back to article OMG, dad, you're so embarrassing! Are you P2P file sharing again?

Fathers can now add "file sharing" to the list of things they do to embarrass their teenage children - alongside dancing badly in public. P2P file sharing, which peaked over a decade ago, is now the preserve of middle-aged and older internet users. Research from two separate studies (by Kantar and INCOPRO) for UK Music and the …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Might be an uncommon opinion, but I actually pay for the good/services I use...I dunno call me old-fashioned I guess.

    1. werdsmith Silver badge

      I already own legal copies of 99% of the music I will ever want to listen to, so I already paid for it.

      I'm not paying again for a subscription so it can be delivered to me again on my own bandwidth cost.

      1. xeroks

        That's what I thought.

        I've found streaming a cheaper way to legally listen to music a few times out of interest.

        For instance, while being familiar with the singles, I realised I'd never actually listened to the Beatles albums.

        I was able to stream them while at work, came across a lot of interesting stuff. Would I have spent >£80 to buy them? No.

        Will I listen to them again? Possibly.

        It can be great value for money. And some of that money gets back to the artist, unlike streaming or youtube.

        (actually if I could trust it to go to the artist rather than the streaming company, I'd pay more for the service.)

        1. Colin Tree

          boxed set

          Bought the Beatles boxed set back in the 70's,

          but now have and regularly listen to the Beatles discography.

          I reckon I've purchased a license to listen to their music,

          and back then it was for life, not a single play on one device.

          ...relax and float downstream...

          LSD, the golden age

        2. aks

          the money goes to the copyright holder.

          occasionally, that's the artist.

      2. Korev Silver badge

        I'm not paying again for a subscription so it can be delivered to me again on my own bandwidth cost.

        It's more convenient for me to [losslessly] stream* than it is to walk over to my shelves, find the CD and put it on. It has the added benefit that artists that I like make a bit more money out of it.

        *Either from my NAS or the Internet

        1. nijam Silver badge

          > It has the added benefit that artists that I like make a bit more money out of it.

          How naive. As ever, it's the publishers* operating the toll-gates between artist and audience who will benefit.

          * And of course, their PR team, including the articles' author...

        2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          "It's more convenient for me to [losslessly] stream* than it is to walk over to my shelves, find the CD and put it on. It has the added benefit that artists that I like make a bit more money out of it."

          You may think that. In some cases it may even be true. In others, you need to know who "owns" the songs before you know who gets the money. Since the Beatles have been mentioned, Sony get the money for those albums/tracks.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      re: pay for the good/services

      Most freetards would like to pay too. But not the artificially inflated price set by corporate greed.

      And once you have tasted the forbidden fruit of a TV show with no adverts (I marvel at people on Sky et al who are *paying* to see adverts .... surely if you pay, you *shouldn't* be seeing adverts ????) then there is no going back.

      Oh, and Amazon Prime and Netflix (which I *do* pay for) have got it spot on. No adverts in paid content ....

      1. Just Enough

        Re: re: pay for the good/services

        "artificially inflated price"

        I don't think you understand how markets work. There is no "natural un-inflated price". The price is whatever the supplier believes they can maximize their profits at.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: re: pay for the good/services

          "The price is whatever the supplier believes they can maximize their profits at."

          Brilliant. We can crack on pirating then, because the price they're selling at is maximising their profit they can't possibly do any better.

          Im glad its not greed that sets the prices. Or "George Lucasing" the fuck out of the same dead horse for decades.

          For the media industry ive got a PSA for you.

          You you wouldn't bill me every time I take a book off my shelf.

          You wouldn't charge me to watch the same DVD over and over.

          You wouldn't fine me for playing aga doo at a childs birthday party.

          You wouldn't prevent me downloading a copy of the music / movie I already own.

          Copyright abuse is theft and nonesense. Don't do it.

          1. Nick Ryan Silver badge

            Re: re: pay for the good/services

            I was agreeing with some of your other points, or were ambivalent to them, however (assuming you were being serious):

            Copyright abuse is theft and nonesense. Don't do it

            Copyright is not, and never can be, theft. Copyright violation is copyright violation, nothing more, nothing less. This doesn't mean that violating copyright is a good thing, just that it's not theft.

            Makes a whole mockery of the UK's self-serving FACT organisation (Federation Against Copyright Theft) - it's hard to take an organsation seriously when even their name is a lie. As for the unskippable adverts and theft lies at the beginning of DVDs... that is exactly why I play a ripped copy and not the bloody original DVD or BluRay disc. When I choose to watch a film, I'd like it to start there and then, not some unspecified 5-10m in the future.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: re: pay for the good/services

              Pretty certain i said copyright abuse is theft not copyright itself.

              Can we rewind his upvotes please?

