paulg1979

iTrader: (1)

I'm not sure if its right or wrong. I recently recorded Lee Evans live at the 02 on Sky. I never paid for the DVD and never saw it live so Lee Evans earned bugger all out of me. If I wanted to I could then put then on to an external hard drive.

If I then downloaded the same show from a torrent site and put that on my hard drive as well would I be in the wrong?

GC8WRX

First things first, the government have bigger fish to fry!


Secondly, if this ever goes ahead, me and all my mates will just club together with a pound each, buy one copy of whatever album we all want and then copy it anyway and give a copy to all who pitched in, that the ******* cant stop!


This government are like apple, they want to charge you for stuff everyone else gets for free!

JackClark

You paid for Sky and Sky and their advertisers paid Mr Evans.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Yes, because Sky paid for the rights to broadcast said programme and the amount paid was probably based on a projection of the number of their subscribers who wished to watch it i.e they would pay more for something likely to be popualr than something likely to appeal to a niche only. In that group they knew a certain number would record/store the prgramme to watch later you being one of them. All legal.

Whereas the Torrent site have spent nothing to host the programme hence what you have done there is steal it.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Do most albums only cots £3 then?

GC8WRX

steal?

Its a 5 year old programme?

Is going round a mates house to watch it when there are 10 people in the room not depriving mr evans of his royalties, maybe only 3 out of 10 subscribe to sky, so mr evans is missing out on 7 royalties there!


This whole scenario is bollocks, clowns like the PRS want to make sure every single person is charged if they view someone elses content (or listen to it, the gimps), ITS NOT A REAL WORLD SOLUTION! its not workable!

GC8WRX

2.50, (i have a short mate!)

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

No, as I said Sky build in a projection as to how many people will watch it against what they are prepared to pay for it be that subscribers or visitors to subscribers' houses etc.

Doesn't matter how old it is, could be 50 years old for all I care but if you download it off a Torrent site you are stealing it. End of. You can't argue, it's a fact. You may not see it as crime of the century, but it is theft to all intents and purposes.

Tell you what, publish 30000 photographs over 5 years and have 10% of them turn up all over the web being used for free without so much as a nod to the copyright holder or write some software and have 9 out of 10 users using it illegally for free and see how YOU feel!!!

hodgy0_2

hi f1_fan

whats your view if you own the film (or whatever) on VHS tape and want to get a copy (by downloading) to play on your computer.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

My personal view would be that it is acceptable just as you could transfer teh VHS tape to DVD or AVI etc. The same reason it used to be OK to make compilation tapes/CDs from the records/CDs you had bought.

Legally though you might be on dodgy ground which is probably not fair, but I think what we are talking about in the main here is the downloading of mainstream movies/TV series/CDs while they are on cinematic release (in the case of movies) or even prior to their release (e.g. U2's latest album was on a Torrent site before the band had even finalised the running order).

While I sympathise with the fact that a lot of people feel music and films are too expensive as a producer of online content and one who has had a good proportion of it stolen over time I do not see illegally downloading it as a worthy form of protest.

TelBoy

Hold on. Who said earlier that it didn't matter if it was 5 years old?

Does it matter or doesn't it matter then?

Should "anti-theft" legislation only cover material within six months of its release date then?

Norman D. Landings

Torrent sites don't host any part of the copyrighted material, they just 'show you the way' to the people who do.

finalzero

Going to disagree with you on this one a bit.

I am a web and software developer on the side to my day job so I should know what it's like to try and earn money from digital software that you have pieced together with some hard graft.

But I have always held the view that the whole business model surrounding digital media is bollix and only designed to work from the top down to benefit the people at the top tier only.

I have always believed with the advent of the tinterweb we should have access to free information and personally I don't see any problem with downloading stuff as long as it's for your personal consumption.

If however I was to then go out and start selling copies of the stuff I downloaded, that would be wrong and no different to selling fakes.

But if I am downloading something, for educational or entertainment purposes, whats the problem if no one ever knows about it but me? And if I like something I will go out and buy it because I am mature enough now to know that someone on the other end needs my cash (even if they only a ishtty percentage of the revenue).

You can't label everyone with the same brush, the problem is the goverment doesn't know this (you would think they would have learn't something at their weekly BNP meetings pfft).

