Torrent crackdown pushing pirates towards file hosting

The crackdown on torrent tracking sites such as BitTorrent has encouraged software pirates to make greater use of file-hosting websites. Sites such as RapidShare, MegaUpload or Hotfile allow anonymous users to upload large files without charge. The services are intended for personal video file and backup storage but also have …

[Shane 8]

GG

"P2P is on its way down,"

yea...just like TPB stays down lol gg.

[Anonymous Coward]

Its hard to hit a moving target

I upload anonymously I download anonymously how can you stop me

You can choke my broadband at certain times but its still not going to stop me.

A soon as you close one down another 10 technologies pop up and take its place.

treat us fairly and we might just give you a break

[Anonymous Coward]

"P2P is on its way down"

Does this guy work for the MPAA and was he born in the last 3 years?

Before Bit torrent there was warez hosting, but its visibility made it a target to takedowns so along came bit torrent (yeah there was other stuff in between but...) now there is a reversion to bit torrent.

Perhaps if this guy could see more than 1 cm in front of his face he might make a more intelligent assessment of the situation.

For instance did he even notice that PB now offers a VPN service?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone surpised ?

The only appeal of P2P I could see was when they were 'under the radar' and that's certainly not true now.

Any download site has obvious advantages with respect to a "wasn't me, guv" defence to 'illegal downloads' ; you don't have to install any specialised software, don't have to host or share in order to obtain, and access via HTTP Port 80 is harder to track or curtail. Simply downloading isn't proof of intent whereas 'accidentally installing' a torrent or P2P client stretches credibility.

In distributing files for downloads it's even better. Hosting on one's own PC or user account on a server is a bit of an instant giveaway whereas an uploaded file is much harder to prove the origin of.

As it's basically shifting the problem onto the file sharing site, putting a further degree of separation on illegality, I'm surprised anyone chooses P2P; let the authorities knock on their door rather than invite them to yours.

Of course, ISP's can monitor access to specific web sites and build up a picture of what's downloaded so downloaders aren't ever safe. So it all comes down to policing; who the ISP's and authorities want to go after; the uploaders, the downloaders, or the fences inbetween.

[Jolyon Ralph]

BitTorrent isn't a 'torrent tracking site'

BitTorrent is an application and a protocol for peer to peer transmission.

Torrent tracking sites would include places such as The Pirate Bay.

I'd like to flame you for this schoolboy error, but I don't have time. Perhaps later.

[Ed Blackshaw]

Not only pirates,

but now file sharers are counterfeiters as well?

How long before copying something (which isn't even theft because it doesn't deprive the rightful owner of the original) starts getting referred to as 'terrorism'? Call it by its proper name (copyright infringement) and I will take you seriously.

I find it hard to sympathise with people who are so obviously trying to push an agenda, which is a shame because I am sure that people who make a living through their intellectual property have genuine and legitimate concerns over such copying.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pull the other one, it's got illegal uploads in it!

"treat us fairly and we might just give you a break"

Yeah, break my leg and nick all my stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

Usenet and FTP

...that is all... who cares if P2P dies?!

[Anonymous Coward]

"P2P is on its way down"

You wish Mr Suit, you wish.....

Anyone for another game of whack-a-mole?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Intended for"?

> The services are intended for personal video file and backup storage

Hmm, no I don't see any evidence for that. I believe that they are "intended" for "whatever kind of file you want, we don't care about its legality", with the "plausible deniability" excuse of "personal video sharing".

[PirateSlayer]

I forgot...

"treat us fairly and we might just give you a break"

I forgot all you pirate freetards were on a moral crusade against...er...paying for stuff.

As long as they keep you on your toes (and hopefully throw you a few bits of malware and viruses), I'm happy to see them shutting down methods of stealing the work of others. Here's hoping file hosting sites are made responsible for what they host...that should wake them up a bit and get them to delete the petabytes of ripped off hard work of other humans.

[Sparkypatrick]

@ Moving Targets.

'Treat us fairly' - in other words, give us your shit for free and we might stop stealing it.

