God damn you BBC legal department!

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KryptonZone said:
Downloading Top Gear is not an offence. This is DIRECTLY parallel to the usage of Video Casette Recordings (VCR). The Federal case in the United States in the 80s deemed this act as lawful thereby meaning that if person A records a TV show off the Television, and passes it on to person B or anyone else, it is legal.
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The case which KryptonZone is referring to is the case of Sony Corporation of America vs Universal City Studios in 1983. If anyone has looked into this case they will notice that there are quite a few similarities to what is happening now. At that time it was decided that the largest use of VCRs (and now computers using torrents) was for ?time shifting? which many people use computers for now. It was also decided that there was no evidence of any lost funds due to this.

The two biggest differences that I see between this case and what is going on now are:
A. There are no large corporations that fund defense for a case about sharing TV shows because all the groups involved are small not for profit web pages that have no money to spend, or are individuals, none of whom have a chance going up against a large empire such as the MPAA for anything.
B. File sharing has already been deemed as ?bad? by many people (especially the type of people who would be deciding a case of this sort) so no matter who took this on they would be fighting an uphill battle against peoples biases.
 
Righty then, I've been a little busy lately so have just caught up on lots of posts including the 8 pages of this one... However, I was reading this thread and wondering if it really is a good idea people emailing BBC. Here's how I see it...

If lots of us email the BBC about this, we're going to be effectively bombing them with emails. This will probably result in the following:
1) Really, really annoying them due to the amount of emails they will have to sort through (meaning most will probably be deleted without being read and not helping our case)
2) They will probably cotton on to this website being the source of all the emails as I doubt many websites have had to remove specifically Top Gear Torrents recently. This discussion on the forums (which I believe anyone can read) will definately help point the finger at this website being the source. Thus by sending emails about this subject, you're just guiding them back to this website anyway. If they believe this website to be the source of all the 'feelings'... won't be good for Viper.


I really strongly suggest we all refrain from sending the BBC anymore emails as individuals, whether you mention this website or not; at least until or unless we're given the go-ahead to do so by Viper. Last thing we want to do is piss off BBC even more.


Lastly, as a UK resident and someone who already pays their license fee I consider myself very lucky in some ways, but would be extremely pissed off if I had to pay again for the episodes. I'm often not home to watch TG when it's on (sometimes have to work Sunday nights...) and don't have a VCR. Worse still, my 14 inch TV is a lot worse than my 19" PC CRT... And Top gear is all I watch on TV nowadays when I can, so I'm already paying something like 6 quid an ep... (?126.50 for say 20 eps per year) - Damn (never thought of it that way!). So in short, I really, really hope it remains available in some shape or form online.

Cheers Viper for all you're doing with respect to this. Most important of all, I hope that the forum remains online no matter what the outcome... this is definately the best forum I've had the priviledge of being a member of...

-Max
 
vladmitu-
okay, I have a proposition, for the people that are willing to pay for top gear, I would like to gather names/nicknames - and locations if posible- for a petition regarding them distributing top gear in countries that don't receive it.

I'm sure that the BBC will not pass a chance to make a profit if it sees that it has uite a great public that it can sell to. I know I wouldn't if I was running the BBC. As a plus, more money for them would mean more money spent on making top gear, so no more "special bbc funding" problem.
At least that's my POV.

I also think that I should send this to the show's main e-mail as well, although I'm not sure what it is. Their anti-piracy may not give us much help, but the production department grasp the possibility of extra income.
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I would love to have TG on dvd. I would pay 20-$40 per series set and would be willing to wait until the series is over to watch them, the time that the dvds would be released, similar to F1 season review dvd's.

If someone set up a petition Id be willing to sign that way there would be a compromise to this.

However I do want to add that I can still download illegal music and that shows you that we can overcome this. We need to really think and find ways to get around the copyright laws or just stay under the radar.

Having an intro announcing how to get incontact with the ppl that make the illegal rips or having our sitre all over google doesnt help keep us under the radar.

I think that there are alot of technicalitites in our situation and someone that is a lawyer, maybe zgrbill, that would know how to proceed because I REALLY DONT THINK that we should back down because WE have the upper hand here.
 
Look at music and napster, With the shutdown of napster, what happened? did metalica record sales go up? I THINK NOT. They just pissed everyone off instead.
 
Man this blows. :(
I think that sending lots of emails to the BBC and the likes is likely to do more harm than good.
Morally, I think we're not doing much if anything wrong, but legally, I don't think we have a foot to stand on. :cry:
 
This is all bullshit.
I live in San Diego and I love Top Gear, and I need it. I wait and wait through the downtime just waiting for them to come back on. And now they take it away. This is all bullshit. I think the BBC should leave us alone.

