I fought the law and...well, okay, I didn't fight.

[barrington]

I'm a thief. I steal the BBC's intellectual material by downloading it every week. This is a fairly inoffensive crime to most people, of course, but let's not kid ourselves and think this should be okay by the law just because I do it in a way I find ethically sound (i.e. I plan to spend money and buy the DVDs when they come out, rather than just download and watch it). But all bad things come to an end: the torrent tracker site I used to find the new episode each Sunday, btefnet, is one of six sites sued on May 12 by the MPAA. And it's down, there's a placeholder "domain parked" site where it was. I haven't been able to find a replacement, though it's likely one will spring up somewhere.

So, no new Doctor Who for me now until the ABC catches up to where we were up to, which by my calculations will be July 9th. Ah well, we've had a good run.

As usual, though, the MPAA doesn't seem to want to go about this the carrot way. As people better versed in cultural theory have no doubt said before m, the nature of entertainment delivery, of how it's viewed, is changing. Information has been freely available on the Internet for such a long time that to take it away is seen as an outrage by some, and the MPAA is not winning any fans. There are people out there - many of them, apparently - who see nothig wrong with downloading films or music, let alone television episodes, for free. (Television is usually held apart in such arguments as it is broadcast free-to-air, so no-one's depriving anyone of revenue. Of course, this is bollocks; if you don't watch the program when it airs, then the ratings are lower than they "should" be, and the advertising for that program becomes less valuable. And of course there's now DVD sales to think about, and the majority of people who regularly download this stuff do it as an alternative to buying DVDs, rather than as a shortcut to seeing the program before DVDs are available.)

But at the end of the day, with press releases like this one, the MPAA is interested in making it clear no-one should stand against them, which will only make it a challenge to serious file sharing networks to try again. As long as they continue to hold out on giving a cheap, legal paid download service (as the BBC has been reported to be working on in the past), they won't win any fans by such legal action, despite the fact that they are in the right to take it. And they are; I don't deny them that. They just need to follow up with something, because otherwise they'll never change the attitude of the people who steal content - who no doubt feel a bit like Robin Hood or at the least like they're sticking it to the man.

Comments

[klig.livejournal.com]

www.isohunt.com

[mean-eyed-cat.livejournal.com]

Hell - I was wondering what happened to btefnet :/ I'm 100% positive that the new eps will spawn given perhaps a bit more time - there's no way I'm waiting until the ABC starts screening!

[delwyn.livejournal.com]

www. mini nova .org

and the new one is there

[spunkart.livejournal.com]

I can't make it to Monday nights Dr Who at the moment - I've been booked up for the next couple of weeks. That said, I've now got Broadband, so I will be trying to track them down for myself. :)

Mike

[hnpcc]

Heh. You and tra4ce should get together and have a commiseration session...

I'll join you when we get to TAR8. :-)

[delvene.livejournal.com]

Can't speak for the ABC or BBC, but the main reason I watch "illegal" copies of Lost is that you can't rely on the tv station to run them every week or on time - how many times has the show prior to Lost run up to 25 mins over time? It's some crappy show and they're just trying to boost their ratings. I just hope that my Lost source got the last few episodes before it was shut down. :(

[vaingloriesque.livejournal.com]

I'm a thief. I steal the BBC's intellectual material by downloading it every week.

Hmmm... have a look at this article.

[Excerpt:] "A few weeks before the air date, an "unfinished" version of the first episode of the new series leaked onto the internet through the BBC's production partner CBC. Hundreds of thousands of Doctor Who fans downloaded the episode, wanting a preview of this new version of the nearly-immortal Doctor.

The BBC were publicly outraged, but there's a strong sense that this act of piracy, while not officially sanctioned, was unofficially encouraged by BBC. It certainly created a groundswell of interest in the series, allowing people to "try before they buy," and probably increased program viewership.

The episode drew 10.81 million viewers to BBC1, which is among the highest ratings Doctor Who has ever seen."