Williams: Illegal downloading is scumbag theft
The boss of News Limited Kim Williams has labelled the downloading of pirated TV shows, music or films as “scumbag theft”.
In a speech to the Australian International Movie Convention, Williams called for new copyright laws and the the National Broadband Network to be forced to act over the content its users download in the future.
Labelling the issue one being driven by the type of people who hung out in the hip cafes of Melbourne, Williams said: “How many people, I wonder, had already seen Downton Abbey or Mad Men or Bored to Death before they screened here? This illegal viewing is fast becoming the norm in certain circles. And there’s a good chance those latest release movies haven’t been seen at the cinema, but on iPads or on DVDs using a pirate copy one of their friends is handing around.
“If you want to know how they manage this amazing feat, you don’t have to go far to find out. I know you are all familiar with the dark horror of it. All you have to do is type words like ‘download free UK TV’ into a search engine and someone will tell you, quite brazenly, how to break the law and steal other people’s property and worse still ad serving technologies will deliver up ads supporting this scumbag theft with real Australian ads for major finance, telco and other products in Australia! They … entrepreneur revenues from real advertisers with their ill gotten material blithely indifferent to the economic havoc it occasions.”
Williams rejected the argument that downloading is a victimless crime. He said: “In reality, what these sorts of sites do is help you steal. Morally it’s no different from telling you where the keys are to the local DVD store, what times the shop is left unattended, how to switch-off its and electronic alarm system. All with a catalogue of the current best-sellers all thrown in.”
He drew comparison between watching illegally downloaded content and looting during last year’s London riots. He said: “Last year we saw outrage at ill-educated young rioters in London throwing bricks through shop windows to steal pairs of expensive new training shoes. Well, digital content, whether it be in the form of books, music, movies or TV programs, is a new hot consumer item, and illegally downloading it is the equivalent of smashing a window and taking it.”
Arguing for tougher laws and codes of practice for internet service providers, he said: “I believe it would be appropriate for the NBN to be included in any code and be obligated to take reasonable steps to stop piracy.”
Williams rejected the argument that content makers have themselves to blame for failing to make new content available to buy quickly enough. He said: “The fact is, more and more legal content is going on line every day. And there are more sites offering legal content, more easily and at lower cost to you computers and mobile devices.”
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lol.. old people.
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Digtal media in Australia costs 2 x more than it dose in any other country for the same content.
In the case of TV shows It is usually available at least 12 months later than it is overseas, quiet often not made available at all.
TV gives us little choice except X Factor, Big Brother, Dance with what ever, Cook and whatever and other reality budget low quality stuff that you rerun until were all bored to death, cos it cost you less.
How about looking at your role in this Kim Williams, make the content available at a similar cost to what it is in any other western industrialised country, then we pay for it.
Oh and stop trying to get laws written so you can further monopolise and price gouge the market, downloading is wrong but so is your role in this.
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Oh how the Fat Cat Elitists hate it when the lower classes do the stealing. Don’t those poor deranged working classes know by now that only the rich, powerful and corrupt elites are allowed to steal and get away with it, don’t those Internet Criminals know that only those at the top end of town are able to rort the system reaping billions in profits and get away with it. Sick and Tired of elitist fat cats continuing to make billions from Monopolies and Corruption of the Entire system, there is nothing worse than Billionaires and their minions complaining about the hungry stealing a loaf of bread.
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It is this sort of crap that fires people up .. what an arrogant pompous ass .. how can you compare downloading a show to the London riots …
Media Companies and TV outlets have been sticking it to viewers for years and now the viewers, rightly pissed off with the games these first media pirates foist on us, are fighting back the only way they know how..
The world is changing fast and dinosaurs like this moron are a relic. I for one switched off the London Olympics and could not be bothered watching it for all of the reminders of who owned who and who owned what and the incessant marketing crap .
Lame Stream media needs to rethink its business strategy … they charge Australia punters a premium for Music and Movies for no real reason expect that they have always been able to ….
And they play this same old nonsense of staged releases for different seasons in different countries …. wake up, if we can access what we want when we want to then we will…. You want to create end of series cliffhangers and generate interest for coming seasons then complain when people go and get them because they are not willing to wait on your timing.
You should wake up to the changing scene and stop dictating terms to a public that is not willing to wait on you hand and foot any longer.
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The hyperbole of the statements and the casual brushing aside of the major issue, the time it takes for content to reach tv in a digital age, makes it all the more gratifying to see the decline of FTA and pay tv in this country.
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People attribute a lot to big media publishers just being out of touch… figures that it must start from the top.
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How uneducated is this person? It’s not within NBNco’s remit to prevent piracy any more than it is a State’s road department to prevent carjacking.
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I wonder how he explains away the popularity of iTunes?
You can still steal music but it seems most people are happy to pay a reasonable price for music at iTunes.
Show me where I can get the latest blockbuster movie or TV series from the USA, not in 6mnths to a year but NOW and I will be happy to pay a reasonable price for it.
