
Is it OK to steal “Downton Abbey”? - apress
http://www.salon.com/2012/01/27/is_it_ok_to_steal_downton_abbey/singleton/
======
officemonkey
A. Copyright infringement is not stealing.

B. The internet thrives precisely because it is transnational. This allows for
quality programming to span the world.

C. There is an international market for current episodes of popular TV shows.
There is such a large market that people are willing to commit copyright
infringement.

D. Just because your business model doesn't adapt to the market, does not
automatically mean that your business model deserves protection in the market.

E. Media content creators have long protected their international licensing
agreements with anti-customer technology like DVD Regions.

F. At the end of the day, the customer doesn't care. They will find a better
product in the market.

G. It's my experience that people who pirate out of this frustration, are
happy to pay when it is available. The person who pirated the Christmas
Special would have paid money to see it, it was just not available at any
price.

~~~
jgfoot
OK, copyright infringement isn't stealing. It's copyright infringement. And
copyright infringement is illegal.

I am sorry that some people are "frustrated" because they cannot see their
favorite programs at the same time that people in other parts of the world can
see them. But what a remarkably morally shaky ground upon which to break the
law! My great-grandfather stole food once; his father died when he was eight,
and his mother couldn't support the family. Today, people steal--sorry,
copyright infringe--Downton Abbey because they can't wait to find out whether
Lady Mary is going to marry Matthew.

~~~
mseebach
Morality and legality often intersects, but one does not imply the other. In
other words, that something is legal or illegal doesn't make it moral or
immoral.

It does not follow from your ancestors hardships that downloading a TV show is
inherently immoral, any more that is follows it is moral.

What I consider very interesting in the discussion of the morality of
downloading TV series in particular is in the comparison with DVRs:

Legal: DVR'ing a free-to-air broadcast TV show and skipping the commercial
breaks.

Illegal: Downloading the same TV show, with the commercial breaks edited out.

The only substantial difference in the two scenarios is timing - whether you
will be watching a Christmas special at Christmas or in May, two years later
(as is more often the case with US shows in Europe).

Further noting that the the fact these TV shows airs on such a long delay
reflects the practicality of how the TV show market work, not some particular
desire of the copyright holder, what is the moral principle being breached
here?

~~~
aes256
Just to further underline the divergence between morality and legality, it's
worth noting that under current copyright law, it is illegal in the United
Kingdom to record (i.e. 'DVR') any television broadcast.

It is also illegal to rip a copy of a CD you own to listen to on a computer or
copy to a portable music player...

~~~
sjmulder
In the Netherlands, making a copy of copyrighted material is legal for
personal use. There’s a levy on blank media such as DVD-Rs which is shared
between copyright holders.

------
mgkimsal
_“If they aired a day later,” she says, “illegal pirating would be going on.”_

Probably, for different reasons, but likely not anywhere as near as it is
today. If you knew stuff would be on in the UK on Th night, and you could see
it uncut and unreformatted 26 hours later, you'd be far less likely to have
initially bothered to go search it out.

I submit that the awareness and convenience of online 'piracy' of TV shows has
been driven, in large part, by the frustration people felt by knowing they'd
have to wait months in the first place. Now that there's a whole generation of
people who already know how to 'pirate', they're not going to turn back
(certainly not without a fight - SOPA, etc) but the content industry has
themselves to blame for this again.

We gave up on BBC America back around 2004/2005 because they insisted on
showing repeats instead of decent shows, and not explaining themselves. There
was one week where they showed a combined 96 hours of "ground force",
"changing rooms" and one other insipid home reality show. _96 hours_ of
repeats of just 3 shows. Meanwhile EastEnders was scaled back and they showed
less of that, and kept falling further behind. Eventually, after about a year
or so of EastEnders in 2004, in to 2005, they started showing repeats of
EastEnders from 2004 _in place of the then-current episodes_. It was as if
they thought people wouldn't notice (or care) about getting repeats of a year-
old ongoing soap episode. We quit even trying to support BBC America at that
point, and turned to full scale torrents of any UK shows we wanted.

In the absence of being able to simply pay a UK TV license fee directly to the
appropriate office, we'll just pirate. I realize that $300 still wouldn't
cover all the potential ads and such ITV gets, but it'd be a strong start.