              Enforcing your rights as a copyright holder is cool. Leveraging your rights to rip people off, waste court time and generally troll well meaning people (exercising their right to fair use) is not.

              If someone blatantly copies and resells any content I produce on an industrial scale, I will do everything in my power to stop them since I don't profit from it myself. If I did, I'd probably care less.

              If someone decides to share with a few friends and family, who cares?

              I produce content for people to see not for me to profiteer on.

          2. Rattus Rattus

            "You wouldn't bill me every time I take a book off my shelf"

            Wouldn't they fuck. If they could work out a way to do it then you bet your ass they would.

            1. Alan Brown Silver badge

              Re: "You wouldn't bill me every time I take a book off my shelf"

              They tried (and failed) to shut down public libraries.

              They tried (and failed) to make the sale of secondhand books illegal.

              They tried (and failed) to make the sale of secondhand records/tapes/CDs/DVDs illegal.

              They tried (and failed) to make the same of home video recorders illegal.

              They tried (and mostly suceeded) to make the sale of secondhand computer software illegal.

              They've suceeded with ebooks and downloads and there have been some attempts using this as leverage to try (again) to get resale of secondhand physical media restricted along with new restrictions on libraries.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: "You wouldn't bill me every time I take a book off my shelf"

                >They've suceeded with ebooks and downloads

                Not really. There are (allegedly) still Usenet groups devoted to ebooks. And (if you do buy from DRM-locked sources) there is (allegedly) a high-Calibre bit of software that you can use, with plugins, to remove the DRM and save it in epub form so that one can (allegedly) read it on non-approved devices (and especially, ones that don't feed back every page turn to the mothership).

        2. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: re: pay for the good/services

          "The price is whatever the supplier believes they can maximize their profits at."

          In a truely competitive market supplier prices will coverge on a cost + small margin model.

          In the current market, suppliers manipulate the laws to prevent competition and can therefore charge what they want up to the point where they encounter consumer resistance - think of the piracy side of things as that consumer resistance in action.

          This kind of supplier abuse is the exact reason why royal patents were abolished entirely a few hundred years ago and then the system recreated to give a fairer market. The USA's deliberate non-recognition of foreign copyright/patents until recently (and china's effective simliar policy) acted as similar reformation devices but it's clear that since WW2 things have been sewn up tighter and tighter on the supply side. It's time for another set of wide-ranging reforms which don't hand excess power to the creators and middlemen (especially the middlemen, who are generally ripping off both creators and consumers with gay abandon)

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: re: pay for the good/services

          >I don't think you understand how markets work. There is no "natural un-inflated price". The price is whatever the supplier believes they can maximize their profits at.

          I don't think you realise how true capitalism works, in a true capitalist society there would be no copyright or patents.

          Techdirt puts the points well:

          https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121204/02422821219/fixing-copyright-is-copyright-part-free-market-capitalism.shtml

        4. Wayland

          Re: re: pay for the good/services

          Just Enough

          Years ago I read about how Sony were losing money to chipped PlayStations. They claimed that they had to charge a higher amount to pay for game development, distribution and advertising. Fair enough but then the complained that not only were the pirates selling more games than they were but they were making more money!!!

          Obviously the irony was lost on them. Just lower the price and you make more money and put the pirates out of business.

          So they maybe charging what they think people will pay but unless they only want to sell a few to rich people then they have not maximized to their market potential. Heck they could charge £1000,000 per game on only sell to Premier League football players.

      2. Cowboy Bob

        Re: re: pay for the good/services

        "Most freetards would like to pay too. But not the artificially inflated price set by corporate greed."

        Interestingly, I changed my model a couple of years ago on my Bandcamp page to be free with the option of paying for it if you want. I now get far more paying downloads than I did before I had the mandatory charge.

      3. AndrueC Silver badge
        Meh

        Re: re: pay for the good/services

        surely if you pay, you *shouldn't* be seeing adverts ????

        That depends on the provider. It's up to them to decide how to balance the two revenue streams (adverts and subscription) in a way that achieves their goals. They've probably all found that a subscription high enough to offset the complete absence of advertising revenue puts off too many people. Sky is expensive enough as it is - pay to get rid of all the adverts and it would be out of reach of most people. And even those that could afford would probably not consider it worthwhile.

        It's also unclear how they could get rid of all the adverts on their platform. Most of the channels are owned by other broadcasters and Ofcom prohibit Sky from interfering with those channels. There would have to be an industry-wide agreement not to show adverts and how you move everyone from an ad-based revenue stream to a shared subscription model I dread to think. It might not even be possible.

        1. Pedigree-Pete
          Happy

          Adverts...@AndrueC

          If not for adverts, when would you make tea/have a ciggi/loo visits. PP

          1. Glenturret Single Malt

            Re: Adverts...@AndrueC

            It's called the pause button.

