Chris

The key to all this is CONTEXT.

I posted this earlier today but as this thread is now so long I don't suppose anyone logging on now is going to bother to read everything that's gone before.

Look at the overall headline of the advert. It says:
and the sub-heading says:
Thus NTL's intent is clearly to tell you how good broadband is, and how good their broadband service is.

In support of the claims they make, they have a sidebar with its own headline that says:
Don't just take our word for what? Clearly, 'our award-winning broadband service is great, you can browse more and faster and it's low priced compared with the rest of Europe. But don't just take our word for it. Look at some of the great things you can do with broadband: ... '

And so on, including the facts about movie downloads and Spiderman.

Now, if these facts were quoted in a different CONTEXT, say in a newspaper report, there would be nothing wrong. They are simply statements about activities that are illegal. However, they are not in a newspaper report. They are in an advert, and that advert's CONTEXT is 'Broadband's great, look what you can do with it:' And the things stated are illegal. This is a breach of the ASA code, which says it is not allowed for an advertiser to incite a crime, and may also be a criminal offence.

This is a simple, straightforward account of the facts in this case. You can argue forever about whether p2p should be allowed, whether you can copy CDs you own, whether any of it makes any difference in the long run. But the fact is, NTL have arguably committed an illegal act and in any civil society, illegal acts carry penalties that they will have to face if they are convicted.