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UK based Internet service providers have teamed up with representatives from the entertainment industry to send out alerts to those suspected of piracy. The scheme operates on the assumption that you don't actually know that file sharing copyrighted works is illegal.
ISP's will be allowed to send up to four warning letters per year but there will be no sanctions for ignoring them, making the whole initiative a bit weak. These letters will offer advice on where to find content legally, although it won't tailor its advice based on what you actually downloaded.
Business Secretary, Vince Cable, said: “Education is at the heart of this drive so people understand that piracy isn't a victimless crime — but actually causes business to fail, harms the industry and costs jobs.”
Companies involved in this scheme include: The Motion Picture Association (MPA), the BPI, BT, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk and Virgin Media. Other backers include the BBC, ITV, Equity and The Film Distributors Association.
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KitGuru Says: Considering that these letters have no follow up sanction, it all seems a bit weak. It will be interesting to see if this does anything to impact current piracy numbers.
Source: Wired
Yeah, I use private sites that encrypt their traffic. Good luck with the letters, though.
not very nature friendly… sending millions of letters for something that isn’t really considered a crime by anyone sane (except the greedy companies…)
I don’t see why people pirate anyway, with certain exceptions of course. If it’s an older game that has been discontinued (old console ROMs, PC games, etc.) I can understand it. If it’s a new game though it isn’t like it was years ago where you might not of heard of it, or never knew it’s date and couldn’t afford it on release… generally in this day we know months in advance of games and we have no excuse for not being able to put aside $10 a month for a game.
I hear some people who say they pirtate games especially because they can’t afford them but then you have to wonder how they have a broadband ISP and a powerful enough PC to run these games that only cost $60.
Oh, really? Business Secretary, Vince Cable, says piracy: “…causes business to fail, harms the industry and costs jobs.” I think you’ll find Vince Cable has cost more jobs and harmed more businesses than all the pirates could do collectively if they tried!
Alot of people are not willing to gamble $60 on a game being good or worth the money so they “try before they buy”. Could you imagine spending that sort of money on Aliens colonial marines ? or medal of honor warface? even some games at launch were just terrible (watchdogs, simcity, diablo 3 etc) and so people try “fixed” copies first.
Watchdogs is a perfect example of this, my retail version ran at around 25-30 fps, laggy as hell and generally unplayable and yet the version I downloaded from a well known site ran at 60+fps with no crashes no game breaking bugs etc all because uplay was taken out of the picture. If games companies consistently released good product after good product then people would trust them more and a fair size of the pirate nation would no longer feel the need to try before buying as they will be certain that the product will run fine and be a good game.
Lets face it you don’t buy a car without taking it for a test drive first do you ???
I wonder if any of these so called “Net Police” actually know what the internet is actually designed for.
The Internet is a File Sharing device. So in order to stop file sharing they are going to have to close the Internet completely.
This is all down to the Movie and Music moguls demanding their piece of the action.
If an artist puts their music or video on the net, the moguls jump on their high horse, because they have been bypassed and therefore will not receive any money
I completely agree with you, on that one. I have been pirating for a long time, I have numerous amounts of games in my steam account, all of which I play. Before purchasing games, I normally download them illegally, If I enjoy it, I buy it. I know many friends who only play 2 or 3 games and have over 100 games in their steam library, that is a waste of money.
“there will be no sanctions for ignoring them”, this is what makes the whole thing useless. It’s a complete waste of resources and effort in slowing down the piracy community because it’s not going to stop any time soon. As many people already know; pirating has increase by a major amount since ISPs started blocking websites with suspicion of illegal content. This is complete nonsense and utterly stupid.
I find that illegal downloads can help companies considerably. People will illegally download a game to see if it is any good. If it is, they buy it. If not they don’t. A similar thing may happen with movies too as sometimes people illegally download a film that isn’t a very good quality and cannot find one of good quality so might then buy it. Illegal downloads aren’t all downhill for media companies. They just find ways to get more money out of our pockets because it’s unfair to only be a millionaire when rather than a multimillionaire when there are people living on the streets with absolutely nothing at all and struggle to find something to drink.Society is messed up.
Stopping people pirating is not the answer, making legal services easier and cheaper to use is. I use Google Play music (£10 a month for unlimited access), Netflix and Steam. Don’t surround us with obtrusive DRM and we’ll gladly pay!
Most people I’ve talked to download illegally with no intention of every purchasing. What game companies need to start doing more of is making good and free demos of their games.
This logic though you aren’t test driving… you are walking on to the lot and hot wiring the car and taking it for a test. A better comparison of a test drive would be a game demo.
It’s still theft though. Just because they’re rich or a big corporation doesn’t mean anything. It would be like a homeless man stealing your PC or something… to him your rich as all hell and won’t be effected but to you it’s a “wtf why would someone do that”
Yeah they need an online service for games like Netflix-ish (there are some but it seems it’s for physical media only or some form of streaming) where you pay a subscription fee and can download games and play. All that would be needed is a once daily DRM or member status check before you could access your game.
And stop over pricing them. £60 for a new console game is way too much. Not as bad for PC games as they are usually £40 or £50 new but still expensive. £30 would be reasonable.
it’as not theft, it’s copying. If someone steals a car then that car is completely gone, whilst a pirate makes an exact copy of the original leaving the original in place and therefore technically and legally not stealing.
True, but your logic is flawed. You are still stealing their opportunity to profit on you. So in essence, you’re denying them from earning money regardless of the product in question. That being said, piracy has always and will always be around, wether you like it or not.
for the mainstream pirates I agree, but for my self if I like a game I will purchase it. I know by the first hour or so of gameplay if I like a game or not and if I don’t then it gets deleted.
I would be happy if game released a time limited demo or similar, as would a lot of others. Blizzard has the right idea with its games through battlenet.
For me now in Canada a console game has just recently went up to $69.99 + taxes, it’s getting kind of crazy now.