*ahem* The NFL really doesn't approve of their games showing on big screens either: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/2007020…

AMC could look at this as the best kind of free marketing, and actually encourage it, thereby making new fans of their shows. But no, that would make sense.

Bittorrent.

Is there an argument to be made along the same lines as trademark dilution: either aggressively defend it all the time or risk losing your right to defend it at all? I don't know if a similar principle applies here, but it could explain their behavior.

I agree with @3, even though it takes away the social aspect. HBO doesn't let me watch their shows on Netflix, HULU, or even buy episodes individually, so I make sure to always BitTorrent their shows. :)

There's a company in New York that streams all the broadcast shows on the web. They way they (think they) get around licensing is to install a tiny, cheap antenna in a room in Manhattan, one for each subscriber. So in effect they are merely relaying that person's broadcast signal to them using digital.

Not sure how this would apply.

For example, I have a Rhapsody license and a Netflix license. I feel that in some sense, this entitles me to watch or hear anything that is licensed by these two. So, if say, there is a movie that is only on DVD in Netflix, but is being streamed by someone, am I not protected?

Ultimately, I have suggested that what is needed is simply a generic "media license" that lets a person consume any media stored anywhere, and the proceeds are distributed back to the artists and so on based on how often the artwork is viewed, streamed, downloaded, copied...

There was an article on Bloomberg News about how AMC may be up for sale, given all the award winning shows it has.

Which would be a shame, of course.

@2 for the sad, sad win, in a day when AMC is just hurting themselves.

Screw DirecTV and Comcast. Dip your cup into the river of bits around you to watch what you like. Mail a check to anyone whose work you want to support.

Yeah yeah, HBO doesn't allow bars to show their eps of True Blood or Game of Thrones either.

Highline gets away with it because they buy the DVDs, they don't show the show as it comes out.

Doesn't AMC have commercials? "Please stop showing our customers' advertisements to large groups of people."

That said, it is unfortunate that AMC cannot see the value of getting such an enthusiastic group together to watch and enjoy their show. It is difficult to imagine how there is value in using their resources to shut down such an enthusiastic bunch of fans.

Presumably they are imagining value in enthusiastic fans paying to watch the expensive shows that they produced?

"Could you imagine if the NFL tried to make it illegal to watch football games in bars? "

As others have pointed out above, the NFL is just as bad. Here in San Francisco MLB let the City put up a big screen in the plaza outside of City Hall and show the SF Giants at the World Series. But the NFL refused permission for the City to do the same thing a few months later when the Niners were playing in the Superbowl.

The death throes of a near-dead business model.

As #10 pointed out, if viewers are watching the commercials (and in a theater unable to use a DVR and less likely to leave the room), wouldn't viewings like these increase the size of their audience, thereby allowing them to charge more to their advertisers? Isn't that precisely why bars can play NFL games? Is AMC really about "the art" of Walking Dead? I'm confused.

@13, I agree. We are seeing the playing out of John Boehner's Millenium Copyright Act, a/k/a the Disney Owns The World Act. This shit happens because we had a stable, predictable intellectual property system of laws, and since Disney owned Boehner, they decided to enact the current system which is so random and chaotic that no one has any idea what is protected and what is not.

@4 That's what came to my mind too.

If they want to ever claim ANY control, the courts say they (unfortunatlely) must consistently assert total control, however dickish it may seem.

@13 would that it were so. As long as people are willing to pay for cable TV in its current form (and out seems that they are) it's unlikely to change.

Cord cutters thus far represent a insignificant, if vocal, fraction of the public, much like people who loudly proclaim that they don't own a TV.

This is my local movie theatre. They did the same thing for the final season of LOST and it was huge fun. What a shame that AMC is being douchey. I never made it out for TWD screenings, but I'm assuming that the screenings (like the LOST ones) were free - people would buy concessions, and the theatre got more loyal customers, but they weren't directly making money off of them. I don't understand the conflict.

I'm not sure public group disappointment would add value to the show. It's best to be disappointed in how shitty Walking Dead has gotten in the privacy of your own home.

The walking dead sucks anyway. I skipped the last half of season 2 due to yawning too much during the first half, and while the first half of season 3 picked up, the season 3.5 opener was another yawnfest.

I think I'm going to just cut my losses. too bad, it's a great looking show, but they can't figure out their pacing.