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United Kingdom Leads the World in TV Downloads
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%"
I guess that just shows that the television we all want to watch is not available to us (in Australia) via normal means. I guess those figures also show that we're all watching American telly :)
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.
Pathman, Free (as in GPL) 3D Pac Man
I know a lot of countries have TV Licenses - but the BBC takes the piss. We *PAY FOR THE PRODUCTION* of a TV show, but then pay OVER THE ODDS for the DVD's when they come out.
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.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
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).
Pathman, Free (as in GPL) 3D Pac Man
If you ever go on a t0rren7 site that has UK TV shows on it, you'll find that many, if not most, downloaders are people living abroad craving for quality TV. Many are living in yankistan or canuckistan. I won't hazard a guess if they're all Brit refugees or natives.
I'm not sorry if I've offended someone.
I'm sorry if I haven't offended anyone
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.
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
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I will never forget the hot Florida summer my girlfriend and I spent indoors hooked watching British and Australian Big Brother... I'm not kidding, I downloaded about 40 GB worth a month off of usenet as it was posted, quite fun to keep track of with the time differences. Marco should have won.
What post? The one you're carrying inside your rusty innards!
Actually, I would imagine that the TV license is indirectly responsible for a lot of TV downloading. The TV license funds the BBC, and the BBC produce programs without advertising. This means British people are used to being able to watch quality programming without advertising - something that you can get from the Internet but not from most other channels. BitTorrent can be used as a time-shifting mechanism for programmes on channels like Sky One (15 minutes of adverts every hour! Who has time to watch that much?) which strips out the adverts - much like a TiVo. Used in this way, the legality is very close to the border line. It would need to be tested in court, but I think it would stand up.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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.
This is where the serious fun begins.
You obviously haven't watched Sky then. They place adverts right after the opening titles, exactly as you describe US TV. In fact, Sky One has more ads than the UK free-to-air channels, and yet you have to pay a monthly fee to view it. It's a nice deal for Murdoch, I suppose...
If your comment title says 'Re: Foo', I'm not likely to read it.
The UK used to have a lot of bizzare local laws that predate the existence of the USA. A lot of these old laws (such as ones requiring you kill Welshmen found after dark in some towns, etc) were repealed in the 1970s and 80s. Other laws on the statute books, such as blasphemy, are not enforced and the Home Office goes to pains not to enforce them but Parliament hasn't devoted the time to specifically repealing them. The USA had the advantage of a revolution neatly clearing out all the old rubbish and allowing them to start again but I can't see us ever getting round to that in the UK, and so new laws overrule parts of old laws and interpretation of which bits of what Acts are relevant comes down to the courts and/or CPS.
If the complaint were coming from a Frenchman, Italian or Spaniard, I'd have some respect. But people who live in a country whose major culinary export is the Big Mac and who have some of the highest rates of heart disease in the world should take a look in the mirror.
The TV companies have made a noticable improvement in getting American shows over here in the UK earlier. The Simpsons is now often shown on the Sunday after it is shown in the US, although Fox's annoying random breaks cause it to bump around a lot. Episode 5 of 24 is on next Monday, the CSI family of programs have all started new series (I think), and Battlestar Galactica was shown here first. So it seems like this TV 'piracy' has actually made the companies involved change their ways and give us what we want. It's obviously not the best way to instigate change (as it is still breaking some law/s, I assume), but it seems to have been very effective.
This comment was formatted for readability, but I forgot the line break tags
I'm a native English speaker, and I also speak Japanese and French fairly well. I can and have watched films in those languages without subtitles. However, watching with subtitles is easier.
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 feedback loop that allows two people to find a mutually comprehensible vocabulary when talking. When watching foreign-language material, it's very easy, having missed one important word, to lose the thread of a scene. Being able to glance down at the subtitles for reinforcement and correction really helps.
Frankly, I like watching English stuff with subtitles on as well, so that I can check on misheard or confused dialogue. But I might just be weird that way.
If your comment title says 'Re: Foo', I'm not likely to read it.
