Absolutely not, I'd be perfectly happy to pay a reasonable fee (for music I now have a Spotify subscription and I love it!) or be forced to watch adds or whatnot. I keep waiting for hulu.com and similar sites to eventually (hopefully) open up to Europe, but I'm not holding my breath :\
But until that time I just pirate stuff of the internet. (They haven't even aired anything past season 5 of Scrubs yet here, at this rate I will have to wait until my death if I want watch Game of Thrones...)
Even worse is when you try to _buy_ something but can't because it's not available for your country or because they only take domestic (US) credit cards. No, it doesn't seem unethical to me, not one bit.
I am similar. I'm in Ireland and use Linux. They don't cater to me, so I'll just pirate it. It's a much better service. I'm a capitalist and consumer, I've made my vote.
Not at all. Most series I watch don't show here (or with crappy translations), and even if they do sometimes only a few years later. So I just torrent it.
If I actually like something I tend to buy it as a physical disc from amazon.com and let it catch dust in a corner. Even though the quality is (still) clearly superior from a blueray on my screens, the hassle-free experience of torrented mkv's is just much better for casual (re-)viewing.
Well, I'm also from Portugal and I can say that...
Actually, most relevant TV shows are available here, on cable, with proper subtitles (dubbing is very rare in Portugal, unlike other european countries). Some shows are just one episode behind their US counterparts, but most are a few months/a season behind.
Cable TV is widespread, and on more rural areas where the "cable" doesn't go, the providers have a satellite alternative. So, every one that wants to watch these shows, can.
So, it's not really ethic to pirate TV shows. But only in the sense that if most people pirate, the cable networks won't have much (financial) incentive to keep the shows close to their original airing.
You're right. I completely agree with your last sentence. Although it's really hard for people to buy movies/tv shows for a lot of reasons: when we get a proper DVD with subtitles it's weeks if not months behind the DVDs from the US; if we want to import (because it's cheaper) you have to pay a lot of additional euros for transportation; if you wait to see in the television for 3 or 4 months, you always get into spoilers from friends, the web or even television;
I guess it's hard problem and everyone has a point. Let's wait and see if the situation gets better because they get to win a lot providing a better service to fans/consumers.
Interesting question. My initial reaction was "no". But I realised I don't do it. I guess I just don't watch much TV anymore. Anything worth watching is worth buying the whole series for.
Where I live, most shows air a few years late. I don't feel bad about torrenting them when I want the latest episodes. However I do go out and buy the earlier seasons on disc (though I'm suspicious about how authentic those discs are - they're certainly expensive but the printing on the CDs seem to indicate otherwise)
Well actually I do. If they don't want me as a customer, so be it, but that's their choice to make. I'll usually import the DVD box from somewhere around the world (mostly the UK, Singapore or Hong Kong) as soon as I can find it.
These DVD's end up being converted in Handbrake, and end up as a digital copy anyway. It's also a bag of hurt... but let's hope Apple brings movies to iTunes here soon.
I didn't say I do it. I'm just saying that people resort to it in my country as a way to avoid paying very high prices for media. I usually wait for the shows in television, although I have to wait a few weeks to see the latest episodes. Movies, I go the cinema or buy the DVDs because I really like to have DVDs of movies I love.
But until that time I just pirate stuff of the internet. (They haven't even aired anything past season 5 of Scrubs yet here, at this rate I will have to wait until my death if I want watch Game of Thrones...)