United Kingdom Leads the World in TV Downloads 1077
SumDog writes "The UK is known for many things, great food, a wonderful climate and beautiful women. However, according to a story on the Guardian, a new study puts the UK ahead in one more category: it leads the world in TV piracy, accounting for 38.4% of the world's TV downloads, with Australia coming in second at 15.6% and the US in third at a pitiful 7.3%"
Makes a bit of sense. (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, I score TV shows because I fucking hate commercials, and because I don't have an actual television any more. Funny how original Star Trek was about fifty-five minutes long, while newer "full hour" shows are more like forty-two minutes. That's nearly four times the ads. Yecch.
Also, it's convenient to be able to watch them when and how I'd like. And I get to insulate myself from the vast bulk of crap that's on TV most of the time, and pick the best of what's out there. (Firefly, Babylon 5 and perhaps some softcore lesbian porn: The L Word.)
--grendel drago
America (Score:5, Insightful)
Didn't have to watch comercials and it was better quality then the crap Comcast quality I get. I would have paid money to see them in high resolution and with better sound, but these executives just don't seem to get it. I can download a TV show in less than an hour, in fact, I can download faster than I can watch. It is all about the industry clinging to a dieing business model and not seeing the future. Fine, do a 5-computer iTunes thing with DRM, it is not like music where I need to listen to them anywhere.
I absolutely hate.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:known for beautiful women?? (Score:3, Insightful)
"beautiful" american girls are as above. the majority are McDonalds-stuffed rhinos
Or shall we just stop with the stereotypes?
Aaaaah, stereotypes (Score:4, Insightful)
"The UK is known for many things, great food, a wonderful climate and beautiful women..."
I'm assuming this is an attempt at sarcasm, but apart from the "wonderful climate" I wouldn't have realised. Sure we have a reputation for crap food, but then Americans have a reputation as ignorant redneck fuckwits, and we all know that's true, right?
Hmmm, someone has a problem with Brits, no?
Excuse me? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:TV Tax (Score:4, Insightful)
i) They don't want to wait for it appear over here.
ii) Unlike other European countries, they don't need TV companies to dub/subtitle it into a different language.
File under : Not Rocket Science.
Re:Makes a bit of sense. (Score:5, Insightful)
It is also common for some of the less popular series (including some that we geeks tend to appreciate more than the normal tv-watching person) to get cancelled or postponed by the broadcaster mid-season, or to undergo some intruiging re-arrangements in broadcast schedule etc. For example here in Holland, I have seen the first seaon of Futurama on three different broadcasters, but the final season is just now hitting the cable.
If you really case to watch a whole series properly in order and in a timely manner, downloading is pretty much your only option. If you drop the timely requirement, waiting for the DVD releases is a close second.
Re:known for beautiful women?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Good food and good weather? haha cute.
Now on to the topic, TV piracy seems... I dunno almost impossible, ASSUMING it's something I get normally. How can you "pirate" say, Survivor (ugh) it comes on my TV normally, it's not something I couldn't watch otherwise, so what if I decide to watch it on saturday night around 1am via an mpeg? Ok so I didn't record it myself, I COULD have. Is it any more piracy for me to download that episode of south park, or Tivo it?
Sure I suppose if it's something I wouldn't normally get but then another argument comes into play "if I wasn't ever gonna get it no way, have I taken anything away from the provider?" it's not like "hey I was gonna buy this DVD but I downloaded it instead" ok that's theft of a sort, or "hey instead of buying this music cd I got it via kazaa" this is TV shows, they kinda give those away anyway.
Yeah I know, all sortsa lawyers could shoot all sortsa holes in my arguments but really what's being pirated? Either you get the show normally and could easily enough record it yourself or you wouldn't ever get the show at all normally and you're merely adding to the viewership, I can't see how this would be a "bad thing" for the people behind the show "hey not only did we get a nielsen rating of X there were at least another Y thousand viewers via internet downloads, PEOPLE LIKE OUR SHOW, please renew our contracts, k thx".
I dunno just seems like a no lose situation for the studios, it's not like they sell me the TV shows I watch (I wouldn't PAY for most of them UGH TV sucks ass).
Private vs Public (Score:3, Insightful)
I personally hope downloads become more of a broadcast medium. Sure, throw some commercials in that 320x240 video! I'll watch them to watch decent News/Information/Entertainment. If I could subscribe to the Daily Show [comedycentral.com] and scrap cable, I would. Even for like $10-$20 a month. I grab legal stuff from some places like Archive.org [archive.org] and play it on my PDA. There's some good content online both streaming and to download, but the models for getting to it (subscribe al la iFilm/Real, finesse google syntax, pray) suck when compared to downloading a file that I can convert into any format for any player I wish from the pirate channels. This, like other entertainment IP problems, comes down to convenience for a lot of folks. Listen up Networks!
