BT missing from Pirate Bay High Court slap-down BT has been granted more time to respond to an order to block The Pirate Bay that was handed down by the UK's High Court in London late on Friday afternoon. The Register understands that a separate announcement from BT is imminent. "We continue to have discussions with the BPI and we hope to announce an outcome acceptable to …
>give consumers the content they want, how they want it, for a fair price
The trouble is that a lot of consumers don't agree on what constitutes a 'fair' price. Quite a lot of them seem to think that 'bugger all' is a fair price :-/
Still - bully-boy tactics aren't going to work. It's too easy to get round them.
Bugger all is a fair price for most people.
In Australia free to air TV doesn't charge
Youtube doesn't charge
Pirate sites don't charge
They still make money without charging their users. You can have a free streaming service paid for by advertising. The film industry just want us to keep forking out $50 for dvds. I haven't watched a DVD in years. Streaming is easier and more convient. The stupid film industry make it complicated, expensive or not available and wonder why people pirate.
They need all the content in one place with a free service (standard def, stereo) paid for by ads and a premium service (hi def, surround sound) paid for by substription or pay per view.
The moment they restrict content or charge like wounded bulls, piracy wins.
They don't seem to have too much trouble getting money from radio broadcasters, and public and commercial spaces where music is played, by going after the business beneficiary of the music not the listeners. Radio tends to be advertising or donation or license fee driven. Make transmission of music legal over the net to ISPs which pay a commission. Not exactly rocket science.
TPB already switched to magnet links, so there is no tracker to block, and other DNS providers like OpenDNS etc. do not block DNS lookup for TPB; so the IP trolls have won a worthless tissue paper facade, nothing more!
The law has behaved like an ass, the judge(s) just humiliated themselves.
If the IP trolls try more technical means to block sites, there is plenty of technology which can easily defeat their attempts.
The luddites who claim to work in the music industry (remember as free music on the radio killed the music industry decades ago there can be no workers in the music Industry) have spent millions achieving nothing.
Shame they aren't bright enough to realise it, then they might be able to afford higher royalties to those poor starving artists than money put legal decisions.
Music is harder than film as music is almost always stored on a portable device. Film can be streamed so there is no need to store it. Music needs to be cheap (as in a few cents per song) and convient to get. Nobody want to pay $30 for a CD with one or two good songs anymore.
Yeah... right. Bought the recent TIntin movie (yes, *bought*) and on the cover it promised a "play anywhere" digital copy. "Really" thinkest I. Might save me having to rip the bluray disk.
So I read the instructions. Play anywhere? Yep. So long as you have iTunes on that "anywhere". And Windows Media Player.
a**holes.
If the details stating the requirements to iTunes and WMP are not on the OUTSIDE of the packaging, then you can legally return it as "unfit for purpose" as it does meet the description printed on the box. Text sealed inside a plastic film and unreadable until opened CANNOT prevent return for this. Same as if you open a software package and don't agree to the full terms you can legally return it for a refund. (It's just the shops like to kick up a fuss over it)
Didn't care about that - loaded the bluray into the drive, fired-up Slyfox AnyDVD and MakeMKV and let them do their thing for about an hour. Voila - 1080p MKV viewable anywhere, anywhen.
I *was*, however, making a comment on the calcification of the industry's thinking. ^_^
What bothers me the most is their hypocritical claim that they are doing this for the "artists", while, as everyone knows, the only one benefiting from this are the record companies themselves.
Whether an artist is able to make a living mainly depends on the number of people knowing him/her because this determines the number of people buying merchandise and going to concerts, which provide the main part of an artist's income.
An artist whose music can be freely downloaded will of course have a bigger audience which will more than make up for any loss in income due to not selling CD's.
although these days, I can't even bother to steal. I mean, you go to the movies, you pay for them - and they are crap, just about 100% of the movies. So you lose money. Oops, sorry, can't touch what's in the bag unless you pay for it, this way sir, don't forge your £5 popcorn bag!
OK, you think it slightly unfair, and as movies go, they're one off, no chance to try them out. So you "steal" them. Oh boy, they're still crap, you lose bandwidth and the electricity bill goes up too.
At least with music you know that, if you're careful enough, listen to some tunes on the radio, etc, when you buy them, you don't lose out completely and you'll listen to it again. How many times will you watch a so-so movie? A couple of times a really brilliant one...
Ashcroft hoped the cutting off of The Pirate Bay would open up a "level playing field for properly licensed digital services".
I doubt they can match the SERVICE of The Pirate Bay. TPB has...
Movies without adverts.
Movies that play on almost any device.
Just about any film ever made, regardless of which studio made it.
Simultaneous worldwide availability.
Excellent quality, and there's usually a warning or two if not.
No buffering issues as with streaming services.
Whole TV series wrapped up in a single download.
Unlimited download speed for most content.
Music that's not available on Spotify iTunes etc.
There's probably more, but I can't think of them right now.
