UK 'pirates' face £20 appeal fee

Piracy is a difficult issue. It is wrong to steal things online, and it's currently too easy to get away with piracy and that's why so many people do it, because of the anonymity associated with the internet. Few people would be willing to walk into a store and steal an album off the shelf, but loads of people are happy to pirate it online, and presumably in most cases that's because there's much more chance of being caught stealing something in-store, and the consequences of being caught are greater.

On the other hand, certain entertainment industries need to get their act together when it comes to availability and price of their products. The film industry is particularly bad for this imo. Yes, we have Netflix and Lovefilm, but DVD prices are still way, way too high. I can't see why anybody would pay £10+ for a DVD or blu-ray that most people will watch once or twice and then leave to collect dust, and the price is just giving people a reason to go online and download it. Another problem is that decent quality rips are often available months before the film is due to be released on DVD, so people who can't or don't want to wait will download it.

Also, there are still examples of tv series that air weeks or months earlier in the USA than they do here, which is inevitably going to lead to piracy. Homeland is probably one of the best examples of this that I can think of recently. The first series had finished by the time channel 4 even announced that they would be showing it here in the UK, which just isn't good enough.

I'm not attempting to justify piracy. There are lots of people who download who do it because they don't want to pay for content rather than can't, but as well as clamping down on piracy, the various entertainment industries also need to ask why so many people are pirating the services they offer, and attempt to improve in the areas where they are currently failing.
 
[TW]Fox;22222678 said:
Yet bizarrely people will spend all day in threads ****ging off bricks and mortar stores for being a 'ripoff' whilst happily spending more money on less product because it's on Steam :confused:
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less product?:confused:


I know you're trying to imply that by not having a disk they're losing out but having a game on steam does offer a lot of advantages.
I.e you can still make a disk or just stick your games on a thumb drive so a copy paste is needed instead of a reinstall if moving pc.
 
nicktay2605 said:
Also, there are still examples of tv series that air weeks or months earlier in the USA than they do here, which is inevitably going to lead to piracy. Homeland is probably one of the best examples of this that I can think of recently. The first series had finished by the time channel 4 even announced that they would be showing it here in the UK, which just isn't good enough.
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I wouldn't mind (so much) if it was weeks, or even if it wasn't until its run had finished elsewhere but theres a ton of good TV shows that aren't available (legally) here or aren't shown/available here until 6-24 months after they've finished showing elsewhere.
 
Here's a quote from Gabe Newell that sums up my thoughts on it. (It relates to Valve and videogames, but the principal still applies to other forms of media such as film, tv and music).

In general, we think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. For example, if a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate’s service is more valuable. Most DRM solutions diminish the value of the product by either directly restricting a customers use or by creating uncertainty.

Our goal is to create greater service value than pirates, and this has been successful enough for us that piracy is basically a non-issue for our company. For example, prior to entering the Russian market, we were told that Russia was a waste of time because everyone would pirate our products. Russia is now about to become our largest market in Europe.
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Valve have managed to create that "greater service value than pirates", and that's why they're doing so well. But the equivalent isn't available yet for other media forms.. Things like Netflix are getting us closer, but you are still paying more money for a more restricted product than the pirated version.
 
Gabe Newell . . . Millionaire MD of Valve said:
... Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. ...
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Utter rubbish!


ps - Hey, Gabe, can you spare the price of a cup of tea and a salmon and cream cheese bagel please? Dumb, fat eejit!
 
stockhausen said:
Utter rubbish!


ps - Hey, Gabe, can you spare the price of a cup of tea and a salmon and cream cheese bagel please? Dumb, fat eejit!
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Lolmockhausen. Why do you constantly insist on displaying your ignorance on the matter and your inability to put forward a reasoned argument?

I'm going to assume that you read that one quote and disregarded the rest of his statement regarding the Russian market?

