Why are people still downloading illegal films etc?

[Jay]

I 100% agree that the entertainment industry is a greedy, selfish, money grabbing pig and I also 100% agree that ISPs (bar a few) are lying, cheating almost fraudulent enterprises but people who torrent huge films etc are just making other people's life harder.

DRM, copy protection, throttling of bandwidth, FUP and all the other restrictions and intrusions are there, not because these people want to be a pain, but to try and stop people copying or downloading illegal files and also the ISP's use this as an excuse to restrict usage and in turn reduce thie operating costs. The more files are downloaded the more intrusions are put in place. the issue is that the people who don't do any of this are caught in the cross fire and have to live with the consequences.

The people who download films think they are going against the system, standing up against the corporations etc (or that's how they try to justify it) but in reality they are just as selfish as the entertainment industry and just as cheating as the ISP.

/rant

[spac3d]

Alot of the bandwidth you see is from legal sources too. Internet TV has just become quite big to the general public and people are watching it left right and center!

Also, I don't think that 'big films' i.e The Dark Knight have been affected by piracy at all, they are planning to roll our cinema viewings in some areas in the new year, which I think people would love to go and see! 'big films' never ever come to screener/watchable rips anyway, because the security is so tight or whatever I assume.

In a nutshell, It's just 'easier' to download films/tv. People still collect DVDs.

[Steve B]

'big films' never ever come to screener/watchable rips anyway, because the security is so tight or whatever I assume.

Not true, but Ok.

Maybe people download films illegally as they dont want to pay the better part of a tenner to get into the cinema, pay for sweets/popcorn whose prices border on extortion, have the film ruined by crying child/abusive ned/incontinent person who goes to the toilet ever 2 minutes.

I can totally see the attraction in going to the cinema!

[Steve B]

The people who download films think they are going against the system, standing up against the corporations etc

have you considered that they might download films because that's their preferred distribution mechanism?

maybe if the companies got wise to a better system, there might be less piracy.

however, movie piracy and fair use policies are a totally different issue.

The issue of fair use would still arise if everyone sat there torrenting linux distributions, so I fail to see how it is relevant.

[CrazyMonkey]

Pay £8.50 (my local 'Vue' cinema) for an adult ticket (Im only 16...) to sit in a cinema - most probably be annoyed by some total idiot and watch a film that doesn't live up to hype?

I don't like to pay out my arse for an adult ticket, when i am technically not an ADULT. It's total bullsh!t. If the corporate pigs werent so greedy i would go watch more films at the cinema. But i generally have a better experience watching films at home, i dont get annoyed, i dont pay out my ass and i can go get food whenever i want without a giant bill.

Oh and many 'big' films get screener leaked early

[Steve B]

most probably be annoyed by some total idiot and watch a film that doesn't live up to hype?

The last time I went to the cinema, there were people running up and down the aisles. Good Job Odeon!

[shaithis]

I personally download the odd film. Basically anything that I want to watch that is released cut in the UK or has a later UK release date.

And I wouldn't even do that if they didn't add a stupid regional restriction to BluRay that (as yet) we cannot work around.

You can see by my DVD collection that I prefer US releases and always buy bought US releases wherever possible.

[Zadock]

The last time I went to the cinema, there were people running up and down the aisles. Good Job Odeon!

My last experience was on saturday seeing quantum of solace, that was an ok experience. Cost me £7.20, the price has shot up over the last two years.

the time before that I went to a fairly early showing and the place was full of 14yr olds throw stuff around the cinema at everyone and playing with mobile phones. One little pikey was sat at the back and kept hiding after he'd thrown something... when the lights went down I took the little gob ***** out with a granny smith, needless to say he stopped throwing things.

Anyway, whats with all the defending piracy here? I don't think it would make much difference if you made films available legitimately online people would still download them somewhere for free because they don't want to pay for it. I agree with Jay, this isn't about the effect of piracy on the film industry its about the effect on people who don't download stuff, on their internet service. why should people who aren't downloading copious amounts of copyright material be penalised along with those that do?

The people that continue to download seem to have the same ridiculous morality... in reality its just greed, I suspect that half the stuff heavy illegal downloaders download, they don't even watch anyway.

[sleepyhead]

For some people, because downloading illegally is "free".

