POLL: Downloading, Torrenting, Copying or Ripping Movies/Music

[Halcyon]

This is by no means a 'scientific' poll, however I was just curious about everyone's stance on the topic of copying, ripping, torrenting, downloading or sharing movies, music and TV shows. Has the 'Dallas Buyers Club' case put you off or changed your habits? What do the local laws in your country allow you to do?

I guess as an Australian, I see that our Copyright law isn't understood by many people. For example, it's currently not unlawful to download or access copyrighted material, however distributing, sharing or uploading it will get you into trouble. It seems the term "illegal downloading" has been thrown around a lot by the media without being entirely accurate. This is not to say I condone or necessarily agree with the behaviour, but I think it's important to be transparent and accurate.

Let's keep this thread on topic and not turn it into a "how to" guide about getting around security features etc...

[crispy_tofu]

Just double-checking: You're not the NSA right? 

[Srbel]

I download movies, TV shows, games via torrents.

[Halcyon]

Just double-checking: You're not the NSA right? 

Ahhh you got me ;-)

[Tim F]

I'll pay for content where it is guaranteed that a significant portion of the purchase cost will go to the artist/content creator. If the middle man wants to take 99% and give the content creator 1%, well you know... I'll find another middle man.

[tszaboo]

"Back in the old country" 6.5% of the population actively uses one local torrent website (meaning going there at least monthly). The rest of the people probably don't know how to install a program.
You dont have access to stuff which is on it in a legal way. There is no Netflix, Amazon to order DVDs, local television sucks big time, shops dont stock recent content, they are half a decade late. I've tried using itunes and others for buying music online, they denied it. I guess they dont need my money.
So really, why is it surprising that  the entire east Europe uses torrent? There are bands which reelase their new content directly on torrent, and have a donate button, skipping publishers completely.

[German_EE]

The main thing I download - Formula One. Here in Germany the Formula One is broadcast by RTL which means that we get 22 minutes per hour of advertising. Even in the middle of a race they will cut to an advertising break and then come back about eight laps later (during which the whole race may have changed). So, I ignore the news media each race day, download the torrent that night, and then watch the race uninterrupted the next day. I then delete the downloaded file.

My conscience is clear, I'm downloading an event which has been broadcast over a free-to-air TV station only I'm viewing a different TV station's output (normally Sky or the BBC). I still see Bernie Eccleston's advertising on the track and on the cars so there is no commercial loss.

[Kjelt]

It all depends on the laws of the country. In our country they changed the law a year ago. Before that it was the same as TS states in Australia, free to download not to upload/share/distribute.
Now downloading content where there are rights (movies/tv shows/books/music etc.) is illegal but the "law" said it will not prosecute individual downloaders.
Last month a private movie distributor has announced that it will start civil lawsuits against individual downloaders if they have violated their rights.
The stupid thing is that if you loose such a lawsuit you have to pay for all the costs including the forensic IT firm that conducted the research.
So downloading and watching a tv series that would cost €35 on blueray can cost >€1000 in claims which I find ridiculous.

To answer the TS question: I download some movies and tv series from usenet, if I like the movie I will buy it on bluray when available and to be honest when the price has dropped a 30% from the day of release. I still buy a lot of blurays , estimation couple of hundred € a year.

[PA0PBZ]

I don't download music/movies/shows. I guess I don't care enough having about 200 TV and radio channels and youtube. I only listen to the radio in the car, almost never at home. I watch the news on the TV at home, and that's about it. Sometimes I want to watch a movie and then I can either find one on the many channels or pick one I recorded, I seem to record more than I watch anyway.
Now software, that's another story...

[Halcyon]

Last month a private movie distributor has announced that it will start civil lawsuits against individual downloaders if they have violated their rights.

Interesting you should mention that. An Australian Federal Court has agreed with iiNet (a major internet provider in Australia) that basically blocked any attempts by the owners of Dallas Buyers Club to force ISP's to hand over personal information about its customers. I also recall an article somewhere that basically deemed the letters they were sending out to be unlawful. Don't quote me but it may have something to do with Australian consumer law, in that it's illegal to send people invoices or ask for payment for something they did not ask for in the first place.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-14/iinet-dallas-buyers-club/6697314

[krish2487]

Do sitcoms count???
 


In all seriousness, I pay for what movies I own and rip them to my media server. But thats in the case of movies. Sitcoms are completely different.
I live in India presently, and we are not an area that many channels would bother to telecast sitcoms (Blacklist, Castle yada yada yada).


So yes, I am guilty of downloading TV shows on torrents and watching them. 

[Kjelt]

Don't quote me but it may have something to do with Australian consumer law, in that it's illegal to send people invoices or ask for payment for something they did not ask for in the first place.

Very interesting because the downloaders can be considered digital thieves that unlawfully get access to content without paying (for the rights).
So if a thief would steal a jacket from a store and the store will sent an invoice for that jacket to the thief that would also be illegal since the thief did not ask for the jacket, hmmmm it never sticks comparing physical products with (virtual) products . 

[tszaboo]

It all depends on the laws of the country. In our country they changed the law a year ago. Before that it was the same as TS states in Australia, free to download not to upload/share/distribute.