Oh you cant…
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Wow what a smug arrogant f**kstick just when you thought corporate bosses couldn’t be any more conceited they roll out this tool. Hey Williams, instead of saying people shouldn’t perhaps you should be asking the reason people are. Maybe and this is hard for corporates to understand I know, but maybe you should just stop screwing people over.
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Being called a scumbag by someone from News Ltd is a badge of honour.
Shouldn’t he be busy ensuring his Australian employees are up to date on the latest phone and computer hacking techniques?
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No Kim, the reason people download shows before they air, is because they air in australia sometimes a full season behind, but everyone who has a computer with an internet connection, reads about the latest shows in reviews, social media posts and every other page they are on. Do you really think that someone who loves the show Mad Men, for example, is going to see promos for the show on Facebook, or read a review on rotten tomato, and say “great, that looks good, i know i could watch it now very easily, but i will wait another 6 months until an australian network decides to air it”
It is actually illogical that you and the rest of the media industry expect that to be the accepted behavior.
If there is one thing that the music industry has proven time and time again, it is that there is always a model for growth and profit, itunes was laughed at and was haled as the downfall of the music industry, how has that turned out? and then streaming services like rdio or spotify were treated with the same distain, spotify had 1 million paying monthly subscribers in the first month of its launch in the states.
The simple truth is, that you, and others like you, are either too lazy and incompetent to actually go out there and try to create a new model, that meets the consumers needs before yours, while still being a viable profitable business model, or you are continually so ignorant to believe that the world doesn’t change, and the whole fault falls on these “scumbags”.
I, and many others like me, believe that there is a price point for everything, where people who would normally be ok with illegally downloading media, would say “why would i bother going through the hassle downloading illegally when i can get it easier from XXXXX for only $XX”
Please wake up, and stop putting the blame on the people you theoretically want to sell your product to.
Maybe a better option would be to figure out a way to sell your product to them, after all, if they are illegally downloading it, they obviously want to consume it. A point you are sorely neglecting.
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if people who download from the net are scumbags, i wonder what kim would call people who pay others to download voice messages from dead school kids mobile phones.
like his sugardaddy, creepy rupert, williams has got nothing to say that anyone wants to hear.
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I’m with Max on this one.
And Samyo. Oh and Hugh. Probably other posters too.
These media companies mostly have themselves to blame.
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Cool glasses bro.
Brb getting around the Herald Sun paywall by reading them on affiliate websites. Mad, Kim?
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Are the people witing these comments responsible for spending millions of dollars of other peoples money?
Seriously? People pay for this sort of enlightened discourse from the digerati? The best you can say is “cool glasses bro?”.
If you are getting paid to espouse these opinions. Good on you. Clients and senior managers of ad agencies are even more stupid than I had ever dreamed to imagine.
Stick with it kids. It’s OK to steal. You have a god given right to download game of thrones and watch it for nothing, at your convenience within hours of it going to air.
And anyone who doesn’t get that DESERVES for me to roll my eyes at them and explain how they “don’t get it”.
Digital comment pygmies.
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Kim needs to look in his own back yard before he starts taking the high road. His journalists are writing stories that are fairly close to verbatim pieces from other Journalists. Hiding it behind a paywall is not going to make it less apparent. If you want to stop people downloading then make it cheap enough and worthwhile to buy. do that with unique content. A bit like a good old fashioned Newspaper used to be. Now I can take my local News Limited content and get my son to find the source pieces. Copyright?? Be Careful what you ask for Kim it could be the death knell of your own business and the rise of exclusive content delivered with a protection that excludes opportunities for your minions to go and repackage it.
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Dear Mr Williams,
It saddens me to read your comments on scumbag theft. As a CEO of a global media empire, your lack of understanding of the real issues surrounding copyright in the digital age is profound.
Australia’s boarders do not end where the oceans start in a digital world.
Australia does not need any more legal sticks. It needs a lot more carrots.
The problem is in the licensing.
The line between what is right and wrong is so blurred these days when it comes to content consumption thanks to the ubiquitous availability of net that the powers that be – i.e. you Mr Williams – must revisit how remuneration is distributed to the content copyright owners.
I suggest smarter people than myself come up with some carbon-tax wizard style formula; tack a fee onto peoples public IP connectivity access bill; a fee, say proportional to the data that individual traffics.
These fees would rollup, similar to the license models for playing the radio in a work office with over x number of people; and that these royalties are passed back to the content copyright owners.
I know it sounds utopian, but here is the rub… creating more legal weapons to persecute people will only make the fat cats richer; the copyright owners will get diddly squat and you will squeeze the internet service providers who are the providers of Australia’s future lifeblood – connectivity.
It is unreasonable to equate holding up a jewellery store to consuming content that Australians cannot access at the same time as the rest of the world. The two are not even remotely on equal footings.
Attempts to lock down copyrighted content and not deal with the issue of how copy righted content is licensed will be destined to fail – our recent digital modern history illustrates every time that if there is an attempt to stop/restrict IP in the digital world with a smarter lock it is a FACT that it will be broken.
Mr Williams, it’s time to pull your head out of your proverbial and think about solutions that could actually work – the sooner you do the quicker we stop this mess of infringement litigation that only makes the fat cats even richer.
