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Downloading TV Shows.

chaosdestro0 said:
No it's nowhere morally near stealing, stealing always causes a loss. Piracy very rarely causes a loss, not many people who pirate would buy the content if they could not pirate. I certainly would not, as almost all my piracy is from tv shows and are American , as others have said in this thread, you will end up having to pay sky £50 a month or wait ages for the dvd to come out. Quite a lot of TV shows don't even release to DVD anyway.
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To say you can take something just because it doesnt cause anyone a loss is not a very good arguement.

Let me give you an example

Person A has some personal photos on her computer. Person B makes a digital copy of photos behind person A's back, without their permission. Person B still has the photos but they are personal and Person A doesnt want everyone to see them.

Is this stealing? Apparently not according to you as no one has incurred a loss...

You may come back to me and say " Its an emotional loss". Well, what about the 5 guys who set up their indie game company, released their first game, and found that half the people playing it havent paid for it? I think they would be pretty upset....
 
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Jono8 said:
Person A has some personal photos on her computer. Person B makes a digital copy of photos behind person A's back, without their permission. Person B still has the photos but they are personal and Person A doesnt want everyone to see them.

Is this stealing? Apparently not according to you as no one has incurred a financial loss...
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It's not stealing, no. Why is this so hard for people to understand?

It's not stealing but it isn't legal, either.

The legal definition of theft, from Section 1 of the Theft Act (1968):

A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it; and “thief” and “steal” shall be construed accordingly.
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There. You must have the intention of permanently depriving the other of the PROPERTY. Not the potential income from the property, not the idea, the ACTUAL property itself.

So copying photos isn't theft, copying a DVD isn't theft and neither is taking a car for a joy-ride, actually (Another specific offence of Taking a Vehicle Without Consent had to be created to get around the fact it wasn't illegal to take a car for a bit and return it), which nicely sums up what theft really is.
 
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I like the idea of separating the physical medium from IP, but fact is IP owner probably going to make majority of money from physical sales.

Guess there are three aspects of value

1) physcial medium
2) the information
3) convenience/service

Value is going to be split between those categories, and apportionment is going to be different for each different distribution method.


....maybe?
 
Jono8 said:
To say you can take something just because it doesnt cause anyone a loss is not a very good arguement.

Let me give you an example

Person A has some personal photos on her computer. Person B makes a digital copy of photos behind person A's back, without their permission. Person B still has the photos but they are personal and Person A doesnt want everyone to see them.

Is this stealing? Apparently not according to you as no one has incurred a financial loss...
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That's a terrible analogy!
1) The content producer will not know that you downloaded x or y film
2) There are reasons why someone would get annoyed about seeing confidential pictures, they might be embarrassing and cause depression.
How can piracy cause emotional damage to the content producer? I am baffled..

You may come back to me and say " Its an emotional loss". Well, what about the 5 guys who set up their indie game company, released their first game, and found that half the people playing it havent paid for it? I think they would be pretty upset...
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You need to understand this, if all the pirates were not going to buy the game EVER. Then the situation after piracy is the same, if not better. Firstly the pirates might bring about a lot of publicity, it's better than having 0 Downloads legal or not.
A large percentage of the pirates are made up of people who cannot simply afford the media. There are some fields of piracy that I don't really subscribe to, such as films where most of the time my movies come through tesco DVD.
 
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[TW]Fox;20349209 said:
It's not stealing, no. Why is this so hard for people to understand?

It's not stealing but it isn't legal, either.

The legal definition of theft, from Section 1 of the Theft Act (1968):



There. You must have the intention of permanently depriving the other of the PROPERTY. Not the potential income from the property, not the idea, the ACTUAL property itself.

So copying photos isn't theft, copying a DVD isn't theft and neither is taking a car for a joy-ride, actually (Another specific offence of Taking a Vehicle Without Consent had to be created to get around the fact it wasn't illegal to take a car for a bit and return it), which nicely sums up what theft really is.
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Ah well here is where it gets complicated. The whole value in those photos for the person was that they were personal and had only been seen by them and the people they gave permission to view them.

Would you not say that Person A has been deprived of the value/or part value of said photos?
 
chaosdestro0 said:
That's a terrible analogy!
1) The content producer will not know that you downloaded x or y film
2) There are reasons why someone would get annoyed about seeing confidential pictures, they might be embarrassing and cause depression.
How can piracy cause emotional damage to the content producer? I am baffled..
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"You may come back to me and say " Its an emotional loss". Well, what about the 5 guys who set up their indie game company, released their first game, and found that half the people playing it havent paid for it? I think they would be pretty upset.... "
 
Jono8 said:
Ah well here is where it gets complicated
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No it's not, not in terms of the Theft Act it isn't.

. The whole value in those photos for the person was that they were personal and had only been seen by them and the people they gave permission to view them.

Would you not say that Person A has been deprived of the value/or part value of said photos?
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Irrelevent. The photos are still there, thus no theft.

There may be other offences commited as a result of the emotional issues the action caused - but not theft.
 
Jono8 said:
"You may come back to me and say " Its an emotional loss". Well, what about the 5 guys who set up their indie game company, released their first game, and found that half the people playing it havent paid for it? I think they would be pretty upset.... "
Click to expand...