For me, I've almost stopped going to the cinema. There's been the odd time I go (for example The Dark Knight) but the seats in most cinemas I been to have been utter tripe, viewing of the screen is ok except with the person infront is 6ft 6 or has a big hairdo, and of course the other people in the cinema who 'forget' to turn off their mobile phones, constantly need the loo, constantly eating crunchy food, constantly fidgeting (due to the crap seats) thereby disturbing my viewing pleasure. Anyhow, that is a problem for the cinemas and not really answering the OP.

I wait for films to be available on DVD/Blu-ray and luckily I have a friend who always seems to buy the films/series I want to see so when he visits or when I visit him I get to watch it (his home cinema set up is really nice compared with my 2.1 setup). Films these days just don't really appeal to me; especially as my friend called me up after watching Quantum of Solace and basically said "don't bother".

So sub-standard cinema, sub-standard films = why bother paying £8 for a ticket and STUPID amount of money for a drink and popcorn?! Easier to wait till it's on Blu-ray/DVD and own a copy you can watch time and time again.

[dangel]

Alot of the bandwidth you see is from legal sources too. Internet TV has just become quite big to the general public and people are watching it left right and center!

Very true, look at all the fuss over iPlayer etc.. Worse still (for ISPs) people want to use it at peak times (i.e. evenings) when contention is highest.

I read that sainsbury's are doing a £99 per year all-you-can-eat DRM-free music service now - now that's the kind of thinking that makes good sense to someone like me. Let's hope the same comes to pass for other media!

[shaithis]

I agree with Jay, this isn't about the effect of piracy on the film industry its about the effect on people who don't download stuff, on their internet service. why should people who aren't downloading copious amounts of copyright material be penalised along with those that do?

It goes both ways.

Why should people NOT use their "unlimited" connections?

XBox360 now has a film service, BBC has iPlayer, C4 has their content delivery system etc etc.

You can point the fingers at pirates all you like but a ton of bandwidth being used out there is 100% legitimate and is clogging up the system due to penny-pinching ISPs who are happy sitting on their 5-10 year old infrastructure trying everything they can to get their PAYING customers to use their connections less,instead of upgrading their networks.

[dangel]

Though for most, it's BT Wholesale who are dragging their feet..

[Steve B]

QFT. I pay over the odds for a 20Mb internet connection, which I can only use during the night, because if I use it too much, i go back to snail pace?

[Blitzen]

Line contention and throttling is the fault of the ISPs and not the illegal (or legal) downloaders.

If these companies insist on selling their 'unlimited' services then they should honour it. If they cant, that isnt down to the users, its down to the lying ISP.

[Funkstar]

i've just skimmed this thread so sorry if it can already been covered.

Why are people still downloading illegal films etc?

Because they can?

There are a lot of poeple that will download anything they can get ahold of simply because it is there.

And as others have said, it is stil the prefered distribution method for some. A friend of mine (not a veiled atempt to say it is me, it isn't) downloads a lot of TV even though he has Sky+. Most of the content on his PC he cound had recorded on Sky, but that would mean it is kept on that box and he can't easily get it on his laptop to watch in his bedroom. So he just doenloads it all. Him and his flat mate have about 1TB of downloads along with the full Sky+ package of regular channels and sports (not films).

[format]

I 100% agree that the entertainment industry is a greedy, selfish, money grabbing pig and I also 100% agree that ISPs (bar a few) are lying, cheating almost fraudulent enterprises but people who torrent huge films etc are just making other people's life harder.

DRM, copy protection, throttling of bandwidth, FUP and all the other restrictions and intrusions are there, not because these people want to be a pain, but to try and stop people copying or downloading illegal files and also the ISP's use this as an excuse to restrict usage and in turn reduce thie operating costs. The more files are downloaded the more intrusions are put in place. the issue is that the people who don't do any of this are caught in the cross fire and have to live with the consequences.

The people who download films think they are going against the system, standing up against the corporations etc (or that's how they try to justify it) but in reality they are just as selfish as the entertainment industry and just as cheating as the ISP.

/rant

I download some films now and then, and more often that not I'm disappointed. If I see a lot of good reviews for a film or its something I know I'll like then I'll go to the cinema.
If I were to buy/rent/watch at cinema every film I fancied then I could end up spending close to a £100 a month, and as a student that's something I'm not even close to affording.
I think it's hilarious to hear the film industry bitch about 'lost profits' when they take £5m in ONE DAY in the UK alone.
When film stars start getting paid less than £20m a job I'll consider spending more money on their films.