      4. RyokuMas
        Paris Hilton

        Re: re: pay for the good/services

        "Most freetards would like to pay too. But not the artificially inflated price set by corporate greed."

        In which case, how do you explain Android's insane piracy rate and the rise of free-to-play while games priced at a dollar or less are left to flounder?

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Don't you dare give the bourgeoisie a penny more than you need to.

      This childishly transparent propaganda article uses ageism, and the suggestion that you don't conform to the social mores of the ruling-class (you're single and sleep with whores) to enforce class hierarchy. To put you in your place as a consumer of corporate culture, and never a creator of folk culture.

      If the stereotypical proletariat “starving” artist even exists, then they've already been fully exploited by the bourgeoisie, and there is no ethical choice you can make, whether torrenting, ripping or buying. If anything torrenting is optimal because it enriches the cultural life of your fellow worker at no cost to anyone.

      These days however, most artists who create commodities aimed at the proletariat, are themselves bourgeoisie, from old money families, or at least the product of nepotism, since forcing a brand into the public consciousness is ridiculously capital intensive.

      1. Wayland

        "These days however, most artists who create commodities aimed at the proletariat, are themselves bourgeoisie, from old money families, or at least the product of nepotism, since forcing a brand into the public consciousness is ridiculously capital intensive."

        Or in other words it's a joke to say it deprives the artist of money. Since when has a pirated artist every been the artist short of money? It's the ones without the mass market deals who need the money.

    4. VinceH

      "Might be an uncommon opinion, but I actually pay for the good/services I use...I dunno call me old-fashioned I guess."

      You're old fashioned.

      And so am I. :)

      Only yesterday, someone mentioned a band in an email, with a link to one of their numbers on YouTube1. I gave it a watch/listen, then moved on to a couple more of their YouTube videos. I decided I liked them a lot, so I immediately purchased their album.

      1. In the interests of completeness: Cardboard Love, by The Hallows

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Old-fashioned...

      Funny thing, I'm old fashioned too - and I remember when 'stream ripping' was called 'home taping', which if I'm not mistaken is the analog analogue...

      But I guess you never did that as a teenager, either.

      1. Chairo
        Pirate

        Re: Old-fashioned...

        I remember when 'stream ripping' was called 'home taping',

        Yes, but as we all know, "Home Taping was Killing Music". That might also explain why so much popular music is produced by soulless zombie bands nowadays.

        1. 40k slimez

          Re: Old-fashioned...

          More like the record companies just want to sell the same formulaic crap that will make them the biggest profit.

          Good music exists out there its just not mainstream and easy to find.

        2. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: Old-fashioned...

          90% of everything published/released is crap. It was true then and it's true now.

          Soulless zombie bands have always existed. The difference when looking back is that you're looking through the filter of time that allows you to see the reasonable 10% of what was released and ignore the rest.

          The same applies to books. Most of what's published aren't fit to wipe your arse with and thankfully will be forgotten next year let alone next decade.

    6. cyberdemon Silver badge
      Devil

      Me too, except I actually care who I'm paying..

      > Might be an uncommon opinion, but I actually pay for the good/services I use...I dunno call me old-fashioned I guess.

      If I thought that any of it was going to the people who actually make the goods/services that *i* use, then I would (and do) pay.

      However, I'm not particularly into the mainstream manufactured crap that is where most of big-media invest their funds (apart from their next ocean-going yacht), so I guess that makes me middle-class.

      Half the time, if I'm after a particular film / piece of music, it's not available from any paid services - and even if it is available, the content mafia just pocket the money anyway - it's not like the original creators are going to be making more music/films if they are long dead (but copyright is Life+95 years thanks to the Mickey Mouse Act).

      So half the time I'm forced to stream anyway. But the other half the time, if the paid services were charging a reasonable rate based on the cost of delivering their service (i.e. maintaining shed loads of hard disks, and a ton of bandwidth) then I would happily pay the requisite 50p per film / 5p per music track, with at least 50% paid to the artists unless I ask to pay them more because I really liked it, then artists would get paid properly and I would buy a hell of a lot more content.

      As it happens, I bought a subscription to Magnatune, which has exactly this model. But that definitely makes me middle-class.. <_<

    7. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Personally I find streaming on questionable sites to not be worth the effort provided I can get the content legally. The few times I have engaged in the practice have come only after exhausting all legal avenues of getting the content in question - including such horrendously over-priced options as going to the theater*. Only when I can't find any legal means of watching something, which really doesn't seem to happen any more, do I turn to sites of questionable legality.

      *Yes, theaters are overpriced. $10 for a ticket to watch a movie once with a bunch of strangers, inevitably including at least a few who have never learned any form of etiquette, when I'll be able to buy the DVD for $9 in a month or two and watch it all I want in the comfort of my own home? I have to want to see something pretty badly to be willing to do that.

