UK 'pirates' face £20 appeal fee

Tefal said:
You know they get their viewing figures from people in survays etc right?

they don;t actually know what you're watching so it makes no difference unless the people downloading it are also doing Nealson ratings diaries etc which is probably unlikely.
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Yes, a friend of mine works for BARB.

Viewing figures are still the gauge by which success and advertising slots are sold and as I said, the majority of people still sit and watch the television, so its a good estimate.
 
Nexus said:
Yes, a friend of mine works for BARB.

Viewing figures are still the gauge by which success and advertising slots are sold and as I said, the majority of people still sit and watch the television, so its a good estimate.
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Right so how many people who volunteer to do viewing diaries/have devices to log what they watch etc are going to be pirates and not watch the telly?

Kinda makes your point invalid.
 
InKursion said:
Very wise posts by Nexus, I agree completely. Advertising is annoying but it's a necessary evil for the industry. People that say "nonsense" and assume that these TV shows will be made forever with no consequence of them streaming them are extremely naive. You are just being morally lazy because there is no immediate consequence for you, it's that simple. I'm tired of pirates being in denial about what they do, or clouding it with some pointless tech-utopianism or aimless teenage anti-corporate rubbish. Be a responsible and mature consumer of culture! Pay the artists and writers!
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You seem unwilling to grasp that I really don't care. For as long as I can download, I will download. You can sling whatever mud you like, but you aren't going to change the fact that I like to download and watch TV shows.
 
Tefal said:
Right so how many people who volunteer to do viewing diaries/have devices to log what they watch etc are going to be pirates and not watch the telly?

Kinda makes your point invalid.
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You know as well as I do that is impossible to answer.

My point is that if people continue to now grow up with the culture that its ok to take what you want, without paying and no repercussions for doing so, its going to reach the stage where not enough people are even watching a show. Especially if there is more of a shift to not watching on the actual television.

It's something that can also be measured in part by other methods than just viewing figures though.

For example, if a popular show is only shown on Sky and it gets positive figures, it should cause an increase in subscriptions or good home video sales when available. If it reports poor for these, then it can be an indication that piracy is deferring those who didn't have Sky to get it by other means.
 
George Hincapie said:
You seem unwilling to grasp that I really don't care. For as long as I can download, I will download. You can sling whatever mud you like, but you aren't going to change the fact that I like to download and watch TV shows.
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You are being honest at least. You are being straight up that you download copyright infringed material and you do it because you can, it doesn't cost you anything and there is no reason for you not to, because there is no repercussion.

This is the attitude that many are now growing up with.

The thing that irks me is that people who defend piracy most of the time are never just straight up like you have been above. Most try and justify it all with the same old responses and claims about evil corporations and that their basic human rights are being violated and that it is worse than China etc.
 
I support the artists that I like, I have a clean conscience. If I commit a crime one day in the future then, yeah, sure, I'll let you know buddy.
 
I would happily pay to watch the content I want when I want to watch it (and I do!). Unless you move to the USA though it seems that for us in the UK we must tolerate getting shows later or not getting them at all.
 
Will try and find article ...

Recently a US Judge threw out one of the larger actions taken against someone on the basis of his IP address. Dont have the details but the judge effectively ruled they could not present a case on an IP Address only as they had no proof who in the household actually downloaded illegally. Is an important case as will likely become case law.

EDIT : Here we go http://torrentfreak.com/judge-an-ip-address-doesnt-identify-a-person-120503/

and this

http://torrentfreak.com/ip-address-cant-even-identify-a-state-bittorrent-judge-rules-120515/
 
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InKursion said:
This sort of logic is bandied about a lot... and to some extent, yes, I agree, it is a grey area of potential/doubtful purchase. This is where copyright infringement has a unique nature of its own, quite different from stealing (i.e. removing a physical copy) but then not yet always replicating and 'losing a chance' of purchase (because many people wouldn't have ever purchased it, anyway). What I will say though is that, for every guy that innocently downloads something he doesn't have much interest in, there are 10 that are huge fans of the show/series/film and would definitely have had to buy the DVD or go to the cinema or whatever, otherwise.
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Do you have any actual figures to back that last claim up because if it's just a hunch on your part it's next to useless.

I can only talk for myself and my circle of friends but in that small sample size the people that download "pirated" media are the ones who didn't tend to buy much music or films before they had the internet, whereas the people I know that always had huge CD and film collections pre-internet age are the ones with iTunes and Netflix accounts.

Here are the biggest selling albums of the year since 1995....

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Now obviously you have to take inflation into account but I don't see any major dent in sales since the internet boom in the early 2000s. Likewise, UK box offices recorded a record 1 billion in revenues last year, enjoying a 1.4% upsurge in total admissions from 2010.

I simply don't see the financial proof that 'piracy' is having the effect you are claiming. If what you said was true about the 10 people taking something for free they would have otherwise had purchased, I'd expect to see this reflected in the figures.
 
That above chart really is not useful at all. Top10 is no indication on the health of the overall industry, and there are far too many factors at play here. Cost of CD's in the shops, for one thing. Disposable income of the consumer for another. You would think someone could afford a CD more easily in 2011 than in 1995, because of a dropping price of the technology at least. I don't really think showing me a list of the bestselling albums of the last decade is a convincing argument that 'piracy is not hurting CD sales'. In fact it is widely acknowledged that the format of the CD EP/single is now dead as a dodo, likely with the CD album to follow suit. Why don't you show sales figures of top selling CD singles? If the shelves in my local audio store are anything to go by, it's a deceased format. Which isn't a bad thing, per se, but it is undoubtedly caused by piracy, YouTube views etc. undercutting the format, as well as the obvious and constant technological innovation.
 
