There is the legality of downloading films harv.
Plus the big issue for me is the sound/picture quality
Don't even get me started on this debate. Oh damn it. Too late.
The immoral practices of the media companies who produce music and films is unbelievable and it's not the casual buyer who they target with their practices but the real fans. How many different versions of a film can they release. Lord of the Rings or Star Wars are very good examples. We have special editions, Ltd editions, director's cuts, anniversary editions etc etc etc.
When they released Star Wars parts 1 and 2 (Phantom Menace etc) as a two DVD set (before the third one had been released) the back cover of the box set contained the following "contains deleted scenes specially made for this edition). Well they weren't deleted then were they, they were created for the DVD release. It's a great way of getting the real fan to not only see the film at the cinema but then buy the DVD for all these little extras and any subsequent special editions for the additional extras. Music is no different either.
I've heard the argument that you can simply wait for the special edition to come out. Yeah maybe, except you don't know when that will be. It could be as little as two weeks after the initial release, a year, 10 years or 25 years (anniversary editions) after the original. They claim we have a choice, but the fact is we don't have a choice because in 95% of cases we don't know what that choice is until long after we have made an initial purchase.
The media companies are ripping real fans off left right and centre. They get away with it because their immoral practices are deemed legal. It's the effect on the media companies ability to continue these rip offs that really has them up in arms and the loss of their ability to rip people off, not a loss of general sales.
For a start, the big companies did everything they could to stop the likes of Play.com from selling films and music more cheaply (fortunately the internet based companies got around that one). Independent commisions in the past have ruled and categorically stated that media is over-priced, even drawing admissions of that fact from the media moguls themselves. Not that the Government will do anything about these inflated prices because they lose 20p for every £1 we save. Often I'll download a film if I've missed it at the cinema but will wait until it's a reasonable price on Play or in Asda for a fiver before purchasing it - prices that the industry can absorb but don't like to because they are ripping us off. All downloaders are doing is fighting back against this.
I don't buy DVD box sets when they are first released now. The prices at that time are artificially inflated to maximise income from a high demand. Many a box set I've bought in the past has been available 6 months to a year later for less than half the price of the original release. If I didn't download the TV programmes then I would never buy the box sets. Most of which are actually free to air in America or have not even been shown in the UK yet. In the past I have actively written to terrestrial TV channels to promote a show that has not aired here yet, urging them to buy it before Sky get their grubby mitts on it. Nothing wrong in downloading a show that is free to air in my opinion, no different to recording it from the TV.
Another argument they might use is the loss of advertising revenue for the stations that air the shows. Well simple solution, get the cappers and rippers to leave the ads in. People have options now for skipping ads then those that don't want to watch them in the downloaded file can still skip them, as they would if they were using some of the advanced features on a TIVO box or some freeview boxes, or a recording of the show they have made themselves.
Then there's the fact that the companies making shows don't care about the fans. A show could have a few million followers, sell a lot of box sets of its first season but still get axed for low ratings, leaving millions of people with no ending to a story and a box set with no subsequent ending. The fans do ot matter to the corporations producing these tv shows.
They claim that downloading hurts the industry. An absolute lie. It has been proven in studies by respected universities such as Harvard that downloading has a "less than negligible effect on sales". Downloaders fall into two categories. 1. The ones who would never have bought the product themselves in the first place (no effect on sales). 2. The ones who not only still buy the product after they have downloaded it but also buy more as a result of discovering new films, TV programmes and music as a result. (an increase in sales, people seeing live performances).
It has been proven that a large majority of downloaders purchase far more as a result of downloading. Stopping downloading will have a negative effect on sales.
Then there's the fact that artists these days get a miniscule amount of the money from the sales of music these days. I prefer to buy an artist's CD's at a gig if I can, because they get a number of copies to sell themselves and they get a full slice of the money when they sell them at gigs. Most acts make their money from live performances these days.
It's why X-factor is great for Simon Cowell. The recording contracts he gives the winners makes him a fortune from sales to the mugs who buy them, while the winners themselves get a pretty poor deal out of it.
I fall into category 2. I don't often download films, usually as a result of missing it at the cinema but don't want to waste money buying it on DVD/Blu-ray unless it's any good, so I like to see it first. It's bad enough when you waste £10 on a cinema ticket to see a film that turns out to have been overhyped. You can't get your money back for a crap product at a cinema. I would save a fortune on music and films if I didn't download because I'd never have kown about half the stuff I have bought. I have seen a lot of bands/singers live I would never have bothered with if not for downloading.
There's also the fact that many people, like myself, prefer a hard copy of a CD, DVD/Blu-ray or a book to a digital copy of the media. A digital copy is a temporary thing for me or, in the case of music, something I can slap on a DVD/CD for playing in the car without having to carry the original media around with me. (I'll leave DRM, the disgraceful way it has been used and the way it infringes our consumer rights out of this debate for now).
Then there's Sky, who wait until a series is popular then poach it from terrestrial TV to basically try and force people to subscribe to Sky on top of a TV license to continue watching those programmes. Immoral. Lost being a very good example. Thank you torrents. (I own all six series of Lost on DVD but have only opened the packaging to watch some of the special features).
The final thing to note here is that government plans to stop downloading will fail miserably. New technology will be developed to circumvent it. It will also backfire on their attempts to stop what they claim are crimes funded by piracy because most people who download using torrents and the like don't pay for it, thereby not providing the criminals with any money. By stopping downloading they will see an increase in actual piracy, which with the advent of sites such as e-bay, will lead to unstoppable levels of piracy and people buying what they think are genuine products there but being ripped off by untraceable companies selling pirated copies on the net.
The use of proxy servers will rocket. Again leading to a greater awareeness of these and an increase in their use to mask real crime. The development of greater encryption levels for use in downloading software will also lead to more safeguards for criminals. Attempts by goverment security departments to break this encryption will affect confidence in e-commerce.
Whoever is advising the government is misguided (or in the pockets of the media companies) and the government are a bunch of idiots. They won't stop downloading, but they will increase crime and help facilitate crime by their actions. The Government's advisors clearly have no I.T backgrounds/qualifications, that's for sure.
A simple solution, which would bring in large sums for the media industry beyond what they already get, is to implement a levy on downloaded data. It only has to be a very small sum. Say 1 or 2 pence per gig. It would hardly be noticeable for those not downloading large amounts. For those downloading a lot of data, be it legal or otherwise, it wouldn't be a lot. It wouldn't put off those who already buy what they download from buying it and would still rake in extra money from those who wouldn't buy it in the first place.
It's the same as is already in place and a principal that lead to a judge in Canada ruling that file sharing is legal because the media corporations are already being paid a levy from the sales of recording equipment and blank media, which was first introduced when the humble cassette tape was invented and the argument about people taping from the radio and from LP's and then CD's raged in the way that the downloading issue does today.
People are already paying a levy on their internet connections and broadband to supposedly fund upgrades in the systems, the roll out of broadband to underserved areas etc. So any argument of why people who aren't doing anything wrong should pay is moot. We're already paying for other people's connections.
