Canadutch
Living outside of my home country, I download TV shows daily via Bit Torrent. There are a number of sites I belong to, some private, some public… and I depend on them to keep me up to date with the shows I am missing. Dutch TV leaves a lot to be desired so I’m thankful to be able to do this.
Recently one of the sites I frequent, Torrentspy, has been sued by the MPAA. I don’t get most of the legal jargon and can’t be arsed to read into it all… but all I know is they are now blocking Americans from using the site. *snicker* This makes me laugh because I can’t count how many times I’ve tried things and been told it’s blocked to people OUTSIDE the US. Whether it’s watching TV episodes on the websites for the stations or this message I get when I try to visit my beloved Pandora:
Dear Pandora Visitor,
We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for most listeners located outside of the U.S. We will continue to work diligently to realize the vision of a truly global Pandora, but for the time being we are required to restrict its use. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative.
We believe that you are in Netherlands (your IP address appears to be …………). If you believe we have made a mistake, we apologize and ask that you please contact us at pandora-support@pandora.com
It ticks me off every time I get one of those messages but this thing with Torrentspy made me squeee with satisfaction. I love that I live in a country that protects my privacy in regards to what I do online. Many torrent sites have their servers here in the Netherlands for that very reason, because they are protected by privacy laws that they don’t benefit from in the US.
I can’t feel too sorry for the Americans though, to be honest. With the amount of TV stations they have, Tivo, Netflix and everything else. They don’t exactly need to be able to download TV shows and movies.
This whole piracy thing is crazy… we’ve got actors making millions upon millions of dollars to make a movie and studio executives living high off the hog. They go on like if people download movies that there will be no money to go towards making them. Hell, if they didn’t make the movies so damn expensive, maybe more people would buy them when they come out.
I don’t know about you, but when a movie is just released and I have the choice between downloading the full DVD or paying 30 euros for it, you can bet your ass I’m going to download it and pay the 2 euros for a DVD-R to burn it on.
Oh, and I love those ads at the beginning of movies ….
You wouldn’t steal a car.
You wouldn’t steal a handbag.
Piracy is stealing too!
Ok, so I wouldn’t steal some little old lady’s handbag, or carjack a soccer mom, but if someone offered me a free bag or wanted to hand me the keys to a car… hell yeah I’d take it.
I mean seriously… how painful it would be for some of these big stars to take home 25 million dollars rather than 75 million. My heart bleeds!
I know, there is probably a lot more to it than I see but still, shit… that’s some nonsense right there.
Hahaha, I’m sure there are overly paranoid people who are afraid of that, but really, it’s not quite so bad. Although I have to admit that going out is becoming a dangerous thing. Even to the mall…
It’s getting scarier everyday.
Yeah Yoshi, that’s a shame. Is it like I imagine it to be living in the US? Like you feel like you are being watched all the time? I’d be scared to whisper ‘bomb’ in my own bathroom for fear of a swat team busting in before I’m even done having a crap hahaha
You bring up a good point with the ad. Yeah, you wouldn’t do those things, but if someone offered them to you, of course you would take it.
In my opinion it’s a pretty fine line. But of course, this probably flags me and someone will be watching my traffic from now on. Go figure. :D