Food for thought for the __AA... (Score:5, Insightful)
Bottled water. Seriously. It's a business model. You don't have to sue people who drink from the tap to make it work, either.
I can think of quite a few shows that I'd pay a bit to see again, and maybe burn to CD. If I knew they'd be available at the same price essentially forever, I wouldn't even bother hoarding them.
Re:Couple things to think about (Score:3, Insightful)
In the US, you can see everything you want on cable first runs. If you want a copy you can TiVO it. In the rest of the world, we have to wait months, or up to two years for them to show up on our sets. In Hong Kong I can buy the Sopranos and Six Feet Under on DVD six months or a year before they're shown on TV. I'm not devoted enough to download them though.
But as for production quality; there are many, especially historical, British TV series of world class and the nature documentaries are the best in the world; often if you look at the credits you'll note they're co-productions with American, Canadian, Australian networks to spread the cost.
Re:We don't want to miss outt... (Score:1, Insightful)
When my DSL was connected, I spent the first 2 months downloading gigs & gigs of television, eager to find out what the rest of the world was watching. All of these television shows the US and Europe was getting that we never saw, not even on cable or satellite television.
And I watched them all, and I downloaded more, and in the end...
I imagine once broadband takeup in australia approaches the maximum, there won't be the influx of broadband-newbies to keep up the multi-GB downloads of foreign television crud that's as bad as our own homegrown crud.
Re:Makes a bit of sense. (Score:3, Insightful)
The TV industry failing to adapt (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, what the industry needs to grasp is that if they provided me a service with:
- Fast download speeds
- No DRM
- Open format video
- Acceptable price
, then I would USE IT instead of getting the episodes using BitTorrent without paying for them.I am not downloading the series because I am cheap, I am downloading the series because of the flexibility it gives me. This is something the TV industry can EXPLOIT to earn money. The Internet will not kill the TV industry, as long as the TV industry understands that it needs to adapt.
Re:Makes a bit of sense. (Score:5, Insightful)
piracy (Score:4, Insightful)
Boys and girls, remember that every time you use the word "piracy" in this context you are guilty of newspeak. The people who want the public to use these words have a political agenda. The **AA want you to associate not for profit copying with attacking ships and murdering people.
Re:Malfunction, Will Robinson! (Score:4, Insightful)
They're not glamourous [tgfmall.com] or sexy [extractando.com], which is why Hollywood won't touch them with a bargepole.
If only we could produce hotties like Madeleine Albright, Condaleeza Rice, and Barbara Bush.
Re:TV Tax (Score:4, Insightful)
Last year, in amongst all those other hours of great television, the best radio in the world, and one of the most important news sites on the net, we had all the Euro 2004 football matches screened. With no adverts and excellent commentary.
It actually cost my friend in the US MORE MONEY, even given the fact that the dollar is worthless right now, just to watch the matches on pay-per-view, with a really, really crap commentary.
So anyone who likes football (and that's a fairly huge number in the UK) should consider everything else their TV license funded last year as effectively a free bonus.
Re:In fact... (Score:5, Insightful)
It works both was I think. Majority of UK downloads are of import series. Majority of US/Canada downloads are probably of non-US/CA series.
I don't think the TV companies realised that they started to lose about 10 years ago. The Internet was not suitable for downloading shows then, but the information about the shows was suddenly far more easily (and quickly) available than it ever was.
People (either side of the pond, or in other countries) suddenly had at their fingertips information about this year's shows - not shows where we were lagging behind by a few seasons, or where the show got dropped before the end. That should have been the signal for the companies to work towards worldwide air-dates. OK they started a little, but not enough.
By the time the Internet could handle downloaded shows they should have pulled out all of the stops and gone for worldwide releases. Instead they hold out for better deals of whatever, but lose viewers. Especially here in the UK where they try to crowbar shows into an earlier timeslot to get more ratings - and cut (or drop - BBC dropped the Quantum Leap episode "Shock Theater" from re-runs as although it was fine for the 9pm airing it didn't work for their 6pm re-runs) the episodes to make them suitable for that timeslot.
Strangely enough people don't like waiting a year or more to get a cut-up episode, or one run out of order.
And (apart from possibly the cutting aspect) I'm pretty sure that US fans of UK shows feel similar to how some of us Brits feel about US shows. In this "new" world of instant information "Last Year's Episodes" just don't cut it anymore.
