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March 24, 2008

South Park Studios - It’s Like AllSP, But Legal

Michael Arrington

38 comments »

It hasn’t been hard for people to watch the cult favorite show South Park (possibly the best show on television) online. Sites like Allsp (All South Park) have had the entire catalog available for some time. And episodes are always available on BitTorrent immediately after broadcast.

Instead of fighting BitTorrent and sites like Allsp, South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker are simply going to try to make them irrelevant by offering something better. Along with Comedy Central, they’ve expanded South Park Studios, where viewers can stream any episode of South Park from the show’s twelve seasons. The joint venture was announced last year, but added whole episode viewing today.

The main benefits: quality is significantly better than the clips on Allsp, and are searchable. Of course, there’s also no question about copyright infringement when you watch shows on the sanctioned site. The downside is that the episodes are not embeddable (although clips like the one above are), and there are ads includes in the streams.

Revenues from the joint venture are being split 50/50 between Comedy Central and Stone/Parker.

The viewing experience is very similar to Hulu. But the fact that the entire catalog of episodes is available makes the site much more attractive. Hulu only shows the last few episodes of any particular show, so new viewers are unable to start from the beginning. If Hulu wants to be the long term default library for online television, they need to work out licensing deals that allow them to upload all historical shows, too.

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South Park Studios
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This entry was posted on Monday, March 24th, 2008 at 3:32 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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    March 24th, 2008 at 3:48 pm

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Comments

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  1. Peter Harrington

    March 24th, 2008 at 3:39 pm

    Similar to Hulu, full episodes are not available to Canada, *sigh

  2. Alaska Miller

    March 24th, 2008 at 3:40 pm

    like hulu, this is going to be really popular. ease of use to accommodate laziness is the reason advertising works. i <3 clownco!

  3. Blue Sunshine

    March 24th, 2008 at 3:41 pm

    I find it quite refreshing that they decided to “go with the flow” rather than pulling a piss and moan job like the RIAA. The quality is quite good as well.

  4. Michael Arrington

    March 24th, 2008 at 3:41 pm

    Peter - BitTorrent works just fine in Canada, from what I hear.

  5. Alaska Miller

    March 24th, 2008 at 3:44 pm

    also one more tidbit:

    hulu is archiving old shows by seasons (the riches and fx shows) and the seasons are usually complete. even current shows are put up usually within days (the apprentice), sometimes even before (such as the case with simpsons and king of the hill). the movie selection are also somewhat eclectic but it’s definitely kept my interest. paramount is signing on soon so i’ll be quite content and happy for awhile.

    so once again, hooray clownco!

  6. Peter Harrington

    March 24th, 2008 at 3:45 pm

    Michael - it sure does, but my hard drive is getting full :( my macbook only has 60GB and I like leaving the torrented files on so I can seed

  7. neuroscience

    March 24th, 2008 at 3:47 pm

    very smart move, its impossible to win piracy, i am not sure if it should be called piracy anymore. people upload their favorite episodes just to share them with friends and family.
    great to see that producers start to look at online content sharing as possible income source by making sharing legal.

  8. Youness

    March 24th, 2008 at 3:52 pm

    It’s great especially since it works fine from France unlike Hulu!

  9. dm

    March 24th, 2008 at 3:53 pm

    Wait it works from France but not Canada?

    Comedy Central hates Canadians.

    Bittorrent loves all.

  10. Trace

    March 24th, 2008 at 3:56 pm

    Wow, the quality is awesome on the preview. I didn’t really realize how bad the free versions were until seeing this….. but never really cared because it’s a cartoon and all…. Matt and Trey get it, SP is arguably one of the most intelligent shows on TV when it comes to politics, social issues, and the like and their intelligence as content producers shows in how they handle content that will inevitably show up in torrents anyways….. What are the options? Allow free access and be heroes or follow in the footsteps of the RIAA? It’s a no brainer…. plus they are probably just cool guys that figured it would be a good thing to do.

  11. OlliS

    March 24th, 2008 at 4:04 pm

    Works from Finland as well.

  12. Anthony Richardson

    March 24th, 2008 at 4:16 pm

    Shows “Sorry Australia, full episodes coming soon” to Australians.

