Clarkson: The Weekly Times Comment Column by Jeremy Thread

Jeremy, as well as most people that should know better, do not understand the internet.

As for people obtaining various "files", they completely do not understand that. I have said all along, they were going to fuck themselves in the end.

How to stop most piracy on the internet. Stop the stupid regioning of DVD. I should not have to get a DVD player I can "hack" if I want to watch a certain DVD. I would much rather just order the DVD I want, pop it in my machine and play it. But, oh no, I can't do that, so I just download it.

Drop the price of a DVD to $5. People would buy the DVD instead of going thru the hassle of the other stuff.

Want more people to go see your movie? Drop the ticket prices. Me and my bf went to a movie and had supper tonight. Counting gas, $60 for a 3 hour date. How do they expect "dating age" people to afford that? Our movie tickets were $8.50 each. My son only makes $10 an hour. That is almost 2 hours out of 40 just to see a movie with a girl, so how often do you think he does that?

I have every book Jeremy has put out. When I get the book, I know I will not need anything "special" to enjoy it. It is in English. It is paperback, so it is cheap.

The internet is not screwing them, they have been screwing themselves for years.

The funny thing is, I had no clue about downloading music until all the crap came up about it. They are the reason I learned to do it. I read over and over every day in the paper about it and it made me curious. When they started selling music on the internet, they had all that DRG crap where you could not buy it and put it on what you wanted to listen to it, so I just downloaded it for free. It would have been so easy to just pay a dollar for it and be done with it, but they wanted my money and then wanted to tell me what I could do with the music I bought. Screwed themselves again.

My cell phone company wants me to buy their ringtones. For $2.99 for a 23 sec snippet. I do not think so. I will do my own thank you very much. 50 cents, I would let them do the work, but again, they do not want it to work like that.

I could go on and on, but they are the ones who have screwed themselves and it is time for some change if they do not all want to go down the drain.
 
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Most people still believe in buying good movies/music/whatever source of media you want to pick. The difference now is that the days of going into your local music or video store, picking out a random cd or dvd, buying it and hoping you got a good product... those days will soon come to a close. And besides, last time I checked movies still come out in theaters before dvd quality versions are available online, bands still do concert tours and books are still much easier to read on paper than a computer monitor.

As far as downloading Top Gear episodes every week, that doesn't make sense either. Here in the States, BBC America broadcasts heavily edited, 3 year old Top Gear episodes. It's not like it's so much easier for me to download a 700mb file every week instead of tuning in, or even better, pushing the record button on my tv remote. It's not a sinister conspiracy to drive the Top Gear staff into poverty either.
 
I've started to buy music through Itunes because they stopped using that annoying DRM. If I do buy an album, it's at the concert where the full fund will go to the band.
 
People will pay for good stuff, but they have to make it easy for them to do that and they can not tell them what they can do with it once they buy it. Otherwise, you do not get my money, but that will not stop me from getting the product.

I will go out of my way to support a good product, and Top Gear is only one of them. But then they release the episodes on Region 2, heavily edited, and I just cannot pay money for that. Why are they heavily edited and region 2? Because of copyright and trying to get more profit, so doing that, they get nothing from me. A willing buyer with the cash to spend. I should be their wet dream, but that does not seem to be enough for them.

I buy lots of things I have downloaded. And what I do not download, I rip the movie off the DVD and put it on a harddrive that hooks to my TV or computer and I have my own jukebox of movies where ever I happen to be. I buy a CD, I rip the music and put it on various devices so I have it with me where ever I am.

That is why I refuse to buy an apple product. They want to keep to firm a hold on their products. Sell it to me and let me do what I want to with it. And for the record, I will die before I ever buy another Sony product because of the crap they have tried to pull over the years.
 
skylock said:
How to stop most piracy on the internet. Stop the stupid regioning of DVD. I should not have to get a DVD player I can "hack" if I want to watch a certain DVD. I would much rather just order the DVD I want, pop it in my machine and play it. But, oh no, I can't do that, so I just download it.
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Agreed! I paid top dollar for my DVD player when it came out for my Home Theater system..and now I'm looking at having to buy another one so it'll be "multi-region"

Bah..



skylock said:
Drop the price of a DVD to $5. People would buy the DVD instead of going thru the hassle of the other stuff.
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Maybe. I don't mind paying extra for a good movie, but why wait for months after it's gone from my theater to release it? Mr. Lucas..are you listening??

skylock said:
Want more people to go see your movie? Drop the ticket prices. Me and my bf went to a movie and had supper tonight. Counting gas, $60 for a 3 hour date. How do they expect "dating age" people to afford that? Our movie tickets were $8.50 each. My son only makes $10 an hour. That is almost 2 hours out of 40 just to see a movie with a girl, so how often do you think he does that?
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*applauds*

For me and my two kids...to go see a movie, get some popcorn, and maybe two drinks..I'm looking at over $50 to do that!

