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%"
Malfunction, Will Robinson! (Score:5, Funny)
My sarcasm detector must be malfunctioning, I actually had to read that twice before it blipped ...
Re:Malfunction, Will Robinson! (Score:4, Funny)
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:Malfunction, Will Robinson! (Score:3, Funny)
Hold it right there Dr. Smith... (Score:3, Informative)
Your first example is of Catherine Zeta-Jones, she's Welsh not British.
The second is Thandie Newton, while her father was British, she's Zambian and her mother was the princess of Zimbabwe.
The third I'm not familiar with.
Elizabeth Taylor, while BORN in England, is painfully American. Both parents were from St Louis and she only resided in the UK for seven years.
Your only true correct example is Elizabeth Hurley.
I think you're leaving out the fabulous Bond girls t
Re:Hold it right there Dr. Smith... (Score:5, Funny)
Better yet, ask them that in Welsh. They'll probably ask you to repeat it in English.
Without a Country I (Score:4, Interesting)
He could be any passenger waiting for a flight, sitting patiently on a red plastic bench in Charles de Gaulle Airport's Terminal One, luggage piled neatly by his side.
He sips a cup of hot chocolate and scans the crowd, occasionally cocking his head to listen to the airport announcements. He peruses a book, Hillary Rodham Clinton's "It Takes a Village."
But Merhan Karimi Nasseri is going nowhere. He has been waiting for a flight out of France, he says, for 10 years.
Nasseri was expelled from Iran a decade ago for his political views. Through a series of fateful missteps, he landed here without any documents. Since then, Europe's increasingly stiff stance toward refugees and his fragile mental state have kept him at the airport here in legal limbo.
His is a story of broken hopes and bureaucracy, of a trip across Europe in search of a homeland that became a journey into mental chaos and despair. And it is a story of a man who has searched for his family, only to find an adopted one here, at Charles de Gaulle.
"He's like a part of the airport. Everyone knows him," says Muhamed Mourrid, the manager of the Bye Bye Bar, pointing to the spot where Nasseri, 47, has lived for a decade. "That's his table, his chair, his place." Adds Marise Petry, a Lufthansa clerk, "He's one of us. We even get letters for him."
Among the annals of horrific refugee tales, Nasseri's story is remarkable for its pathos and complexity. It begins in Iran in 1977, when Nasseri, fresh from studying in England, was expelled for protesting against the shah. His expulsion left him without a passport.
Nasseri came to Europe. He bounced from capital to capital, applying for refugee status and being refused, again and again, for nearly four years. In 1981, his request for political asylum from Iran was finally granted by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Belgium.
That decision gave him refugee credentials, which in turn allowed him to seek citizenship in a European country. The son of an Iranian and a Briton, Nasseri decided in 1986 on England with the hope of finding relatives there.
He got as far as Paris, where in 1988 his briefcase containing his refugee documents was stolen in a train station.
Nasseri boarded a plane for London anyway. But when officials at Heathrow Airport found he had no passport, they sent him back to Charles de Gaulle. At first, the French police arrested him for illegal entry. But as Nasseri had no documents, there was no country of origin to which he could be deported.
So he took up residence in Terminal One. From its circular confines, he and his attorney, the Paris-based human rights lawyer Christian Bourget, battled to define his status and send him to London. In 1992, a French court finally ruled that Nasseri had entered the airport legally as a refugee and could not be expelled from it.
But the court could not force the French government to allow him out of the airport onto French soil. In fact, Bourget said, French authorities refused to give Nasseri either a refugee or transit visa. "It was pure bureaucracy," said the lawyer. French immigration authorities have no comment on the case.
Bourget and Nasseri then focused on Belgium, where they hoped to reclaim Nasseri's original refugee documents. But Belgian refugee officials refused to mail them to him in France. They argued that Nasseri had to present himself in person so that they could be sure he was the same man to whom they had granted political asylum years before.
But, inexplicably, the Belgian government refused at that point to allow Nasseri to return there. And under Belgian law, a refugee who voluntarily leaves a country that has accepted him cannot return.
In 1995, the Belgian government finally told Nasseri th
Re:Malfunction, Will Robinson! (Score:5, Funny)
Well, you do have Margaret Thatcher...
Not to mention the whole royal family...
Re:Malfunction, Will Robinson! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Malfunction, Will Robinson! (Score:4, Funny)
It's all a big conspiracy.
You probably believe in North Dakota, too.
Re:Malfunction, Will Robinson! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Malfunction, Will Robinson! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Malfunction, Will Robinson! (Score:3, Funny)
later...