/my2cents
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I think piracy is just as bad as journalists who write news articles that are essentially rewrites of other articles found on the web.
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Enjoy your impending irrelevance Mr Williams.
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If you want to get past the Herald Sun paywall for certain article, all you need to do is copy the heading of the article and paste into Google search engine and then click on the link toe Herald Sun article and, presto, you have the full article to read. Works every time!
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The problem is that shows like Bored to Death, Mad Men or Game of Thrones air here at least 12 months if not YEARS (Bored to Death first came out in 2009) after they originally came out. The television and movie industry need to look at changing regulations so that tv series shown in the US and UK are shown at the SAME TIME in Australia.
The music industry managed to change things around with iTunes. Most people are willing to pay to download their tv series, it’s just difficult to find somewhere selling them in a timely fashion.
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Typical tripe coming from the small minded media industry in Australia. If their product wasn’t so bad i.e. old tv shows, reality tv, adverts every 6 minutes people might start watching normal TV again but until then they cannot expect people to get want they want elsewhere.
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Nice tunnel vision Kim. All it would take would be for networks (both here and overseas) to allow international streaming of TV series internationally. Most US or UK series are available to stream in their home countries, but block IP addresses from foreign areas. Set up free streaming internationally, offer media space with different ad placement by geographic area to keep it relevent and hey presto, you’ve found a new revenue stream. Make it high quality video and you will attract viewers that are currently used to dodgy torrents or illegitimate streaming. Win/win I say, just takes some executives with brains that have some idea of why people choose streaming over live TV. The opportunities for networks are huge. Adapt to survive Mr. Williams.
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Hey Mr Biggles,
You need to know the five eyes. They might put you in touch with your target audience. The five eyes state.
I wont wait.
I wont pay.
I wont watch.
I want to be heard and,
I want to create.
Wishing the NOW would become the PAST is not a great strategy.
Good luck with it !
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Hang on…you didn’t have to illegally download Downton Abbey before it screened here. You could buy it on DVD in New Zealand for 8 months before Ch7 bothered putting it on.
I don’t think it’s scumbag theft, but I do think it’s embarassingly cheapskate-y.
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The local networks usually bring these things to us as quickly as they possibly can; it’s not their fault that the content owners are still strangely attached to their regional release model (“Australia, lols, they’ll watch it when we SAY THEY CAN”).
This sort of piracy really is, largely, a service delivery problem.
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Blah – All this codswollop shows is that this guy knows nothing. He should go jump into retirement, stay there and say nothing ever again….he should also probably take Gerry Harvey with him.
People don’t download because they are bad people, people download because they don’t want to wait 6 months to get the content the rest of the world is getting now.
Someone else on here has made a valid point about iTunes – millions are more than happy to pay to download content, same with spotify nowadays. Why? Because they can get the music they want, when they want it, for not that much money.
This same model needs to flow into video / TV and there will be much less of an issue – currently however forking out $20 for a downloaded film we can easily get for free is just not gonna happen.
Don’t blame the players, blame the game.
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GIVE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT AND THEY’LL STOP PIRATING!!!
If you try and enforce a regional delay we will find a way around it… be reasonable… if it airs on Sunday night in the US air it on Monday night here!
We have now fostered a culture of illegal downloading but over time people will go back to their lazy spoon fed selves and wait.
OR get smarter with your ads… Game of Thrones Season 3 “As Tyrion stares out at Westoros he notices that RUGS RUGS RUGS are having 20% off this weekend only”
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“The fact is, more and more legal content is going on line every day. And there are more sites offering legal content, more easily and at lower cost to you computers and mobile devices.”
And where can I download Newsroom? Legally? In Australia?
Case closed. Breaking Bad is two weeks behind on iTunes and that’s only because its taken to the 5th series for someone to wake up to how good it is. You can still get it via a Torrent hours after its aired in the US.
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it’s simply the free market in action, consumers have found a better way to access what they want, when they want it because Aussie media’s been to slow to find a way to deliver it for a fair price in a reasonable timeframe.
Rather than calling everyone a scumbag it’s time to learn from the mistakes and apply that learning before it’s too late.
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Nathan said it all.
Next topic.
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Dear Mr Williams,
Provide me a legal way to purchase content at the same time it’s released in the US and I will do just that.
Alternatively, feel free to invest in high-quality Australian content, which can’t be downloaded from elsewhere before screening, because it’s not broadcast elsewhere first.
Any other solution is living in the past, old man.
Thank you,
The Australian Public
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Reading the full speech, Williams initially sounds like he gets it:
“So, the big question: What should be done? In the most general terms all of us—content providers, media companies, ISPs and especially legislators—need to recognise that we live in a new era. ”
Yep you do Kim. new era, time for a new business model right? Not quite;
“And this change in our view—from an analogue to a digital mind-set—must be reflected in new copyright framework.”
Ahh yep that’ll fix it!
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I hate the price of pies at 7-11.
They are invariably cold and tasteless. All the other customers get the good fresh ones hours before hand.
Oh, and they are expensive. In fact they are a complete rip off.
