Re: NTL amongst supporters of Illegal P2P?
 

so would you sympathise with someone that goes into lets say virgin or hmv and steals a cd because they can't afford it and they don't have a computer?

Re: NTL amongst supporters of Illegal P2P?
 

If CDs only cost £1 each you would still get some people saying it was a rip off and continue to download copies of them.

You quite often see people claiming they have thousands of mp3s on their computer, there was a thread on here not long back asking how to organise them on their system. Are these all legal and did they go out and buy copies as a result of downloading them. I bet they have never listened to most of them.

You don't appear to comprehend how many people rely on sales of music for their living. There are far more than the artists themselves and your fat executives. Do you know how much it can cost to rent a retail unit in a prime shopping location, staff it and pay the overheads. A large percentage of the cost is retail margin and anyone selling through the high street and shopping malls needs that margin to survive. Do you want to see the end of high street retail music?

Re: NTL amongst supporters of Illegal P2P?
 

Actually isnt that what happens currently?

Certainally in this country.

"this rolex was a bit expensive, so i stole it instead!"
judge: "are you admitting committing theft?"
defendant: "oh but it doesn't matter because £1000 for a watch is a rip off, so i robbed it out this geezas house, and he tried to kick me out, I wanna sue him £200000 0 init cause he scratched mi arm and it bled"
judge: "of course! off you go then £200000 0... you might get to do some community service cleaning the grafiti you created if you want, then you can show off your £40000 Saxo to your Chav mates, case closed"
defendant: "cool i can get mi a new body kit for mi saxo insteada that cardboard one, an now I can get a proppa bling Rolex, ya"

Re: NTL amongst supporters of Illegal P2P?
 

What world are you living in? :D

Re: NTL amongst supporters of Illegal P2P?
 

People do it...........and society rightly or wrongly sympathises with it in terms of what punishment they recieve.

Througout society I can fully sympathise with why people steal stuff, because a lot of stuff is way too expensive.

Obviously its up to the individual to decide whether it is right or wrong to take whatever action they decide to take. At the end of the day rightly or wrongly society doesnt seem to punish theft, you steal from a CD store you will probably get a slap on the wrist on any number of occassions from the police.

I can sympathise with why people do it, It doesnt make it right, I might not like those who do it, and I definately wouldnt do it myself.

Re: NTL amongst supporters of Illegal P2P?
 

:Yikes:

Its simple if you can't afford something you don't get it, why the hell should i work my butt off to get my pay each week to get and do nice things, when you are saying that you don't have a problem with people stealing? so where would you draw the line? If somone burguled your house would you have symphaty with them if they had no money? No you wouldn't so why is stelaing from a shop deemed ok by you?

Re: NTL amongst supporters of Illegal P2P?
 

Downloading music isn't theft (much as the BPI, RIAA etc would have you believe it is), it's copyright infringement.

Stealing a CD from HMV though is Theft as you are taking a physical item.

Re: NTL amongst supporters of Illegal P2P?
 

illegal is illegal, but thank you for clarifying that point :)

Re: NTL amongst supporters of Illegal P2P?
 

You will always get people breaking the law.

Downloading mp3s is like speeding, Its a law that a large percentage of the population break and something that people dont necessarily look down on.

I would always prefer to have a real cd for quality, I have an expensive sound system and recorded Cds dont cut it. Of course some people will never buy a CD but that isnt my problem, it theirs.

Exactly how much money are they going to waste trying to enforce the unenforcable............and ending piracy which has been happening since god knows when, and will continue to happen long into the future. What is the point at throwing money into to the wind, when they could reduce the prices and make their product more atractive to the average consumer.

Renting a retail unit.........can cost a fortune but its generally companies such as HMV or Virgin (never ever buy CDs from here as they are at least £3 more than Tesco or Asda) that rent these spaces, a large proportion of advertising is done by HMV, Virgin, Asda, Tesco, Woolworths, how many adverts for albums do you actually see that arent advertising a shop to purchase it, not many personally.

Personally im not that fussed about high street music retailers, if they rip us off, they will go bust, they will need to examine themselves and make themselves more competative to survive. At least Tesco and Asda are pushing CD Prices down to £8.99 which proves prices can be lower.