    8. Voland's right hand Silver badge

      Same here

      but I actually pay for the good/services I use.

      Same here.

      The only thing which I am interested is consuming it the way I like it and where I like it.

      I have a bleeping hard copy, I paid all the royalties, now I would like to have it on my 10TB NAS so I can watch it anywhere in the house, on the 3TB hard drive in the "remote descendant of a GM2 Betty" I use to travel around Europe so that there is peace in the back seats and on the similarly sized drive array at my summer house/office. I do not see why the f*** I should be prohibited from doing so.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Same here

        @Voland's right hand - My brain misread that as a G4M2 Betty - if you actually ARE pootling around Europe in an antique propellor plane , may i just say how utterly envious of you I am? :-}

  2. Terry 6 Silver badge

    Who's of thunk it

    Middle aged blokes who do P2P file sharing also seek paid "escorts". Since I only hit one of the three criteria I can't judge whether that is reasonable or not, but I'm sceptical. Still, who am I to doubt marketing?

    1. big_D Silver badge
      Holmes

      Re: Who's of thunk it

      Hmm, people too tight to splurge a couple of quid for a video or music track? I can't see them splurging (money) on an escort...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "I can't see them splurging (money) on an escort..."

        They will pay for what they can't copy or get for free. So they'll have to pay for sex, no other way to get it...

    2. Your alien overlord - fear me

      Re: Who's of thunk it

      So, when you become middle aged and start P2P, they'll have your profile right then? :-)

    3. 's water music
      Windows

      Re: Who's of thunk it

      Middle aged blokes who do P2P file sharing also seek paid "escorts". Since I only hit one of the three criteria I can't judge whether that is reasonable or not, but I'm sceptical. Still, who am I to doubt marketing?

      You damn millenials, can't you just listen to some free music instead of pushing up the price of escorts for us old farts?

      1. Boo Radley

        Re: Who's of thunk it

        As a middle aged bloke, I use p2p to occasionally download content (mostly 'educational' movies) because content prices are, for me anyway, too high. Male escorts, however, haven't gone up in price nearly as much as media content.

    4. Tikimon

      Re: Who's of thunk it

      Nothing special about that. I often pay escorts to download music and movies. It's a win all around.

      1. David 132 Silver badge
        Happy

        Re: Who's of thunk it

        Nothing special about that. I often pay escorts to download music and movies. It's a win all around.

        I used to have an escort, but I gave it the boot.

        Now it's an Orion.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Who's of thunk it

      Middle aged blokes who do P2P file sharing also seek paid "escorts".

      Well their wives stopped putting out years ago, so what do you expect?

    6. joed

      Re: Who's of thunk it

      I'd add that elders (70+) are just as likely to p2p. Trying explain to them how to capture the stream of their favorite songs (off social network of their choice) proved to be frustrating though (and resembled doing someone's homework).

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ...list of things they do to embarrass their teenage children - alongside dancing badly in public.

    and so we should.

    Having put up with years of tantrums, vomiting, whining, sulks, unreasonable demands, money leeching, it is a fathers right to get his own back.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: ...list of things they do to embarrass their teenage children

      plus a carefully selected bunch of photos showing those bold young people - as they were a few years earlier (nappies, etc.) Does wonders to counterbalance the "f... off dad!" argument! ;)

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I learned dad dancing precisely because of this.

    3. Pedigree-Pete
      Pint

      Re: ...list of things they do to embarrass their teenage children ..

      @ Lost all faith....Amen brother. Have an upvote and one of these.

    4. Scroticus Canis
      Trollface

      Re: ...list of things they do to embarrass their teenage children

      Avenge yourself - live long enough to be a burden to your children.

    5. sisk

      Re: ...alongside dancing badly in public.

      Bah, I use public embarrassment as a deterrent. For instance, my daughter knows that her learning to twerk will result in me learning to twerk and then chaperoning all of her school dances. For some reason her interest in learning to twerk evaporated the instant she was made aware of that fact.

  4. Duffy Moon

    Ive never heard of stream ripping (maybe because I'm middle aged), but I don't understand why one would need to do it. Isn't (e.g.) Spotify (with ads) free anyway?

    1. teebie

      It is, but it has ads, requires an internet connection, spotify can remove music, and you can't copy files from it to, say, an mp3 player.

      Maybe the last one isn't a concern to people under 30.

      1. Alan Brown Silver badge

        " spotify can remove music, and you can't copy files from it to, say, an mp3 player"

        Oh, can't you? *evilgrin*

      2. nijam Silver badge

        > ...and you can't copy files from it to, say, an mp3 player

        One can see the advantage there, given the quality of much of what's being streamed.

