Torrents are a good thing and have the potential to be put to great use leagally, the problem is that they are generally associated with illeagal downloads even though, surprisingly, a recent survey showed that out of all the ways to download copyrighted material sites like rapidshare and megaupload are used more than torrents, this is open to interuptation as they probably didnt test every single person who downloads illegal stuff.
Anyway the reason torrents and such have given rise to such illegal downloads is the fact the big companies and studios dont offer any real alternative.
The states seems to be getting better sites like hulu seem to offer amazing amounts of choice for free or for a low price, I believe amazon has a video on demand service and there are others, but still way behind in terms of how much content is being distrubuted in comparision to the other illegal options and sometimes, if not always, have some form of DRM which means unlike a DVD which I BUY that I can play in any dvd player at any location and am free to with what I please with (apart from breaking copyright laws
)
I am restriced and the media I purchased isnt really mine.
This is however just the states, I would gladly take those compromises so I can watch my favourtite TV shows and such, in the UK (Where I live) to watch my favourtie tv shows without having to pay a tv company, sign a contract, be told when I have to watch it (obviously different if you have a recorder of some sort) and be annoyed by adverts. (even tho I pay a suscription fee for the channel.) I have a very limited choice of video on demand, basically theres itunes and thats it, other things like BT vision again require a suscription fee, contract etc, I hate Itunes and I hate apple and do not want to give money to them so much that I will go without my tv and such just so they dont make a profit, I bought something from the store once, and I will not do it again, I had to try in the hope that my pre conceptions of the company wearn't just incorrect, I was wrong, as is always the case when using apple.
Basically what it all boils down to is that people want to watch what they want watch when they want to watch, where they want, how they want and they want to be able to buy it for a decent price per episode/season/film, without the need to be tied into a contract or pay for additional unnecessary hardware, all this can be accomplished and should have been present since the internet became a viable means of storing, sharing and transfering media quickly.
Does anyone else think that piracy would be as big of an issue if the media / studios were the first to offer downloads of films/tv shows (legally of course) instead of waiting for the illeagal way to become popular?
of course not, because if they were there first it would have become the de facto way for people to access tv/films on demand and by now it would be the process that everyone knows how to do, teccy or not, and by now it would have been refined so that anyone who isn't techical at all could do it with ease and only the more tech-savy people would bother to do it the other way illegal as word of mouth would have spread about programs from movie studios where you can get it the day it comes out for cheap, legal and DRM free, instead of what is more common now that word of mouth just promotes piracy as that the only way most people know how to do it, even people who are completely ignorant to the tech world, it'd be the other way round if the studios/media companies got there first, because they would have the market of digital distrubution, of what you want, in a way you want it, cornered.
I would imagine a lot of pirates dont really want to have to break the law to watch what they want but and would be happy to pay a reasonable amount to watch and not have to pay £40.00 when the box set comes out, and have to wait in the first place, but with the lack of options available many seem to resort to this.
Obviously regardless of what studios do there will still be pirates and the explosion of the internet would have given rise piracy regardless, but the studios could have also risen there profits/sales by acting fast and having the very simple idea to sell their media that way but they waited to long and then waited some more and still they did nothing.
Wow that was long
sorry for the mini rant, I'll stop now