Who'd've guessed? (Score:3, Insightful)
To borrow a phrase: the market treats restrictions as damage and routes around them. I call "market failure" - or rather, the failure of government intervention in the form of artificial monopolies and de-facto cartels. Britain and Australia download, because the market isn't serving them - it expects consumers to serve the corporations' own fantasies of total control.
The state should let the media companies adapt or perish. THAT is capitalism. Not the fascist state of play in which the government props up corporate monopolies and acts as the corporate policeman. Imagine if carriage builders had been able to block the use of any vehicle that didn't use a horse
Re:Aaaaah, stereotypes (Score:4, Insightful)
Last time I went there, by the time I came back I was absolutely desperate for some fresh cooked vegetables. I felt like I was malnourished, yet I'd visibly gained weight.
Oh, and just what on earth is that shit you think passes for bacon, eh? It's like pork scratchings, for fuck's sake.
Britain's come a hell of a long way on the food front in the last fifteen years or so, I'd say. People's palates have become a lot more cosmopolitan, and the supermarkets are full of variety (although the meat's gone to shit, it's fair to say). Restaurants have come on in leaps and bounds - people eat out far more regularly these days and they're a lot more educated about what they're ordering too.
Re:BBC & DVDs...you are slightly mistaken... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Aaaaah, stereotypes (Score:2, Insightful)
Not all butchers are good. Some just buy in stuff. But if you can find a good one, you'll get lovely meat that's been properly hung. I buy bacon at a farmers market - properly cured, tastes lovely.
Re:The TV industry failing to adapt (Score:3, Insightful)
I live in Belgium and built my own PVR. The biggest problems recording shows over here:
- getting decent program information (no XMLTV service available so you have to use a grabber and the information isn't always accurate)
- most stations decide on the fly to change their schedule/programming because of sport-events and other stuff
- most channels have no notion of starting on time so I have to program the PVR to start recording 5 minutes before the indicated time and record for an extra 10 minutes afterwards.... and still you get shows that aren't recorded completely.
As the original poster said; it's all about convenience. I can watch 1h worth of live TV in 2/3rds of the time when it suits me. I usually get home late from work so it saves me time and allows me to watch when I can.
Re:Food, Weather, Women, Beer, and Teeth! (Score:2, Insightful)
While us Brits don't have this association, so its not AS important to make your teeth look perfect..
Thats my theory anyway.
Re:Malfunction, Will Robinson! (Score:5, Insightful)
As an Expat I am sick of people saying that Britain is a lousy place, with lousy weather, food, beer, women etc.
I hate the politicians [all partys], one reason I will never return, but the climate is great.
[Warm and moist!]
Try living in a semi-arid climate like Colorado. You have to wear skin moisturizer like some girly-man. And the static shocks off of car doors will drive you mad.
Then the food. It is a pitty that the people who appreciate British food the least are the British themselves. The french and italians love their own food, and by talking loudly about it for many years have made it popular worldwide.
The British propensity for self deprecating humour has extended to their food, and made it a global joke. Which Is unfortunate. British food Is actually a damn sight better than it is given credit.
We have hundreds of varieties of cheeses like Cheddar, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Leicester [Red and normal], Wenslydale, to name just a few.
We also have a huge variety of sausages, think lincolnshire and cumberland, and even a meatball called a faggot [Not very PC nowadays, but hey the UK definition is older than the US definition], made from liver and onions, for which I used to run home from secondary school for on Thursdays. ["Thursdays. Faggots and chips for tea"]
We also have the traditional Roast dinner, with Yorkshire Puddings, and it is delicious. [Far better than the US so-called London Broil rip-off.], many different types of meat pie, bread that tastes like bread [How can Americans put up with the bread they eat is beyond me], and of course, our famous fish and chips.
Plus the beer is a damn sight better than the water that comes out of the US. [Except for some small microbreweries and brew-pubs that actually make something with a flavour that you can drink at non-cryogenic temperatures.]
Having lived in various countries I can also testify that the ratio of "mighty-fine" to "minger" is not so bad in the UK as common prejudice would dictate.
Even in the bleak industrial north of the country. ["Eeh, It's grim up north"]
So stop with the ridiculous, sarcastic, and ignorant, jokes about some of the things I, and most other expats, actually miss of the "home country".
Re:The TV industry failing to adapt (Score:4, Insightful)
The Internet is my TiVO.
Re:Malfunction, Will Robinson! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:more numbers... (Score:5, Insightful)
If there was no lag, I think you'd find the download counts a lot more even, or weighted towards the US.
Australia, as you noted, really doesn't have the best speeds/rates for broadband -- a lot of customers would be hit with huge bandwidth bills if they were to regularly download movies/TV shows.