To be honest, I do download movies..to see if I'd like to see them in the theater. And weirdly, I have gone to the movies more, just because I know I wont be wasting my money.


skylock said:
The funny thing is, I had no clue about downloading music until all the crap came up about it.
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I do download music, but the thing is..most of it I do have already on a CD. Its just tucked away, and I'm too lazy to dig it out.

But, I have actually bought a few more CD's because I've downloaded a single..decided I liked the band, and there you go. :)



This is why I dislike the whole "pirate" moniker.
 
skylock said:
I could go on and on, but they are the ones who have screwed themselves and it is time for some change if they do not all want to go down the drain.
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Pretty much. The media companies' desire is to make money in perpetuity, collecting a fee every time you play a song, watch a movie, read an article, or whatever.

It is true that digital media is far easier to duplicate and distribute, which has certainly helped encourage piracy, both casual and commercial, but putting roadblocks in the way of legally paying for content just pushes more customers to piracy.

Top Gear and the BCC do okay by me, even though I don't pay a BBC license fee and secure the show first via a digital copy of the broadcast. I buy the DVDs and the books and the iTunes Season Passes.

I'd rep you, but I've evidently already dropped too many gifts off at your door. ;)
 
Wait someone videoed James peeing in the woods? That's disgusting.

I don't steal music, I don't steal movies. The only thing I download is Top Gear and when they eventually get off their "we all hate america" asses and release a DVD (i.e. ONCE) I buy it. I don't know what other option there is in that respect. I'm not buying a bunch of region 2 DVDs and trying to mess with all that shit. I'm too stupid to figure it out anyway and it's just as illegal.
 
You must spread some more piracy before giving any to Skylock again.

The suits simply. don't. get it. Nor does Jeremy. And yes, region-encoded DVDs are one of the biggest clusterfucks of the modern world.

That said, I do agree with him on this:

Jezza said:
We therefore face the real possibility of various newspapers going out of business, which, combined with the problems at ITV and Channel 4, could mean the BBC becomes the only news-gathering organisation in the country. This would be an extremely bad thing.
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That American Girl said:
*applauds*

For me and my two kids...to go see a movie, get some popcorn, and maybe two drinks..I'm looking at over $50 to do that!

To be honest, I do download movies..to see if I'd like to see them in the theater. And weirdly, I have gone to the movies more, just because I know I wont be wasting my money.




.
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There are some movies I HAVE to see in the theater. Our local place is so piss poor, to see a really good movie we drive 2 hours to see it in a very nice theater with the meal service and stadium seating.

I vacationed over Christmas for 3 years in Branson Missouri so I could watch the Lord of the Rings movies on IMAX. And country music makes my back hurt, but that is how far I would go to see the movies on IMAX.

Like I said, I am their dream customer, but they want to make things hard for me. I go to walmart and hit the 2-5 dollar movie bin. I buy one of anything new. I don't even care what they are about. It is easier to buy the dvd than it is to find it and download it. All those movies with the high price I walk by on my way to the bargain bin would find there way to my house too if they were cheaper, but instead, I just download those. And I am not the only person hitting the bargain bin because sometimes I have to bend over pretty far to even reach the movies. (there are some things I buy no matter what the price. Beatles Hard Days Night for instance)

I used to own a multi region DVD player, but it broke. I will not be buying another unless the other 2 DVD players I have break too, so I will not be buying another thing region 2. I will download it instead. Make DVDs non region, and I will buy.

edit: right after I typed this I cecked my email. Guess where I will be stopping today.

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As I said in my comment on this article--one which may or may not make it past the Times mods--like so many people here, I download episodes of Top Gear because it's the only way for me to see them in their entirety.

BUT.

I only download the ones that aren't for sale legally. I've bought series 7 and 10-12; I've bought several episodes twice so that if I have the urge to watch, say, the Botswana special while my husband's hogging the Xbox, I can watch it on my laptop. I have no problem doing this. Since I live in the U.S., I don't pay the UK TV license fee, so my only contribution to TG's budget is whatever minuscule portion of my monthly cable bill trickles down to them through BBCA. If the BBC ever gets around to releasing the rest of the series, I'll buy those, too.

I want Top Gear to have my money! I care about the quality of the show (and about not letting my fellow production crew types starve), so I have no problem paying my tiny share into its production budget. The way I see it, these people are working very hard, and the end result of their labor is something I enjoy. I am happy to let my payment be my applause.

I read recently that the Beeb is cutting TG's production budget again due to diminishing money from licensing fees, which only pay for 75% of the show (I think--correct me if I'm wrong, please). Why? Why are they doing this when they could easily make up the missing money by, oh, I dunno, making all past episodes available, in their original forms, at a reasonable cost? By charging a small amount of money to let non-UK viewers watch new episodes on the BBC iPlayer? By selling DVDs that can be watched outside of region 2? With almost 400 million viewers, there's surely a market for it.

