piracy? lets solve it with a letter!

If there was a service that allowed me to download films and TV series in 1080p and straight after release for a small fee or adverts then I would happily use it.

Currently I have to wait months while it is only available in the cinema. (hardly anoyone would go to the cinema these days if it was available for watching at home when it first came out). Or only available in the USA. If you then decide you still want to buy a several month old film or TV show you have to buy it on Blu Ray. Optical media is old and out dated. Or you can stream it which requires a connection to the Internet and you can't watch it at a later date as it will be removed and even then you would have to resubscribe or pay again.

I will pay a fair price for my media when they start providing a fair service.


I do pay for games as Steam and Origin etc work well.
 
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Judgeneo said:
I don't even know HOW to watch some of our programs legally.
I pay for Netflix, and watch things on there when I can.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones
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this if the ****ing the problem, that comic is why piracy ****ing exists in the first place. you want me to pay for game of throne? allow me to ****ing watch it online George!!! and stop eating yourself into oblivion!!!!!
 
the only real excuse for piracy these days is US shows that are showing on TV in the US but unavailable at the same time on any UK network or streaming service until months later - and that's really just an argument about being impatient
 
Agree with most of the above, I think gaming has come on leaps and bounds in the last few years, steam and to some extent origin are leading the way, competitive prices amazing service but most importantly there are key resellers which often give much better prices. Hence why I have ~ 300 games in my library. I have a netflix account which is used very very little as I use xbmc and there isnt a good way to integrate it into that because it still uses Silverlight.
The main thing I want to do is download TV shows to watch at my convenience I dont really want to stream everything as streaming a decent 1080p copy takes a lot of bandwidth so Id rather download over night and then watch next day so others in the house can all do the same and no-one throttles each other.
I am still holding out for a big company (Im looking at you sky) To come along and offer me Unlimited Movies, Unlimited TV, Unlimited gaming (e.g access to pretty much everything on steam while in contract) for a nice fee of say £100 per month all in. If the service works nicely I would happily pay to rent all my entertainment.
 
gettothechopper said:
the only real excuse for piracy these days is US shows that are showing on TV in the US but unavailable at the same time on any UK network or streaming service until months later - and that's really just an argument about being impatient
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Impatient or not, these days it's hard to not resort to it when you have social network posts, forum posts and articles posting mouth watering hints and/or spoilers for the latest episodes all over the place.

It's been said countless times that if network operators want their shows to be watched legitimately then they need to get with the times and offer global access to the shows as they air. If an online service existed that would allow for that at a good price then those people that download the latest shows through "other" means would be all for it as many actually pay subscriptions to download services like newsgroups to get early access. That money could go to a fully legal service that offers the latest shows and everybody wins that way.

But they won't. they prefer their convoluted release schedules and low quality Netflix/Hulu systems.
 
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TwsT said:
I think it will make a difference.

a lot of the appeal for downloading is the anonymity,

For one, I think kids downloading games and movies will be a bit wiser when their parents pick up a letter saying it has come to our attention that you have a bit of a habit of violating copy right law. This is illegal and could result in a criminal conviction in the future.
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Indeed, my son would certainly get a good talking to about his illegal downloading if I got one of these letters.

A good talking to about using VPN/proxies, along with a pat on the back for figuring out how to torrent stuff at the age of 2.5 :p

I had an interesting problem last month actually.

Wanted to watch GoT season 4, but I forgot to Sky+ it. No problem, I'll get it on catch up.

Unfortunately my internet connection was being flaky, and Sky catchup doesn't work without a broadband connection. No problem, I'll tether the Sky+ box to my mobile and use that instead.

No luck, Sky catchup doesn't work with a 3G connection.

Solution? Tether phone to laptop and torrent it. Sorted :)

Now technically I was pirating it, but considering I had a right to watch it (through my Sky subscription), and was only prevented from doing so due to technical issues (deliberate or otherwise). I don't really see that I did anything wrong, opinions?
 
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Anyone here laughing at "them" really don't understand what has happened here. The ISPs have done a huge amount to make this a toothless threat so that their customers will be little to not affected by any of these threats. The original campaign from BPI and the MPAA were to have these letters be the start of prosecution and fines but the ISPs have negotiated them down to just simple educational "Piracy is naughty" warnings. Everybody knows this is not going to do much if anything to combat it, but the MPAA/BPI are left with no choice because of the ISPs rejection of any further action. It's better than not sending the letter and that was the only choice they had.
 
People are mocking, but it's just the thin end of the wedge.

The media industry are establishing a protocol all the big ISP agree to, and then they'll slowly ramp up the pressure to make the enforcement progressively more draconian.
 
The entertainment industry needs to spend less money paying lawyers and consultancy companies to fight windmills and more money on services intended to provide quick, quality access to their shows at reasonable prices.
 
Zethor said:
The entertainment industry needs to spend less money paying lawyers and consultancy companies to fight windmills and more money on services intended to provide quick, quality access to their shows at reasonable prices.
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all those stupid anti piracy groups they fund probably cost them more money than piracy does.
 
gettothechopper said:
the only real excuse for piracy these days is US shows that are showing on TV in the US but unavailable at the same time on any UK network or streaming service until months later - and that's really just an argument about being impatient
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I disagree. Whilst things like Netflix and Hulu (and now Amazon) are a step in the right direction, there's still a bunch of issues. The biggest one for me, at the moment, is cost.

Let's take someone who wants to watch just Game of Thrones, since it's reported as the most-pirated TV show. To get this in the UK, you have to take out a Sky subscription for £21.50 per month. You get ten episodes per series, one series per year so far, running over three months. That's £64.50 for ten episodes of a show, £6.45 per episode, if that's the only thing you watch (I don't know if there is a minimum contract length with Sky). How is that a good deal? You can buy a whole film on DVD for around that much. :(

Compare that to Instant Video from Amazon. You can pay £2.49 for an episode in HD, or £1.89 for SD - the cheapest option to get an entire series is £16.99; that's much better value. The downside, of course, is that you can't get it as it is being shown.

So, best deal for someone who wants to watch it as it is shown? Download it from other sources without paying. The amount of money the film and music industry puts into fighting piracy is obscene. If they invested just half as much of it into providing ways for people to get just the content they want, at reasonable prices and without any silliness, piracy would be an ever smaller problem (which is debatable anyway) than it is right now. The gaming industry, whilst not perfect, has certainly done a good job so far. I don't know anyone who resorts to piracy for their games any more, with the exception of those that are no longer available to buy.
 
This won't last long, when (as mentioned in the article) the rights holders have proven that it's a complete waste of time, sterner methods will be introduced.
 
I thought this was already the case? Sure I have seen in comments sections about people receiving a letter from their ISP for downloading a certain file etc.
 
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