Are 'Thieving fare dodgers' any worse than downloaders?

[danielf]

This issue kind of got burried, but my comment here, really was a response to this (closed) thread.

People seem quite happy when a 'thieving fare dodger' gets thrown off a train. At the same time, many people don't think twice about downloading copyrighted material when they'd have to pay for said materials in the shop.

So what's 'thieving' exactly, and where does it start/stop to become acceptable?

[djfunkdup]

First things first......that fat man needs to go on a diet..

although i do not agree with theft of any kind,fat people do seam to step up for hero awards all the time... such a strange world we live in

[Jameseh]

People know they can get away with illegal downloading so they do it. I'd like to still be able to watch House when Skynet strikes so I buy DVDs.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by danielf

This issue kind of got burried, but my comment here, really was a response to this (closed) thread.

People seem quite happy when a 'thieving fare dodger' gets thrown off a train. At the same time, many people don't think twice about downloading copyrighted material when they'd have to pay for said materials in the shop.

So what's 'thieving' exactly, and where does it start/stop to become acceptable?

I tend to stream everything now. I have paid for accounts with love films & Sky go for films and tv, Spotify & Digitally imported for music which i use on my i pad. I use the main stream tv players. If i do download its generally tv episodes that have not been released in this country because they have not been carried by providers in this country. The days of me downloading shed loads of films have long gone due to the providers finally getting off there backsides and providing legal digital download facilities. I use the newsgroups to obtain episodes of tv not released in this country.

In the past when i have downloaded it was because i could not get a legal digital copy of a tv episode, Thankfully that has all changed and i happily use legal means now.

As for the far dodger did he have the facility to pay for a ticket legally and if he did why did he not pay. I have seen the response from the person in question on the bbc site and if he has the ticket to prove he had one then fine however if not my statement stands because there was a facility available to him to pay for the ticket.

[Chris]

There are a number of ways to look at this.

First, are they the same legally? No. Copyright infringement, which is what you do when you download a film or TV show, is a civil matter which the copyright owner can sue you over. Rail fare dodging, on the other hand, is a criminal offence. So Parliament has judged one to be more serious than the other.

Second, do they have the same impact? I would argue no; downloaderz tend to have massive libraries of stuff because they can get it for free. They would not have it all in their possession if they had to pay for it. The content owner has not lost a physical product, with its associated cost, and arguably has not lost a sale either. On the other hand, an individual who uses the railway system wears the seats, uses the soap and towels in the toilet and adds weight the train has to pull. All of it is small but it is nevertheless a set of physical products whose 'loss' to the rail company the fare dodger has failed to pay for.

Third, are they morally the same? In my opinion, yes, they probably are. I applaud the fare dodger getting thrown off the train and I would applaud a downloader getting stuck with having to hand over the price of the film they downloaded. The moral issue has become clouded, however, because the film studios have tried to use the legal system to enforce punitive fines on the downloaderz rather than simply collecting the cost of a DVD. Their behaviour, and that of certain unscrupulous lawyers in the UK, caused attention to be focused on their methods and for the time being at least has discredited the whole concept of major rights holders using legal redress to collect the money they are due for their work.

[Gary L]

Originally Posted by Chris

On the other hand, an individual who uses the railway system wears the seats, uses the soap and towels in the toilet and adds weight the train has to pull. All of it is small but it is nevertheless a set of physical products whose 'loss' to the rail company the fare dodger has failed to pay for.

LOL
wears the seats and uses the soap

[Stuart]

I think fare dodging is worse, for the reasons Chris outlined (although I am not defending piracy).

I remember reading an article in the Evening Standard where a reporter followed railway staff launching a massive crackdown on routes to London Bridge belonging to what is now the Southern Train Company.

In the days before they had automated ticket gates on National Rail, they suspected mass fare evasion. So, they launched this crackdown. IIRC, they found hundreds of commuters who had no season ticket, and clearly weren't paying the daily fare (if they were paying, they'd have bought a season ticket as it would have been considerably cheaper). The loss to the rail company, even then, was in the order of thousands of pounds a year for each traveller.

You can argue that they should have employed ticket inspectors at London Bridge, and they did. However, enough passengers travel through London Bridge in the morning to make it impossible for Ticket Inspectors to accurately check every ticket without slowing the passengers down enough to cause serious delays.

