Ships, Film Industry and now TV (piracy)

[Oneeyedvic]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8224869. stm

Millions of television viewers are now using illegal file-sharing services to access free and unauthorised copies of programmes, research has revealed.

US drama Heroes was the most popular illegal download this year, according to research firm Big Champagne.

Around 55 million people downloaded the show, whilst 51 million chose to access Lost, the second most popular show.

Visits to leading "torrent" sites, which index video and music files, have also nearly doubled in the last year.

The majority of people will acknowledge copyright theft is a problem - but what is the difference between this and videoing a series?

Is the industry crying for no real reason - surely this has always happened?

And probably the most important question of the morning - am I turning into anotheoldgit as I have now posted 4 questions in the last few hours.

[sp1814]

This is a thorny one.

If you ask most people, my guess is that they wouldn't see telly as 'free'. We pay our tv licence, and/or we watch commercial telly which is funded by adverts, so the programmes themselves seem to have been pre-paid, therefore why shouldn't we download them if we want?

That's the users' point of view...but from the programme makers point of view - they're losing a lot of money which they could be making from DVD sales and advertising revenue (why watch the new series of Dexter when you've already seen it three months beforehand)?

I think the tv companies are right to be worried, but I don't know how they could best tackle the problem. The major channels have their own 'player' services, but these are for shows that have already been on, and are only available of a week as a 'catch up' service (apart from CH4's brilliant 4 On Demand service).

[Gromit]

The networks commission and show programmes to sell advertising and make money (to invest in some more programmes).

If everyone stopped watching the channels and instead downloaded the content for free, that harms the revenue of the channels and no more LOST or Heroes get made.

These programmes cost �1.49 to download and watch legally.

[sp1814]

Just thought of a way the broadcasters can curtail illegal downloads...

International synchronized programming.

Hit US shows are broadcast over there months before we get them. In the intervening months, people statr downloading the episodes which have been placed on bitorrent sites.

However, if Lost, Heroes, Desperate Housewives etc were broadcast in the major territories simulteneously that would hugely reduce the number of people willing to download them ahead of time.

They do it with major Hollywood films, perhaps the tv producers should consider this.

[Oneeyedvic]

Yes, SP it amazes me that this doesn't happen already.

In fact, they are now starting to do the opposite with computer games. As an example, Professor Layton and The Diabolical Box (a much anticipated game) was released in JAPAN on November 29, 2007 The US on August 24, 2009
and won't reach these shores until September 25.

They advertise these heavily before they are due out - and the last game in the series was sold out everywhere prior to Christmas 2008 - hardly surprising that people download illegal copies is it?

[LeMarchand]

If I were to download TV shows, I don't see how I would harm anyone's income. I have the top package from Virgin, so I pay for everything that is potentially available in this country. I am not on any data collection panel, so I am not harming the ratings. I also watch programs on commercial channels on timeshift so that I can fast-forward through the adverts, so the advertisers wouldn't be losing out any more than they already are.

I can see that some people might harm (particularly) the BBC's income by downloading shows and then refusing to buy a TV license as they do not (in strict legal terms) use the facilities that require a license.

A lot of downloading (in terms of TV shows) tends to be of "cult" shows that have a strong net following. As such, if people wait until a (possibly much later) UK broadcast then they are risking being "spoiled" by discovering plot points well in advance of the reveal on the show. sp's simultaneous broadcast might go some way towards alleviating that, but then we would be tied to the US's frankly bizarre scheduling. (Admittedly they are now moving towards a more regular schedule).

I don't think that downloads harm DVD sales that much. These days it's easy enough to transfer shows recorded "off air" to DVD so those that can't afford to buy/don't want to pay for the DVD sets could easily do that if they couldn't download the shows.

Please note: the above refers to folk downloading "off air" rips of shows, not ripped DVD sets. I find the latter morally indefensible.