I have the feeling that making strict copyright laws dont make ANY sense in Europe. The amount of local content created and worth downloading is ridiculously small. I know probably one or two belgian people which I listen musik from. So all these copyright laws are just enforced to us by the US. So they are protecting the copyright of some distant companies, who didnt even bother bringing their content here, yet alone paying taxes.
Something even better, the blank media tax. They put some tax on selected blank storage devices, the income is distributed by local maffia music bands by some crooked system. I would never even listen to those bands that usually gets the money.
I guess protecting the rights of the small people is not an objective anyomore.

[fivefish]

Amazon Prime... worth the membership fee, just on the number of movies I watch. 
Rarely buy movies on iTunes anymore.

[Tomorokoshi]

I am becoming a non-consumer of entertainment media.

The majority of what I watch is now various things on YouTube. As it's all a competition for the time that is available, merely watching is effectively excluded from the options, replaced by forums like this.

[tom66]

I'll use filesharing sites to download movies and TV shows that are available on Netflix (it's more convenient as I can get them on my Raspberry Pi device), but I don't download software or games.

[Mechanical Menace]

I voted for "Something else (please comment)." So here's my comment. I happily torrent things to "try before I buy," especially games and films* though I don't feel the need with music anymore due to things like YouTube and Spotify, and yeah I illegally seed too. And for convenience will "illegally" DL things I already own, especially music. I have literally thousands of LPs and CDs and it's often quicker to DL a copy than dig out my physical copy and rip it. There have also been times when I've used cracked versions of games I own because the DRM is just such a bitch.

I'm also a big fan of seeding content it's legal to, especially FOSS. It gives me a feeling of contributing to projects I have neither the time nor the brains to actually work on.


*Though I doubt anybody will believe me that I actually buy what I keep lol.

[Macbeth]

You forgot to include usenet and FTP's. Lots of stuff there.

[bills]

Other
I use kodi with genesis installed.
works for me

[Lightages]

I voted other.

I always buy my software music/movies, except.....

If the software has been abandoned, then it is fair game IMHO. Also when a company forces a copy protection that interferes or harms the program/computer/use, then to me too bad for them. I will go around it. If I am blocked from getting a piece of software or music because of "not available in your region", too bad again. I can't buy it so they lose nothing. If I think that something is overpriced, then I ignore the product and look for one where the developer/vendor doesn't have their head up their golden ass.

[con-f-use]

I think the biggest problem with downloading isn't paying, its convenience. I don't want to sit through 1 min of copyright notices and 5 min of trailers just watch a film on DVD. I also don't want to be interrupted by advertisements that don't even relate to my interests just see a stupidly translated and bloodlessly dubbed German version of an American TV show. With the latter I even have to look at the TV schedule and record it.

If I could pay double or triple my monthly internet rate, I'd gladly do so, provided there was a single website I could download every TV show or movie in every language I want without any bullshit and have a private viewing of it with a few people.

[Rick Law]

In the 1980's, the case of recording TV show/movie to video tape made it to the USA Supreme Court.  The court ruled that it was within fair-use (if memory serves) to record a show/movie to tape for later personal viewing.

I am no legal expert, but I see it as if I can do it with video tape, I am doing nothing different when recording digitally.  I think reasonability rule would apply.  They are reasonably similar and should apply similarly.  But DCMI (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) might have limited our ability to do that.

Another aspect is: Netflix and other digital services are not broadcasting.  If I record off NetFlix to watch later, I am not sure how broadcast TV related ruling applies.  Some times, some NetFlix  shows are available till say for example this end of month.  If I don't have the time to watch it now and record it for the month to follow, am I still doing in essence the same as I did with VHS taping a boardcast TV show?  I think they are, but I suspect digital services' lawyers will be able to defeat that argument and show why they should not be legally the same as boardcasted TV.

[Tomorokoshi]

... if I can do it with video tape, I am doing nothing different when recording digitally...

If I recall correctly, this was somewhat covered in making a distinction between digital "exact copy" and analog "degrading copy" by either court cases or general approach. In essence, the copy quality of VHS or cassette tapes was low enough that they wouldn't provide a significant threat to market share. Isn't that why they freaked out so much when recordable CDs and DATs came out? Companies like Sony played both sides of the fence on that one.

These days copying DVDs is so quaint that it's probably a non-problem. The real issue is lost on-line pay-per-view / subscription / whatever that loses out to free downloads or streaming.

[NiHaoMike]

Where's the "I boycott RIAA/MPAA" choice? Legitimate free content is the way to go.

[tom66]

If I recall correctly, this was somewhat covered in making a distinction between digital "exact copy" and analog "degrading copy" by either court cases or general approach. In essence, the copy quality of VHS or cassette tapes was low enough that they wouldn't provide a significant threat to market share. Isn't that why they freaked out so much when recordable CDs and DATs came out? Companies like Sony played both sides of the fence on that one.

These days copying DVDs is so quaint that it's probably a non-problem. The real issue is lost on-line pay-per-view / subscription / whatever that loses out to free downloads or streaming.

I still remember the anti-piracy ads that claimed pirated copies had inferior quality. It was Disney's ad and it compared a "pirate" copy with a legitimate copy. It made it onto some of the early DVDs too, so it shows the level of thought they put into them.



It's quite funny really.