now more valued by others,
               | and probably (hopefully) is extremely valuable to you?
               | 
               | Personally, I wouldn't do it because I don't even want to
               | spend the time subscribing (and then unsubscribing, and
               | dealing with whatever other issues come up), much less
               | watching.
        
               | gosub100 wrote:
               | Wait till the H1B come to drive your wage down.
        
           | boomboomsubban wrote:
           | I have a low tolerance for paying to watch advertisements.
        
           | indigodaddy wrote:
           | None of the good matches are on ESPN+ though
        
           | kjkjadksj wrote:
           | The way most sports works you can't just get espn+. They
           | might not license all the games so you are beholden to
           | multiple services to get them. Playoffs are also a mess.
           | Services know viewerships are up and rights are traded for
           | specific games like cattle. It is the most anti consumer
           | thing I've seen trying to follow college football. Easier to
           | just watch it at a bar that pays into all of this.
        
       | zfg wrote:
       | Nothing like a bit of synthetic tennis:
       | 
       | https://cs.stanford.edu/~haotianz/vid2player/
        
       | courseofaction wrote:
       | Is there a level of fidelity at which the animated character
       | becomes an issue? Are we going to be seeing unreal engine powered
       | photorealistic characters before this loophole is closed?
       | 
       | Does the rights holder have to specify that the motion data is
       | not acceptable for rebroadcast?
       | 
       | On the surface this seems like a cheap abuse of loopholes and any
       | broadcast partner would be looking at them askance and consulting
       | contacts and lawyers...
        
         | numpad0 wrote:
         | Animation bone format probably needs a redesign. Human anatomy
         | is universally represented as a simple chain of sticks with
         | ball joints at the end, which is good enough for many purposes
         | but not ideal for closeup shots of muscular figures.
        
       | edgarvaldes wrote:
       | Last FIFA World Cup I was looking for recaps on Youtube after the
       | day's matches. A lot of results were unofficial videogame
       | recreations (think XBox EA Sports FC) of the real match final
       | score. It was very weird.
        
         | BurningFrog wrote:
         | Yeah, they were good enough that it took a while for me to
         | realize why they seemed off. Creepy stuff.
        
       | nyjah wrote:
       | In case anyone is wondering how to pay for and watch tennis in
       | US: there is a tennis tv app. That app allows you to watch the
       | men's tour. There's another app, the tennis channel app, that is
       | for the women's tour and maybe some other random tourneys.
       | Neither of those apps have the grand slams tho, ie the Australian
       | open. For that , in the US you need espn plus and can't get away
       | from ads. And then there's also the French open. And between nbc,
       | peacock and whatever else, beyond pirating the matches, I've
       | genuinely been stumped trying to pay for it legitimately.
       | 
       | I saw this the other day on YouTube and it made me turn on the
       | real thing.
        
         | mbajkowski wrote:
         | This is 100 percent the truth. Watching tennis in the US has
         | become increasingly frustrating. I almost long for the old days
         | where one could count on one of two channels to always have
         | coverage. I wish Amazon, Netflix, YouTube or similar would step
         | up and secure all the rights from college to Grand Slam tennis.
        
         | djtango wrote:
         | Not quite on the subject of sports, but in Singapore sometimes
         | it's really hard to pay to stream/download random movies/shows.
         | 
         | Territorial rights just don't make sense anymore and I will die
         | on this hill. The whole point about Netflix was that it proved
         | that customers know what they want if you make it available.
         | 
         | We now have global-first distribution channels why is it still
         | so slow to disrupt those old creeky TV players
        
           | chii wrote:
           | > The whole point about Netflix was that it proved that
           | customers know what they want if you make it available.
           | 
           | yes, but the media rights owners want the maximum money from
           | their viewers, where as netflix model leaves money on the
           | table.
           | 
           | It's why i almost always resort to piracy, now that netflix
           | has lost a lot of their licenses for stuff as media rights
           | owners start their own walled gardens.
        
