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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
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.
If you had read the article, you'd know it's 24, Enterprise, and Six Feet Under ...
EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
"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.
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.
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
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.
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
"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.
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?"
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.
Tiggs
"120 chars should be enough for everyone..."
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.
"Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." -R. Feynman
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?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Ask the Welsh if they're British.
Better yet, ask them that in Welsh. They'll probably ask you to repeat it in English.
I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.