[Samuel_Michon]

“It's also not free.”

Sure, but the creators also don’t receive any compensation from you. It’s like jumping the turnstile at a subway station, figuring that because you bought NewBalance sneakers you're already paying the government for providing public transport.

That said, if I could pay, say $100 a month for ‘all you can eat’ pirating (providing that money would go to the studios and artists) I’d love to.

[josteink]

I think his point was that people aren't pirating purely because it is free, but because the experience is superior in every way measurable, even to the point that people will pay for pirating.

User experience counts. You'd thought companies like Apple and Google had taught us that by now.

[alan_cx]

Indeed. Even in the UK were we have the brilliant BBC iPlayer, downloading from other places is still a better experience. Quality and speed win out.

Of course, the BBC gets it funding from a licence fee, so it kinda doesn't matter (I pay the licence fee there for I have already paid up, so what does it matter how I see it?) apart from the fact that the BBC cant include a non BBC download in its figures.

I think that to be honest the experience point is a red herring. Its really about it being free. My position here is that in show or movie advertising, or product placement, is the best way to go. That way we get the show for free, and the producers get their advertising money.

If I in the UK was able to go to, say, HBO in the US and download a show for free, I would. Even if that meant a special international free version that was non HD and contained adverts in the middle, or even product placement. But I cant, so I would go for other sources.

This will only settle down when they release shows for free at the point of watching, and find other ways to make their money.

Capitalists: this is supply and demand. Its very basic and the fact that so many huge businesses and politicians seem to have forgotten the most basic law of economics is frankly contemptible and offensive to any one with half a function brain. Worse still is the government interference that seems to want to use law to criminalise citizens who are obeying the laws of supply and demand, while offering a protection racket to the very organisation who should be primarily guided by it, but chose to ignore it. This, IMHO, is a vile and disgusting abuse of law, society and government. Its up to the business to adapt, not have their old control freak behaviour endorsed and protected by government, who's election funding depends on such organisations.

And BTW, this betrays the biggest flaw in US democracy, which has become little more than those with money get to buy the government and dictate legislation. The military industrial lot paid for Bush and we get war. The media pay for Obama and we get draconian protection rackets.

Oppps, again, longer than I intended......

[Samuel_Michon]

Definitely, and I agree.

Going back to OP’s post: just because I pay for cable (which I hardly watch) doesn’t give me a pass to download freely. Netflix is a good alternative, but it’s unfortunately not available where I live. My only legal option to get the TV shows I want to watch is iTunes (which is fine, but it doesn’t have everything, and sometimes you have to wait.)

[calinet6]

I am definitely not justifying it—just saying that people are paying something for it, thus would probably be willing to pay for a service that offers similar functionality as well.

It is absolutely jumping the turnstile. No doubt about it. I have no legal or moral justification for this other than it is achieving a really high quality experience that you can't get any other way.

[CognitiveLens]

Your analogy doesn't really work, because with the setup the OP is talking about, the claim is that the media companies could provide the same services and get the revenue directly.

No one would claim the subway operators should be providing sneakers, or that people would pay for sneakers from the subway operators.

[toddrew]

I pirated it as well. I could have watched it on tv, but I opted for my laptop. The content creators were paid long before I made that decision. They would not have received any more money had I turned on my tv or not.

[noptic]

Look over there! The Point! Oooooo you missed it.