             | djtango wrote:
             | Does it leave money on the table? Genuine question...
             | 
             | Would traditional media have been able to produce Squid
             | Games? I remember Disney suddenly falling over themselves
             | to "Me Too" that they did the Korean thing too.
             | 
             | I can see for certain things like sports where there's big
             | money, but still seems like having "Domestic" oriented
             | distribution management leaves money on the table. When you
             | can broadcast to the entire planet what new opportunities
             | can you get, will they offset what you give up under the
             | old model
        
               | swores wrote:
               | > _" Does it leave money on the table? Genuine
               | question..."_
               | 
               | Yes it does, 100%.
               | 
               | Once you've got content that people in multiple countries
               | want to watch, you've broadly got two options: let
               | everyone watch on the same terms, or split it up by
               | region. Even Netflix chooses the latter - each country
               | that Netflix has customers in has a different price for
               | subscribing. (They also have different libraries of media
               | that can be watched, but that's mainly as a result of the
               | companies they license it from doing different deals for
               | different countries, as far as I know Netflix do release
               | their own content in all regions at the same time.)
               | 
               | This is because if you don't price it differently, you
               | either price it for countries like the US, and make it
               | unaffordable - or too expensive to be worth paying for,
               | at least - for much of the world, or you price it more
               | cheaply and leave money on the table from Americans (and
               | other rich countries) who would've been willing to pay
               | more.
               | 
               | If the media industry hadn't existed before the internet
               | then probably all companies would look more like Netflix
               | and the other streaming companies, and it would be simple
               | for all content to be licensed globally to the same
               | streaming platform. But because both historically and
               | still today we have broadcast companies which are country
               | specific, any time they get involved (which is pretty
               | much every time with the exception of content made by the
               | steaming companies themselves), you now not only have
               | custom pricing per country but also custom where-can-you-
               | watch per country. And while this can be annoying, it
               | ultimately leads to the content owners earning more than
               | if they didn't do specific deals with specific
               | broadcasters and instead sold a single package to a
               | single streaming company.
               | 
               | > _" Would traditional media have been able to produce
               | Squid Games?"_
               | 
               | I'm not sure what aspect of it you think required
               | Netflix, but for decades media companies have been
               | producing things with more than a single country in mind
               | - whether that's BBC's Top Gear being syndicated to a
               | huge number of countries, or Friends being dubbed in
               | French, or whatever. I don't see any reason that a BBC or
               | Apple or whoever else couldn't have done it, the only
               | difference is that BBC doesn't have a global distribution
               | platform like Netflix does, so BBC would have had to do
               | deals with broadcasters (or streaming companies) for any
               | country they want viewers in other than the UK.
        
           | tomhoward wrote:
           | The thing is that major live sport is now the only category
           | that is successful in the broadcast TV market. Without that,
           | many (most?) broadcast networks may as well shut down. We saw
           | the best evidence of that recently in Australia when the
           | Foxtel pay TV company was sold to European sports streaming
           | service DAZN.
           | 
           | Foxtel has dozens of channels including the "agenda-setting"
           | Sky News but in the end only its major sports rights deals
           | (which it's been bidding up and losing money on for years)
           | held any value.
           | 
           | One day we'll all accept that broadcast TV is dead and
           | everyone can just have a personalized content feed streamed
           | to them, but for as long as broadcast TV license holders keep
           | up the fight, it's going to be a frustrating endeavor trying
           | to see the sports we want, wherever we are.
        
         | mzs wrote:
         | And after you pay for ESPN+ if the match you are interested in
         | is actually broadcast you have commercials interrupt game play.
         | I paid for this once, never again.
        
