Online Piracy

[TriplexDread]

Online Piracy Will No Longer Be A Criminal Offence In The UK


The British government has now decided to decriminalize the piracy of films, music and games meaning that users caught downloading and sharing pirated material will no longer be fined or prosecuted.
Starting in 2015 those caught pirating material online will receive four letters telling the individual that they have committed an illegal offense and well that’s it!

The reason for the change in policy is that the government have found the current punishment plans to be largely unworkable and pretty sensibly so Ofcom recently released these figures:

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...ers-a-year-9618818.html?origin=internalSearch

stating that almost a quarter of all downloads in the UK were of something pirated which would be a hell of a lot of people to prosecute.
While after next year individuals will no longer be fined or prosecuted the government says it will still continue to try and stop the funding of pirating sites
but overall it seems like our government has given up the fight against online piracy.

 

[Ian]

That's a surprising change - I suspect that this could work quite well at deterring kids from downloading things, as I imagine many parents wouldn't be too pleased! However, it may come as a relief to other serious downloaders!

 

[TriplexDread]

I suppose it was to be expected.

I think it been discussed before here. Absolutely no way could the law even attempt to incarcerate everyone that downloads off of the internet. They just haven't got he resources or man power. I do believe though as the article suggests they will go for the massive copying rings. Those who have dozens of burners in towers making dozens of copies per minute of movies etc

For Joe blogs and his mate however I think it's going to be a free for all

 

[Urmas]

Let's look at this bit:

In addition to cutting off internet access, industry rights holders also wanted...

(emphasis mine)

Right. Just about as mature a view than that of the proverbial 14-year-old pimple faced "pirate" saying that all content is fair game for downloading AND redistribution. This "industry's view" reduces internet access to a mere entertainment distribution channel exploited AND controlled by "industry rights holders".

Broadband access seen as a universal service? Services (banking, shopping etc.) morphing into eServices? Naah... insignificant in the reality according to "industry rights holders", looks like.

This mini rant was inspired by the simple fact that (at least here in Finland) internet access has become a necessity. Paper invoices cost money, "paper mail" in general is disappearing, if you don't want to pay your invoices electronically, be prepared to pay €4—€8 "extra" per invoice — and good luck with finding an actual bank branch dealing with money and invoices. And so on.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Was online piracy illegal then Ted?

Crikey.

 

[Anon_F]

Was online piracy illegal then Ted?

Crikey.

Mr Floppybootstomp you do make me laugh sometimes!!

 

[floppybootstomp]

Fank yoo birfday boy

Related to this: Ever wondered why there's been such a resurgence of audio on vinyl?

It's cos the record companies realised you can't burn a vinyl LP or upload it. And generally speaking a vinyl LP will currently cost twice as much as a CD.

So all those lovely people at RIAA and the BPI should be loving me to bits cos they are coining it

And remember folks - home taping is killing music. And it's illegal. (circa 1977)

 

[bootneck02]

Oh yes you can FBS I have a deck that converts vinyl analogue into digital signal so one can download vinyl to the PC , I haven't used yet so have no idea what it sounds like though

 

[floppybootstomp]

Oh yes you can FBS I have a deck that converts vinyl analogue into digital signal so one can download vinyl to the PC , I haven't used yet so have no idea what it sounds like though

Aye, I'm aware that vinyl can be recorded to WAV, FLAC & mp3 files, I've been doing it for around 13 years now. Interestingly, digital files recorded from vinyl actually sound better than their CD equivalent, in my opinion.

Having a dedicated turntable with a USB output makes life easier but I use a good quality turntable into an amplifier and take the amp's tape 2 rec output to a digital interface (A Focusrite Scarlet 2i2) which has a USB interface to the computer.

Then I use software to record the vinyl tracks. I use a paid for version of dbPowerAmp (which I think is very very good) but you could use Audacity or Waveosaur which are both free for the same purpose.

If you took the output from any ordinary turntable through a phono stage (cheapies are around £25) you can take the output from that into the computer's Sound Device Line or Aux In and get the same result.

But vinyl still discourages copying as unlike duplicating a CD or transferring audio files to CD which is basically pushing a button and waiting a few minutes, recording vinyl has to be done one track at a time, in real time and involves a lot of stop-start and physically placing the stylus on and off the vinyl. This tends to put people off copying.

There is software which claims to be able to spot the gaps between vinyl tracks, including dbPowerAmp but in my experience it doesn't work very well. Or I suppose you could record your vinyl LP's one whole side at a time but that's not ideal is it?

 

[Abarbarian]

Phew that is a relief. I can now download all the new Dr Who series without worrying.