    2. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

      I remember stream ripping from shoutcast 15 years ago. In the end it was fairly pointless compared to other methods of obtaining music, whether legitimate or not. You would end up with a load of stuff you didn't want, and the bitrates were usually worse.

    3. herman

      Try Streamtuner (Streamripper is built in) and then you may understand why it is much more convenient than anything else. Real radio stations are unusable where I live, so once a year, I let my laptop download about 10 radio stations for a few days. I save that on a memory stick and that is what I listen to in my car for the rest of the year.

    4. Dan 55 Silver badge

      That works until the next time Taylor Swift gets upset with Spotify or YouTube.

    5. ciderbuddy

      Mobile Generation

      I think it's because they mainly listen to music on their mobiles. My niece was always running out of data about 1 week into her month because of watching music vids on Youtube at school and coming home, so I gave her my spotify password.

      ps. nope I hadnt heard of stream ripping either and it made me feel old

    6. Chris G

      I'm well past middle age (I think) but I had a winamp streamripper at the turn of the century, I have never used a torrent though.

      Am I cool or uncool?

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

        1. Nick Ryan Silver badge

          Maybe El Reg should create a commentard voted "cool wall" where peridocally techniques or technologies are shoved up for a cool/not cool vote.

          Lycra, of course, when it comes to middle aged men, should be fired sunward at maximum velocity.

          1. Alistair
            Windows

            "Lycra, of course, when it comes to middle aged men, should be fired sunward at maximum velocity."

            While I agree with the sentiment, for some reason I caught my SO watching the Tour de France .......

  5. 2460 Something

    I would have thought it all comes down to the difficulty to acquire legally at a reasonable cost vs the difficulty of pirating. Services like netflix, amazon prime, spotify make it much simpler to say I want to watch/listen to that and I can stream it to my current location. It would be interesting to see what the level of piracy is on music/films available on a streaming service vs those that aren't.

  6. Paul Crawford Silver badge

    "escort services, which are carefully targeted to the copyright infringer"

    Escorts that provide a better experience due to a lack of DRM?

    [*] DRM = dick restriction service, apparently a feature of some marriage-licensed models.

  7. Redstone

    I do wonder about these stats though -

    I mean, who really says to a researcher "yeah, I thieve off Spotify/Google/Apple/whatever - whenever I have a few spare moments to myself"?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I do wonder about these stats though -

      Your mum.

    2. Pascal Monett Silver badge
      WTF?

      Indeed

      With all the hoopla around piracy, MPAA/RIAA court cases and travesty of justice, and here we have people who hear "Intellectual Property Office ? You want to know if I rip stuff ? Sure I'm gonna tell you !".

      Count my mind boggled.

  8. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

    Okay.

    I'm off to a riot for some undocumented shopping.

  9. wiggers

    "with 58 per cent admitting to having used a ripper"

    Using a ripper is one thing, file sharing is something else. I use a ripper to store choonz on a streamer that's entirely within my home. This is simply so I can find tracks without having to find the right CD.

    The article really needs a link to the original reports as the story seems to have mangled things rather.

    1. wiggers

      Re: "with 58 per cent admitting to having used a ripper"

      OK, found the link to the report but it doesn't mention file-sharing amongst the older generation. So where does this come from?

      "Fathers can now add "file sharing" to the list of things they do to embarrass their teenage children - alongside dancing badly in public.

      "P2P file sharing, which peaked over a decade ago, is now the preserve of middle-aged and older internet users"

  10. adam payne

    Embarrassing your children is a fundamental right and not just a privilege.

    1. cosymart

      Been doing it for years... It's the only thing I am good at (in their eyes :-) )

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      re Embarrassing your children is a fundamental right and not just a privilege.

      I'd go further and call it a "duty"!

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    ripping =!= unlicensed music use a.k.a. piracy

    As is often the case, the middle class are keener on music piracy than C2DEs, with 58 per cent admitting to having used a ripper ...

    Just because I do rip all the CDs I buy, does not mean that I am "stealing" this music. I've paid for it, and it is entirely up to me how I choose to listen to it.

    Besides, it is rather hard to fit a CD into even the largest phablet without seriously compromising the music quality.

    1. Archaon

      Re: ripping =!= unlicensed music use a.k.a. piracy

      They're talking about ripping streams, not ripping CDs.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: ripping =!= unlicensed music use a.k.a. piracy

        Technically,its the same thing.

        Just that the source is in front of you, not 10000 miles away.

  12. eJ2095

    Soo

    Its not cool to use my Napster (Before Metalica killed it) version....

    So given i was 19 in 1999 now 18 years on.. Crap am middle aged doh

    1. DropBear

      Re: Soo

      And because of Napster, I instantly change away from any station as soon as they start playing anything from Metallica. I have no illusions of "bankrupting" or "getting back" at them this way - it's simply what I'm ever willing to give them until the end of my days; it's solely for my benefit of being free from those bastards, not theirs or anyone else's.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Soo

        I downloaded their entire discography just on general principles at the time. Listened to a couple of tracks; then deleted the lot later because there is better things to be doing with diskspace.