So you know what I do? I just walk in and steal them. Because it’s their fault.
That’s OK. RIght?
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This is where those that own the content should seriously rethink their model and potentially have it as a ‘free to air’ option for those wanting to stream, deliver it at a relatively high quality (although not the highest quiality) and work in each country to gain advertising revenue on the site that they are supplying the material.
Their current structure and way of doing business is archaic.
Whether you like it or hate it, Spotify seems to have created a quality service that has minimised illegal downloading (or at least anyone that I know that previously illegally downloaded content is now paying $11.99 a month for their music).
If there was a way that a service could do something similar for tv show distribution, then I am sure that you will get substantial uptake (for $150/year or so).
I rent videos from iTunes due to convenience. It can be costly, but I save on late fees!
Time to get with the program I say and stop your whinging because of your laggard ways as a business….the writing was on the wall back in the Napster days.
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I might not agree with how Kim puts it. However, I don’t understand how people can think that downloading pirated material from the net isn’t stealing. The music industry has been hurting by this for many years. Music, movies, TV shows are created to make money. If the money isn’t there or people don’t pay for it, then things don’t get created. I know it is the big end of town telling the small people what to do but imagine if you did work for someone and they didn’t pay for it. I bet if you had the platform you’d complain too (even if you didn’t own a pair of cool glasses). How much we pay for digital content or when it is schedule locally is a different debate, but taking something without paying for it is stealing.
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Let’s take the new Netsky album (http://netskymusic.com/tag/2/) from the Belgian dnb dude. Prices on iTunes. In Australia $16.99. In the USA $9.99 (AU$9.53), UK £7.99 (AU$12.03), Eurozone €8.99 (AU$10.69) or direct from the record label at £6.99 (AU$10.52 luckily for this artist this option is open to us here in Australia).
Now, for many movies etc, we can’t exercise our rights to buy from overseas, so I know that where I feel I’m being ripped off (mainly by iTunes, it’s rarely the record label) I’d rather download illegally than pay. Where I can pay a fair price, I’d much rather pay, and generally do these days.
Now, for TV you can’t even pay for many things – http://www.goodgearguide.com.a.....backwater/ – so what’s the alternative? Oh yes, funding terrorism by downloading something from uisopiratehunttorrentbay. Or waiting.
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Penguin Alert, regional release model? So for TV shows like House, which was delayed by a long time then slightly delayed, then shown within a week, then delayed again, then shown within a week for some of the season, then delayed significantly then finally delayed significantly and the season was split. That’s not a regional release model, that’s a decision by Channel 10.
There are many more examples of shows screwed around in similar ways. Where’s the last episode of season 2 of Hawaii 5-0? Why was Grey’s Anatomy delayed so long? What about Once Upon a Time – they ran 5 million episodes (possibly a slight exageration) within 2 weeks to finish the season off quickly.
And so Channel 9 isn’t forgotten, how much of their live OIympic coverage was actually live?
The ABC used to show Dr Who up to 6 months after it aired in the UK. They started showing it within a week and ratings…wait for it…up.
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Agree with Nathan’s comment – “old people”.
Williams is just having the same tantrum all the monopoly content distributors have – “I’m having a whine because we are no longer making the money we did in the 1980s because we have failed to evolve our business model”.
Sorry Williams….off to the nursing home with you and your ideas.
People are very happy to pay for (1) HD / high quality content that is (2) fairly priced, (3) delivered on whatever format the user wants (tv / ipad / iphone / computer), and (4) released in a universal / globally timed manner. Case in point – Apple iTunes USA is now the #1 music retailer in that country.
Fail to tick any of those boxes and people will turn to piracy – case in point: Apple iTunes Australia which price gouges blatantly ($17-21AUD for an album in Australia, $10-12USA in the USA?!), does not offer the same breadth of content as its US counterpart, and expects Aussies to be good little corporate citizens and wait for content days / weeks / months after they have been available in the USA.
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And sadly you all indignantly miss the point that Williams is correct.
The mentality of ‘legalised-theft’ because someone is rich enough to pour millions into making a Game of Thrones defies logic apart from the analogy of the spoilt baby in the pram screaming their head off as they want more lollies. Grow up kiddies – he’s running a business and you clearly aren’t. Get off your arses and see hard it is to create some content that lots of people want – it’s much harder than illegal downloading you numpties.
How would you like it if you logged into your online account and found that someone had siphoned off your wages and savings, because it’s not real money it’s just numbers on a screen.
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So, if I have found a way to pay to get around the region problems of my IP and I can now trick the USA sites to think I am in the USA, and I get an account with a company like Hulu which I HAVE PAID for. Then how am I stealing ANYTHING??
I have paid both companies for their services and I am now watching content that I have paid for.
I might have found a work around solution to be able to watch overseas content but I have opened an account with the appropriate provider.
Please Kim, please explain to me what I am stealing?
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Kim Williams is exactly right – there should be much tougher laws to reduce piracy.
Those commentators above, who disagree, you should be ashamed of yourselves
It’s simple really; Piracy = theft
Internet thieves make it very difficult for film producers, particularly small/indie producers to recoup the cost of their film.
