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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%"
My sarcasm detector must be malfunctioning, I actually had to read that twice before it blipped ...
Pathman, Free (as in GPL) 3D Pac Man
.. not like any of you whippersnappers know what USENET is...
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 :)
According to TFA, the UK accounts for 38.4% of _EU_ downloads, but only 18.5% worldwide. For comparison, the worldwide number makes a bit more sense ;)
EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
The UK is known for many things, great food, a wonderful climate and beautiful women.
...and for complaining about absolutely everything in a sarcastic manner.
-Colin
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
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. It makes sense that fans who follow the show online would want to see the show as it comes out.
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
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
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.
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
If you had read the article, you'd know it's 24, Enterprise, and Six Feet Under ...
EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
when the press spouts statistics without any reference as to how the data was collected..
No, American girls are ridiculously underwight with grotesquely fake-looking skin. No, actually, that's not true either
"beautiful" american girls are as above. the majority are McDonalds-stuffed rhinos
Or shall we just stop with the stereotypes?
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Quiet you! They'll never find out about it if you don't mention it!
Nothing to see here folks.
Usenet? Why that's what they called the internet before it went global. Yup. U.S. Experimental Network. That's what it was called. Al Gore ya know, he invented it.
"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?
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
Sorry if I'm stating the obvious, but it's television. Signals broadcast through the air. Sorry to burst the bubbles of the folks in Hollywood, but you can't control the genie if you're throwing it out of the bottle at the speed of light. Accept the fact that people have the right to record their television shows, and don't complain when they trade them.
(It's never too late to join the Renaissance)
Exactly. Why do Brits download so much US TV
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.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
The UK is known for many things, great food, a wonderful climate and beautiful women.
This is what is known as a "e u p h e m i s m"! It can be read as "The UK is known for many things, fish 'n chips, overcast skies and slappers."
You forget bad teeth. But a good british accent can be sexy on a woman, not as sexy as a french accent but it'll do.
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 any more piracy for me to download that episode of south park, or Tivo it?
Sure I suppose if it's something I wouldn't normally get but then another argument comes into play "if I wasn't ever gonna get it no way, have I taken anything away from the provider?" it's not like "hey I was gonna buy this DVD but I downloaded it instead" ok that's theft of a sort, or "hey instead of buying this music cd I got it via kazaa" this is TV shows, they kinda give those away anyway.
Yeah I know, all sortsa lawyers could shoot all sortsa holes in my arguments but really what's being pirated? Either you get the show normally and could easily enough record it yourself or you wouldn't ever get the show at all normally and you're merely adding to the viewership, I can't see how this would be a "bad thing" for the people behind the show "hey not only did we get a nielsen rating of X there were at least another Y thousand viewers via internet downloads, PEOPLE LIKE OUR SHOW, please renew our contracts, k thx".
I dunno just seems like a no lose situation for the studios, it's not like they sell me the TV shows I watch (I wouldn't PAY for most of them UGH TV sucks ass).
--- www.f-theocean.com
Piracy is a pretty strong word for this particular act. I like to think of it as Distributed Tivo.
Okay, so a philosopher, a philologist, and a philatelist walk into a bar...
My supervisor at work probably accounts for about half of all the Australian TV downloads. Absolute champion.
:P
I personally don't see the point: Just go watch the TV for real you fucking nerds!
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 and scrap cable, I would. Even for like $10-$20 a month. I grab legal stuff from some places like 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!
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
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.
My other first post is car post.
He got the UK mixed up with the Caribbean. Common mistake.
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
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 had read the article, you'd know it's 24, Enterprise, and Six Feet Under ...
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!
'By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes'
People will pay for bandwidth, then spend time searching and downloading and burning to CD-R that which you broadcast for free.
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.
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 not devoted enough to download them though.
But as for production quality; there are many, especially historical, British TV series of world class and the nature documentaries are the best in the world; often if you look at the credits you'll note they're co-productions with American, Canadian, Australian networks to spread the cost.
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
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.
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
What? They are downloading their TV?
Jesus, we are quite behind in France, we still have to go and buy these damn TV from Darty!!
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
Well, there's chicken tikka masala, no hurricanes or tornadoes, and Keira Knightley. So maybe the /. eds aren't being sarcastic after all.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
"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."
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?
As a Brtitsh ex pat I must be contributing to that statistic somewhat. I'm really missing BBC, and Channel 4, Phoenix Nights, Father Ted, and a load of good documentories and stuff. Thanks to BitTorrent, and a DIVX campatible DVD player (i recommend one of those), I am getting my fix again. (Check out "The Power Of Nightmares, The Rise Of The Politics Of Fear" fro example, I don't think this will be aired in the US in a hurry...)
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 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 and this, you guys produced this and this.
I WANT MY, I WANT MY, I WANT MY BBC
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated up.
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,
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.
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.
Anyone download the Queen's Christmas Speech?
£55? A colour TV license is £121/year, a black and white £40.50 - details here.
It's not often I get to link porn to slashdot and be on topic!
I call shenanigans on the ugly british chick thing.
www.page3.com
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)
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
We only pay for the BBC via taxes, which provides two channels on terrestrial analogue TV, about 7 on terrestrial digital and the same on satellite/cable. ;)
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
Chris "Ng" Jones
cmsj@tenshu.net
www.tenshu.net
Just to put how pitifully cheap the TV License is:
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.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
They still knock on your door to ask you why you don't have a licence even though you don't have a TV. It's happened to me in the past. Either their detection is rubbish or their administration is rubbish.