I'd gladly pay for that kind of service if the "properly licensed digital services" could do it. However, they're too busy trying to protect their OLD business model to listen to what people actually want.
but doesn't mean folks will pay it!
Selling a product or service is directly related to what people are willing to pay for it. TPB helps infringe copyright, we all know that. But public aversion to a minor crime is negated by what they see as perceived racketeering.
Without widespread public support you cannot hope to prevent largescale piracy (there will always be some), and that will not change until the pricing model changes.
"They might have to spend some of their pocketmoney now."
actually, the main complaint is they still dont have a method to *legally* obtain the content they want in a timely manner. If i'm watching a series on TV and i miss an episode, what are my options at that point? i can carry on watching the rest of the series, missing that episode. i can wait 6 months or a year for the DVD to come out. or i can just torrent that one episode.
very rarely is there an option of 'watch it on the tv broadcaster's website', and if there is then its with their shitty streaming/buffering system that might well be fine for people on modern internet, but for people that are also being screwed over by BTs utter ineptitude, make it basically impossible to watch a show.
Many freetards are already spending their own money on VPN services and membership of newsgroups. I think the problem here is availability of content (at the right price point) rather than wanting stuff for free. The free argument has been successfully rebutted many times already.
What I find incredulous is that big media companies complaining about how much money pirate sites make through advertising have failed to recognise a new business opportunity and get in on the game!
How many freetards would stop a downloaded TV episode that had a couple of advertisements tacked on the front, or even a commercial break in the middle? How many would go online to find an ad free one? Not many, they'd sit through or skip ahead like they do with legacy TV channels.
Why does big media continue to favor spending wads of cash on expensive lawyers, rather than embrace a new revenue stream? It's idiotic and arse-backwards.
As far as the block is concerned, I will have fun watching them trying to catch a swarm of bees with a thimble! Can't wait too see what their next comedic move will be.
So they're not blocking, File****e.com, ISO***t, TVB**.com,Dem*****.com and a million others just the one that's popular, so the next thing is that even the least technical person will simply head straight to Google and put "download TV/movie/game XYZ torrent".
What a complete and utter waste of time and money!
but bear in mind the "designer high" model, the UK has "pioneered" and which has sparked the interest of other countries (so we are told).
You'll soon hear the record companies wailing that new sites are springing up faster than they can go to court over, and pushing for new laws which allow the government (probably the Home Office, who are feeling a bit low after having to split off the Justice Department) to block given sites *before* they have been deemed """"illegal"""", "just in case".
And, like the new powers to ban substances before they have been analysed, how many sites do you think will be unblocked after proven to be innocent ?
Growing up in the 80s, with "just say no" and Grange Hill warbling away in front of Nancy, it seemed then the "war on drugs" was a pathetic joke, and the few civil libertarians who criticised it were just secret tokers. However, it's clear in hindsight, that they were right. It has allowed the government to amass power over the population that it just can't resist using elsewhere now. First the child protection industry cottoned on, and now look at how many laws there are to "think of the children".
I predict, before the year is out, some MP will call for powers to block websites without scrutiny - in the name of "rights holders". The only good thing, is we know how impossible that is.
Kickasstorrents and Demonoid serve me quite well
If you are an emerging musician release you music on bandcamp, and sell physical copies through it. They take 30% which seems alot more fair than the big boys.
The main reason I like piracy is because I dont want to think any of my money is going in some mugs pocket like Simon Cowell.
Also is it me or have movies really gone downhill in the last 5/6 years? any really memorable titles? or just remakes, sequels, and films about comics no one likes?
When will the BPI / MPAA realise that pirating costs pirates money in index sites, news provider access and higher price ISPs, although small compared to the retail value of the stolen content is does prove that downloaders are prepared to pay for a quality service.
Instead of ruling with an iron fist, they might want to compete and provide access to their content at reasonable prices with the same quality you can enjoy by downloading it illegally, compared to the utter lower-than-standard-definition shite you get through services like NetFlix and LoveFilm.
At the time of posting there are 80 comments, all in agreement with one another. Just take a step back people and think: Is this because everyone is in agreement, or is it because these topics have become self selecting and people who disagree with the general consensus will no longer post because of the type of replies they get?
I know that there are regular commentators on the Reg who work for the music industry in one way or another, so: Guess which I think is more likely.
Bully boy tactics have been shown in the past to not work and they are just continuing down the same road. It's time for the industry to stop flogging it's ancient business model and get into this century.
Businesses evolve and business models change but there seems to be very little change in the music industry.
It's time for them to adapt or die.
Since getting the Tivo service from Virgin, my torrent use has dropped a lot as now I can watch series whenever I like and just pick up the episodes when I have time, which is really useful when you've got a newborn in the house.
However, it deletes series after x amount of days, so that serial of Criminal Minds I recorded but didn't get around to watching has now been deleted, so it's off to the torrents we go.
So close, but there's still a way to go.
AC - Just in case they're watching.
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