Stop pirating films, internet thieves!
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Rather than say something like ‘we need to get the latest and best content on TV screens as quick from release as possible so that people don’t need to download it’ he says that we need to change the laws and put the onus on internet providers to stop people downloading it. What a dinosaur – some of these media companies need a bit of youth in their ranks.
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People are clearly missing the point here. You are not depriving the studios of their income but the creators, writers and crew of these great shows. If lonline theft continues then there won’t be any of these high production TV shows to watch and the only TV show you’ll be seeing online are two minute YouTube videos of cats playing pianos.
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AHHH THE CRUSTY OLD DEAN!
Most movies are so terrible that I refuse to pay for them out of principle.
You think I am going to PAY to see Transformers 3 on a hungover Sunday? You are out of your mind. That mindless drivel deserves to be pirated.
Make a good movie and I will go to the cinema to watch it (Avatar, Batman etc). Hell I might even buy the DVD if it’s a good month and in a bargain bin at JB Hi Fi (Aliens, Predator).
And the point is simple. Shows like Breaking Bad & Game of Thrones… Look. If I could watch it up to date ad free within an hour of it coming on in the US then sure. I would do that. I can’t. So sometimes (Monday Nights) I know chaps who look for it via other means and I may pop round to watch their picture box.
I can see what the nasty old Dean is saying but come on. Just go to Video Ezy, rent Casablanca or Seven Brides for Seven Brothers or whatever and chill out.
If Samuel L Jackson has to fly around in a slightly smaller jet because I downloaded Snakes On A Plane, I am not going to lose sleep over it. Nor should you.
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The only time I tried to access pirated video/film content was a few years ago. I tried to download the torrent software and a very nasty virus infected the computer. I had to do a complete wiping and reformatting of the HDD and a clean install of Windows xp. A few years prior to that I had the illegal Kazaa software and 99% of the music and software files I tried to download contained viruses that were blocked by my AV software. The other viruses were let through.
Kim Williams is right. The people peddling this stuff are indeed scumbags. I’ve stayed away from it ever since and my computer has never worked better.
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I stream everything that comes out of the US, Europe and the UK.
If I had to wait for it to hit the shores of AUS, I would completely forget about the series to begin with.. Oh and I’d probs die of old age.
Fact is Australia is lacking in TV entertainment and needs to start purchasing more offshore content, and start airing around the time its being released!
”I’ll wait till its released here in Australia, 8 months later or so” Said no one ever.
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@Dean
Sorry pal but that will never happen, in fact having people like us will only help the industry grow. You have more viewers then ever before, online that is, so people need to use that to there advantage and stop criticizing or labeling us as ”thieves”
Basically your audience wants things quicker and more accessible..
This aint the 70’s mate.
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@Mr Williams
I hear the banana industry is back, try that on for a profession son!
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“Piracy = theft”
Once more with feeling:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeTybKL1pM4
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@ Me
Thanks for putting me to sleep with that one.. boring.
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The way we want to consume has changed… why would I wait 10 weeks to see episodes of The Newsroom, or Season 5 of Breaking Bad… Give me the opportunity to download it, pay for it, watch it when it is shiny and new, or i can watch 3 eps in a row… give me what i want now, and i will more than likely pay for it… if not, get outta my way. As with music.. the old days they made you pay $40 for a whole CD when all you wanted was 2 songs… so we downloaded what we wanted… now Spotify, iTunes, Rdio lets us choose to pay for what we choose to listen to. Come on visual TV license owners, think globally, and make it happen.
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The victims are always blamed and punished…If it’s free and available why is it illegal for the individual to take but not illegal for the website to make it available? If DVD and CD were cheaper to buy in AUS there wouldn’t be a problem…
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oh Hoin! you are kidding right? Firstly, if you are using a PC… why didnt you have proper virus protection in the first place – that virus could have come from a dodgy website or a friends email too. and secondly, mate! catch up, update, and change OS to the ones that don’t need (much) virus protection. Go on, give it another try… you know you want to…
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@hoin Maybe you forgot to take your pills that day? Maybe get your grand kids to fix your computer for you?
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All this palaver about Scumbags and Thieves. Here is a point to consider.
Do we focus all our policing resources on the one time recreational user, or does it make more sense to police the Mr Big’s. Who are making the big money.
Kim old dear, in the same analogy you should direct your vitriol at the Scumbags who are faciliting this free download phenomenon.
And Andrew Bolt Rinehart Lovechild. If somebody has stolen pies and left them on a street corner with a sign, “Free pies, help yourself”. Do we prosecute the passer by or the people who stole them in the first place.
I know for me, if someone has enabled free downloads on the internet. It is hardly stealing to or being a scumbag to take it. And after all Google et al, and the Internet itself, has educated us in this regard.
Like the music publishing industry has learnt, you cant put Humpty back together again, rather they have had to adapt the monetization models to work in this distribution democracy.
But dont fret, any tick of the clock Apple is about to make Free to Air and Pay Networks and fuddy duddy’s like Kim Wilson obsolete as fiddlesticks.