Seems to me the BBC is shafting everyone: itself on money, TG on production budget, and us viewers. BAH. Stop looking at the downloading as an evil thing and start seeing it as an impetus to improve!
 
Heck, there appear to still be markets to mine within the UK as, to the best of my knowledge, none of the TV series have been released on DVD there.
 
If Top Gear would be released un-edited and on time over here in the states, you bet your arse i would pay for it, but until that happens, i will keep downloading it because its an amazing program.

And as Shesquint said, more money they make, the higher the quality, and thus the more I would be willing to pay for said programming.



Why is America the only place where the show is not run? (as Jezza said in the SRPC segment from this season)
 
Usually I'm also one of those guys, who never download illegal things. I buy CD's and DVD's and BluRay's. I spend about 150 Euros per month for such stuff. Heck, I even bought HD-DVD's!

I'm even willing to pay the ridiculous prices of today, as long as I categorize it "worth owning". Because I much rather have an original in my shelf, than some cheap copy on my hard drive or a DJ case full of DVD-R's.

But what if you want something and simply cannot optain it in any other way, than downloading it from the internet? Am I really harming the makers's profits, if I "steal" something that couldn't be bought in the first place?

Because that is the case with Top Gear. I would love to buy the episodes as season boxes (given that they contain the original music, are uncut and uncensored). I would even buy them, if Top Gear was aired here! You are airing in f*cking Korea but not in the country with the leading car industry in the world? How stupid is that?

As soon as the Polar Special was available on BluRay, I bought it of course -- from Amazon.uk, that is. That's a hint. Mr. Clarkson should be thankful for guys like me.

I'm quite sure that many here love Top Gear so much, they would cheerfully pay for buying the stuff, rather than downloading torrents.

The BBC or the TG producers seems to be completely ignorant about their potential profits with their franchise...

The whining of those who make and release music, movies and TV programs really starts getting on my nerves. I wanna yell at them: "We are in the 21st century, so start thinking in the terms of the 21st century -- both for art and business issues -- and stop continuing to think in terms of the 1970's! The money is still out there -- only you fail in obtaining it!"

The internet is only a monster for those who are too uninterested to grapple with it.

How's that for a column? :)
 
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I understand and accept that the BBC does not have an international license to broadcast whatever music they want and therefore needs to edit the music in all released formats. And I understand that BBC America is a commercial channel and my local provider needs to run commercials to defray the costs of carrying it in their lineup.

But editing for content on DVD and digital downloads, as they did with the Series 10 DVD set and iTunes Season Pass, reduces the value of the product. I give the BBC credit for bringing out Series 7, 11 and 12 unedited for content, which encouraged me to buy them. And if I get confirmation the DVDs for Series 11 and 12 are unedited for content, I will buy them, as well.

I do however wonder why the BBC have not released Series 6, 8 and 9 in the US iTunes store. I'm pretty confident that they were broadcast on BBC America, so I would think they should be available, as well. And why not a Series 7 DVD box set to go with Series 11 and 12?
 
shesquint said:
I want Top Gear to have my money! I care about the quality of the show (and about not letting my fellow production crew types starve), so I have no problem paying my tiny share into its production budget. The way I see it, these people are working very hard, and the end result of their labor is something I enjoy. I am happy to let my payment be my applause.
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I haven't worked out the multi quote thing is...but the irony of this astounds me:

Whenever we have a thread about "Why cant we in the States view blah blah blah" some yahoo always pipes in with: "Well, I pay my license fee and you don't".

But as you can see from the people here, we would be more than willing to pay a license fee, and buy the DVD's if we had that chance!

But the BBC is telling us that we are not allowed to pay the fee.

*goes off to type sort of epic rant post*
 
Kiskaloo said:
I do however wonder why the BBC have not released Series 6, 8 and 9 in the US iTunes store. I'm pretty confident that they were broadcast on BBC America, so I would think they should be available, as well. And why not a Series 7 DVD box set to go with Series 11 and 12?
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These things take time.

Heck, even favourites like the Muppet Show still aren't available in its entirety on DVD and it's been almost 30 years since the last episode aired!


A lot of it does come down to music licensing. Every single track in every single episode needs to be reviewed and a good-faith effort needs to be made to obtain licensing for it. I suspect that a lot of artists would be perfectly fine with letting their work be used in Top Gear DVD releases for a couple of pennies per song, but even that is going to add up to a very significant amount of money per pressing. And if Skylock got her way and DVDs dropped to $5, then the economics of it would be completely impossible. Unless she expects professional artists to give away their work for free, which is a pretty offensive proposition.
 
Night_Hawk said:
I thought it was just the show "how I met your mother" But apparently nobody in the world has a valid reason to come to Canada.

Full of people pretending to be french? more like "one of the provinces is mostly french"
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As somebody from Alberta, I can promise everyone here that is definitely not true. If anything, resentment of the Quebecois is a little extreme in that part of the world.
 
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