I suspect those figures where one of the major reasons why the rail companies started rolling out automated gates.

[Rob]

Ultimately both are methods of depriving someone of money they should have been entitled to. But as pointed out above, one is currently a criminal offence and the other civil. Whether that means one is more serious than the other I'm not sure. But criminal offences usually have a set tariff of penalties, whereas civil seems to be whatever the lawyers think they can get away with. As ever the lawyers create the problem where the sanctions they try to apply are often disproportionate to the actual losses.

[Kymmy]

Fare dodgers are reducing the profits of a required service, reduced profits can mean increased fares, less services and possibly less expansion of services that people don;t have a choice but to use.

Downloaders are taking profits from a retailer that isn't an essential service, you don't need a film to get you to work and back, or do your shopping..

So in my mind not the same thing and fare dodging is a lot more serious offence as it's a crime against infrastructure that we all need though that doesn't justify those downloading instead I was just answering the OP's question.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Gary L

LOL
wears the seats and uses the soap

Yes i found that funny as well

[Russ]

..I think he meant 'wear and tear' as opposed to actually wearing it...

[admars]

tv show downloading doesn't just effect sales of DVDs. When the show airs in UK, viewing figures will be down as people have downloaded it, thus a loss in advertising revenue etc, which could ultimately stop certain shows being shown over here.

For example Breaking Bad, season 1 was on FXUK, season 2 on Five (shown at stupid o clock consecutive nights at Christmas which wouldn't have helped viewing figures) but 3 and 4 no air date. Maybe viewing figures were really low so no network wants to buy it, but maybe they're low because the interested audience already downloaded it. Then you could argue ppl maybe downloaded it because they were fed up of waiting.

Shows like Dexter and True Blood air nearly a year after US, but some, like Lost was on a day or 2 later, so I'd imagine many ppl who had sky were happy to wait.

[Mr Angry]

There are people who don't need trains to get them to work or to do their shopping either. What might be essential to one person is not necessarily essential to others.

We can all come up with excuses not to pay however In the ordinary course of business where a payment is required in exchange for goods or services one should make the required payment - or go without.

Simples.

[Hugh]

What he said.

[Matt D]

Originally Posted by admars

tv show downloading doesn't just effect sales of DVDs. When the show airs in UK, viewing figures will be down as people have downloaded it, thus a loss in advertising revenue etc, which could ultimately stop certain shows being shown over here.

For example Breaking Bad, season 1 was on FXUK, season 2 on Five (shown at stupid o clock consecutive nights at Christmas which wouldn't have helped viewing figures) but 3 and 4 no air date. Maybe viewing figures were really low so no network wants to buy it, but maybe they're low because the interested audience already downloaded it. Then you could argue ppl maybe downloaded it because they were fed up of waiting.

Shows like Dexter and True Blood air nearly a year after US, but some, like Lost was on a day or 2 later, so I'd imagine many ppl who had sky were happy to wait.

If Breaking Bad was actually still shown in the UK, perhaps it would not be downloaded as much... Ditto for Sons of Anarchy.

True Blood... If Sky Atlantic had that like it had the rest of HBO's shows it would get shown on time, instead of a year behind like on FX, so would hopefully then not get downloaded as much. Then again, if it was on Atlantic then VM viewers wouldn't be able to watch it so there'd still be downloading... But I don't see why FX has to be so late with both that and Dexter. Waiting a year is ridiculous.

Sky has been very good with some US shows (e.g. Lost, 24 and others on Sky One; Game of Thrones on Sky Atlantic), while even FX has been good with some shows (The Walking Dead is on FX UK less than a week after it's on AMC in the US), but there are still several shows which either get broadcast ages after the US or simply do not get broadcast at all.


I am sure it does affect some DVD sales, but not all. Some people will download something they like and want to watch again, so may have otherwise purchased the box set if they did not have a drive full of .avi or .mkv files. But not every show which gets downloaded is something the viewer would want to watch again, so no box set would have been purchased anyway. Just as not every show someone watches on broadcast TV will be something the viewer wants to watch again and again, and so will not be purchased on DVD. Plus of course if a show has not actually been broadcast in the UK, there will be no DVDs released in the UK to purchase.