Rich.
libguestfs - tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine disk images
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 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.
So ... English speaking countries that get second class treatment from the media companies take the matter into their own hands by downloading behind the bloated backs of those media companies.
... why does a free nation ALLOW stupid things like region encoding: it is a complete restraint on free and fair trade, a profit maintenance scheme. Why should $1 of taxpayers' money going into upholding or policing such a anti-consumer scheme?
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
I am anarch of all I survey.
Okay, you monster-modding idiots, the post above is supposed to be *funny*! Flamebait!? Just how uptight and insecure can you get? The baby jebus wept, already.
As an American living in Sydney, I just don't understand the download thing, because we get plenty of sh*t American TV free-to-air, and even more on the 20 bazillion channels on Foxtel Digital Cable (the most advanced digital TV network in the world, BTW, used to deliver mostly sh*t American TV downunder!)
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!
Are you callin' me insignificant 'cos I is black?
Americans don't have free dental care like we do in the U.K. Therefore the condition of teeth becomes an indication of wealth (and status). E.g. if you're poor you can't afford to have nice teeth.
While us Brits don't have this association, so its not AS important to make your teeth look perfect..
Thats my theory anyway.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
In the past they used detection vehicles, which tune in to a specific frequency that is automaticly output by all TVs, by a device that is called the local oscillator. It's then a simple matter to cross-refference "Houses With a TV", with "Houses Paying TV Liscence Tax". The ones that arenn't paying tax get a visit...
That was in the past. Nowadays it's simpler, quicker, and cheaper to check all a list of all homes in the UK against homes with a TV liscence. If you don't have a licence, you're suspected of dodging the licence fee. This isn't actually too harsh, as every single person I know has a TV. (Do you know anyone who doesn't?)
You don't have to pay the fee, though, especially if you dont have a TV. If you do have a TV set but use it for games, or for DVDs, you don't need a licence either.
http://www.tvlicensing.biz is a very good resource for more infomation. If you do find yourself in a situation where you have to deal with the TVLA, contact the Citizen's Advice Bureau, as they will provide much better advice than slashdot, or the Net.
Wanna know what I think? 50p a day for one of the world's best public TV services really isn't bad. Add that to the other BBC projects such as their massive website and their radio services, and their intitiative to digitise their archives and make them available for viewing... it's one of the few things that makes me proud to be British...
The BBC is planning to offer a TV on demand service over the internet blogcritics.org article.
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 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.
Point out how stereotypes are bad, then proceed to cast your own stereotype about Americans. Brilliant.
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.
I mean come on, we practically wrote the book on piracy. Black Bart, Blackbeard, Chris Condent, Calico Jack, Henry Morgan for chrissakes. Hell you could add Francis Drake to the list, the Spanish wouldn't argue.
-- Religion is not an exact science
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":
It's sad how many people on Slashdot seem to accept compaints about using "piracy" or "theft" for copyright infringement as a substitute for informed, logical argument. Ironically, perhaps the biggest offender in the "not quite what the word really means" stakes is the FSF's use of "free", but few people ever object to that.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
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 that were English. I'm not sure of all their names, but you could've researched your torts much better.
Peace
Those clever Brit.s have figured out how to download televisions? I still have to lug them home physically.
You no longer need the TV companies to distribution your shows...
I would quite happily download AND WATCH shows that contained adverts from the internet.
THINK about it... why bother getting a bad quality rip of a TV show SOMETIMES if you can go to the studios website and download a show for free.
The Studio could sell advert space in the downloads.
I would have no problem watching an advert or two.
Current TV shows are 40 minutes long repending on 20 minutes of adverts to fill up the 1hour slot.
Why not make 40minute shows with 10 minutes of advertising (you will not have the overheads to support of one of the networks!)
but for heavens sake do NOT try to force us to watch the adverts... we don't have to do that now (simply using a VCR and forwarding through adverts, or just going out to make a cup of tea)
surely theres a businessman out there with some nouse...
..Is its *far* too close to France.
Well , I am a Mexican who recently moved to Liverpool UK. Now for my experience living here (about 6 months) I must tell I found the following:
1. Women are pretty, yep at least I can say that the "average" woman is prettier than in Mexico, I may generalize the UK woman as: "if its not fat, its good" but I am just talking about AVERAGES.
2. The food, well it really sucks from my point of view. The only thing I eat are Pizza (Italian?), Kebabs (India??), Hamburgers (USA?) Fries (???) and English Breakfast (now I eat this, and I think is the best thing they have as a dish...).
I have tried something called Bovril (and Marmite), and it tastes Terribly Bad in the bread... it tastes better as an infusion...
As for salaries, I have seen at least for computing seem to be fine (again, comparing from Mexico so... it may not be even).
3. The ppl here is of course colder than in Mexico, and I think that girls are kind of dumb (the average-standard). Someone told me that he bought (in UK) an Atlas of Europe in order to help him traveling when he was in vacation in UK, and, his surprise was that the atlas didn't included UK!!! (so as if UK was not part of Europe for English...)
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
It makes sense that the U.K. tops the list of TV downloads. Most of the TV programs downloaded are produced in the U.S. The U.K. is a populous country of people whose culture and language are largely similar to the U.S. Most of the TV programs downloaded are not available in the U.K., or are if they are available, they're aired in the U.K. later than in the U.S., or and only on premium satellite or cable networks.
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..."