  13. FuzzyWuzzys

    To the best of my knowledge I think my daughter has about 6 tracks saved on her phone, she simply has subscriptions to Spotify or another one and just streams any tracks she wants to listen to from online saved playlists.

    She's in her mid teens and has been beaten constantly by the school about not pirating software or media. I've lectured her over and over too, as a serious amateur photographer who makes pocket money from licensing my photos, how would she feel if my hard work was being ripped off and I wasn't being paid for it.

    People often see media copyright violation as a victimless crime, those people need to spend time with genuine, hardworking musicians and artists. I don't mean rich megastars or big corps, I mean those at the bottom desperately trying to get a foot on the first rung of a professional career ladder, to really see how we feel about seeing others rip off the work we've spent years and years learning how to produce. Some might change their mind if they met face to face with someone who's seen their work ripped off and sold and not a penny coming back to them.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      spare me the hard-working artists

      "People often see media copyright violation as a victimless crime, those people need to spend time with genuine, hardworking musicians and artists. [...] seeing others rip off the work we've spent years and years learning how to produce. [...] someone who's seen their work ripped off and sold and not a penny coming back to them."

      It is either work, in which case you should make a contract with someone to pay you for the work, before you start working, just like any other worker does.

      Or it is art, created by a desire to express yourself and the inner need to share that expression with other people. Why in the world should people be legally compelled to pay for your self-fulfillment?

      And don't get me started on royalties and similar repetitive income without repetetive effort, unless every road builder gets a royalty each time a vehicle or pedestrian passes the street he worked on.

    2. CentralCoasty
      Unhappy

      I agree - except there does tend to be one problem.

      Most of the content us old farts actually want ISNT available on a licenced stream or for purchase!

      I joined Netflix because I was hoping to get some old content I wanted... nah... not available in Australia, so that went into the bin. Online services (here or overseas)? Nah, they dont have it either.

      I would be happy to pay for what I want - just not what Foxtel/Netflix/<Insert Corp Here> think I want/are trying to flog. But nearly all the time I cant get it.

      I think the last DVD I bought was the Jeeves & Wooster (Fry & Laurie) boxed set - and had to get that in the USA because I couldnt get it anywhere else.....

      When I look at my collection of old tapes they include copies of late-night comedies from Radio 4, old repeats of even older shows.... you cant buy these things elsewhere.

      Would love the money to go to the original artists but.

      1. They are (nearly) all dead.

      2. I cant buy the stuff anyway!

      As to you and your photos - if I wanted one I would expect (and be happy) to pay you!

  14. Just Enough

    Youtube

    If anyone is wondering, and it's not explained in the article, they're talking about Google because Youtube is the #1 source of ripped audio streams.

    1. ratfox

      Re: Youtube

      What I don't get, is why bother with ripping the audio stream when you can listen to it at any time on YouTube? It's already free.

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge

        Re: Youtube

        Free where you've got coverage and a data allowance.

      2. Tikimon

        Re: Youtube

        YouTube is free AND bookmarked by intrusive ads, and possibly interrupted mid-stream to inject another one. Good enough reason?

      3. Pascal Monett Silver badge
        Coat

        @ratfox

        Yes, it is free. As long as it is available, that is. As long as your bandwidth limit is unlimited and your Internet connection hasn't fallen over. By all means, re-dowload the same thing over and over if you like. It's not like that has any consequence on global bandwidth.

        I take it you've never yet encountered anything you liked on the Internet suddenly disappearing forever ? Friendly warning : it happens. There's even a technical term for it : link rot.

        When I find something I like on any page anywhere, I do my best to download it. Saves me the bother of looking it up again later and finding the link gone.

        That said, I am over 50 and know how to organize my storage, not just type in search terms. Maybe that does make a difference.

        1. Ivan Vorpatril

          Re: @ratfox

          "When I find something I like on any page anywhere, I do my best to download it. Saves me the bother of looking it up again later and finding the link gone"

          Fight linkrot. Save the page to the Internet archive wayback machine.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    <cough> bullshit </cough>

    Can I just point out that the statistics quoted do not justify the headline ? As usual.

    i.e. If you want to show that one group now forms a larger percentage of users of a service than some other group, then the statistic that shows that is not the answer to the question "Have you ever used a music stream ripping app, website or browser plugin."

    If there are stats that justify the headline, the author should quote them.

    1. nijam Silver badge

      Re: <cough> bullshit </cough>

      > If there are stats that justify the headline, the author should quote them.

      It's very unlikely there are stats to support the author's opinion. I expect you can complete the chain of reasoning from there...