[Anonymous Coward]

BT tracker sites too visable?

surely when this file hosting malarkey gets popular you'll get similar sites linking to all the hosted warez - how is that any different?

People have got to be able to find the files somehow.

[Galaxy Bob]

Download like it's 1989.

So, it's just like the old days then? No such thing as P2P downloading during my Amiga ownership days, just logons to BBS sites. Nothing new here, move along.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Anonymous Coward, RE: *treat us fairly*

What are you blathering on about?

"treat us fairly and we might just give you a break"

Who are you referring to here?

Who is this mystery organisation that is treating you so badly?

Obviously your the worst type of freetard, who assumes it's thier god given right to grab content without paying for it - "me vs. the world!"

You are, in my humble opinion, a total and utter idiot. Go away and cheat at counter strike, or sulk, or preferably, get run over by a truck carrying hookey DVD's.

[Jolyon]

@AC moving coward

"treat us fairly and we might just give you a break"

Who's the 'us' in this?

What are you doing currently and why?

And what counts as a 'fair' response?

[Anonymous Coward]

usenet

usenet with SSL , whats not to love about that????

[Frostbite]

HTTP Rulez OK ?

"....BitTorrent is still the single most widely used protocol on the net with HTTP second..."

I disagree HTTP would be used to find the BitTorrent files. Surely HTTP is the most widely used protocol? Every net user uses HTTP, not all of them use the BitTorrent protocol.

I would agree that the BitTorrent protocol generates the most traffic though.

[The BigYin]

@AC 1018

Unless you are being very careful to use multiple jumps, tunnels, encryption etc and unless you are 100% certain that the various servers keep fully anonymised logs; it is possible (although potentially laborious) to track you down.

Please define "fair". I'd say UKP8 for a DVD (max I ever really pay) is "fair"; but others would disagree.

I will happily agree that the failure of the big movie/music companies to monetise the new distribution systems and resort to these strong-arm tactics is totally misguided; but why does that give you the right to steal?

So please, define "fair" as you see it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why move?

Another reason for the move is that many networks with fast connections, businesses and universities for example, will block torrent traffic but not downloads from rapidshare etc.

[Anonymous Coward]

@AC 10:18

What?

"treat us fairly and we might just give you a break"

By that you mean, "give us your content for free and we will stop illegally downloading it"

Seriously its not like you are not given a choice you dont *NEED* to watch the latest movies/listen to the latest albums etc they are not starving you of some essensial commodity or trying to extort money from you.

If you are not prepared to pay for it dont steal it... Would you apply the same logic to petrol? I mean really its getting bloody expensive, but would you really go and steal it?

Just because its not a tangible thing doesnt mean its free.

[Jason Croghan]

"IRC and web forums only play a small role in counterfeit content distribution..."

This isn't true, RapidShare et al are not searchable repositories and the links for each file, which is generaly split into many rar files, must be posted somewhere for Joe Public to get his hands on. This, in the case of 99.99% of these links, is done by posting them to warez forums...

[adam payne]

You can't kill piracy

You can't kill piracy. As long as someone wants to do it they'll find a way to do it.

[Gary 34]

Fair treatment

First, stop with the "stealing" comments and comparing it with stealing physical goods. It's not the same and never will be. You visit the Register and probably work in technology; I'd expect a greater level of intelligence than that. Do we really need to spell out the difference to you?

As for fair treatment... No it doesn't mean give us all your stuff for free. It means a sensible pricing model with delivery channels that suit the customer.

Take DVD Rentals. Faffing around posting optical discs back and forth when you could download it in next to no time. DRM it if you want, I don't care I only want to watch it once. If I want to buy it, fine. A nice DRM free h.264 file available in the resolution of my choice.

Music. Sorry, why would I want a case and disc cluttering up my house? Why would I want a lower than CD quality file with DRM tieing me in to one manufacturer?

I fundamentally believe that people don't mind paying for things as long as they feel they're geting a fair deal. Current models are not providing that.

[Shadowfirebird]

Bittorrent isn't actually a crime

...it depends what you download with it.

Believe it or not it *is* possible to use bittorrent to download stuff without being in breach of copyright.

It's just a protocol.

