Downloading TV shows
evawhite on August 17th, 2008
I am very happy today and full of anticipation of some rollicking good laughs. Reason is I just finished downloading Season I and II of the wickedly funny Brit improvisation show Whose Line is it anyway, something that was a staple for my friends and me during our collage days. You can knock reruns all you like but I simply love watching old favorites like this and others.
I have found Mininova (a peer to peer file sharing portal) to be an incredible source of anything film and TV related and thus far I have downloaded as I said Whose Line (UK version), The Pink Panther Films (Peter Sellers at his deadpan, bumbling best), The Jeeves and Wooster series based on the P G Wodhouse books (starring the inimitable Hugh Lawrie and Stephen Fry) and some kids films like Cinderella, Winnie the Pooh etc. (which my 4 year old saw and TV and practically demanded to watch once again).
Now I know that this is a hotly debated topic by the people who think that this as piracy, infringement of copyright laws etc. I don’t think of it that way. Fact is that all these shows have been aired on TV and at the time I taped them all on my VCR to watch and re watch at my leisure. Now the VCR is near about obsolete and the video tapes have gotten scratched and fungified beyond redemption. So in a sense I am simply transferring what I already have and changing the storage format or system.
In any case it is perfectly all right for me to say borrow a friends’ DVD and watch it or to make a copy of it for my personal use right? This is not much different, only it is on a wider basis. The site puts me in touch with people who have the material that I want and that they are willing to share. Who loses out? No one I think. If anyone has a problem with this, show me my fave TV shows again! And Again!
What do you think about this not very straightforward question and the legal, ethical and other ramifications of it? I would be most interested to know.