Re:Malfunction, Will Robinson! (Score:5, Funny)
Dont know about torrents but emule links here http://www.the-realworld.de/modules.php?name=ed2k& op=Category&cid=1&csid=541 [the-realworld.de]
Re:Malfunction, Will Robinson! (Score:5, Funny)
-Colin [colingregorypalmer.net]
Re:Malfunction, Will Robinson! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Malfunction, Will Robinson! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Malfunction, Will Robinson! (Score:4, Funny)
It also seems to help if they have drunk quite a lot first...
Re:Malfunction, Will Robinson! (Score:4, Funny)
Reminds me of a joke (told from an Indian's perspective of course!!).
Heaven is: American Salary, British Home, Chinese Food, Indian Wife.
Hell is: Indian Salary, Chinese Home, British Food, American Wife.
Re:Malfunction, Will Robinson! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Malfunction, Will Robinson! (Score:3, Funny)
- Best case
- Salary from America,
- Pretty good case
- Salary from England,
- Worst case
- Salary from China,
--Bungei Shunju magazinehouse in England,
Japanese wife,
Chinese food.
house in America,
Chinese wife,
Japanese food.
house in Japan,
British wife,
American food.
Re:Malfunction, Will Robinson! (Score:5, Funny)
Hell is where the police are German, the lovers Swiss, the machanics French, the chefs British, and it's all organsed by the Italians.
Re:Malfunction, Will Robinson! (Score:5, Funny)
Hell is where the police are German, the lovers Swiss, the machanics French, the chefs British, and it's all organsed by the Italians.
We hereby note that the latter arguement should be changed to: Hell is where the police are German, the lovers Swiss, the machanics French, the chefs British, the spellers Slashdot readers, and it's all organsed by the Italians
Re:Malfunction, Will Robinson! (Score:5, Funny)
Ahh there is always a down side :-)
Re:Malfunction, Will Robinson! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Malfunction, Will Robinson! (Score:5, Informative)
I'm a Briton who now lives in Canada. I miss the climate. Vancouver sounds pretty appealing on this frosty morning in Toronto. It was below -20 here before Christmas. I was in the UK over Christmas and out running in T-shirt and sun glasses - no worries about frost bite there. The second year in a row for me. Yeah, it did get below 5C some days, but after what we put up with here that's nothing. No gloves, no hat, just pull on your coat. No shoes melting in to huge filthy puddles by the front door. No shovelling the driveway. In the summer when it's revoltingly hot and humid here, England will be a pleasant 20-25C. The thing is with that place is that the weather is so variable: sun, cloud, wind, rain, everyday! Of course, we're not going see any life here until May, when we get our short month of spring. The UK will start seeing signs of spring very soon (well, at least in the SE where I grew up).
Re:Malfunction, Will Robinson! (Score:5, Funny)
Climate has improved now people drive 4x4s (Score:5, Funny)
It hits 100F pretty much every year nowadays.
Global warming may be turning Africa, Asia and the Mediterranean into arrid deserts, but... actually, now I come to think of it, some silver linings don't have a cloud! (Disclaimer: I'm British and drive a 4x4... albeit only a 1.3 litre, and I live next to a farm)
Re:Climate has improved now people drive 4x4s (Score:3, Informative)
Unfortunatly, the consensus seems to be that global warming will likely result in the UK reverting to the climate you'd expect at this latitude. Think Moscow, Labrador, the Alaskan pan-handle, then warm them just a little from now.
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".
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Malfunction, Will Robinson! (Score:3, Funny)
The devil has all the best food, to go with the tunes.
Piracy is why Battlestar Galactica is on usenet. (Score:3, Funny)
Wrong number (Score:5, Informative)
more numbers... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:more numbers... (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, in that case, Australia's per-capita TV downloads are even higher again, since total proportion of downloads is only slightly lower (18.5% vs 15.6%), yet our population is approximately 1/3rd of the UK's.
I don't know what this says about Australians - other than providing fodder for the old, innacurate convic
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:more numbers... (Score:4, Funny)
We Americans lead the world in quantities of cheap, mindless TV. We are the envy of the world! And half of it is copied from British TV in the first place.
winge (Score:5, Funny)
...and for complaining about absolutely everything in a sarcastic manner.
-Colin [colingregorypalmer.net]
Re:winge (Score:3, Funny)
You forgot singing about the London Underground [ic.ac.uk] too!
(warning, don't play the link on speakers if you're in an office full of easily offended people)
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
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:Makes a bit of sense. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Makes a bit of sense. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Makes a bit of sense. (Score:3, Interesting)
Lucky bastard. I live in Brazil and we still didnt get the final episode of "Deep Space 9". I won't even mention "Voyager"...
Re:Makes a bit of sense. - content origin (Score:3, Interesting)
I suspect a much higher proportion of the content is uk originated and older than many of our American cousins would think.
Sure, the lag between US and UK airing of big new shows is important, but the UK has a huge back catalogue of high quality indigenous content.