I'm pretty sure that someone who is the MD of a VERY successful company in the field we're discussing has slightly more of a clue what they're talking about than someone who can't even spell Guardian correctly.:rolleyes:

Here's a hint. If you want to debate something, at least do some research into it first, so you don't come across as your typical tabloid reader who believes everything the media tells you.
 
Rroff said:
...i.e. the other day I was looking at downloading a book for my phone (legally) its commonly available for ~50p in 2nd hand and about £1.50 new in hardcopy... cheapest digital version was £16.99!!! for a 20 year old book. (I just gave up in disgust haven't even bothered to pirate it)...
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Just to back this quote up here...

Looking at a book that someone wrote who is family friend of my boyfriends family (a local legend really) and I finally managed to find it on Amazon:

254zci9.png


How do they justify that!?!? 1p for the book, and yet its £5+ for the kindle addition. I know the 1p books are 'used' ones from Amazon Market Place, but do they not check this sort of thing?

Edit: and I think this is way people pirate ...and to be honest I can see why...

On Sunday me and Mr Trixi went to the pictures to see Prometheus. Now I opted to see it in 3D...2 tickets cost Mr Trixi £23.70...for a 2 1/2 hour film, add on top the popcorn and drink (£7.50) and the ice cream (£5.10) and you have a very expensive day out. And I haven't even added on the lunch we had before that film...

I can honestly see why people download/pirate films tbh, and until its possible to pay say £5.00 (or something) to see new releases in your own home (via LoveFilm or what ever - a new service provided by Odeon or something) internet piracy is going to continue...where there's a will there's a way
 
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nicktay2605 said:
Piracy is a difficult issue. It is wrong to steal things online, and it's currently too easy to get away with piracy and that's why so many people do it, because of the anonymity associated with the internet. Few people would be willing to walk into a store and steal an album off the shelf, but loads of people are happy to pirate it online, and presumably in most cases that's because there's much more chance of being caught stealing something in-store, and the consequences of being caught are greater.

On the other hand, certain entertainment industries need to get their act together when it comes to availability and price of their products. The film industry is particularly bad for this imo. Yes, we have Netflix and Lovefilm, but DVD prices are still way, way too high. I can't see why anybody would pay £10+ for a DVD or blu-ray that most people will watch once or twice and then leave to collect dust, and the price is just giving people a reason to go online and download it. Another problem is that decent quality rips are often available months before the film is due to be released on DVD, so people who can't or don't want to wait will download it.

Also, there are still examples of tv series that air weeks or months earlier in the USA than they do here, which is inevitably going to lead to piracy. Homeland is probably one of the best examples of this that I can think of recently. The first series had finished by the time channel 4 even announced that they would be showing it here in the UK, which just isn't good enough.

I'm not attempting to justify piracy. There are lots of people who download who do it because they don't want to pay for content rather than can't, but as well as clamping down on piracy, the various entertainment industries also need to ask why so many people are pirating the services they offer, and attempt to improve in the areas where they are currently failing.
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I have yet to see any downloaded film that's comparable to blu ray.

Even so called Blu ray rips rarely are.

Can I be bothered spending a whole night leaving the PC on and wasting my time just to save 10 quid my time and electricity cost more that just buying the thing.

However if this comes to pass then they will certainly get loads of cash if they go after the pron viewers. ;)
 
trixilux said:
Just to back this quote up here...

Looking at a book that someone wrote who is family friend of my boyfriends family (a local legend really) and I finally managed to find it on Amazon:

254zci9.png


How do they justify that!?!? 1p for the book, and yet its £5+ for the kindle addition. I know the 1p books are 'used' ones from Amazon Market Place, but do they not check this sort of thing?

Edit: and I think this is way people pirate ...and to be honest I can see why...

On Sunday me and Mr Trixi went to the pictures to see Prometheus. Now I opted to see it in 3D...2 tickets cost Mr Trixi £23.70...for a 2 1/2 hour film, add on top the popcorn and drink (£7.50) and the ice cream (£5.10) and you have a very expensive day out. And I haven't even added on the lunch we had before that film...

