A rapist would get less time.

What an absolute disgrace. Can someone please tell me how they can justify locking this guy up for four years for not stealing, not even copying copyrighted material. Four years!

Creating a modern business model for the content industry would do such much more to reduce piracy than pointless court cases ever will. If consumers could access the content they want to watch, on demand, at a reasonable price and all on the one platform, there’d be plenty of money to be made for everyone.

listening to people here these days most of the country would be in jail… everyone does it, I don’t blame cost its convenience, why rent a DVD and the have to drop it back prob be charged late fee’s too. if there was a service that had good content it would work.. netflix etc are limited some Irish company like xtravision which prob has max two years left should invest with upc and get involved in the digital age and way of doing business.

Nothing quite like government acting in the interests of big business. They should lock him up for 40 years. *Sarcasm* Change the delivery method of web media and curb piracy that way. Netflix etc is a good start but the catalog is not current. The internet is not going away, and “sharing” will exist until an easier model is offered firth. music piracy dropped hugely when Amazon and iTunes started selling tracks for under a dollar. Easier and quicker than looking for a pirated link.

It would make you wonder how SKY get away with allowing you to record tv programmes on their boxes. They even allow you to burn them to disc. What’s the difference between that and downloading TV shows? I always FF the ads on the SKY box so no money made there.

At this stage they will never stop this from happening. Tv company’s need to move and adapt with current times, people don’t watch ad’s anymore there either fast forward or flick the channel. They need to make revenue through product placement and targeted marketing campaigns (Like Facebook ad’s)

There will be 10 more sites offering the same now that they know how much money can be made.

Also they need to release episode world wide instantly, instead of the US being a season ahead

So where can we legally buy up-to-date episodes of TV shows?

There’s a market for it. The technology is in place. Who can I throw my money at to avail of it?

He profited from allowing ads on his website, a nice amount due to the huge traffic his site was getting, he could have been posting pictures of shopping trolleys, so his earnings are irrelevant to what he was directing people to in that regard.

35 k a month isn’t bad.

For all those interested. It’s quite legal to download tv & movies in Ireland for personal use.

What’s illegal is distribution so once you kill the torrent when it receives 100% you’re quite ok.

Got that little nugget of info direct from InFact (Irish branch). Obviously they’re not publicising it, but if you call them & ask, they’ll tell you.

They are trying to get the law change though.

Can someone get the “lord Puttnam , president of film distributors who so eloquently pontificates about the criminal nature of pirating to do an inquiry into how much they charge for a popcorn and coke at the cinema these days…price gouging and rip off in the extreme…

Ok…Copy that.

I would have more sympathy for him if he was doing it for free, he was making a fortune off it, which probably made it far easier to sentence him. One thing sharing copyrighted stuff, another having a whole profitable business around it. If he was just some spotty teenager who was broke he’d have probably got a suspended sentence.

Careful now !

Most of the people commenting on this and supporting this guy don’t seem to really understand what is at stake here.
I agree totally that there should be a total shakeup of global licencing for copy-written material. There should be no more regions and content should be available on all services that want to offer it.
However, if we all continue to copy absolutely everything, governments will step in and start putting severe restrictions on what content is transferred across the network and into our homes.
That means content filters, it means no more YouTube, it mains the dilution of fair use rights.
I’d prefer the put these guys away instead of ruining the internet for all users.

Anybody remember an app on the telly that turned it off or over to something else when the ads came on? The powers-that-be killed that one off rapidly even though it was totally legal. Was it illegal of them to abolish free enterprise?

He profited hugely from engaging in acts that he knew full well were illegal. I really don’t see how people can feel sympathy for guys like him. And the argument that Google does the same thing is asinine.

STC, was set up for the explicit purpose of finding and providing links to copyrighted materials, unlike Google etc.

If you own a hardware store and somebody buys a crowbar to break into houses, you’re not culpable. If you own a shop which sells tools specifically for the purpose of breaking into houses then you might be.

OU812, I think it’s you that hasnt a clue! You misinterpreted what they said because of your lack of understanding on how torrents work. It’s not illegal to download movie etc for your own personal use when you download directly e.g. from a file sharing site. It is illegal to download using torrents as you are sharing while you download the material.

I actually don’t have a problem with this. Regardless of how much money film companies make it is there property and must be paid for. The guy stole there property for personal gain knowing it was against the law. If he got into your car and drive away would you have an issue with it or let him go. We all want free tv and movies but we know we can be prosecuted in certain places for stealing or abusing the copyright