What is the general concensus on torrents? For example, I like watching a program called The Sky At Night. Sometimes I miss it as it is usually on at midnight or later and if I forget to set the box to record then I can watch it streamed from the BBC website for a limited time. However, once it's gone from the website there is no way of me watching it apart from the people that have uploaded it via a torrent. Whats the view of doing this?

Another example, I am now in Australia. They do not air that same show over here at all. Due to my location, I am blocked from streaming it over the internet, and my proxy is not that good. What is the view of me sourcing it via a torrent?

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"Right actions in the future are the best apologies for bad actions in the past."

Careful here. Discussion of pirating material, whether it's IOS or TV shows, is not permitted.

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blog.brokennetwork.ca

Hmm didn't think. Remove?
Is it pirating?

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"Right actions in the future are the best apologies for bad actions in the past."

Naw, not going to remove or lock it. Just be mindful where this discussion goes. I don't think there's anything wrong with talking about the inconvenience of being forced to watch certain shows in a specific timeslot through only one medium as that's an archaic practice that the entertainment industry seriously needs to get over. However, until that changes downloading a copyrighted piece of material from any channel other than one approved by the copyright owner is pirating, plain and simple.

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blog.brokennetwork.ca

I don't see why torrenting TV series should be illegal, if you have already paid for a service like virgin/sky and already have access to those shows, I don't see how torrenting them is harming anyone. If on the other hand you don't have a TV license and aren't paying for any services, then the companies are losing out on money.

I don't want to hear anyone mention "But then people don't see the advertisements which support the companies bla bla...", honestly who watches them anymore? Everyone I know either flicks to another channel and watches something else until they are over, or go and do something else until they are over. I just see advertising as mass brain washing to steal peoples money. They air them over and over again, with music or stupid slogans, the amount of people who say "simples" and still think it's funny is unbelievable. If punching them in the face wasn't socially unacceptable I would.

And don't get me started on go compare

LOL Sam. I have a TV license for my home in England (which pays for the BBC viewing, only). Did you know that if you are blind you get a discount?

And just about everyone I know either mute's the TV during the ad's, or does what I do and use that time to go and make a cup of tea. When I had Sky+ back in England, I would purposely pause the beginning of the program, go and make tea and then come back and press play so that during the ad's I could fast forward through them.

I still think they should get rid of the TV licensing though. We're the only country in the world with that kind of system, and there are many websites set up to provide info to people on how not to pay it. It is supposedly against human rights but I can't see that written anywhere formal. All because the BBC whinged about other TV companies making TVs which were cheaper and could pick up the BBC broadcasts.

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"Right actions in the future are the best apologies for bad actions in the past."

Advertising also causes massive power surges, as everyone turns on their kettles at around the same time during the breaks in coronation street, this could be dangerous, another reason to get rid of advertising, people are becoming ad-blind now anyway.

my view, torrents are never a good thing.

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"If you're good at anticipating the human mind. It leaves nothing to chance."
-Jigsaw

That's why man invented DVR. I rarely watch anything except sports that I didn't record first and just fast forward through commercials. Sometimes I'll channel surf but always flip channels during commercials. Just seems like a huge waste of company funds if you ask me but I'm probably not their target demographic either.

As far torrents go, I don't see a problem with them as long as the material isn't copy righted and is free to distribute. Still need to be careful as hell with them to make sure you know what you are getting.

IMO downloading TV shows from torrents should not be illegal, it should be embraced. The main issue is advertising though - most shows available for torrent don't have commercials. This leads to issues as companies pay to have their spots shown during certain times of certain shows, so the advertising company loses out. Also, the cable/satellite subscription services trend who watches what when, especially when streaming on the interwebs, all in an effort to get better demographics to sell ads at higher premium for specific target audiences. They can't (currently) do the same for torrented content.

In the states & I'm sure most of the world, most broadcasters offer avail spots during certain commercial breaks that can be covered up with local content or ads. So Crazy Bob's Used Autos in Tacoma loses out too.

Why should a free, peer-to-peer based content distribution system be embraced? Most broadcasters use satellite transmission to get most of the content on air from the source, though many are embracing network based transmission & some even using (or at least experimenting) with internet based delivery. The cost of this is extremely high for satellites, and still high for network based due to broadcast television SLAs.

Though if the broadcaster is distributing to the customer via peer-to-peer networks, local affiliates serving television to local customers lose out too. And if peer-to-peer is the way to go, why do we need broadcasting at all? Producers & television networks can distribute their own content. But then how do they get paid?

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I don't have a signature.

Well, of course it's not good, it's stuff people worked for and others are getting it for free.

That aside, the industry does make it interesting to do it. In my country, a recent study showed that more than half of the series downloaded here are the ones that aren't available here (yet), nor on television, nor in stores. That by itself shows a huge profit potential for the industry I think.

Second, we have this crazy law here that when buying an external data carrier (empty DVD, external hard disk, USB stick), you have to pay a fee to an organisation that contributes to the industry, as a compensation for the illegal downloads. I have no exact numbers but the fee is somewhere around 9 EUR for a 1 TB hard drive. The crazy part: the fee is always required, even if the disk in question is used for legally downloaded music, or own materials like a personal collection of photographs. And the torrents are still illegal, even though you actually paid a fine already this way.

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http://reggle.wordpress.com

@Reggle, That's pretty crazy.

The same levy exists in the US on blank cassette tapes, and CDs. Kind of stupid to me, but it exists.

-Otanx

Isn't there a fee guitar shops have to pay, because it is assumed a customer will play a well-known riff, so the shop owes some sort of performance fee?

usenet

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www.mellowd.co.uk/ccie/

alt.sex.pictures ?

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"If you're good at anticipating the human mind. It leaves nothing to chance."
-Jigsaw

I think a lot of people torrent not because they want to steal, but because the way that TV content is delivered to you is so draconian compared to the way it's delivered via the net.

A technology driven paradigm shift is coming to TV within the next decade or two.

Television stations problem with torrents isn't so much you aren't watching the tv show
when they want, it's that you aren't watching their commericals when they want.

Keep in mind the shows aren't their product and you aren't their customer. You are their product
and adveritsers are their customers. If you are allowed to watch a show whenever you wanted,
using torrents or hulu or netflix, then they couldn't charge different rates for prime time
advertisements.

Yes, this is inevitable.

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"Where I excel is ridiculous, sickening, work ethic. You know, while the other guy’s sleeping? I’m working. While the other guy’s eatin’? I’m working. While the other guy’s making love, I mean, I’m making love, too. But I’m working really hard at it."

Tricky... Alot of these things were covered back when video tapes 1st came out (at least here in the USA) and it was decided that you could tape shows and share them with your friends, so that part is (I beleve) legal... however DVD ripping isn't legal, and i am not sure about editing the shows after you capture them (like taking out commercials). Over all I don't think it's something your likely to get in trouble for... but I am not taking that chance when I can just buy it for usually less than $30 on amazon/iTunes.

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Freedom to all the people. Unless I think you're wrong

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