Anyway just my views, had it not been for torrents I would not have educated myself and become some a badass kung-fu IT pro, secured a phat job and lived a semi-okay-but-poor life.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

OK pedant You know what I mean.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Yes, but if everyone was to download it for free thinking no one knows about it but them the originator of the software or whatever wouldn't get a bean hence couldn't earn a living etc.etc.

Look let's say I create a site and put software for sale on it. Someone buys it, downloads it and posts it on a public site and then lots of people download it for free thinking it won't matter as it is only them doing it.

So in the extreme view I sell only 1 copy and everyone else uses it for free. How is that even remotely fair?

Leslie

Quite so!

Les

finalzero

Yes would hold true but for the fact that the organisations and institutes involved are hardly denting their huge profits.

Yes further down the chicken feed you will get smaller outfits being hit hard but only if they happen to produce software that is stupidly popular (most end up being free or a cutdown lite version).

With music yeah you got a grey area and sure something should be done but there are far more intelligent and common sense ways of doing things.

We are moving into a policed age whether we know it or not, and all this heavy handed approach is just adding evidence to that fact.

DYK

I agree with Finalzero.People i know and myself don't take the p1ss on free downloading we do go and buy the original,some things ive downloaded i think nahh didn't like that so i won't buy it.One thing that is still overpriced in this country is computer games,the Modern Warfare Game being released in November is gonna be priced at £55.00 for one game total rip off.

It's been a while since I lived in England now, but I still remember how annoying it was to spend £49.99 on a brand new videogame. It looked like things would calm down as I was leaving, with a lot of new games retailing for £39.99. However, if Activision's shocking price hike for Modern Warfare 2 is any indicator, it looks like the recession is giving publishers a license to gouge.
Amazingly, Modern Warfare 2 is going to sell for the hefty price of £54.99! The worst of it is that this is expected to be the first of many videogame price hikes across the UK, with other publishers ready to follow Activision's lead and make fifty-five quid an official price point.
"Exchange rates between the Euro and the pound are making it very difficult for publishers to show an acceptable operating margin in the UK," explains THQ man Ian Curran, apparently speaking in Activision's place. "You can’t continue to trade as normal when the biggest territory in Europe has seen cost of goods increase by 30 per cent due to the strengthening of the Euro. Publishers somehow need to offset this drastic increase in costs. I’m not surprised to see the SRP go up and I feel this will continue across more key titles."
Apparently, UK retailers were prepared for this, claiming that publishers have been "hammered" by the UK economy for quite some time. Meanwhile, Electronic Arts has stated officially that it has no plans to change its own prices, so that's something.
"Will this affect consumers? I don’t think so," says one anonymous UK publisher. "If a title is this good, will they spend an extra £5? Of course. You can’t blame Activision. They’re entitled to do this – they’ve invested huge amounts."
What do you think? Will you will be buying Modern Warfare 2 for the high, high price of £54.99, or would you rather pay your rent that month?


**** ACTIVISION.

They think they can charge £55 for a ****ing game and then cry about the used game market? - **** them very much.

I WILL NOT be buying Modern War 2 at £55, no way, no how. I could get 2 recently launched used games for that!

Activision can suck my dick for £55, all of them, one at a time.

If you live in the UK check out Play.com (UK): DVDs, Music CDs, MP3s, Video Games, Books, Electronics & Gadgets - Free Delivery - they operate from Jersey , thus avoiding british **** tax, sorry, I mean VAT and their prices are generally £10 cheaper than most places, free shipping and it's usually really quick too.

Still even £45 is a ****.

This is part of the reason why so called illegal downloads as become so popular,and any new release game that as ever came out on playstation or nintendo etc even 10 yrs ago was still minimum 40 quid back then and alot of people were getting consoles chipped to play copied games.So i say it has nothing really to do with current financial times,maybe partly but it's a weak excuse.

Simon 69

OT but in response to the post above: people always seem to overlook the retailers part in this and it applies to video games just as much as music CDs. Up to the retailer, everyone get a cut of the, say £5, that the retailer buys the product in for. What people dont seem to grasp is that the retailer then makes a profit equal to their purchase price on the item. This is where the greed exists, rather than with the record company, who ALWAYS get the blame.

Simon 69

I realsie that the cost price for games is higher btw.