  16. El blissett

    Well colour me baffled that The Teens are going back to essentially home taping when P2P was/is such an efficient way of getting what you want, especially for rare and out of print records that The Man deems no longer suitable for public consumption.

    This is entirely Googletube's fault.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I so agree.

      Streaming stations are restricted in just the same way radio stations are - they have to pay massive fees to broadcast the music, so limit what they broadcast to what gets them the most listeners and hence justifies their advert pricing.

      Over time this list gets more and more restricted; until you end up like local radio, where you can hear the same song 7-8 times during a single working day.

      Back in the early days of internet radio, you could listen all day, all month sometimes, and not hear the same song twice.

      As above, if you want anything that isnt main stream, you have to hunt through the torrents to see what you can find. When I find something I really like, and I have a job (currently not something I can say yes to), I will go out and buy a physical copy; once I bought a singer/songwriters entire back catalogue, 10 years worth of album releases.

      I do have some music that I am unable to buy legally; it was illegally ripped to mp3 from a wax cylinder recording made in Africa, a few years before WW1.

      For some strange reason, Spotify dont list it.

  17. PhilipN Silver badge

    Total missing of point as usual

    Modern music is crap**. Kids only listen to a segment to decide whether they like it or not then either move on or continue streaming. The mentality (and the music**) barely support the "old-fashioned" idea of buying a single.

    ** Yes it is. By listening to a short segment the kids have heard everything the track musically has to offer. Most tracks are made up of a poorly-formed musical idea and do not go anywhere. By comparison (yes, old fart here) pick almost ANY track by The Fall and there are enough musical ideas for 6 modern singles.

    1. Duffy Moon

      Re: Total missing of point as usual

      There's still a lot of good, new music. The mainstream, popular stuff is mostly terrible though, I agree. If you listen to BBC 6 Music (as you may already do), you may discover some interesting stuff.

  18. Craig 2

    Stream ripping is just the modern equivalent of taping the radio as I (suspect) a lot of commenters here did in their younger days. As we all knew from 30+ years ago, home taping is killing music!

  19. John Robson Silver badge

    Stream ripping video is kinda useful...

    But audio - it's so easy to push it through decent grade digital audio interfaces, such that you can end up with a bitwise copy by using what might have been called an analog loophole if we didn't all have such a collection of all digital hardware available makes the job very easy.

  20. Tikimon

    I'm cashing in my assumed-pirate fees

    So all my life, every cassette tape, CD, DVD etc had an extra "levy" bolted on to their sales price. This presumed-guilty tax was supposedly to help pay for the nefarious effects of them being used for unauthorized recording. We've all been paying extra for media that we didn't actually get.

    They want to assume I'm a criminal and proactively fine me for it. Okay, I'm going to get something for the price I've paid. Shame to waste my money.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    used to rip from youtube with firefox addons

    but music and videos aren't worth the effort of even that now. didn't have a life back then. lol

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Looks at title

    Thinks: "I bet me a pint I can guess who wrote that"

    Looks

    "Yup"

    1. David 132 Silver badge

      Looks at title

      Thinks: "I bet me a pint I can guess who wrote that"

      Looks

      "Yup"

      Don't be so sure - the word "freetard" wasn't used even once, so it was obviously written by an imposter & not the real Orlowski.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I don't think I have every clicked on an advert on Youtube but using the same logic as this article is written if I view videos on Youtube with an adblocker running on my browser I am also stealing the music.

    I have on occasions used what I guess you could call a stream ripper: Getiplayer. But we don't talk about getiplayer ;)

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Call me old fashioned if you want ...

    but it works for me and if all the kids use another method even better, chase them and just let me get on with what I have been doing for years :)

  25. lorisarvendu

    I'm a 55-year old Dad, and I have been stream-ripping for a few years now.

    Almost exclusively for podcasts though (using FlashGot), as there's nothing worse than your data dropping out halfway through a 'cast just because the bus has driven into a dead spot.

  26. Stevie

    Bah!

    Ha! I'm in the demographic that still buys CDs, and so immune to these overblown and boring Music Piracy accusations.

    Thrrrrrrrrp!

    8op 8ob 8op

    And get off my lawn!

  27. dmacleo

    I use p2p for nix based distros.

    1. Ropewash
      Joke

      re : "I use p2p for nix based distros."

      Damnit...

      When are you *nix pirates going to learn. Your freetard ways are robbing the hardworking software writers of their livelihood. Without the support brought in by a measly $0.99 per-program-per-update every time you use apt/yum/pacman/whatever these poor struggling artists are going to have to go try to earn their living busking software edits in subway stations.

      Heartless bastards.

      1. dmacleo

        Re: re : "I use p2p for nix based distros."

