7m in UK 'use illegal downloads'

[Andrew_C]

If multimedia in general was at a more reasonable price they'd be little incentive to pirate and users would go down legal routes. There's no reason why an MP3 should be priced the same as a CD.

BINGO! Give that man a prize! How, though, do we get this across to the dolts in Westminster and Hollywood?

[DrPerceptron]

Make them stop claiming for it as an expense?

[FN-GM]

The Pirate Bay case has only fueled the fire. It is making people more aware of the site so people who have never heard of it now use it. I know of 3 people who never heard of it now use it.

Myself i do download some content purely because they are taking the mick on the prices they charge. Anything i do download i do not distribute again.

They have not got a cat in hells chance of stopping it. Torrent software is changing the way it works. Some software is using encrypted SSL VPN links to get the content across. This mean ISP's dont know what is going down the VPN tunnel and they can't block them. The only way they can block them is blocking port 443 that will also mean https sites wont work.

[Gibbo]

and its not like its costing the UK economy.

I'd say it does. I know loads of people who download Family Guy because they can't wait to see it. I always buy the box sets and DivX them to my XBMC. Although BBC3 show Family Guy it doesn't really affect much since they get the licence fee whether we watch or not, but for other shows which are on Commercial TV it does because we don't watch the adverts in between these shows. It was recently in the news that ITV is in serious financial difficulty and is having to run shopping channels through the night to survive.

I was going to go see the latest Star Trek Movie at the cinema. But at £7 for a ticket on a weekday afternoon? Not a chance. When I told a couple of people this the first thing they said is "why don't you torrent it?"

So while I think the government's figures are wildly optimistic, I do think it's a problem.

[enjay]

but for other shows which are on Commercial TV it does because we don't watch the adverts in between these shows. It was recently in the news that ITV is in serious financial difficulty and is having to run shopping channels through the night to survive.

Like many others, I record all my TV and fast-forward over the ads so even though I'm watching it legally, I don't see the ads either, so I fail to see the difference (not that I'm justifying downloads) - maybe that has more to do with why commercial channels are struggling than people downloading the shows instead...

Smart advertisers would be commissioning commercials which advertise the product even at 6x speed (as some do).

[localzuk]

Smart advertisers would be commissioning commercials which advertise the product even at 6x speed (as some do).

Smart advertisers use product placements in shows...

[Fridge]

Smart advertisers use product placements in shows...

Yeah that's a good point has anyone else noticed the recent increase in Dr. Pepper being drank in South Park? ^^

[jamesb]

Yeah that's a good point has anyone else noticed the recent increase in Dr. Pepper being drank in South Park? ^^

Well what's the worst that could happen with product placement?

[RabbieBurns]

Originally Posted by Gibbo

aye, I agree to an extent, but how many of us sit and fast forward through adverts when weve sky+d the show. And as for family guy etc, I downlaod the new eps of them too, but I also sit through all the repeats on Sky, Channel 4 and RTE.

As for the cinema pricing, well £7 isnt too bad if your close by. I bought an Unlimited Cinema Pass for a year, and had no qualms downloading movies that year, even though I only went to the cinema once or twice.

And I think ITVs problem is due to the crap that they show more than anything else. Whats on ITV worth watching? STV has Taggart. ITV has a Soap for the grannys. What else is there?

[ZeroHour]

Smart advertisers would be commissioning commercials which advertise the product even at 6x speed (as some do).

They have a feature in Tivo in the US which I dont think is active yet but it basically blocks you fast forwarding through the adverts or possibly shows an advert while you fast forward but I cant remember exactly.
Since Tivo sells there software (iirc) to sky which make sky+ epg sky may have the option to do that too but that would kill my sky subscription if they did.

I do buy music online and CD but I think tbh online needs to be all in lossless format now as I can get the CD and rip it for less then getting it online. I have several places that sell lossless wav etc to me a decent prices.
TBH as well there really needs to be a flat per month rate for music in lossless too.

[RabbieBurns]

I would just ditch the sky+ reciever and use my own. Ive got a Fortex Star reciever for one of my dishes and the CAM Ive got in that accepts the Sky card. A better model would have an pvr too.