Reviews - Google expands block on top file-sharing sites

[Scribe]

The general population don't have a clue about the sort of effort that goes into producing games, movies, music or any other type of file people may download illegally.. So all they see it as is a small disc for, sometimes, over £50.

Personally, I think people should be educated about the time that developers put into making their games, the amount of money spent on making a blockbuster film, or even the effort that a singer will go to just so they can produce their next album..

If people realised the work that goes into these types of media, maybe they'd be more reluctant to download them in future.

I think the issue here is that most people work a very difficult job, some more than others but at the end of the day there's a limit to what people can do in 24 hours a day, the idea that an artist's job could be worth significantly more is morally upsetting.

I think until the culture of earning many millions of pounds a year as an individual is squashed, the feeling that it's OK to pirate wont disappear because it's difficult for people to respect others who distance themselves so far from the norm.

Take Avatar for example, the movie cost half a billion dollars to make but the profit pulled in on that was also half a billion and that's before any further Bluray or DVD sales, that's profit from watching it once and not owning it. When I say profit, that's after everyone involved in the production has been paid, that's factored into the cost of producing the movie.

Given how passively media is consumed, the amount a typical person must consume in a day vs their hourly wage and factoring in that production, whilst difficult, is a one off per product and then thanks to the miracle of digital media, can be copied and redistributed to so many and sometimes several times per person, to maximise sales with no further input on the production team's behalf, I actually feel that current media prices are outrageously high. You could make the argument that sales figure predictions are always a risk but that's what large publishers exist for, to front the capital and be big enough to absorb both loss and success to maintain an overall reasonable profit, which isn't what actually takes place.

What I'm saying doesn't ring true for all media industries or for every instance in a single industry, there are many respectable salaries out there but equally, there are many not so respectable.

[tickleonthetum]

I think the games companies need to realise though that there a lot of people who download cracked games from torrents to test out whether they want to buy them or not. I've done it many a time and am not ashamed to say so, if I hadn't I would never have bought half the games I buy. And no, demos don't cut it as they are often less demanding of your system, and don't reflect the real gameplay... If I couldn't try-before-buy via cracked torrents I would just stop buying games.

Oh and this applies to other software too! Also TV shows from the US... We have bought many DVDs here in the UK after downloading the first few episodes via the torrents, so the companies have made more money from us because of the torrents and hackers than they would ever have done if there weren't any!

There is also a question of availability... Some TV shows from the US never come out on DVD here in the UK (Eg. The Closer, Reaper, Hercules, La Femme Nikita) and most likely never will as they have been and gone in the US. Without the torrents we would never see them again!

So there is a lot of good that can come from File-Sharing even pirated stuff, and the companies should look into that angle as well...

[shaithis]

Google had better be careful, Microsoft may see this as I potentially foothold to raise bings profile!

As for pirated material.....I am afraid that most people have been burnt by music, films and games to the point where they are now wary of slapping down a fee on day 1.

Many will wait for deals, borrow a friends or just pirate it....as much as end users need to respect the content creators, the content creators also must learn the old adage "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me"

At the moment, I am quite happy buying Russian/Chinese/<insert cheap territory> copies of games. I don't mind "taking a punt" at < £20 a game but over £20 and I want to be sure I am going to enjoy it.

[Biscuit]

I use these sites legitimately however i don't see Google blocking them as a problem really. If i give someone the link i will do it via e-mail, forum post, forum message etc. Google cant block that.

I don't see the problem really.

[HW_90]

I thought the decrease was due to a massive crackdown on pirated content by Hotfile, Megaupload and some other file hosting sites earlier this year?

[crossy]

(I think what Fraz is getting at is that if for example you are using someones ROM they will have pointed you to the correct link, you wouldnt have searched it on google you would have been on XDA looking so it doesnt matter what google does to searches for it which i agree with) And yes, that is pretty much what I was getting at. I.e. The ability to search for "film X download" on Google makes me

Ah right - sorry, my bad I'd obviously wrongly assumed that you were accussing megaupload et al of being no better than the PirateBay torrents. As to the comment you made above - agree 100%.

Used to really annoy me that one of the families that the kids used to visit were always downloading this or that, and then saying "oh, whatdaya mean you ain't seen XX, we saw it weeks ago" - because of course me and mine would wait for the legit copy. This echoes the comments you made later in the thread.

[Hoonigan]

as much as end users need to respect the content creators, the content creators also must learn the old adage "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me"

That is VERY true! I'm often very reluctant to buy games on day 1. There's always FAR too many bugs/problems and half the time the owning public need to kick up a massive fuss to get anything done about it.

[Golden Dragoon]

I think the games companies need to realise though that there a lot of people who download cracked games from torrents to test out whether they want to buy them or not. I've done it many a time and am not ashamed to say so, if I hadn't I would never have bought half the games I buy. And no, demos don't cut it as they are often less demanding of your system, and don't reflect the real gameplay... If I couldn't try-before-buy via cracked torrents I would just stop buying games.

I agree, though if a game has a demo I will try that out rather than downloading a full game, I recently did this with BF3, as I was unsure how it would play on my machine, downloaded it, fiddled with it for an hour then bought it.
I would like all games to have a model similar to the xbox arcade titles, where you can download the whole thing, but until you buy it you are limited in how much you can play or only allowed to progress so far into it.
As for movies\tv shows I don't bother downloading them, I just rip my dvd's to a hdd, get much better quality and they are all in one place, the exception is the few films\tv shows I have on blu ray, I downloaded battlestar and a couple of others as I don't have a br drive on my pc, but I suppose owning them makes that ok right?

[streetster]

I'm looking forward to a day where as part of my £20/month broadband package I get unlimited and up-to-date access to music, 1080p movies and TV shows and unlimited bandwidth to listen and watch them in.

As part of the £20, x goes in royalties and everyone lives happily ever after.

[Scribe]

I'm looking forward to a day where as part of my £20/month broadband package I get unlimited and up-to-date access to music, 1080p movies and TV shows and unlimited bandwidth to listen and watch them in.

As part of the £20, x goes in royalties and everyone lives happily ever after.

I already pay £100 a month to Sky (Full TV + Multiroom + phone + Broadband) and $7 a month to Crunchyroll for legal anime streaming =S problem with anime is when it gets licensed in say the US, there's no legal way of obtaining it in the UK and until streaming sites like Crunchyroll came along, there was no other way than downloading for free anime not licensed outside of Japan, it's even made very difficult and if possible, costly, to export directly and then there's no English subs. Then streaming technology still isn't perfect, I find myself having to download content I've paid for and try to stream because the stream breaks up and wont fully buffer or play on certain machines.

[badass]

I'm looking forward to a day where as part of my £20/month broadband package I get unlimited and up-to-date access to music, 1080p movies and TV shows and unlimited bandwidth to listen and watch them in.

As part of the £20, x goes in royalties and everyone lives happily ever after.

In a similar fashion, I look forward to the day that Lamborghini sell their most powerful, fastest cars for a tenner.

[3dcandy]

But you'll be stung for insurance at a cost of £100k a year badass?

[streetster]

In a similar fashion, I look forward to the day that Lamborghini sell their most powerful, fastest cars for a tenner.

Haha it's not quite as extreme as that though... I was paying £13/month for 'upto 20mb' broadband (just moved*), slap another £7 for royalties to everyone and I can get my unlimited entertainment...

In terms of music I could pay £10/month for Spotify, but that doesnt give me TV shows or Films

Maybe one day...


*currently homeless so not paying bills anymore...