All a lot of companies need to do is fire a few pen pushing executives and they will save millions a year.

Re: NTL amongst supporters of Illegal P2P?
 

It doesnt make it right.

But sureley you can undertand why people steal? I can Sympathise with why people do it, its easy, its not punished very harshly.

Maybe if laws were stricter in this country it would remove the temptation for people to steal but thats a different matter! If you were not as fortunate as you probably are would you not be tempted to find a easy way out.

If somebody burguled my house I would like to be there to beat the hell out of them, but unfortuantely that illegal (probably more so that theft) too!!

I used to 'unfortunately' work in a shop........whilst there you would see the same shoplifters being caught time and time again (generally part of the local tramp population), its simple for them to do, if they get away with it, they get a free bottle, if not they get to spend the day at a police station.

I dont think mp3 downloads are necessarily because people are poor, they are often for trial or because of the changing mediums in the world.

Some people use a media centre for everything and downloading music is the most conveinient method, until recently there havent been any/many legal sites that allow this, now napster and I-Tunes do.

The record industry needs to wake up, its living in the past, it will end up killing itself if it doesnt watch it.

Re: NTL amongst supporters of Illegal P2P?
 

themelon, what you have to consider is that most of the population of this country do not have internet access. Whilst outlets such as Woolworths and the supermarkets sell CDs they do not stock a very wide range and if they don't stock it then tough. What the high street specialist retailer does is carry a much wider range with facilities to listen before you buy and the ability to order products not in stock.

It is very expensive to rent retail space. Some ten years ago we were paying over £250,00 0 a year to rent a small unit in the Lakeside shopping centre, with service charges, rates, etc on top of this. If you took a PC game retailing for £49.99 including VAT it cost us £25 ex vat to purchase this. It may seem a big profit margin but it was needed to make the business viable.

Re: NTL amongst supporters of Illegal P2P?
 

Are you saying anyone with a big CD collection is also a thief? I know a lot of people with BIG CD collections. And yes, a lot of them have converted them to MP3s to ease of listening AND to listen to on iPods (and other MP3 players). You do seem to have a habit of accusing people of illegal activities with no evidence.

Re: NTL amongst supporters of Illegal P2P?
 

If you read what you have quoted from me you will notice that I have not accused anyone of illegal activities but simply asked the question of whether they are legal. I know the answer and you know the answer. ;)

Re: NTL amongst supporters of Illegal P2P?
 

If people want to pay a premium to shop there then fine, but I just want what I want for the cheapest price.

Maybe the record retailers need to question why shopping space is such a rip off too, maybe move the specialist stores out of 'Prime' shopping locations into their own units in seperate locations. (what exactly defines a pime location for shopping now, why is an out of town shopping complex with 20 shops more dificult to reach by car or public transport than one with 1 shop)

Too many businesses in this country are afraid to break the mould and all follow along as sheep offering substandard services at a premium prices.

Umm I wonder how many tiers of pointless management each of these stores has, when I used to work for a Supermarket Chain (which to its credit has recently restructured greatly) the amount of 'pointless managers' was untrue, an area manager, area director, a regional manager, regional director, divisional manager, divisional director each also had a PA and company car.........I imagine most large retail chains have similar structures of needless high paid management positions.

This Supermarket has infact streamlined all these postions into one............the regional director, so now one person works a bit harder and actually earns their £150000 salary. The company is saving probably the best part of £2 million a year, which it can pass on as better pricing to the customers.

Re: NTL amongst supporters of Illegal P2P?
 

Just out of interest wasn't this thread about somethign completely different from the legalities or otherwise of downloading things on P2P. We all know the vast majority of things floating around P2P networks are illegal, isn't that all we need?

If ntl consciously advertise on ED2k website I think it's pretty clear why is it not? Same reason all advertising is done, to get more customers on board.

Personally in light of the newly coming capped tiers I find it mildly hilarious, especially considering ISPs general dislike for P2P traffic in large quantities, then again I'm an engineer, not a salesbot ;)