Re:Excuse me? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, they do - that's specifically allowed for in copyright law.
don't complain when they trade them
That doesn't follow. Just because I'm allowed to record a TV show for the purposes of time-shifting doesn't mean that I'm allowed to copy it and give it to you. The copyright holder still retains copyright over it. Also, what people seem to forget is that while you are allowed to time-shift broadcasts, you're not actually allowed to keep them indefinitely (at least under UK copyright law).
Now, I'm not saying that there's really any point to complaining about people trading recordings of broadcasts, but they're within their legal rights to do so. If you don't like that, don't moan about the studios, moan about the law that allows them to do it, and work to get it changed. You can't really blame them for acting within their rights.
Brilliant. (Score:4, Insightful)
One guy wrote that article, there's no need to offend the other 280 million people living here.
I went to England last year and I liked it. Didn't meet too many people like you.
Re:piracy (Score:1, Insightful)
The word 'piracy' in this context appears in my 1958 edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary, which means that this shorthand term for copyright violation is older than the modern use of the words 'hacker' or 'cracker'. The expression was not invented by the **AAs, nor is it newspeak.
"The **AA want you to associate not for profit copying with attacking ships and murdering people."
Which show a degree of subtlety the P2P fans lack...
Re:Aaaaah, stereotypes (Score:3, Insightful)
Obligatory response (Score:3, Insightful)
The term "piracy" has been used to refer to this sort of activity since well before the **AA existed. This meaning is listed in every dictionary I own, and has been for years. In fact, from the Online Etymology Dictionary entry for "pirate" [etymonline.com]:
It's sad how many people on Slashdot seem to accept compaints about using "piracy" or "theft" for copyright infringement as a substitute for informed, logical argument. Ironically, perhaps the biggest offender in the "not quite what the word really means" stakes is the FSF's use of "free", but few people ever object to that.
Re:Hold it right there Dr. Smith... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hold it right there Dr. Smith... (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Show Producers WAKE UP! (Score:2, Insightful)
I would quite happily download AND WATCH shows that contained adverts from the internet.
THINK about it... why bother getting a bad quality rip of a TV show SOMETIMES if you can go to the studios website and download a show for free.
The Studio could sell advert space in the downloads.
I would have no problem watching an advert or two.
Current TV shows are 40 minutes long repending on 20 minutes of adverts to fill up the 1hour slot.
Why not make 40minute shows with 10 minutes of advertising (you will not have the overheads to support of one of the networks!)
but for heavens sake do NOT try to force us to watch the adverts... we don't have to do that now (simply using a VCR and forwarding through adverts, or just going out to make a cup of tea)
surely theres a businessman out there with some nouse...
Re:Malfunction, Will Robinson! (Score:3, Insightful)
Yawn. Little Britain series one, funny. Little Britain series two, repetitive. At least Python played with their own formula a bit, and the Fast Show managed stay funny within their character base. This series of Little Britain has been the same jokes over and over again. Shame.
Re:Hold it right there Dr. Smith... (Score:2, Insightful)
A view from a Mexican... (Score:2, Insightful)
1. Women are pretty, yep at least I can say that the "average" woman is prettier than in Mexico, I may generalize the UK woman as: "if its not fat, its good" but I am just talking about AVERAGES.
2. The food, well it really sucks from my point of view. The only thing I eat are Pizza (Italian?), Kebabs (India??), Hamburgers (USA?) Fries (???) and English Breakfast (now I eat this, and I think is the best thing they have as a dish...).
I have tried something called Bovril (and Marmite), and it tastes Terribly Bad in the bread... it tastes better as an infusion...
As for salaries, I have seen at least for computing seem to be fine (again, comparing from Mexico so... it may not be even).
3. The ppl here is of course colder than in Mexico, and I think that girls are kind of dumb (the average-standard). Someone told me that he bought (in UK) an Atlas of Europe in order to help him traveling when he was in vacation in UK, and, his surprise was that the atlas didn't included UK!!! (so as if UK was not part of Europe for English...)
Why the UK? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Hold it right there Dr. Smith... (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh, she's Welsh. My dad knocked up her mum on the sly; we Welsh are like that. Besides, everyone knows all English men ae really homosexuals that prefer caning young boys.
Ok I'm exagerating. It's just the men in politics and that work for the BBC.
God knows how many half brothers and sisters I have.
Moron! (Score:1, Insightful)
If you still think of "piracy" as attacking ships, you're such a moron you probably buy food for your computer's "mouse" and try not to open any "windows" during winter in order to keep the heat in.
If you still think of "piracy" as something invented by the **AA, you are so braindead you've been easily brainwashed by the same **AA that you hate.
Moron!