This is the second hypothetical dilemma concerning piracy.
The more I learn about piracy, the more convinced I am that there are two types of people who pirate. The first type will download illegal material no matter what. They don’t care about legality and morality and simply want something for free. The second type is the reluctant pirate. They only download material which is otherwise unavailable to them. They would be prepared to pay for a legal copy if they could (and if the price were reasonable). I’m not attempting to excuse their behaviour but to look at realistic ways to combat piracy. Given the lack of success at shutting down filesharing sites, my suggestion to the entertainment business is to target the second category of pirate: Don’t make them criminals, make them customers!
The pirate in our hypothetical dilemmas belongs to the second category. They would gladly purchase the material they download (or are tempted to download), but are frustrated by lack of availability, incompatible formats, etc.
You keep hearing good things about an American TV series which sounds like something you would enjoy. As it’s more of a cult hit than a mainstream success, the likelihood of a network in your country buying rights to the show is slim. The show is now into its third season in the US and there are no signs of it being screened in your country. It is available on DVD at Amazon.com but the region code is not compatible with your DVD player. You also know from experience that stripping codes is not always successful and can result in poor sound/picture quality.
All three seasons of the show are available for download from a filesharing site and you’re sorely tempted…
How wrong would our pirate be if they downloaded in this instance? How could a temptation like this be avoided? My suggestion: allow people to purchase the right to watch episodes of TV shows no matter where they live. I’ve heard several arguments against this idea as local networks fear they could lose business. But what if a local network has no plans to air the show? And even if they did, I think plenty of people would still watch the show when it aired on TV. The only people who would purchase the right to watch episodes are those who are particularly interested in seeing them, not the casual TV viewer who might watch the show if it were broadcast on TV, but wouldn’t otherwise make an effort to find it. What say you?
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I would gladly buy the original Food Network Iron Chef on DVD if they had it available for sale. Instead I make do with barely watchable copies that people put online on collection sharing websites.
I used to do the same with Millennium and The Next Generation till they made them available in DVD and I spent big bucks for the first DVDs that came out and now you can get whole sets for next to nothing.
Is it wrong that I don’t consider it “piracy” unless there is the legal ability to purchase the products in question? It’s simply two extremely different things in my mind despite the hoopla.
I would have to be sympathetic. I have in the past downloaded bootleg concerts and such from a file-sharing site. These are NOT available for purchase anywhere, and that’s how *I* justified it. ( btw- I don’t do it anymore- the site I used got taken down, and I just don’t trust the others out there due to trojans/spam/etc.)
Our rule in this house has always been- if it is NOT a commercially available product- the download is probably ok. If it is for sale- no dice, you have to buy it. I’ve instilled in my kids the value of supporting the artist- whatever form the *art* takes.
@Teddypig There you go. I’m betting there are many people like you who’d gladly pay for good quality, legal copies of TV shows – if only they were available. This is another case where I think some sort of burn-on-demand service would be fantastic.
@KCfla As someone who also wants artists to be paid for their work, I’m baffled by the entertainment industry’s reluctance to make their material widely available.
Whether they like it or not, it IS widely available, both inside and outside the US – just not always in a form which financially benefits the artist. I know there are legal tangles and problems with international rights, but it just seems ludicrous that they willingly forego sales to interested customers.
Well I have been online a long time now and I have done lot’s of how shall we say not so kosher things OK. I have cracked and hacked my way into a nice security job because of it.
When Audiogalaxy (An old old old music sharing site that had the best interface I have ever seen.) was in it’s prime I spent $100s a month on new music and new artists and new CDs. There were even a few artists that admitted what that exposure had done for their careers.
Now a days hey, I don’t spend more than maybe 10 bucks a month at most on iTunes on artists I already know. I can’t be bothered really. I will shed no tears when the current music business with it’s RIAA dies a sad but most deserved death. Buh bye!
The first books I ever read by Lora Leigh I found on one of those pirate sites I happened across on the internet when looking for reviews and it happen to be one of the first in the Breeds Series and after downloading it and reading it I went and bought it from Ellora’s Cave along with all the other ones.
I am not saying pirating is OK or what I did was OK but I am saying…
If you have a multi-book series why not have the first one available for free off your own damn publishing website and get people hooked? Why don’t I see bundled special priced deals except at Harlequin to get people buying more than one eBook in a series or to appease your most import customers those avid readers who come back week after week? Don’t tell me Physical books don’t get sold that way all the time.
Anyway, that’s how my mind works your mileage may very.
If a show is available for streaming or downloading online (as many are), you should be able to watch them anywhere in the world. I hate it when companies pull stunts like not letting you watch shows online when you’re living in another country (coughbbccough).
Pirating TV shows is a separate issue from, say, movies or music (which I refuse to pirate) to me because they are free–when you watch them on TV. So if I download to my computer them I’m bad because I’m not paying for shows I didn’t have to pay for anyway…? Oookay.
Most companies are playing this online stuff really smart and making pirating TV unnecessary since they now usually have that weeks shows online the day they are broadcast or for sale and then they are getting them out on DVD super fast right after the season is over.
Even DVR is becoming something you do not always need.
We just unlocked our British DVD player. It was remarkably easy and now we can play all my American DVDs and buy the ones that aren’t available here without having to fiddle around with the DVDs themselves. I do think the region planning is something that needs to be evaluated, now that our culture is so global. It still annoys me that I can’t watch the latest US show everyone is raving about, but we tend to wait for the DVDs and bring them over if the whole season is good. I know companies are hoping that an international network will buy and air the show, so they don’t or can’t distribute outside the US, but they’re missing out on revenue. So, I totally agree with you.
Also, @heidenkind, all the US networks do that too. It isn’t just the BBC. Many many bloggers link to Hulu which I can’t watch at all. I can see why they restrict it, since US ads can’t exactly encourage me to buy something off in my foreign country, but you’re right in that it’s frustrating and needs a re-think. I’d be willing to pay for some sort of subscription service to a legitimate website with the latest TV shows, for example.
I love shopping for region free-able DVD players I have an OPPO for just that reason in case I run into a DVD I have to have from overseas.
@Teddypig Our current DVD player is Region 2 but it’s easy to find region-free machines in Switzerland. We – OK, C – stripped some of our Region One DVDs and were able to play them. Sometimes the quality is compromised, though.
@heidenkind Yes! That is so annoying. Case in point: BBC are currently showing a new 4-part costume drama of Austen’s ‘Emma’. As part of our digital TV package, we get all the BBC channels. Unfortunately, I saw too late that they were planning on showing ‘Emma’ and missed the first episode. The episode was available for viewing on the BBC website – but only for people resident in the UK! So annoying.
@Meghan The one smart think the BBC (or was ITV?) did was show each episode of LOST a week after it was shown in the US. A smart move. Unfortunately, they’ll only do that for popular mainstream shows. Cult shows and HBO shows tend to come later, if at all.