Irrelevent when discussing theft.
 
Jono8 said:
"You may come back to me and say " Its an emotional loss". Well, what about the 5 guys who set up their indie game company, released their first game, and found that half the people playing it havent paid for it? I think they would be pretty upset.... "
Click to expand...

I have addressed this, you can't just generalize pirates. A lot of the warez forums are populated with people from developing countries such as India who can only just afford a computer and internet, let alone shipping out TV show DVDs for all of the TV shows they watch.
 
[TW]Fox;20349302 said:
No it's not, not in terms of the Theft Act it isn't.



Irrelevent. The photos are still there, thus no theft.

There may be other offences commited as a result of the emotional issues the action caused - but not theft.
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What offences would they be then?
 
Always love these 'debates'

Fact is, if I could take a device and copy someone's car from the car park and drive off in it, I damn well would and nobody would stop me.

End of discussion. We do not because the technology does not exist to do it. It does for digital medium.

I'm not going to get into the whole argument about morals and legal definitions. TV shows air for 1 reason, revenue through advertisement or otherwise. They generate revenue. Would they generate more if those who download 'illegally' watch 'legally' instead? Who knows.

Can a majority of those who do download from 'illegal' sources, 'legally' watch them? Nope.

What's the difference if I stick my fingers in my ears during ad breaks and scream lalala?
 
Sin_Chase said:
Always love these 'debates'

Fact is, if I could take a device and copy someone's car from the car park and drive off in it, I damn well would and nobody would stop me.

End of discussion. We do not because the technology does not exist to do it. It does for digital medium.

I'm not going to get into the whole argument about morals and legal definitions. TV shows air for 1 reason, revenue through advertisement or otherwise. They generate revenue. Would they generate more if those who download 'illegally' watch 'legally' instead? Who knows.

Can a majority of those who do download from 'illegal' sources, 'legally' watch them? Nope.

What's the difference if I stick my fingers in my ears during ad breaks and scream lalala?
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pirates music , films , tv series , games , ebooks etc!
 
Sin_Chase said:
Can a majority of those who do download from 'illegal' sources, 'legally' watch them? Nope.
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Never heared of DVDs and Blurays?

But i forgot, the majority just download those as well. You cant use the excuse of just because they arent available when you think you should be entitled to them then you will just download them it doesnt wash.
 
A quick and dirty overview...

  • The producers produce the show and make available for purchase to distributors.
  • Distributors submit the show to local regulators for certification / verification that the show can be shown in that region without amendments. If amendments are required then this process can cycle around until either the regulator is happy or the producers pull the show from that region.
  • Broadcasters in different regions will compete for the rights to air the locally approved version of the show.
  • The broadcasters use the show to attract / keep subscribers.
  • The broadcasters use the potential viewing figures for various shows to attract advertisers and price advertising slots.
  • Advertisers buy slots based on potential viewing figures and potential sales influenced by their advertising on those viewing figures.
  • Advertisers sell services based on their ability to influence people to companies.
  • Producers will make the show available (sometimes) on 'take home media' at a time usually agreed with broadcasters after the show has aired in their region.
  • Distributors will buy the previously vetted version of the show for sale in their region based on perceived demand.
  • Retailers will buy from distributors for sale to the public in their region based on perceived demand.

Ok, so if someone downloads after the show has aired and the broadcaster has no VOD service then they have not taken away from the producers, distributors (of the original show to broadcasters), broadcasters or the advertisers but only the dvd/bluray distributors and retailers as that is the only way they could get to see the show legitimately from that point onwards. If the downloaders subsequently purchase the DVD/Bluray for the original sale price this may mitigate the loss of sale at that stage but may skew the potential sales figures distributors and retailers use when placing orders.

If the broadcaster has a VOD service that does not have any advertising. Then the same applies. If, however, the broadcaster does have a VOD service that includes advertising then the broadcaster and the advertisers both loose out by the download from potential sale revenue. From the advertisers customer to the advertiser due to lower potential viewing figures, potential loss to the broadcaster due to not being able to sell the slot for as much as previously due to lower potential viewing figures and the other people affected by the lack of sale on DVD/Bluray.

Saying 1 download != 1 sale is fine but if it is for sale and the person is not willing to pay the asking price then they should not have the product. The same goes for if the product is not available in the persons region or at a time the person wants it, the person should not have it. The paid for subscription is in order to watch the show in the manner proscribed by the broadcaster at a time or over a period of time they make it available. The person has no rights to have it regardless of how much they want it. It really is very simple.

Now from a consumer point of view, a central download service for TV shows would be fantastic but why would people pay local broadcasters subscriptions if we could just get most the shows from a company in the US. One question therefore is how could the local broadcasters support themselves with diminished advertising and subscription revenue or would people just prefer to see the demise of local broadcasters all together and the content they produce. It would also knock out national censorship unless the distributor is expected to hold a copy of the movie for each country

Where I am, one of our broadcasters offers a VOD service where we can buy TV series we want and get to see the eps just after the US airing for a set amount of time (maybe a couple of months). The problem is that this costs around 25quid per series and you end up with nothing in the end after the series has expired from their service. You are of course limited to the series that the broadcaster buys in the state the local censor is willing to allow.

RB
 
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