Just saying.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are not prepared to pay for it dont steal it... Would you apply the same logic to petrol?

If a petrol station determined how much they could charge me on where I wanted to drive then yes I would try and find a way around it.

If I buy a DVD I am only allowed to play it in my region locked DVD Player.

If I want to listen to the Music from that DVD on my Car Radio I have to go and pay again.

If I want to watch the same film on my PSP I have to go out and buy another version.

I want to upgrade my VHS collection, Surprise, surprise I have to pay again

So why must I pay multiple times for the same thing for different players. Do I get a reduced price because I have already paid once. No. If my disc gets damaged can I get a replacement. No. And for all those branding me a freetard. I can confidently say I have more genuinely purchased DVD than the average Joe. I just don't like paying for the same thing again and again and again.

i want fair use for media i buy that why I say play fair

[Anonymous Coward]

@Anonymous Coward : 11:45 GMT

** "treat us fairly and we might just give you a break"

By that you mean, "give us your content for free and we will stop illegally downloading it" **

Thats a big assumption. He "could" have a fair point - why not give him the benefit of the doubt? Digitally delivered content is often more expensive than it needs to be and is not always available in the format you want .e.g. There's not a great choice in drm free uncompressed cd quality downloads. Personally I want a UK "allofmp3" but it doesn't look like I'll get it anytime soon - so I have to settle for spotify, online radio stations, cd's and the occasional mp3 purchase from play.com and amazon. At least with spotify now i will never again have to search for and illegally download a track just to give it a listen. Things are improving for all of us because we, as consumers, are being treated more fairly by the day. So "treat us fairly" seems fair and not necessarily a call to freetards everywhere to rip people off.

**Seriously its not like you are not given a choice you dont *NEED* to watch the latest movies/listen to the latest albums etc they are not starving you of some essensial commodity or trying to extort money from you.**

True its not essential, but the extortion aspect you dismiss does actually fit. Where there are very few sources for something, asking too much is surely extortion - you simply cant legally go elsewhere for it. By "too much" i am comparing the £8 or so for a CD with an expensive physical distribution chain with a single low bitrate drm'ed track. But as I said, I no longer worry about it - i would imagine that within a few years we will have a system that appeals to 99% of consumers on quality and price. The remaining 1% are the true freetards who will never pay for anything if they can help it - but they can be dismissed for that reason.

**If you are not prepared to pay for it dont steal it... Would you apply the same logic to petrol? I mean really its getting bloody expensive, but would you really go and steal it?**

You know this not a physical "theft" like stealing petrol would be - so why do you make it out to be ? The only thing being stolen is the "possible" revenue from a real sale, and often an unrealistically "high" reported revenue at that. Some digitally distributed content, whether it be music or software, is often fetched illegally because some people want a quick look or have a very short term interest. The game distributor STEAM have demonstrated that if you price something low enough you sell more and your profits increase overall - in one case by 3000%. Speaking as an owner of Bioshock, discount priced at £3, that I have still not had time to play, i'm a member of this successful test. So rest assured, sensible owners of digitally distributed content will maximise value for money with marketability or be left behind. Blaming freetards for an inability to sort out your digital business is just tiny-violin playing at its most whiny ;).

[Anonymous Coward]

Big problem is the shit content

I would happily pay for more content if

a) the prices were more reasonable.

b) the content was as usable as the stuff I can download.

For example, if I want to watch a movie, I can download an .AVI file which plays on my xbox, my PCs and my portable media devices.

If I want to buy this movie, I have to either download some stupid copy-protected file that may, or may not, work on my PC but won't work on other devices, or I have to buy a DVD, which means I have to get off my fat arse and stick it in a DVD drive, then I have to navigate through horrid menu systems to get the damn movie to play, but only after I've watched the obligatory advert telling me what a naughty fellow I am for thinking about pirating this disc.

For the first time in years I'm buying music again, as I can get unprotected tracks through itunes or other services at reasonable prices. Convenient and affordable.

But buying movies? Forget it for now. Once I can start downloading full movies as AVI or similar for a fiver or less without any copyright protection bollocks, I'll do it. and I'm not the only one.