Make the BBC channels, ITV, and a couple other UK channels available as a UK
package on DirecTV or Dish, charge $49/month, and I'd _happily_ pay, assuming
they were uncut feeds.

~~~
corin_
> _Make the BBC channels, ITV, and a couple other UK channels available as a
> UK package on DirecTV or Dish, charge $49/month, and I'd happily pay,
> assuming they were uncut feeds._

From the other side of the pond, I'd like to repeat that sentiment in reverse.

Please don't forget, Americans, that we have just the same problem waiting for
American shows, which there are many more of, and therefore also many more
great shows.

American sport TV is generally already great from the leagues themselves, with
MLB TV, NFL GamePass and whatever the names are for NBA/NHL... but general
entertainment/drama/comedy/etc, it's pirate a few hours later or a long, long
wait.

~~~
subpixel
I disagree. I don't own a TV anymore, and probably never will.

I want to pull up the shows I want, when I want, and watch them where I want.

To do this, I rely on the following services, in order:

1\. Hulu (I'm happy to deal with ads)

2\. Network streams (ditto ads)

3\. The Pirate Bay (when not available through other means)

4\. Another site dedicated to current/past British TV

Re #4 - there's no way, just no way I'm going to wait months to watch a show
on PBS that aired on the BBC/ITV/Ch4 yesterday.

IMHO, the most lucrative path for the industry to follow would be a
subscription model that's tied to usage.

* Users buy credit, and that credit is used as they download content.

* Current content is more valuable - so the current season of a series costs $X/GB, last season costs $Y/GB, etc.

* Every channel/network is in business for themselves (e.g. cut out Apple/Amazon/DirectTV altogether)

I'm not holding my breath for that scenario though.

~~~
corin_
1\. Hulu isn't available in the UK 2\. Neither are (legal) streams from US
networks

------
Chrono
The same problem of course exists for all us non Americans. Most American TV
series air months or years later, if they air at all.

I would love to be able to watch the latest and greatest in entertainment
within a day of it airing but that is not possible to do with legal means so
'everyone' turns to piracy.

~~~
cf0ed2aa-bdf5
Exactly my thoughts.

I'm German so even if my favorite shows finally made it to Germany after years
they are usually butchered by a sloppy at best dubbing. If I insisted on
English audio I'd have to wait another year to buy the DVDs.

I would love to watch my favorite show with ads or even pay for some of them
to be able to support them but unfortunately that's just not possible as of
now.

~~~
kxs
Same here, I don't watch dubbed television shows/movies. The only alternatives
are TNT and FOX atm, at least with sky you have dual audio.

~~~
Vivtek
Oh, God, the German dubs for Star Trek: The Next Generation were _horrible_ \-
they sounded like the same guy did everybody's voices (OK, except for Troi,
fortunately).

And I'll never forget the debut of the Cosby Show in Germany and wanting to
show my college friends this show I really liked - and realizing that without
Bill Cosby's voice, it was utterly, hopelessly worthless. Not the first time
Germans looked at me like I was crazy, but it was a formative experience.

------
tptacek
I pirated Downton.

I pay for BBCA; moreover, when stuff is available on iTMS I buy, even when I
buy the premium cable channel it runs on, even when it's available on VOD,
even (for instance, with The Sopranos) when I own much of the physical DVD
media for it! I've spent many many hundreds of dollars on iTMS for content
that I already had legitimate paid-for access to.

This is of course rationalization; the BBC is entitled to monetize their
content however they see fit. That's capitalism. I rely on congruent norms,
contracts, &c to make my living, and so do you --- even if you don't sell your
own software directly, your wages are effectively subsidized by the
defensibility of IP; we are all of us in the business of selling content for
(on the face of it) unjustifiable premiums.

But whatever, I'm human. This is perhaps a good reason for media companies to
stop doing region encoding and staggered releases and such; it socializes
people to piracy. If you've even got me torrenting stuff, you're probably
doing something very wrong.

~~~
girlvinyl
Sorry to be terribly pedantic, but the BBC does not run or produce Downton
Abbey. Downton Abbey airs on iTV in the UK.

~~~
tptacek
That's not pedantic at all; it undercuts part of my rationale for pirating it!

------
dnlhoust
It's interesting that this topic is something article worthy to the US; I'm
not taking a swing at the US or salon.com. But as someone from the UK, this is
the norm for a good majority of TV shows. I'd even make the assumption that if
someone told me they can't wait for the next episode of a TV show; that
they're waiting for it to become available online for download

~~~
rmc
Yep, USA welcome to what Hollywood does to the rest of us.

------
stevoski
A friend of mine works in BBC sales. He tells me that selling rights for their
TV shows to channels in various countries is highly lucrative for the BBC.

He also tells me that he understands this model won't last much longer. But
until then, for economic reasons, the BBC doesn't want to make it too easy for
you to watch their content directly in your non-UK country without going
through a local channel.