The blessed BBC and our private sector public service broadcasters have decades' worth of timeless gems sitting in their archives.
Only a very tiny proportion of this back catalogu
Re:Makes a bit of sense. (Score:3, Informative)
Greetings,
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.
Re:America (Score:3, Interesting)
We do pay for it (Score:4, Interesting)
BBC make enough money to either a) scrap tv license or b) give us cheaper DVD's.
To be honest, I would preffer latter, Most people spend more on BBC DVD's than they do on licenses nowwadays (only takes one or two Christmas prezzies of the office to do that).
So I say, I paid for it already, give it to me. I think it is legal for me to download the prisoner DVD rips (I have never seen this show, I want to) because I pay the license fees already.
TV rental, a lovely fiscal model already in place.
BBC & DVDs...you are slightly mistaken... (Score:5, Informative)
You're a bit off the mark there - The Prisoner was not a BBC show. It was an ITC show, produced for Channel 3 (or whatever it was called then). It was nothing, repeat nothing, to do with the licence fee. If you actually bothered to look at the DVD box, you'd have noticed it was published by Carlton, not the BBC. So do you still think it's legal?
Increasingly, the BBC isn't publishing the DVDs - another company is. Take the Spooks (or MI-6, as it's called in the US) DVDs - they're published not by the BBC, but by the production company (Kudos), who get all the money.
And to be honest, I think some of the BBC dvds are very well priced - take the Red Dwarf DVDs, which retail for about £11 on Amazon for an entire season. I debate you pay "over the odds" for BBC DVDs - I think you pay the same as DVDs produced by any other company or studio.
You do raise some valid points though:
"So I say, I paid for it already, give it to me."
If you read the news, you'd see that's what the BBC want to do. It's even been posted on Slashdot before, for God's sake. The BBC actually WANTS you to be able to download TV shows and radio shows they produce for free. They're investing in P2P technology to try and make it possible. The thing stopping them is actually the issue of repeat fees for writers / producers etc.
"BBC make enough money to either a) scrap tv license or b) give us cheaper DVD's."
The TV license doesn't just pay for TV though...it pays for commercial free radio, one of the most popular internet sites in the world, educational programs and resources, transmission infrastructure, high tech R&D, etc. The DVDs the BBC produce are typically cheaper than other DVDs anyway, or at least around the same price.
"Most people spend more on BBC DVD's than they do on licenses nowwadays (only takes one or two Christmas prezzies of the office to do that)."
Erm. Let me see. Seasons 1 and 2 of The Office cost £15 on Amazon. £15. For 2 seasons. The licence fee is around £115. 15 x 2 doesn't = 115.
Perhaps you'd be interested in what the BBC actually spends the money on - they are accountable for it after all. See the website below:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/licencefee/
So what's your problem?
Re:We do pay for it (Score:4, Informative)
That's one of the reasons why the BBC rocks. Personally I think it's worth the price of the licence fee for just the BBC news.
I absolutely hate.. (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
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: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:Aaaaah, stereotypes (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Aaaaah, stereotypes (Score:3, Insightful)
Excuse me? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Piracy? (Score:3, Funny)
My Boss (Score:3, Funny)
I personally don't see the point: Just go watch the TV for real you fucking nerds!
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!
Women? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Women? (Score:3, Funny)
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.
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:The TV industry failing to adapt (Score:5, Informative)
Did video recorders somehow pass you by?
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 a
Re:The TV industry failing to adapt (Score:4, Insightful)
The Internet is my TiVO.
Ahh reality TV in other timezones... (Score:3, Interesting)
Sarcasm? (Score:3, Informative)
Well, there's chicken tikka masala, no hurricanes or tornadoes, and Keira Knightley. So maybe the /. eds aren't being sarcastic after all.
As a Brtitsh ex pat... (Score:5, Informative)
I'd be more than happy to pay the BBC licence fee, and watch UK-TV legally here in Sweden, but it's not possible. I can't get it through my cable provider, or over the net.
Channel 4 [channel4.com] have a broadband service you can subscribe to, unfortunatly it's not available outside the UK.
The only way to get access to most Brittish TV is via BitTorrent, and the networks can't be loosing too much revenue as they are not provising a service to compete with the illegal downloads. I hope they get their act together soon, I'd much prefer to pay and see the stuff when it's aired.
As for UK leading the world for downloads, what do you expect US TV is crap! We produced this [imdb.com] and this [imdb.com], you guys produced this [imdb.com] and this [imdb.com].
I WANT MY, I WANT MY, I WANT MY BBC
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.
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 substitut
Typo in the article (Score:3, Funny)
Rich.
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
Easy solution to this one (Score:5, Interesting)
1/ The US networks insist on giving us shows AT LEAST 8 or 9 weeks behind them.