       | JimDabell wrote:
       | This reminds me of the voice ban Thatcher enacted in the UK back
       | in the late 80s relating to the Troubles.
       | 
       | It was illegal to broadcast the voices of representatives of
       | specific political groups (apart from during elections). Mainly
       | Gerry Adams, who was leader of Sinn Fein, a party strongly linked
       | to the IRA and terrorism.
       | 
       | The law was overly specific, so broadcasters, including the BBC,
       | just dubbed his voice with a soundalike.
        
         | defrost wrote:
         | _Spitting Image_ had a lot of fun during those days with
         | puppets and voice actors.
         | 
         | Puppet Gerry Adams made a comeback on radio years later:
         | https://youtu.be/vutbvLbRiMk?t=64
        
         | isodev wrote:
         | I would love to see a revival of this tbh. Everyone could
         | benefit from not hearing or reading <insert rich guy that shall
         | not be named> ever again.
        
           | benreesman wrote:
           | I wish there was a browser extension where you you ad-block
           | people's voices while still hearing the news.
           | 
           | When shit like that works well by default with very little
           | effort or downside? That's some AI I can get excited about.
           | 
           | This tennis thing is so cool, I hope we see more shit like
           | this where AI comes down on the side of the little guy.
        
             | rainonmoon wrote:
             | > I wish there was a browser extension where you you ad-
             | block people's voices while still hearing the news.
             | 
             | You're gonna freak out when you find out about reading.
        
               | benreesman wrote:
               | That's pretty good, I'm stealing that. You've just
               | motivated me to go buy the cord I need for my Kindle and
               | probably made my life a few percent better by doing so.
        
           | antihipocrat wrote:
           | if (voter == 'left')
           | 
           | then insert(billionaire[0])
           | 
           | else if (voter == 'right')
           | 
           | then insert(billionaire[1])
           | 
           | else insert(billionaire[2])
           | 
           | let billionaire = ['Elon Musk', 'Bill Gates', 'Mark
           | Zuckerberg']
        
             | enneff wrote:
             | I'm a leftist but not an American and I would prefer not to
             | hear from any of those billionaires again, nor any others
             | for that matter.
        
             | cropcirclbureau wrote:
             | This comment is a perfect encapsulation of the ridiculously
             | simple understanding of the political landscape that seems
             | to be rampant among the tech industry.
        
           | alexey-salmin wrote:
           | Surely nothing bad can come out of laws impeding the
           | expression of opinions
        
             | Ylpertnodi wrote:
             | The opinions were expressed, just with an actor's voice.
        
               | swores wrote:
               | The person you replied to was themselves replying to
               | someone talking about a theoretical future ban, not the
               | past ban, and since that first person was talking about a
               | positive of no longer hearing from unspecified famous
               | people they clearly weren't talking about a law that
               | would once again make it easy for impersonators to make
               | it so that people still hear the same views in the same
               | voices just technically spoken by actors.
        
       | userbinator wrote:
       | I wonder if the relative acceptance of this has anything to do
       | with the popularity of "vtubers".
        
         | wdutch wrote:
         | I think vtuber sports could be an interesting genre! Real
         | displays of athleticism and sportsmanship but with digital
         | effects to augment it. Maybe it's already been done, I'm not
         | particularly in touch with online trends.
        
       | aktuel wrote:
       | I guess this is for the kind of person who thinks that Esports is
       | sports.
        
       | worthless-trash wrote:
       | I expected wii sports music on the introduction. Was
       | disappointed.
        
       | verisimi wrote:
       | Nick Kyrgios isn't actually black though. Wierd.
        
       | fshafique wrote:
       | With all the motion tracking they're doing, they could replicate
       | this in a VR environment. You could watch the cartoonified game
       | like you're actually there.
        
         | ascagnel_ wrote:
         | The NHL[0] and NBA[1] have already done officially-sanctioned
         | cartoonified simulcasts.
         | 
         | [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCupuTnNmQ0
         | 
         | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE68Q4oPcPs
        
       | amelius wrote:
       | How would they animate this:
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD-FkGeeR-U
        
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