Illegal downloading

RandallFlagg

It's been a bit quiet lately in the news about the music and movie industry regarding illegal downloading and streaming. Has the ISPs agreement to dole out 3 warnings, but not commit to disconnecting customers, appeased their concerns?

I don't want to start a discussion on the rights and wrongs and disappear down that moral rabbit hole, but I know that the practice is still rife and just about all new movie and music releases are being made easily available. 

Has the industry accepted this as an unstoppable inevitability or are they still fighting this? What is the ISPs stance?

LooseMoose

I work for an ISP (kind of) and we've been receiving a lot of infringement letters - mostly for films though. 

CabbageCat

I don't know about others but I certainly download things illegally must less frequently than I used to. I think the proliferation of legit streaming services has meant that illegal downloads aren't as comparatively convenient as they used to be.

Sporky

CabbageCat said:

I think the proliferation of legit streaming services has meant that illegal downloads aren't as comparatively convenient as they used to be.

That's pretty much what I was going to say. Spotify in particular for me, though it's vastly reduced how much I actually spend on music while significantly increasing how much new stuff I hear.

monquixote

Same here.

I don't illegally download anything anymore. 

There are plenty of excellent inexpensive streaming services.

grungebob

I thought I read somewhere a EU court ruleing about streaming being legal to watch but those provided the illegal streams would be punished?

quarky

I download a lot less. It was always films and TV for me not music, and Netflix has made a huge difference, on the TV side anyway. I do download some films still, but maybe three or four a year I guess. I haven't seen any warning letters, but I have no doubt they will still turn up at some point.

HAL9000

If you think it's ok to illegally download music, don't complain when someone illegally downloads your credit card details.

robgilmo

Record companies like your credit card details what with the price of CD's these days, digital downloads can even be more expensive than buying the CD, lets not get into the ridiculous price of the more exotic media like vinyl and tape, just look at the tape project for stupid prices.

thecolourbox

You could say the music industry has decided to only release rubbish music in an attempt to stop people bothering to download

RandallFlagg

HAL9000 said:

If you think it's ok to illegally download music, don't complain when someone illegally downloads your credit card details.

Keep on topic, read my opening post, let's not go down that rabbit hole of right and wrong that's not the discussion

ICBM

I'll admit to still occasionally illegally downloading music - I do it to 'try before I buy' usually, or if I can't find something a legal way fairly quickly. But I make the effort to properly buy stuff I do then want to keep, so if anything it's the other way round for me - I probably buy more music *because* I download than I would otherwise. I certainly spend more on music than almost anyone I know.

What's stupid is that the music industry often contributes to the problem. Recently I wanted a specific rare track - I could only find it legally on iTunes in New Zealand. I would have been more than happy to pay for it, but I was blocked because I'm in the UK. I tried several ways of getting around it but in the end it was too much hassle so I found a free copy and got that. I'll still buy it if I can ever find it on CD, but... WTF? The internet is global, why restrict things like that?

The same is true for making films regionally restricted, or with different release dates - there's no better way of driving otherwise honest users to download illegally.

HAL9000

RandallFlagg said:

HAL9000 said:

If you think it's ok to illegally download music, don't complain when someone illegally downloads your credit card details.

Keep on topic, read my opening post, let's not go down that rabbit hole of right and wrong that's not the discussion

Sorry, my (honest) mistake.

Paul_C

I had a brief flirtation with Napster, Limewire et al. but I never got into torrents etc. and it's been years since I last downloaded anything.

If I want to check something out before buying I usually look on YouTube.

thomasross20

Sporky said:

CabbageCat said:

I think the proliferation of legit streaming services has meant that illegal downloads aren't as comparatively convenient as they used to be.

That's pretty much what I was going to say. Spotify in particular for me, though it's vastly reduced how much I actually spend on music while significantly increasing how much new stuff I hear.

100% me, too. 
Same for streaming services and DVDs.

TheBlueWolf

I briefly used Limewire years ago but I've used legal methods ever since.

Bygone_Tones

I havent really 'downloaded' anything for a long time, stream everything nowadays. I dont think illegal music is anywhere near the issue it was back in the early noughties. Although movies are probably still getting hit quite hard at the moment.

Film makers need to move with the times and just realise people want to watch everything at home thesedays as soon as it comes out. The days of going to the cinema are coming to an end. Its not skipping the payment that people want, I think most are happy to pay, its the convenience of watching at home that people want.

quarky

Yep, I think things like Netflix show that people are willing to pay for a service, but it needs to be available. One thing that is still annoying is that if I want an album, I can typically listen to it on Spotify, or buy it easily from any of Amazon, Groove, Google Play or iTunes.

For films and TV though, I don't want to buy them, I just want to subscribe to a service, and while I can easily do that in one place for all music, I can't for TV and films. Some are available in one place, some in another, etc. So like with football, I haven't subscribed to Sky Sports for years because of that reason. If I could get most games in one place, it would be much more appealing.

UnclePsychosis

The record companies really screwed up when they tried to fight the technology rather than embracing it. Now there's pretty much an entire generation who have learned that you can get everything for free if you want. 

axisus

HAL9000 said:

RandallFlagg said:

HAL9000 said:

If you think it's ok to illegally download music, don't complain when someone illegally downloads your credit card details.

Keep on topic, read my opening post, let's not go down that rabbit hole of right and wrong that's not the discussion

Sorry, my (honest) mistake.

Don't lose any sleep over it, just because someone starts a topic they have no right to dictate where it goes. Having said that, it is one subject that can get bitchy very quickly.

Flink_Poyd

Bygone_Tones said:

Film makers need to move with the times and just realise people want to watch everything at home thesedays as soon as it comes out. The days of going to the cinema are coming to an end. Its not skipping the payment that people want, I think most are happy to pay, its the convenience of watching at home that people want.

I sort of agree. I actually want to watch Rogue One (Star Wars) at the cinema as its a better experience than on a TV at home.
 Im pretty sure the studios would love to just pipe the latest release into your house but are being held back by distribution deals for cinemas.