Legal grounds - some of you say what he did was illegal. Fine, can you please show me a federal law (or your state law) that specifically prohibits the unauthorized DOWNLOAD of music or software? I am not talking about unauthorized uploading/sharing/hardcopying.
Secondly, the moral grounds. Do you really believe that a season that will most likely never be released (because it wasn’t finished) will make any more money for the publisher, that will now not have been made because Jeff downloaded it? Remember, Jeff bought other episodes when they were available. In the rare event that the publisher decides to release the episodes of the half finished season – yeah, Jeff would have a slight moral obligation to go out and buy that, but small compared to e.g. returning a wallet someone just dropped on the street.
IN FACT - BUSINESS IDEA (who wants to do it? contact me
Let’s say a movie or show just came out, and has now finished airing. You can sometimes wait for YEARS for this show to come out on DVD. How about making “NO FEATURES ADDED” versions and releasing them through legal channels? Imagine such a company, handling this.
Basically, a die-hard fan might want to purchase the video as soon as the series/movie ended, for a high price. There are lots of those, I bet (although you’d have to do market research to verify). Now, is it a blow to the company to allow them to buy that stuff in advance? No. If they illegally start copying it, then yes, possibly. Otherwise, the company gets good PR and most people get the video - just like of a news show.
@ Matias : better safe than sorry ;). The actual “terrorism” does its effect well, I agree. The lawsuits are on the basis of an IP address where you at least have the option to prove that it’s not yours. This here provides, well, uh, more concrete evidence. I don’t think any Coding Horror fans would like to see him cough up $ridiculous,- because the MPAA can hold this against him.
To get back to mr. Petzold’s riposte: I think we don’t even have two but three different groups here:
those who actually steal. Different from copyright infringement as already explained, bad analogy, using it doesn’t help.
those who demand the product.
those who demand the product with money in their hands yelling “I want to pay for it”.
The argument against entitlement he puts forth holds up for the first and second group, but not the third. It’s just very hard to prove that someone belongs to the third group since there’s just no option to pay.
Digital media removes the treshold of production; sadly, not the ones of the accountant’s work of dividing the money afterwards or paying for the bandwidth/storage space. Outside of artistic principles I can’t see much reason in holding anything back, or it’s the kind of questionable marketing Disney does by only “unlocking” video or DVD for a short timespan.
I love uTorrent… Azureus is such a memory hog in comparison, uTorrent is a wonderful light weight client that does everything Azuerus can do but at minimal costs.
@Evan M: “BT protocol is running on a central server”
Actually, check out Azereus’s “WebUI” module – I run it on a headless box, and then you can use the web interface from other machines to upload torrents (or URLs of torrents). It doesn’t give you full configurability that the “real” interface does, but it gives you all the necessities.
And of course, the key is it makes it very convenient to relegate all the heavy data lifting to the house server, while your personal laptop(s) can come and go and not be competing for upload nor tied up with a long term connection.
Sorry I just had to comment about this, I know it might seem a bit pedantic but…
informatics /#716;#618;nf#601;r#712;mt#618;ks/
–noun (used with a singular verb)
the study of information processing; computer science. (from dictionary.reference.com)
Also referred to as information science (which is, unlike this particular entry suggests, slightly different from computer science). Anyway, it doesn’t mean what you seem to think it means.
I was a big fan of season 1 of boomtown. I saw every season 2 episode of Boomtown (over the air) and there is a reason it was cancelled and never released on DVD. Not worth the drive space to steal, er download them.
I found your article because I too have been searching for Season 2 of Boomtown, but to no avail. Where did you find those episodes available for download? Please let me know.
First of all, Utorrent is by far the best gui bt client. in console mode rtorrent is usefull as well. Second, stop bitching about the screencap with the IP addresses in it. Ip’s are usually dynamic, and most of those are probably invalid, or linked to new computers by now. If not, the chances of any of them being put to a malicious use are fairly low.
Third, Downloading shows is not stealing, it IS copyright infringement, and does hurt the artist, but in this case, there is no legal way to acquire the show, and therefore no money is being lost. Although i occasionally make use of UT, I try to buy movies and music whenever possible.
p.s. slightly off topic, but not all artists care if you download their stuff. Trent Reznor was released from his contract with the record label for telling an audience to steal his latest album and share it.
way to stick up for yourself. if the ‘powers that be’ come after you, take the case to court and face your own (unlikely) ramifications. somehow, i don’t see how a publicly broadcasted show that is OOP can be defended in court. who’s to say you didn’t create your own divx files of said episodes from video tapes that you created? i doubt half of these skeptics would copyrights concerning a video taped show, just because thats the way it has always been.
and rubbish to petzold, he’s just bitter that you dumped on his crappy books.
For every Jim Baen, there is a Charles Petzold. Sad, really, but some people just don’t get it and probably never will.
Downloading an orphaned work does not in any way replace buying a DVD. case in point: I downloaded all of the Venture Brothers episodes as soon as the torrents were available online. Why? To watch them! I love that show. And as soon as the DVDs were available, I bought them. Why? Because the quality is better, and to support the people who make the show. Same thing with Mystery Science Theatre 3000. And, I have absolutely no doubt, the exact same thing will happen if/when the full run of Boomtown is made available on DVD. I would be willing to bet any amount of money that Atwood will buy those DVDs if/when they become available.
That’s what the Digital Rights Mafia and the media robbers barons and precambrian dinks like Petzold just do not understand – they think like thieves, so they think everyone else thinks that way. And a few people are – but most people aren’t.