[Dick Emery]

By 2012 it will be 99% reduction

Not because it actually went down. But because it won't be traceable anymore as everyone uses encrypted tunnels etc.

They need to compare actual bandwidth usage against P2P traffic and see if that went down as much too. If not then clearly the goal posts just moved someplace else where they cannot monitor it.

[Anonymous Coward]

RE: *treat us fairly"

So if one asks to be treated fairly, they must be a freetard?

How about music? If you want to get music from Itunes, it basically costs $1.00 a song. The full CD can cost you about $12.00 or more. Then you have the quasi legal Russian music sites like mp3sparks.com (formerly allofmp3.com) that charge people around .30 cents a song or a full CD for about $3.00. The big difference between Itunes and Mp3sparks, is that the RIAA and their ilk receives royalties from Itunes, but does not from Mp3Sparks. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllOfMP3 for more details).

So are the people that buy music from Mp3Sparks freetards? They are still paying for the music. From polls I have seen on messageboards, a lot of people that use the russian sites would gladly use Itunes and similar if the songs were more afordable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Freetard?

Freetard? A cunning play on words on retard there, Mr. Shakespeare.

So I am a retard for not having paid for any software since the late 90s? Damn, the last legal copy of Windows I had was a copy of Win3 to 95a upgrade! And even that I didn't pay for myself.

But how many times have I had my wallet burnt by a piece of substandard proprietary software in the last 10 years? Zero.

How many times have I been tied into using a product because of financial investment? Zero.

How many times have I been burnt by buying a proprietary product only to have the copy protection mechanism punish me because I have lost a key, or some authentication server has gone down, or some other form of DRM has shown its true anti-customer colours? Zero.

Yeah, real retarded!

I do tend to stick to free/libre software these days though, as I realised long back that even when not paying for commercial software you still have its ultimate downside that sooner or later you will run into a conflict between what you want and the commercial software maker's business interests. This is usually in the form of crippled products so a new version can be sold.

Face it, the reality of the world is that data can be copied quicker now than at any point in history, by nearly anyone, and for less money than at any point in history. Having laws on the books that create artificial scarcity for data just to create a system for a few people to run businesses on is insane, and ultimately pointless. Unless you benefit from this ridiculous state of affairs. But then you are fighting reality, and you have no tools available but name calling.

[Anonymous Coward]

what?

"If I buy a DVD I am only allowed to play it in my region locked DVD Player"

I suspect that has something to do with BBFC classifications/regional variations as well to be honest, but Ill take your point they do lock DVDs to regions. Ill reffer you to my previous point this is not a commodity that you cannot live without, you dont agree with the terms of the licence dont buy it.

"If I want to listen to the Music from that DVD on my Car Radio I have to go and pay again."

No, not unless you are reffering to the soundtrack which odds are is sold seperatly, then yes, its sold seperatly, you were aware of that when you bought it. I reffer you back to my point You do not *NEED* these things you *WANT* them.

"If I want to watch the same film on my PSP I have to go out and buy another version"

In a different format provided via a different medium which incurrs diffrent costs, but ill conceede that you should probably get a discount on that (Although how that would be enforced is anyones guess)

"I want to upgrade my VHS collection, Surprise, surprise I have to pay again"

Again in adiferent medium, redistributed etc incurring more costs.

"So why must I pay multiple times for the same thing for different players"

You missed the point... you dont have to, you will survive without it.

"No. If my disc gets damaged can I get a replacement"

Actuually yes, from experience (of damaged game disks) they will be replaced for the price of postage if you can proove that you paid for it and its broken.

[Anonymous Coward]

today I stole an ebook

Because Harper Collins wanted me to pay £20 for a limited license to read it on up to five devices.

The physical, hardback edition is currently £8 from Amazon. When the paperback is released, I wouldn't expect to pay more than £5 or so for it, probably in part of some 2-for-1 deal or otherwise.

If I could buy the electronic edition for a fair price, I would more than happily do so. By 'buy', I mean it's mine to own, free to use on whatever device I like whenever I want, free to reformat into my preferred font size and layout settings (reading books set in 10pt Helvetica is a joy - once you go sans, you never go back).