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Foxtel is just full of adverts these days….but that’s just ONE of the reasons people are seeking alternate methods of sourcing the content.
Foxtel is pretty much irrelevant in this climate, other than for live events.
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Kim Williams – so that’s your alias these days Penfold?
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You get the distinct feeling that this is old media talking about new media and how it spoils their lot. Bah humbug and bolder-dash I hear them scream.
The new media horizons are making this pay / piracy distinction irrelevant.
Australia is an island with no clear new media horizon and all at sea with the notion that people might actually believe we pay too much here, unlike other countries that look over the border and say ‘hang on a minute…”.
The problem is extortionate pricing and not piracy.
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@Hoin Oh my days. You don’t deserve the internet if you were using Kazaa a few years ago. You are a menace to society – and the sole reason the people who make viruses exist.
Read the user comments. Use Google. Get AVG to protect yourself from the viruses. JUST DO SOMETHING MAN IT’S 2012.
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So two thieves “Bustin Jeibers” and “Old Greg” above have provided weak arguments to justify why they steal. It’s time for the government to get serious and clamp down on thieves like this before our industry is irrevocably damaged.
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You would be a fool to pay for something you can get for free.
I have no pity for brad pitt or metallica that they have only made 30 million and not 100 million due to file sharing.
As an old copyright ad stated ‘you wouldn’t steal a car’ but i would if i could happily burn my friend a car and we could enjoy automotive travel together.
On a side note the real people that are hurt by file sharing are the record companies not the artists, sony or virgin cannot go on tour, have a reality show or sell merchandise.
File sharing will never be eliminated or policed effectively, why would anyone who is not a multi million dollar mega start care? I can assure you that the people that file sharing affects do not care about us everyday people.
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Love pointing this out to those young assistants who are telling me about their lousy wages at the same time as they tell me about their latest download. Stealing their own wages- go figure! BTW hip cafe folk,.. maybe, my kids see everything before I do, from a USB stick their friends give them in the school playground…
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Dean,
Why people download movies is because the studios have a contrived system of “licensing rights” and “territorial rights”.
When a movie is completed it gets shopped around the “film markets” e.g. MIFED or the AFM. When a film distributor buys “the rights” to a movie. They have to nominate for which territories they are buying, e.g. US, Europe, Asia. They also have to pay for licensing rights which determine whether they can release it in cinemas, dvd, tv or internet.
Hollywood production companies insist on delays between releasing it in different formats to enhance their profits. As an example, if you know the right people, and believe me, not any old cashed up bozo can buy movie rights, you then get the option of say buying a film for dvd release the south pacific region (e.g Australia, NZ Fiji etc. By doing a deal such as that you have to wait, probably 6 months after the cinema release before you can release it on DVD, When the movie is released on DVD it gives a distributor a window (maybe 12 months) before it is released to TV.
Ostensibly this is protect the profits of the rights buyer, but the reality is that it is to perpetuate artificial barriers to global release across all markets. Which is in the the interest of the owners/producers of the film. The “terriories” licence works in the same way, to both protect the buyers profits and increase the profits of the producer.
The cost paid for these “rights”is determined by the potential sales in a given territory plus the negotiating ability of the buyer. As mentioned before, not anyone can be a buyer. To be allowed to buy “filmed product” a new buyer needs to pay overs (i.e. more than it’s true market value) at the film market (e.g. American Film Market – AFM) for a time and often buy B and even C grade movies first. This is done to make sure the buyers will “play the game” and protect the producers heirarchy of profit.
I think that’s what Williams is really snivelling about. The internet is dismantling the multi layers of profit that have been in place to protect hollywoods profits and global dominance of the film markets.
So with all these rights and territories in place how do movies get on the internet before they are released? Once the film is completed, prints are made, for an A-list movie maybe hundreds of copies so that world wide cinema releases can be co-ordinated across all terrirories. Not surprisingly in this process, extras get copied by unscrupulous duplicators, which are often owned, via a process of vertical integration, by the film producers.
In the case of DVD’s the digital master, to save production costs, is sent to duplicators. The cheapest duplicators are in countries with, shall we say, rubbery copyright laws and inevitably extras get duplicated and sold via the internet.
Free torrent distribution of movies is simply smart people exploiting an outdated and contrived system of profit gouging set up for and perpetuated by the production companies.
Suggested reading: The Undeclared War by Davis Putnam (british film producer)
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Kim Williams, I always knew that bloke was suss. Never trust a man with a girls name.
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I agree with most of the reactions against Williams here, but I think there is a certain moral flexibility being woven into the rhetoric. Firstly, like it or not, piracy is stealing. If you don’t feel bad about it, no worries, but that doesn’t change the definition. Secondly, I agree that if more content was immediately available so there is no waiting time, it would put a dent in the volume of illegal downloading that goes on. But I think it’s a bit naive to believe it will stop it in its tracks. Some people are still going to steal it – why? Because they can. Because its easy. And you can do it from your bedroom. The argument that if all content was made readily available at the same price and time the world over would eradicate the problem is false. You may as well say that you’ll eradicate stealing from the world full stop. As if.