        LOL missed this earlier and just snorted coffee out my nose laughing :)

  28. Rattus Rattus

    Alternate title:

    Young'uns technically illiterate, don't know how to get high audio quality music for free

  29. JakeMS
    Mushroom

    Middle Aged..

    Gah, I don't like to admit it, but I'm 26 now... which makes me middle aged (or at very least, feel it and have the grey hair to go with it) and I do indeed use P2P, albeit with private trackers only and usually for content I cannot obtain legally due to no way to do so, such as TV Shows not aired in the UK until months/years later.

    Honestly, if these guys really want to stamp out piracy here's what they need to do:

    - Release content world wide together, there is no reason for any country to get it months later. There is no physical delivery to TV stations, it's all digital now so you can't blame that.

    - Pricing needs to be sorted, I mean seriously you want someone to pay the same for a digital version of an album as you do for a physical item.. but why? The excuse for high prices for physical was due to the cost of the case/disc - that cost is non-existent for digital media. Right now it's just greed.

    - Stop treating your customers like criminals - seriously stop with the DRM. I hate DRM and refuse to purchase any media which contains it. The claim is to stop piracy, but this is not true. It only affects legitimate users.

    - DRM usually stops it working on Linux and as a Linux user I'm also not going to buy something that only works on a platform I do not use.

    - Stop with the "oh the poor artists" crap excuses for being anti-piracy. It has nothing to do with them. The only people hurting the artists are the labels themselves who give the artist pennies out of a sale and keep the rest. It's about greed, pure greed.

    Just sayin'

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Reading the report, kids are ripping YouTube and subscribing to Spotify. I think the world can survive.

    I'm not going to shed a tear for a couple of multi billion dollar companies and the record labels.

    Any track that's ripped heavily will also be getting massive royalties for legit users.

    If your track ain't being teefed you need to worry.

  31. Mary Hinge

    Stream Ripping? So just like like taping the charts on the radio, or "videoing" a film off the Tele?

  32. Captain Boing

    crap report

    "if you rip music, you use whores and hurt puppies... you don't HURT puppies... do you?"

    pathetic

    from my observations, the reason those "older" people who rip music is because they can and they know how to do it. Generation snowflake, while prolific on line, tends to be, largely, technically inept.

    I have seen it I have a house full of <30yr olds... There is no way in hell todays yoof are buying their music out of some altruistic mission. For one reason or another, they simply have no other way open to them.

  33. CatW

    Download the PDF

    I see the link to download the PDF - kinda ironic! :o)

    ...Is that lossless or compressed?

  34. CatW

    There is another reason - Most youngsters don't even know what 'a hifi' is and listen on crappy little NXT speakers. Having great hifi means you want the best source material and sometimes this simply isn't available anywhere as lossless.

    I did some work for a large music company and a lot of their online catalogue was digitised using ISA based Sound Blaster 16 cards. Only the advent of 24bit made them revisit digitising 15 years later!!!

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Home ripping is killing music.

    Before we had streams we had radio. Which now and then is basically the exact same thing over a different medium (with a few interactivity differences).

    To me this argument is a almost word for word repeat of the music industry trying to go up against people recording music over the airwaves instead of buying said music on LP / tape even CD.

    Home ripping, like home taping is simply the same thing. People making a personal copy of a broadcast or stream which is perfectly normal behavior in my opinion and the opinion of the majority throughout the entire history of this argument which resulted in NO law against such practices as long as profit and distribution did not come into it.

    Nobody in their right mind in every day society would bat an eye lid at someone pressing record on their mp3 player that has a built in FM radio. In fact if that person was to press record on a tape recorder or minidisc recorder to record the latest number 1 on the top 40 they will probably only get comments, positive or negative, about their choice in using such devices.

    As long as the kids dont let their dads put their recordings on filesharing networks I see nothing new here to argue about.

    C'mon everybody its so old that the 1980's just called asking for the argument back! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Taping_Is_Killing_Music

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If people are playing your stuff, just be thankful whether you've been paid or not. After all isn't it what those in the arts including journalists want more than anything, adulation ?

    Music biz, get this, it's no longer the 70s where you can nail the Peoples hats on for the price of an LP or the 90s for a CD. The recorded stuff is your promo material to get bums on seats to watch you play live, this is the new reality. Music is far better enjoyed live anyway, don't buy the album, buy the ticket or if you can't afford that then go and see something local that's either free or near free as there are plenty of excellent acts out there who aren't famous.

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Andrew goes on holiday or wherever and his first article is on his favourite whinges, copyright and Google. Jeez change the record or if you want a real pop at Google that your readers might actually care about such as haven't you noticed latest Google Earth* now requires you to have Chrome installed ?

    *there is a 7.3 but that's EC and Pro.

    Is this article ghost written by the BPI, MPAA and RIAA ?

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