For the record, I generally do buy my ebooks, but I'm not going to stand here and get ripped off while the pirate versions are just a few clicks away. As it happens, this book was the latest from a very prolific and extremely popular author who I've supported through purchases for almost 20 years. I have an entire shelf on my bookcase of just their books. I don't feel this person is particularly losing out due to me ripping off one text from almost forty.

On the rare occasions I do pirate rather than buy, I try to contact the publisher and let them know I've stolen one of their books and why. Last publisher I did this to, Little Brown, agreed completely with my position and thought in that case piracy was entirely "fair" from a consumer's point of view. I hope Harper Collins have the same reaction when I speak to them tomorrow.

[Gilbert Wham]

Would you apply the same logic to petrol?

Anyone here who has *ever* owned a car, and says they wouldn't take free petrol if it was as easy as torrenting, is a flat-out liar.

[Brian Miller 1]

Streaming video services...

The rise in quality of video streaming services has rendered P2P pointless and risky for most people.

People who just want to watch the shows they actually like and listen to the songs they like without ads and other crap. They don't care if it's really high quality . I have seen some damn fine quality streams recently.

The harbinger was stage6. Once that was the only one. Then they shot themselves in the foot and limped off the stage. Now people can watch reasonable quality video that looks pretty good even on 22" + screens the downloading and storing and uploading just puts the user in a compromising legal position.

If you stream it, then yeah you probably still have a copy somewhere on your hard drive for a while...but you cannot be seen to be making it available. So the court argument falls down. Also you don't need that 2TB raid 0+1 array to store all o your ill gotten bits.

P2P was awesome while it lasted but it is all getting made redundant and by the time they sort out how to limit streaming something else will already be taking off.

I still think that its incredible that you can technically still videotape anything off the TV, send it by post to a friend and thats legal, but to do the same with a computer is illegal. Talk about victimising a format.

[copsewood]

@PirateSlayer

"I forgot all you pirate freetards were on a moral crusade against...er...paying for stuff."

Wrong. It's about whether freedom of expression concerning reverse engineering is more important than the business interests of content creators. And it's about whether privacy of communications is more important than an outdated business model. Business interests vested in particular distribution models are not fundamental human rights while freedoms of expression and privacy of private communications are.

[Additives]

Alternant Formats

I own a few DVD's...actually, more than a few...you could even say alot. However, I have ALOT more .avi files. Why?

Firstly, every DVD I own i download a copy of the same movie, which lets me stream it around the house, and gives me a decent backup if anything happens to the disk. The DvD itself I can take with me to a friends, lend to people etc, and I can still have the movies if it gets lost, or if I really want to watch them and it will be weeks till i see whoever it was that I lent them to.

The other reason is that there are some movies I just outright would not be interested enough to buy, yet at as little as 20 mins to download I can watch things just because I heard the name somewhere. I will and have bought movies just because I downloaded them and enjoyed them. It happens.

Downloading movies that I might not necessarily like also gives me a decent selection for movie nights, which is just an added bonus really.

I can think of a couple of solutions which would be nice, but will never happen. One is reasonably priced movie downloads without DRM. $3-5 for low (<DVD) quality, $5-10 for DVD, and have ALL blu-ray and DVD purchases come with a download code. Oh, and at upto $35(AUS) for a blu-ray movie, I'll be sticking to DVD for a long time. Especially when the main way I watch movies is streamed, and it takes me less time to download a HQ video file than it does to rip a disk.

[b166er]

AC 16:21

OK, I bought Star Wars : The Force Unleashed for my son to play on his Xbox360. After about 2 months, the disc delaminated. The LucasArts site says they will send a replacement for $15 and only to US customers. Activision who provide support for LucasArts products in the UK don't have an information page for the replacement of Star Wars : The Force Unleashed.

From their site: 'Please do not send any game returns directly to Activision without first contacting Customer Support. It is our policy that game returns/refunds must be dealt with by the retailer or online site where you purchased the product. Please see the Limited Warranty contained within our Software License Agreement for warranty replacements. '

I imagine the retailer would charge me more like £20 if I was lucky to get them to do anything about it in the first place, although I confess to not having read the Software License Agreement.