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My favourite DJ updates me and hundreds of thousands of other fans on Facebook. He updates us on Twitter too. When he tours he lets us know where he will be and we can buy tickets through his own website.
My favourite DJ also owns a record shop and label. It has one ‘bricks and mortar’ shop in the UK, yet he sells hundreds of thousands of tracks 24/7 all around the world; online. In fact his label launched a record last week and hundreds of thousands of copies have been sold in less than a week!
He does not need a distributor, or an agent, he and his small team are able to market themselves, pretty much for free, via social media. Marketing, awareness, communications and sales. (Lots and lots of sales.)
My favourite DJ took a photo of one of the city scapes he was visiting saying “Landed, looking forward to the party tonight, who is keen?” The photo has had over 2000 likes and over 300 comments. He engages his audience pretty damn well and fans from all over the world plea for a visit to their town.
He is totally kickin arse and I buy his tunes, which are very reasonably priced. I would not dream of going into a bricks and mortar store to buy his music (I can buy it the second it is released, wherever he or I am in the world.) You can purchase via itunes, beatport, or indeed from his own website.
It is 2012 and ole Kim seems to be stuck in the 80’s..?
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What a thread! IP Awareness Australia has a different approach to encouraging audiences to pay for content. I should know – I’m in the campaign. http://vimeo.com/47487030#
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While I agree downloading pirated TV shows and movies for free is theft, I think it’s a sad fact of life that we live in a society that expects instant gratification. We can either expect that people will adhere to our own moral codes or find a way to make it less likely that these people will pirate shows. There are very few legal sites where you can purchase movies and music to download to your computer. Media companies should consider offering their wares on their own sites to download or arrange deals with companies like JB-HiFi to offer download systems on their websites.
Whether you see it as selfish entitlement or not, consumers want to receive things instantly – or at the very least, in a reasonable time frame. In this day and age, it is completely unrealistic that Australian consumers should receive new content so much later than UK and USA. Most people are happy to pay for content, look at the huge success of itunes – make it easier for them to do so and fast and they are more likely to do so than try and seek illegal copies.
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It’s hard to see how the argument of ‘I steal movies because of the dinosaurs and fat cats in media’ stands up. You are still stealing and should be prosecuted if you are found to download content illegally and knowingly.
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Let me get this straight. People are illegally downloading pirate movies and TV shows because they can’t get them the same time as the US release and cannot wait. So if you want to get the latest Apple computer and cannot wait for the Australian release, you steal one from overseas, right?
Today’s generation have a self-important, narcissistic self-righteousness that is truly disgusting. They believe they are the centre of the universe and want everything now. They have no patience. Hell, they can’t even sit through a movie scene that lasts longer than two minutes without getting impatient or bored. Explains why the studios are making the most inane films that have little narrative or characterisations and are just full of quick edits and one-liners.
You only have to read some of the spelling and grammatical errors in the above posts to realise we are dealing with uneducated morons who last read a book in Grade 2.
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Piracy is theft, no doubt. And it’s rampant. How do you stop it?
My argument is that you cannot stop it. They’ve tried going after ISPs and failed. They can’t go after individuals – too expensive and not good business to sue your end customer base. They can try to shut down torrents…..but then the next technology springs online and you’re back to the beginning……geeks will always be one step ahead The holy grail is new copyright laws – sure they’ll have a red hot crack, but I wager that’ll be a fail too.
So if you can’t stop it, what do you do? Whinge some more? Or change it up?
All I see is whinging. That doesn’t deal with the digital reality – yes it wrong, no you can’t stop it.
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So if the internet generation cannot have what they want right now, then they just steal it. Not sure how they sleep at night with such low moral and ethical standards. Then again, this is the same group of people who king-hit strangers for thrills without any provocation or reason. “Hell, if I want to punch this stranger in front of me in the head, then, damn it, I will and I have ever right because it’s what I want to do right now.”
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Daniel, that comment would have to be the dumbest post / analogy of the year.
The internet generation in my lexicon is anyone who has embraced the digital revolution.
It’s quite astounding that you have managed to master email.
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Can anyone confirm that Murdoch’s NEWS group of companies employ people to monitor online forums for comments critical of that company and/or the Murdoch Family?
Further, does anyone know if these same entities then contribute to those forums anonymously to attempt to discredit those with criticisms and redirect the discussions away from the NEWS group and/or the Murdoch/s?
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Daniel do you not remember Cassette tapes. The revolution that 90 minute tapes were supposed to be and the imminent death of the recording industry because of that innovation. The industry grew. VHS tapes to record TV programmes. The imminent death of the TV and Film industry. The industry grew. The recordable CD/DVD etc. The fact is that if you give smeone who has a disposable income a free taste of something they will at some time give you a proportion of that income if what you give them they like. Kim just needs something that we are willing to buy.
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Puuurleeese… all the people sticking up for the record/media companies are at best stooges at worst completely and willfully ignorant.