Similar one about Canada: with close historical links to three countries, Canada could have had American salaries, French cuisine and British culture. Instead they got French salaries, British cuisine and American culture.
If you consider the following.
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!
Well, since US television tends not to make it to Britain for a long time after it airs here, it makes a bit of sense. A lot of shows have a one- or two-season lag time.
Lucky bastard. I live in Brazil and we still didnt get the final episode of "Deep Space 9". I won't even mention "Voyager"...
It would be interesting to see a breakdown of content by origin.
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 catalogue is actually aired, mainly due to licencing deals with subscription based digital channels.
As a consequence there is significant demand for downloaded DVD rips of series from the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, that haven't been seen on free-to-air TV for decades. The first re-showing of "The Prisoner" for ages and the recent revival of Doctor Who are indicators of this demand.
Considering that the UK has roughly 1/5th or so of the population of the U.S. (60 million UK, compared to probably 300 million US), the number of downloads per capita is much larger over there.
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 convict stereotypes - but it's even more impressive considering that Australia has a relatively low rate of broadband penetration (supposedly due to our sparse geographical distribution, but more realistically due to Telstra's virtual monopoly on land-line infrastructure).
You know what. I actually had a funny experience in the states (I'm german). Beeing the huge Buffy fan back then I already owned seasons 1 and 2 on DVD. Then I went to NYC to see SW Episode II (what a lame movie) and while beeing there I went into the Warner Superstore and looked for season 3 (hmm.Faith!) on DVD. The lady told me it wasn't out and that only season 1 was available in the states. Then I told her that in germany season 2 was already available. Her answer was neat: "Hey, man. Why don't you just get it shipped to the states from a german friend!". Well, obviously she didn't really get my point. But then again, she gave me the address of a great club later in the discussion.
;-/
My point beeing, I think there should be some sort of "die hard" program for TV shows. I mean like, if you have an account on the international series homepage and bought at least two DVD sets and preordered the third you can get streamed episodes from their servers or something.
But I guess this will never happen since the show creators sell their episodes to the network wich makes money out of commercials. No interest to sell the content prior to the second hand international airing.
Still it feels unfair that I have to lag 2 seasons just to watch the trashy GERMAN synchronisation on TV and wait another year for the DVD release.
It's also worth noting, in defence of the license fee, that many programs for the BBC contain plenty of rights issues outside the scope of the BBC. It's all well-and-good to assume that the Beeb's output is entirely paid for and OK to redistribute yourself, but it is usually riddled with considerations like "is that top 40 single playing in the background of this piece licensed for redistribution on the internet?"
o ries/2004/05_may/26/creative_archive.shtml
The Beeb paid for it to be in the show, but probably not to be strewn across bittorrent! Not that it's particularly my concern, but it doesn't legitimise or legalise anyone's p2p use of BBC material.
Also of consideration is that the license fee is subsidised by sales of DVDs at whatever price. Loss of sale of BBC programs on DVD will directly affect the cost of the TV license (though, not by a lot - profits from the BBC commercial arm make up only a small part of the overall financial picture.)
There is hope on the horizon though:
-- http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/st
The BBC Creative Archive is looking to open the BBC archive under creative commons licensing. That will ROCK.
There's something else cool coming out this year from the bbc website, too, but I can't find a link to it so I should wait until I can!
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
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
She's got a pretty amazing background. She grew up in Montgomery, AL when MLK was getting his start and the civil rights movement was firing up. One of her childhood friend died in a bombing then and her father had to keep a shotgun to fend off people wanting to drag the family out into the woods, so she's a staunch supporter of the 2nd Amendment.
Her family was piss-poor and yet she ended up getting a PhD and running an Ivy League school (lookup what a provost does). Also, she's fluent in Russian which gets kudos in my book.
A friend of mine who swept her limo for bombs told me she was the nicest person around, but then if you ask anyone in the military or SS who worked for the Clintons before this administration you'll hear nothing to the contrary about a member of this one.
For what it's worth, the people in the White House paid to take bullets have been a lot happier in the last four years than they were in the preceding four. Dis their politics and take scary pictures, but they're nice people.
Direct away from face when opening.