Now the Xbox360 is past its first years warranty with no red rings, it makes me feel like ripping it open, modding the DVD firmware and grabbing a copy of Star Wars : The Force Unleashed from RapidShare. (I'm not even allowed to make backups of games I have already bought, so there's really no other fair way of protecting my purchase)

What's your experience of having a game replaced for postage?

Surely to enforce the reasonable replacement of any media, one would only need send/take in the original?

[dunncha]

Intresting

Everybody that has placed a comment has a different view of how they justify their on-line habits and viewing behaviours. A lot of which is quite articulate and well though out.

except the commenter's that are throwing words about like thief's and crooks and freetards. Isn't it an indictment on our society that one section of the of our little oasis here (el reg) will brand people that don't agree and conform to their idea's with the dregs of society.

In my mind a thief is the guy that kicks some granny to death and steals her pension. A crook is the money lender that charges 5000% interest on their £100 loan which they needed to pay the rent.

But then again this seems to be the way our society is going. When hoods that mug and beat up granny's are given a ASBO (which means nothing to them or anybody else) and sent on their way. Normal law abiding people and criminalised for putting rubbish in the wrong bin there is something seriously wrong.

When the Attorney General is allowed to break her own laws and only has to apologise to be let off and the Home Secretary commits fraud and only has to apologise and not pay the money back.

Vote for change and don't just look at the top two think outside the box and how much better society should be.

Rant over

[Anonymous Coward]

BS. Hasn't he heard of encryption

BS, fileshare sites often don't provide files via HTTPS, so are not a secure replacement.

Anyone with any sense uses/requires encrypted BT connections, IP filters, and uses a decent NAT firewall router, if you don't, you are a foolish Lawyer bait!

Anyhows Statutes are _not_ laws, under Common Law, and I just happen to not consent to contract my persons name, to their illusions, so Societies (the Law Society) Legal deceptions won't work on me.

Funny how the original Pirates happened to be Freer Men than the Navies press-ganged crews, yet the Pirates were smeared as the bad guys. Food for Thought eh!

Yep, the bad old navy is still here, just look at most Courts etc.

[copsewood]

@Gilbert Wham

"Anyone here who has *ever* owned a car, and says they wouldn't take free petrol if it was as easy as torrenting, is a flat-out liar."

Wrong. Copying something doesn't deprive the original owner of anything they had before the copy was made. Taking petrol from a car deprives the owner of the petrol and is theft, i.e. a criminal offence with which the police will get involved. Copying in breach of copyright comes under civil law which does not concern the police. In most cases this is both undetectable and unenforceable.

To the extent attempts to enforce copyright interfere with privacy of communications and freedom of expression, defence of these fundamental rights requires opposition to extreme attempts to enforce copyright.

[Martin Nicholls]

Uhm

Torrent isn't dying, it's probably growing more than ever. People putting stuff on places like rapidshare is kinda old news - and it's not because of 'crackdowns' (what crackdown, where?), it's because the more sane are realising that Torrent is a crappy wasteful slow protocol, hence the move back to HTTP and Usenet.

Warez is generally growing which is why you can have growth in both areas.

[Anonymous Coward]

Obiously new to this downloading thingy...

P2P is always going to be disliked... and not by 'anti-piracy' outfits. I know I don't like P2P are prefer to download from sources where uploading is not a requirment. I think this is the prime factor for people switching to http sites and not anything his software company does.

Not that I download much from sites like rapidshare, thats what news' is for.

People only went for bittorrent as downloading from FTP servers in IRC chat rooms was a bit tedious, and not only that dangerious for the people hosting FTP servers.

I can see the next logical progression being the wide use of VPN tunnels. From there you can do what you like form whatever source you like. Yes it does annoy me that companies charge you a premium price to have content on a new format, why no discounts for people who already own the content on other formats? These companies do nothing to help their own business. I do see it as fair game that people download the newer versions for nothing in this situation.