IT software sold in Australia has artificially inflated prices,
http://consumersfederation.org.....ad-prices/
Record companies have been withholding royalties and payments due to artists due to nefarious accounting methods,
http://www.techdirt.com/blog/?company=sony
Movies have had INCREASING box office takings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.....sing_films
The entertainment/media empires are hardly innocent and are mainly crying wolf in relation to piracy and I for one feel no sympathy for them.
As to piracy is stealing YES you are completely correct, but it is a reality of the modern age and you can not ignore it. The media empires were caught with their pants down with the advent of the whole piracy scene and they have failed to adapt and to those that fail to adapt the death bells do ring.
For those that are blaming a generation hooked on ‘instant gratification’ isnt that what consumerism is all about? Isnt that what these media empires are built on peddling? They hype the latest movies, the latest TV series make the consumer want for more and laughed all the way to the bank. Now that their addicted consumer base has found a (free) quicker and better supplier they do not adapt but whinge and complain. As mentioned before adapt to today’s conditions, give a better content delivery system and charge a fair price and I wont pirate a thing, hardly asking for much is it?
And for lols:
http://themavesite.com/TMS-Pic.....tedDVD.jpg
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This guy is completely out of touch… Why not try to understand the reasons why piracy exists and then innovate your business model making your media offering so easy to access people wont mind paying if the payment is secure and the price is reasonable.
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People has such a misguided sense of entitlement these days – a TV show aired in America last night and I want it NOW, hence I will steal it. Is there anything actually wong with waiting? Will your world end if you have to wait six, 12 months to see an American show in Australia? A lot of big name TV shows are available on DVD in Australia before they finish airing anyway – Downton Abbey is an example. And Amazon and other offshore online retailers happily ship DVDs to this country that have not or will not air in Australia.
Stealing is stealing, and surely there are more important things to complain about then “I have to wait 12 months after it aired in the US/UK/Europe to watch XXXX”. The words get a life spring to mind.
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Every movie, tv show that these horrendous pirates (what a laughable term) now contains more product placement than storyline, so dont sweat it Kim, your still getting your cash.
I cant wait to watch the “How to buy Megaman” movie
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Do we honestly need old men in suits heading up anything anymore? The old boy networks, greasing each others palms? I simply do not think we do.
A bush fire is sweeping through the forest and the old suit brigade are getting burned. Good riddance I say; they have never really done a lot, other than take enormous wages as a result of being greedy middle men.
Higher wages to the producers, cut out the middle men and offer cheaper packages to the viewers.
What we are going to see over the next 10 years is the vanishing 3rd party, which is a great thing.
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Put everything onto BluRay and make it available widely for $10.00
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Yes I agree this guy is out of touch.. He needs a reality check.
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Price gouging australians has gone on long enough. However, theft is theft, no matter how out of date the dude or the industry is, or whatever spin you try to put on it.
I just wonder how many of those of you who seem to be saying downloading is your moral right, would be prepared to work for free, or have all your ideas stolen? None I suspect. Try to see it from a performers or directors viewpoint.
Don’t try making a movie (DVD) or being a musician (CD) – your work will be stolen, and no one wants to own up, I think because they are too uncomfortable with what they are doing.
The only way to survive is to find a way to offer reasonably priced downloads that reward the creators and performers fairly. Any other model seems to have no future given the ease of downloading and copying.
Expect to see fewer Australian films.
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Please let me know if you mind me using all your work for free.
Like everyone else I have had enough of price gouging. But I am sure that performers and film makers need to eat and pay their bills. All the responses so far seem to be saying that free downloads are their right. Seems like some convenient self delusion going on here. An outmoded market distribution model does not justify theft. How can it?
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I do not condone downloading unless it is impossible to get by any other means. I am a film maker and downloading as well as copying DVD’s annoys me greatly so i put everything onto BluRay now and I do not charge any more than a normal DVD. I say to the movie studios put their \TV Shows and films onto BluRay and charge only $10.00 for a film, you would curb piracy because it is not worth the hassle to try and copy a Blu ray and put a worthwhile booklet in them as most of them have nothing as added value
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I do not condone car theft unless it is impossible to get a car by any other means.
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I, for one, am sickened by those here defending the London rioters by proxy in their defense of illegal piracy.
Imagine you are one of those poor store owners. You’re sitting at home when suddenly you hear on the news that your shop is being smashed into and all of your merchandise stolen…
Only to wake up the next morning and it still be there and your shop is in perfect condition.
It’s a nightmare!
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When you steal a car, the person you stole it from doesn’t have a car anymore. When you ‘illegally download’ a TV show, the person who made it still has their TV show and it’s exactly the same as it was before.
Most of the shows downloaded in Australia will probably never be on FTA TV anyway i.e. Mad Men, Game of Thrones, The Newsroom, True Blood etc.
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And if I were to commit online fraud and clean out your online bank account apart from one dollar you’d still have a bank account with a $1.00 balance, so you’d be 100% OK with that.
The point is that if there are 7 billion illegally downloaded copies then the value of the original copy becomes zero. Every illegal download reduces the value and the owner/creator gets ZERO – and they actually get LESS THAN ZERO as the ‘value’ has diminished. That is clearly a concept you have trouble grappling with.
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