I can honestly see why people download/pirate films tbh, and until its possible to pay say £5.00 (or something) to see new releases in your own home (via LoveFilm or what ever - a new service provided by Odeon or something) internet piracy is going to continue...where there's a will there's a way
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The kindle edition is new the book at 0.01 is not.

Usually the books at 1p charge 100% more for p+p than the books at normal price. These people are making cash on the p+p.

The Author gets nothing for 2nd hand sales.
 
jas72 said:
The kindle edition is new the book at 0.01 is not.

Usually the books at 1p charge 100% more for p+p than the books at normal price. These people are making cash on the p+p.

The Author gets nothing for 2nd hand sales.
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It's a digital format, so the fact it's "new" doesn't even come into it :confused:

Regarding the postage - yes that's true in some cases, but not all.

So surely they should be encouraging new sales rather then discouraging them?
 
InKursion said:
But most artists are not on major labels. Most artists have not been given 4-album record deals with an advance - and thus some financial stability by their craft. Take 'dubstep', just as an example, a genre that is now hugely popular and no doubt has lots and lots of teens and young adults downloading it. Who are you ripping off when you download those vinyl rips from the internet? It's not like Sony BMG is behind this musics' publication and distribution. You're downloading a copy of a release that probably had no more than 500-1000 copies pressed in the first place - because of financial constraints and cash-flow concerns at the small record label behind it - and then you waltz around the internet like a dick pronouncing your anti-establishmentarianism. Pirates are 90% of the time missing their target and hurting the wrong people, to the point where they can't defend their behaviour with this tired and cliché argument about "it's the evil corporations fault!!!!". Please, it's so puerile.

I would say as a rule that if you are a fan of any sort of specialist or truly 'indie' (as in independent) music, you probably should look a little harder at your justifications for piracy.
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Or you need some more education as well. Next time you're over on TPB, have a check out of the main page. The 'promo bay', see here:

THE PIRATE BAY PROMOTIONAL APPARATUS

Do you have a band? Are you an aspiring movie producer? A comedian? A cartoon artist?

As you might have seen we sometimes replace our front page logo with others. Sometimes we link to important political issues like internet censorship and sometimes it's to some cool indie musicians we like.
We would now like to improve this feature. We want you to send us an email (below) and tell us what you have and where you would like it to be shown.

A few rules then:

In the form below, include a full adress to your front page image suggestion with the maximum measures 500x400 (width x height). Please host it at BayImg. No obscene ugly **** please. People from all over the world visits us; kids, you and really really old people.
Write a number of 3 countries maximum where you want your doodle to be seen. Choosing smaller countries might improve your odds, since one can assume that big countries will be chosen more often. If we find your stuff mind blowing we might post it worldwide...
Links to racist or other hateful propaganda will be ignored. This site is and will always be about discovering culture from all over the world.
Paste a link from your website, bandcamp, torrent, soundcloud, youtube, myspace(does anyone still use that ****?). This is where we will direct the people who click on your submitted front page logo.
On your site, you must have your songs or movie or whatever available for download, streaming or such. Please try to sell cd's, shirts or funny hats if you want to, but not only. This is not just about making you rich.
Please offer easy access to your material. No "like us to be able to listen" on facebook. Don't lead your visitors into a maze. Just offer a simple and easy play button for whatever you have.
No Mr Hetfield. We will not doodle your Lulutallica project. Stop calling us!


Of course, we can and will not release everything we recieve. We will pick something every now and then from the pool. If we like your submission, and the countries you chose are not already flooded by requests, you will recieve an email when it's about to start.

Ready set go!
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The pirate bay website gets how many millions of views? And they are letting bands advertise for free. How much would it cost for a small indie group to get their work seen by millions of people? It isn't possible. I'd say the pirate bay is doing far more for these small groups than the BPI. And how about asking these artists? They write songs like this:


Go figure.
 
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