2/ Some are then subject to the whim of Sky's programming schedule (Alias for instance has been hopping time and channel since it's inception).
3/ Some don't, or may not make it over here at all (not seen any word on Lost yet?
So, how about a brave new world for the networks? Start up their own bittorrent site. Allow the international TV stations to buy shows to be shown 5 days behind the US broadcast, then after a week seed them for general download. The bonus? They can leave the adverts IN! It would mean a new sales model for them (selling adverts at the BT site point), but it would also mean a new revenue stream. It should't affect thier ability to sell the repeats as there's little difference (and BT would not likely be mass market for a while).
If any TV execs are listening, I'd be happy to quote to manage the service for you!
BBC to offer TV-on-demand over the internet (Score:3, Informative)
They are working to introduce a service where the last 7 days of shows are available for download in a similar fasion to their online radio player.
Additionally they are hoping to introduce a service where archive content is also available for download, featuring old shows that no longer have the same broadcast restrictions as recent content.
TV on demand is already available through networks such as HomeChoice [homechoice.co.uk] which offer both recent archive (spaced, black books etc..) content and some of the shows broadcast in the last 7 days (from EastEnders to 'The Sky At Night'), all provided over a ADSL/LLU network.
To me, all this suggest that the BBC is looking to embrace the new delivery technologies now available. I wouldn't be surpried if they found articles like this Guardian piece to be encouraging, in indiating the public's desire to adopt more flexible viewing choices.
Hardly Surpising, Ye Landlubbers (Score:3, Funny)
Re:TV Tax (Score:5, Interesting)
Thre real reason for rampant TV piracy on this side of the pond is that shows are released a lot later around here, sometimes even YEARS. This does encourage people to take their viewing habits into their own hands.
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:TV Tax (Score:5, Interesting)
ii) Unlike other European countries, they don't need TV companies to dub/subtitle it into a different language.
This is very significant. Even here in the netherlands where most people speak english at an excellent level, the majority of the population is not able to follow a sub-title-less show. I have no idea whether it is due to lazyness (being used to reading subs), actual language problems or unfamiliarity with accents and vocabulary I have no idea. However it is a rather large issue.
BTW, the french have a very active fansubbing community for most mainstream shows. Just search on you favourite P2P netowork for VOST (voix originelle sous-titres francaises).
Re:TV Tax (Score:5, Interesting)
Mostly the "effort". Not that it is difficult, but most people want to sit down in front of the TV and relax and be entertained. I can quite well understand subless Norwegian (native, doh), English and German, already as a teen. I only really "broke off" from subs after spending a year in Germany when I was 23, where naturally there weren't any Norwegian subs on anything (but I managed to get away from the German dubs though - yuck).
I can't really explain it - I would have been able to translate it just as well as a task before that too, but for it to come effortlessly, to be able to tune in and listen to English (and sometimes German, but that is still an effort) as if it were Norwegian, that took some getting used to. Now that I do, I much prefer it this way though. By concentrating on the voice, you hear so much more of the tone and incantation. That, and that certain translators should be flogged.
Kjella
Personal experience (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not entirely a matter of laziness, although it is definitely easier work to watch something in your first language - it's less mental effort and more relaxing as entertainment.
Even if you can speak a language well in everyday two-way situations, the one-way nature of TV and film means that you lack the feedbac
Re:TV Tax (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:TV Tax (Score:5, Funny)
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:What shows? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What shows? (Score:3, Funny)
I would just like to take this opportunity on behalf of my great nation to apologise for the Enterprise thing - not sure what we were thinking, the series must be playing on it's predecessors good PR!
We will petition the PM and get back to downloading Pr0n forwith!
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?
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 a
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:4, Funny)
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 n
In fact... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not sorry if I've offended someone.
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.
Re:plantation laws keep Ameri-sheeple in chains (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe the Aussies and Brits are not subject to a draconian legal system designed to control the common man for the benefit of the wealthy?
I (UK resident) discussed this with a friend, a US citizen, resident in the UK, recently. The US legal system is based on the English legal system, but has obviously diverged over time (just as the Canadian, Australian, New Zealand etc legal systems aren't exact replicas of England's). My friend suggested that, from his experience, the practical difference between the two systems was that the US has comparatively less law, but those laws it does have are upheld. Britain, by contrast, has more laws, but those laws aren't necessarily enforced. I can't comment myself as to US law; but certainly the UK does seem to be full of laws that are rarely, if ever, enforced.
Re:License Fee (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Britain TV is a bit different. (Score:5, Informative)
The rest of the broadcasters in this country are paid for by commercials, spread through the programs at ~15 minute intervals. They are far less intrusive than US ads and we never do things like run the credits, go to a break, come back to the show, break five minutes later, bit more show, ads, then roll the end credits
Re:UK TV Licenses (Score:3, Informative)