Downloading films - whats the risk?

[Tiggsy]

People who download films and TV shows for personal use - in other words, they are making copies and flogging them, just doing what millions of people do...illegally downloading their friday night movie.

Whats the risk to these people?

T

(hopefully this doesnt break PH rules and is no different to posting "what happens to people that do 100mph")

[TheHeretic]

As far as I know there is no risk in downloading a movie. The risk is sharing it with others over the Internet. Still, torrents, etc, have nothing to do with bootlegging dvd's at a boot sale.

[anonymous-user]

Slightly confused at what you are asking, is it about downloading films only or downloading burning and selling?

If it just for you to watch at home and maybe keep on DVD, then yes it is illegal (as I am sure you are aware) but I have friends who have dedicated PC's purely to download 24/7 movies, tv shows and music and also seed the downloads and none of them have been caught

If you wanted to start knocking out DVD's dont bother, the Vietnamese and Koreans have the market sown up and you are far more likely to get caught

Beware that ISP's are also being encouraged to block access to certain torrent sites and some will also throttle the speed if they detect what you are doing, you can get around this buy using an encrypted client

[Tiggsy]

to be clearer - I know someone that has a mac sat under his TV doing nothing but pulling down his fav US TV shows via sickbeard and usenet and gets a couple of movies a week off bittorrents and uses plex to watch it all more than he uses his Virgin box. All personal use.

Is he going to jail?

[TheHeretic]

Tiggsy said:

to be clearer - I know someone that has a mac sat under his TV doing nothing but pulling down his fav US TV shows via sickbeard and usenet and gets a couple of movies a week off bittorrents and uses plex to watch it all more than he uses his Virgin box. All personal use.

Is he going to jail?

No, not unless he is sharing then, basically seeding, or whatever. It sounds like he is using usenet, so no, he won't be going to prison.

[anonymous-user]

Tiggsy said:

to be clearer - I know someone that has a mac sat under his TV doing nothing but pulling down his fav US TV shows via sickbeard and usenet and gets a couple of movies a week off bittorrents and uses plex to watch it all more than he uses his Virgin box. All personal use.

Is he going to jail?

Haven't heard of sickbeard but have heard of Usenet IIRC that is encrypted which makes sense as Virgin seem to be one of the ISP's who throttle massively if they detect you downloading, so to them this will just look like he is downloading data, they won't be able to tell what. They will of course KNOW but proving it would be difficult

They will go for the people downloading and hosting massive amounts of files first then eventually they might come for the smaller users but that is years away IMO

TL;DR While there is always a risk he is a very small fish in the biggest ocean ever, he should be fine

[Skii]

I recieved a takedown notice from my ISP the last time I downloaded a film, so I've avoided bit torrent since. (Mind you, there hasn't been any worth downloading..)

[anonymous-user]

Skii said:

I recieved a takedown notice from my ISP the last time I downloaded a film, so I've avoided bit torrent since. (Mind you, there hasn't been any worth downloading..)

I gave up about 6 months ago, by the time any decent rips came out you could just hire the DVD, I don't go to the cinema as I cannot abide the places so now I have Sky, they all get onto Movies eventually and I can hire them through Box Office or Netflix if I want

FWIW I think they are doing the right thing with things like Netflix, Spotify etc, I have never been that keen on keeping the movies and series I downloaded as you start to hit TB's of data and with a lot of the series now they are at the same time or a day or 2 later than the states

If you make it easy enough and cheap enough to access the media then people will give up with unreliable torrents and downloading

[pokethepope]

I use the most risky form of downloading, from hosting sites like megaupload, rapidshare etc and a simple download manager. No encryption/proxies/vpn's or anything like that. I only dolwnload one or two films a week so CBA to look at something more secure. These days you get a warning letter first rather than being whisked straight to court, if i get one i will stop.

[stargazer30]

If your worried install TOR. Its free and will cloak your internet activity nicely.

Also as for not sharing if you use a torrent its seeding whilst downloading so you are sharing it. Thats how torrents work.

[TheHeretic]

stargazer30 said:

If your worried install TOR. Its free and will cloak your internet activity nicely.

Also as for not sharing if you use a torrent its seeding whilst downloading so you are sharing it. Thats how torrents work.

Transmission allows you to have a 0 kbs upload.

[Tiggsy]

cool, I'll tell him to crack on (Sherlock Holmes tonight )

[clonmult]

TheHeretic said:

stargazer30 said:

If your worried install TOR. Its free and will cloak your internet activity nicely.

Also as for not sharing if you use a torrent its seeding whilst downloading so you are sharing it. Thats how torrents work.

Transmission allows you to have a 0 kbs upload.

And apparently TOR is the paedos favourite, er, tool. So as soon as you start using it, you'll be labelled as such.

[TheHeretic]

clonmult said:

And apparently TOR is the paedos favourite, er, tool. So as soon as you start using it, you'll be labelled as such.

I tried to get Tor working when it first came out, but gave up.

[Honestherbert]

Myself and a lot of friends have been downloading for years...and never had a problem, bt,virgin etc all know what your doing but dont care as long as you dont take the piss. I have one friend who used to download constantly, literally, and the only punishment he got was a letter warning about fair usage from BT. When he questioned it as he had "unlimited" download capability they just said that although he had "unlimited" there was a fair usage policy to ensure no single individual strangled the broadband for everyone else in his street etc.

He has had 3 letters now and worked out exactly how much he can get away with, 3gb's a day iirc;) without getting any more letters. He has been doing it for a year or so now mainly during the night as virgin/BT etc recommend;)

[Mojooo]

Your ISP being bothered about you downloading films is different to the authorities being bothered.

Sharing is much worse than downloading and those who share are the ones the authorities will be interested in.

Practically speaking the IP representatives are the ones that are bothered and they may pursue sharers via civil proceedings. You may have heard of various stories of companies applying for IP addresses and then sending out threatening letters. Plus there are still plans to have peopels internet access cut off.

In terms of the Police getting invovled, that will only likely to occur if you are doing it for financial gain.