  13. Fabian Schonholz

    March 24th, 2008 at 4:21 pm

    The only way to beat piracy is to provide a better and easier solution.

  14. Yeah for piracy

    March 24th, 2008 at 4:22 pm

    It has and is bringing legal alternatives! TPB FTW!

    Now someone create a legal alternative that used to be Joox.net and Stage6! with pc hooked up to TV visiting joox was like visiting the movieplex but in the comforts of my home!

  15. CG

    March 24th, 2008 at 4:45 pm

    If the feed is part of Viacom’s syndication system we’ll likely see a bunch of their properties pop up on similar sites.

  16. iPhone therefore iAm

    March 24th, 2008 at 5:04 pm

    use adblock and there aren’t any distractions

    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10

  17. mike

    March 24th, 2008 at 5:06 pm

    Sorry England.

    This is what I get when I try to access it. I can’t watch anything on Hulu.com. Yet I read the same press, the same articles, the same reviews as all of you do over there. My demand for it is equally high. The delivery mechanisms are there.

    On behalf of all of Europeans, in particular those living in Budapest, it’s capital (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THyTnt00b5I) can you please wake up to this fact and give us what we want. Otherwise we will still, regrettably, break laws with our Torrents and such.

  18. Duncan Riley

    March 24th, 2008 at 7:18 pm

    Just like Hulu, doesn’t work outside the US.

  19. D-Tokyo

    March 24th, 2008 at 7:37 pm

    Works for me in Japan, very fast. This is great!

  20. Jared Kells

    March 24th, 2008 at 10:28 pm

    I didn’t expect it to work in Australia but I love the Russell Crowe image:
    http://www.southparkstudios.co.....y_AU01.jpg

    Fighting round the world!

  21. malloc

    March 24th, 2008 at 10:42 pm

    Created a Yougle source for South Park episodes here (http://www.push-a-button.com.au/community/index.php?topic=190.0)

  22. DaveS

    March 25th, 2008 at 12:31 am

    Just any old opportunity to spam us on hulu yet again.

  23. skosko

    March 25th, 2008 at 12:39 am

    Works fine from Germany :)

  24. Sav

    March 25th, 2008 at 1:24 am

    There is one very big difference, these episodes are all uncensored.
    Also the quality of these episodes is better than anything on SouthParkZone or AllSP.
    They know that their community is online and they did the right thing.

  25. Brandon

    March 25th, 2008 at 2:37 am

    I was able to access it from Japan… huh?

  26. Henry Crun

    March 25th, 2008 at 4:30 am

    “Sorry England” demonstrates the usual ignorance of anything beyond the US borders. I get this messsage viewing the site from Wales.

    Stand by for another jump in allsp.com’s traffic ranking.

  27. Aidan Finn

    March 25th, 2008 at 7:27 am

    Works fine from Ireland.

  28. English woman, supposedly

    April 1st, 2008 at 6:23 pm

    It’s great that they have decided to make this site and that’s all well and good, but for Christ sake…

    The UK doesn’t get it yet? What a mockery.

    And FYI to all stupid airheaded Americians… its Britain, not ‘England’. The United Kingdom is made up of 4 bloody countries man… England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. I am Scottish and its a downright insult to be called English.

  29. Irishman, definitly

    April 3rd, 2008 at 4:03 am

    Ireland is not part of britain bitch! Now whos a fuckin airhead?

  30. Geographically Correct

    April 4th, 2008 at 7:55 am

    Comment 28 is a brilliant show of stupidity. Do not insult others if your own intellect is obviously lacking.

    I’m disappointed that we have to wait a little longer to see the new episodes.

  31. Yadn

    April 9th, 2008 at 2:46 pm

    lol, message 30 said it all.

    I’ve never understood the Scots they hold this rivalry that all English are cnuts but I’ve never understood it. Epecially as they don’t really have a reason to find us insulting. I personally just find their rage delightfully amusing! :)

    back to the point, shame I can’t view it yet, how does it filter your country? would it be possible to have a dynamic mirror site allow access to countrys which don’t have access yet?

  32. Jesus

    April 15th, 2008 at 12:57 am

    Fuck off you all dick suckers! Get a LIFE!!!

  33. :O

    April 23rd, 2008 at 5:07 pm

    sorry jesus : /

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