I understand that they will be releasing Top Gear America and probably offering Top Gear for download like Fifth Gear.

But they should just leave us alone. From a stand point of Top Gear American, this site would help the BBC sell it. I think they could just go around saying look how hard people work to see our product. Why don't you just give it to them?

For the top Gear downloads if they are anything like Fifth Gear, that will suck I don't want to just pay a dollar per segment I want the whole show


This is all bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit

bullshit
I hate them all :( :x :( :x :( :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown:
 
It's more than likely something to do with the fact that we're not paying a License fee of ?120 a year. See, not sure if you all realise this, but those of us in the UK have to pay ?120 a year for the privelige of watching telly - cause that pays for the BBC - it's not all funded by the govt. you know.

I think that its a pain in the arse that the show has to stop being taken down - but I have a seriously good idea. It can be released via IRC as stated before, and I know the perfect network to do it on, with fast (180+k/sec) bots that it could be uploaded to. All you'd need to do is ask the network admins, who, just out of pure luck, happen to be my friends ;)

Anymore details that are wanted - email me :woot:
 
Anyone care to start writing letters to the TopGear studio?

Post it:
I've Got Something To Say,
Top Gear, Room 4356, BBC White City,
201 Wood Lane, London W12 7TS
 
Just send them emails, letters and make them feel stupid with your points. Hopefully Clarkson will see this for himself and help us out! lol
 
monkeymax said:
I really strongly suggest we all refrain from sending the BBC anymore emails as individuals, whether you mention this website or not; at least until or unless we're given the go-ahead to do so by Viper. Last thing we want to do is piss off BBC even more.
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Well, I really have no clue what to do at this point, and while I don't think e-mailing them is going to do any good because as someone said earlier, they can't allow us, else it'd set a precedent for other copyrights of their's.

So... I dunno. :?

As for why they shut us down, I think it's popularity. Although we were entirely profitless, so I dunno why they didn't go after sites like Jabba's World which is charging for access to downloads.
 
Okay - i've just had a chat with the network admins of the IRC network i was mentioning earlier - now, if someone in charge here can get back to me, I think i may be able to work something out with regards to putting the eps directly on the bots, as long as the network admin agrees.
 
this fucking sucks :thumbsdown:

edit: I know this is probably a stupid question....will we be able to get them though IRC?
 
The BBC makes baby jesus cry. :cry:

This is indeed a sad day. :( Like many others, this site was the only access I had to Top Gear.
 
This is the absolute worst time they sent this letter since the new season just started! I thought the BBC was supposed to be the caring sharing network? haha suprise how much they care about us...
 
Viper007Bond said:
We're just a fan site that's trying to allow people who'd never otherwise be able to see the shows. :(
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Exactly!!

just think of the lil people down under.. :(
Without topgear.. we'll have to go back to watching Steve Irwin shouting "crikey" and getting chased by angry wombats.

:cry:
 
sad day indeed :(

buuut let's just stay calm about this - there's other avenues available for torrent release (mininova, irc etc) so it's not the end of the world. I assume Vuk is still going to do the caps? (though perhaps it would be wise to lose the finalgear intro screen - I have a sneaking suspicion that's what may have lead the BBC here)

Most importantly we'll still have this community and forum - and though I'm not as active as I could / should be here - that's the part of this site that I truly appreciate. We'll always be able to get the torrents from somewhere.

Edit: and hey, thanks to the women's football we have an extra week to make "arrangements"
 
Its a shame, Top gear is one of my favorite shows.
There are millions of people out there who spend all there time distributing games/movies that cost's the industry billions.

When a site like this, setup for the fans, People like me who is unable to get top gear in Australia and are forced to download it.

Its a shame.

I wonder if there is a way we could contact Clarkson (or another host) and tell him OUR side of the story.
We love this show, if your not going to show it in our countries at least let us download it!! Perhaps sending it to the people whose intellectual work went into making it, and not the guys with the fat wallets would be a better option


BTW: If this has been mentioned im sorry, I dont have time to go through 8 pages ;\
 
Well...

Damn. :(

I hate to hear this Viper. As you can imagine I was hoping that letter from your host wasn't prompted by the BBC.

If I come up with any bright ideas you'll be the first to know.

Good luck.
Betacars Admin
 
Somebody should contact the BBC or Top Gear and this point it doesn't seem as if it would hurt the cause as long as they are not just getting a flood of mail they might actually read it and take an interest into making top gear more wildly available which would be a positive for all of us. Or if we moved outside of US jurisdiction like a more friendly place like Canada.
 
You'll still be able to find Top Gear rips on Mininova and such. ;)
 
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