~~~
jonnathanson
International sales, distribution, and licensing has been a major cash cow of
the TV industry for decades. It works in the other direction, as well, i.e.,
from the USA to the UK (and to other countries).

Your friend is correct in that the appeal of this cash cow is why the industry
will fight tooth and nail before they have to put her out to pasture. The
model is going to become irrelevant sooner or later, but for the time being,
it's still paying off handsomely. It will go, but it won't go quietly.

~~~
digikata
The crazy part is that they could replace it with a new cash cow by simply
charging for convenient access. Not only that, but you could deal with fewer
middlemen, get more control over your own product distribution.

------
c1sc0
The irony is that if ACTA passes we'll probably have to VPN INTO China to
freely watch delicious delicious western TV shows on PPStream and the likes.

------
jeffool
The topic reminds me of a presentation by Mark Pesce:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxCoCTc3T5Q>

In it he talks about how piracy has helped some shows, and alternate forms of
publishing (physical media, online). Keep in mind that he's speaking from an
Australian viewpoint and the economics are slightly different in this case
mostly discussing content produced for another market... But it could be good
stuff for you Kill Hollywood thinkers.

------
pistoriusp
Is it illegal to purchase a VPN account in the states and pay for a Netflix
subscription?

~~~
p0ppe
You would probably need a credit card tied to a us-based address as well.

~~~
Kudos
Nope.

------
Hemospectrum
In markets where even a delayed rebroadcast is vanishingly unlikely, online
streaming is absolutely thriving. For example, a whole lot of anime hits
Crunchyroll and Hulu before the fansub groups ever get a crack at it. These
sites and a few others are also expanding into live action Japanese and Korean
TV.

However, I think this only works when there's very little competition (from
broadcasters) for individual shows. The BBC is probably in the worst position
possible for an attempt to move to this model due to interplay between
company-wide policy and the negotiating power of its international
counterparts. Previous agreements with cable companies can't help much either.

------
ramblerman
Now you know you see a franction of the problem most Europeans face.

All our american (TV) content comes in 3-6 month delays. The fact HBO has
decided to scrap their online distribution is just beyond me.

------
georgieporgie
I pirate Top Gear. BBC America butchers the hell out of the program. For
starters, because they can't be bothered to secure music rights worldwide,
they replace all the well-chosen, synchronized music with awful public domain
stuff. Assuming we're all uninterested and intolerant, they often cut out the
guest interviews, despite the usually witty banter being enjoyable on its own.
Finally, in the ultimate insult, before every ad break they actually _show you
the punchline to the next segment_! They literally ruin each and every show,
segment by segment!

If I'm watching BBC America, it's because I want to watch _the BBC_. I don't
want to watch some watered down, Americanized version. I truly don't whether
they hired dumb Americans, or they're just snobby Brits who think Americans
are too dumb for their shows. Either way, it's insulting and not very
entertaining.

So, I can't speak for Downtown Abbey, but if it's treated anything like Top
Gear, I can't imagine why they would think we'd want to watch their delayed,
edited, watered down slop.

Incidentally, I have looked into legal channels for purchasing Top Gear and
they're _all_ edited. The only one that, I think, is legitimately original is
the British-release of the DVD, but I'm pretty sure that I would be
_technically committing a crime_ by bypassing region limitations on those
discs.

So, is it legal? No. Is it morally correct? No. Is it okay? Yes, in my book,
because the value I place on the original, unmodified, timely content
outweighs the legal and moral argument against pirating it.

~~~
driverdan
Hear hear! I'm a huge fan of Top Gear. I even had a subscription to the
magazine (shipped from the UK) before it got ridiculously expensive.

Downloading is the only way I can watch it. Years ago, before I got rid of
cable, it wasn't on BBC America. Now that it's available, in a horrible edited
form, I don't have cable.

I've considered watching it on iPlayer via VPN but AFAIK the quality is much
lower. Plus this would actually put the BBC in a worse position, having to pay
for bandwidth I'm otherwise using from fellow enthusiast sharing the file.

I would pay if there was a way to legally watch it online, preferably in HD
and close to the original release date.

------
tristan_louis
Is it OK to steal content from Hacker News? Is it OK to republish someone's
blog post under your own name? Is it OK to steal free coupons from your
neighbors' mailbox? Is it OK to steal free phones provided by phone companies
(mostly feature phones) ?

If your answer to any of the above is Yes, you probably will think that
stealing "Downtown Abbey" is OK. Otherwise, think really hard and try to
explain the difference.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
What does "steal from HN" even mean? The blog example isn't valid: nobody is
taking shows and putting their names in the credits (at least, pertaining to
this conversation). Coupons and phones are physical items that have very
different rules and mores associated with them.

