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Posted by Tusan Promoted 64 days 23 hours ago 940 views
Technology / General Tech
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10 comments
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A article about how we're being watched for everything we do online.
Although this watching has been going on for years, and has led to many court cases because of illegal downloads, ISPs seem to want to take it one step further.
In the UK most internet users will now know if they download illegally, they may receive a letter through the door stating anything from their internet connection has been cut, to court cases. At the end of the day that can be seen as justified, since they are technically stealing.
But although they are stealing music or films from the associated industry, does the industry really need the money?
We hear about money they are losing from the amount of people downloading instead of buying, but how many people here, that download stuff for free would actually go out and buy all the stuff they download.
I have a pretty expansive CD and DVD collection, movies I like I will buy on DVD, even though I could just download the whole disc to get the extras and movie for free. The same with CDs, I actually like having a physical music collection.
But in all honesty I can say I have downloaded so much material, stuff I haven't even listened to yet (scatman discography) or watched (The hills season 1&2 but that was cause of my girlfriend) that I wouldn't dream of buying. The only reason I have downloaded them is because I can, simple as that.
When the industries say about how much money they lose from piracy, it will never be an accurate account of how much they would have lost compared to if you were not able to download the material simply because a lot of people would not want to buy it.
They are simply going to go by estimations of how many people have pirated the material and assume that they would have purchased it making their loses to be higher than they would actually be.
It also comes down to the fact of the actual products, if they are any good people will want to buy them, if not they won't buy them and may take the alternative to buy them.
Internet piracy is very important to me as I use it a lot of times as a try before you buy method. I have bought many movies after I have downloaded them and watched them, similar to the way I also have either bought movies I've seen at a friends house, at the cinema or seen on a TV or sky digital channel because I enjoyed it and wanted to watch another time.
For music it is the same, I have downloaded a lot of music and then ended up buying the CD because I like it. If I had just went out and bought the CD and listened to it and thought it was terrible it would put me off other purchases because of the fact that I may waste my money again.
But if I am in a club or at a friends chilling with a joint or drinking and a song comes on I like, I will find out what the song is and download it and some other tracks by the band. If I like it I'll end up buying a CD or 2 of their music.
The reason for me doing this is because if I buy the CD or DVD and simply do not like it, I can not return it as it is not in a re-saleable condition (work part time in a customer service department in a large Tesco store and have heard many complaints about not being able to give refunds unless faulty) which I agree with, but if you are disappointed with the goods, will you not think more carefully in case you squander your hard earned cash?
Sadly out of most of my favourite bands I only have a few of their CD's, and I am glad that best of cd's are made as it allows me to buy one album and get my favourite songs rather than buy many.
Some of my favourite artists artists simply have to many for me to afford (The Beatles and The Rolling Stones come to mind) but I do own all of radiohead's CDs including having forked out on Ebay for a few EPs.
Yet from about 4 years ago after I probable owned 2 of their albums, I would download their albums before buying them, always dreading it'd be a bad album, but since it has not happened yet I have been more than happy to buy them, including paying for 'In Rainbows'.
If entertainment industries want people to stop pirating they should relax more about it, stop taking peoples money away so they can't then afford to buy the actual product and let people buy products if they think they are good.
Instead they are going to the extent of fining people (girlfriend's dad's friend got fined recently for downloading illegally which has made her dad block her pc up lol) and watching peoples on-line activities.
I have also heard recently that people now downloading excessive amounts will be monitored, and their connection can be cut for excessive downloading, illegal or not. One of the ISPs involved with this is Virgin broadband, who start capping your speed if you are downloading a lot.
Personally I feel this should not happen, ok I can understand the monitoring of them, but to the point of capping them because they are downloading a lot which could be legal downloads?
One thing I always buy is pc and console games, I have in the past of course pirated pc games, but have never wanted one of my consoles chipped and have always forked out my cash for the games.
Now though I always buy my pc games, and my per fared method of buying games is through 'Steam'. Through packs I have downloaded, my steam games list has amounted to over 80GB at time of writing, and there are a few games I am looking at buying when I get a bit more money.
Now for when I move over to Newcastle in September time where I have a pc I only built in February and is a good gaming machine with 1.25TB of space for downloads and games etc., I will need to download all my games again as I am going to be formatting my pc for the start of the new university year. That will mean that I've to download 80gb+ of games I legally own through steam.
By September time though I know all the new about people being restricted due to the amount they are downloading will be heavily in effect.
So while they are trying to stop piracy it will mean me having to go back to the ways of buying games from shops rather than through steam, and the simple reason of steam being my per fared method of purchasing games is for the fact that I know I can't lose my serial key for games like I have done before in the past by losing manuals, and I know I will not need to search for a friend who has a CD for the same game, because my CD has got scratched and I need to reinstall, or have to go on dodgy sites to get a no CD file because the CD isn't working, and also simply because it means I just need to remember a log in and have an internet connection (when I normally buy games for on-line features so need internet anyway) rather than have to carry around a case full of disc, and be annoyed at a LAN because I forgot the CD so can't join my friends.
The only solution to not getting caught at the minute which is just minor protection is to use peer guardian when downloading (also brings up interesting finds on who is watching you like the Miami Dolphins being connected to me).
But how long will that be effective for? The only way to stop it would be to get everyone globally to download illegally, then how can they do anything if everyone is doing it But that will never happen so we will be stuck in the Big Brother world we are currently in, which raises the question whether all this technology we take pleasure in using is really good, and it is used to monitor us as well.
(Sorry for any improper structure but it is 10:14am and I haven't been to bed yet because of a pain in my throat and swollen gland on my neck and I'm tired :P)