Oh and this whole piracy thing, piracy is not theft. Although I do agree it is when people sell it for personal gain.

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop telling everyone

I was happily getting my Linux distro's till you blabbed.

[yomchi86]

Love it

I love the fact how when someone in government hears about the evils of file sharing by such and such a program or file hosting server it becomes massive news. Only downfall of them is that nearly everyone else has been using these programs/servers for a good few years and it just makes the government people look stupid. Luddites! I agree with many of the comments above. I download music, I'm also a collecter of albums so I buy many many genuine CD's. However when I see a CD that is deemed as "Special Edition" because it has 2 more songs on it but costs £25+...am I a freetard for downloading the 2 extra songs I like. I don;t think there is a right or a wrong answer on this one. Piracy happens. Fact. It will continue to happen.

*Paris - Because she doesn't mind you downloading her movies"

[Industry Trust - Rob & Felicity]

A view from the creative industries

According to the Creative Coalition Campaign, as many as 800,000 people in the UK work in the TV, film, music and software sectors alone, and with illegal file-sharing depriving businesses of up to 20% of their revenues every year, many of those jobs are at serious risk from illegal filesharing. These include a wide range of people, such as sound engineers, camera crews, set designers, IT workers, make-up artists, journalists, print workers, script writers, proofreaders, retail shop assistants and freelance photographers.

There is a serious threat to the ordinary workers of the industry if illegal downloading is not tackled.

The objective of restricting Internet access for repeat offenders is to prevent them accessing large volumes of illegal content – something that almost everyone agrees is undesirable. Temporary suspension is a last resort, after repeated warnings and due process has been followed, in order to encourage behavioural change.

Rob and Felicity - on behalf of the Industry Trust for IP Awareness

[Anonymous Coward]

a few rambleings

So the freetard/pirate debate rises again....

There is no way in hell I would go and pay to see a movie like “UP”, but there it is, on my favorate rapidshare links site, do I downloaded it and watched it... I have not deprived them of any money, because I would not have paid to see it anyway.... my daughter and her friends all want to go and see it. She doesn’t want to watch it on her PC or on the tv, she wants to go the cinema to see it, so I think nest week some time she is off to go and see it at the local Odeon.. so my download has not deprived them of any money at all...

I have collection of games for my Wii... all of them I have bought and paid for AFTER I had downloaded a copy to evaluate... to see if the game is worth the £30 of my hard earned money.... and I have to say, I have saved myself at least 600 quid on wasted games that are total shite... on from that, I have a nice little hard drive attached to my wii with all the game images saved to, so the originals can sit nice in the box, locked away safely which was very helpful when a real freetard scumbag thief decided he was going to help himself to my property. He may have got the console... but the dumbass left the hdd... and not one single game was lost. It saved me claiming an extra 800 quid on the insurance for games, so the insurance company was happy, I was happy and the kids were happy... the only loose in this case was Nintendo because I didn’t have to go and replace all my games... so I suppose in that respect it did deprive them of some real sales.. My bad...

I started to watch ‘lost’ just before season 3 started, so to catch up, I downloaded the previous episodes. I was hooked... i now download it as soon as I can after it has been uploaded to rapidshare because I can’t wait the extra week before its shown on here in England. As soon as the series is released on DVD off to Amazon I go and pre-order... no loss of sale.... no fiscal loss... I did the same thing with Battlestar Galactica, two and a half men and the big bang theory, plus many other shows...and if flashforward continues to shape up that will be another on the list...

I will often download a movie and if it was good I will make the effort to go to the cinema to watch it again on a big screen... then buy the dvd.

My excuse for downloading is entirely for evaluation. If I like it, I buy it. If I don’t it gets deleted.

As for the comment regarding if petrol was as easy to get free as it is to download blah blah...well it is. For a £700 investment you can buy an oil filtration system. Pour used cooking oil in one end, and get bio-diesel out the other,,, as the owner of several chip shops, I recycle wise... yeah, it may screw the gubberment out of a few quid, but hey, it saves them wasting my hard earned cash on so called expenses and propping up banks that are in a sorry state through irresponsible lending.

drink up me hearties, yo ho.....