InKursion said:
That above chart really is not useful at all. Top10 is no indication on the health of the overall industry, and there are far too many factors at play here. Cost of CD's in the shops, for one thing.
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I disagree, if piracy is having a massive effect on the industry then surely the biggest hits would be on the most popular albums or films. If they are more desired, then it follows they would be downloaded more.

Yet the figures don't seem to support the notion that piracy is having a major effect.

InKursion said:
Disposable income of the consumer for another. You would think someone could afford a CD more easily in 2011 than in 1995, because of a dropping price of the technology at least.
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CDs and DVDs haven't gone down in price in my experience, in fact aren't there a couple of pages of people asking why a download costs the same as a CD. Besides, we also weren't in a recession in the mid-nineties so arguable people had more disposable income then than they do now.


InKursion said:
I don't really think showing me a list of the bestselling albums of the last decade is a convincing argument that 'piracy is not hurting CD sales'. In fact it is widely acknowledged that the format of the CD EP/single is now dead as a dodo, likely with the CD album to follow suit.
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But that chart isn't about 'CD sales', it's about how many units those albums sold regardless of format purchased in.

InKursion said:
Why don't you show sales figures of top selling CD singles? If the shelves in my local audio store are anything to go by, it's a deceased format. Which isn't a bad thing, per se, but it is undoubtedly caused by piracy, YouTube views etc. undercutting the format, as well as the obvious and constant technological innovation.
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No, it's caused by downloading (legally) via services like iTunes becoming more popular and the massive boom in MP3 players like the iPod where buying a CD would require you to go through the hassle of ripping it first (clearly CDs were more popular when we all had CD Walkmans).

It's like trying the claim the decline of the cassette tape was due to piracy rather the introduction of CDs.
 
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CD's haven't gone down in price? You can get most albums for £7-12 quid now. Weren't they £12-15 10 years ago? And then inflation?

I'm not very good at inflation sums, but wouldn't that mean an album nowadays would cost £20-30? A decade later? And the cost of CD's hasn't gone down... okay.
 
InKursion said:
CD's haven't gone down in price? You can get most albums for £7-12 quid now. Weren't they £12-15 10 years ago? And then inflation?
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Again that's more to do with the likes of Amazon using loop holes in taxation laws to provide CDs cheaper (books are also a lot cheaper now due to the same reason), the likes of Tesco with their huge economies of scale buying power and a more popular competing format providing competition and forcing down price.

Casette tapes also became much cheaper in their dying days as they tried to compete with CDs. CDs are now just suffering the same fate, nothing to do with piracy and everything to do with natural pricing falls of a declining format.
 
I said in my original post that it was to do with technological innovation, yes. But certain formats - regardless of medium - like the EP/single are dying out because they are no longer viable, due to piracy as a major reason. Not the greatest of shames in my personal opinion - I'm a fan of dance music so I still buy singles to DJ with - but it's an example that piracy culture is affecting the music industry, not always in positive ways. Heaven forbid the album format be destroyed by the mp3/Spotify playlist generation.

Plus, you said CD's are not any cheaper. They patently are cheaper, in real monetary and marketed senses.
 
I can remember when N64 games cost up to £60 pound on some releases.

And this was 1997-ish ?

I think piracy has helped bring prices down IMHO, which is a good thing !

Personally, I think this government should focus on issues that actually matter,

i.e. winning the war on drugs etc...
 
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I don't get why you people can't understand it's possible for you all to be right.

  • Piracy is immoral and all pirates do it because they're cheapskates/poor, because they can, and because nothing will be done about it. Most of them will dig for reasons, but the primary reason for piracy is selfish entitlement complex.
  • Piracy is fueled by a lack of competition because the companies involved have made little effort to keep with the times. In the digital age, they legitimatly should be dead, but they exist because they have deep enough profits to buy Governments.
  • Media companies are immoral, making record profits year on year whilst claiming poverty. They scream "what about the poor artists" when hollywood accounting probably robs more artists per year than pirating ever has. Still, they go right ahead claiming the moral highground whilst lobbying out Governments for outragous laws, and they're winning.

I've dumbed the issue down a lot, but people will always look for a reason to validate their nefarious actiities, but the media companies don't exactly make it hard to hate them. If they played fair, some people wouldn't pirate, and others would have to face the truth. Either way, I'm fairly sure they're not going to convince the Internet generation to live that they shouldn't get their media online and the more they push this, they more priates they help create.
 
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gothic_hobbit said:
I can remember when N64 games cost up to £60 pound on some releases.

And this was 1997-ish ?

I think piracy has helped bring prices down IMHO, which is a good thing
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At the Time when PS1/Saturn games were £20 and up and PC games started lower.

N64 games were super expensive because Nintendo made the hair brained decision to stick with cartridges instead of moving to optical, a blank N64 cartridge cost the games company's more to buy than some PS1 titles cost in the shops, its what crippled the console and ensured it could never rival the PS1 properly.
 
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