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I saw an advert on that old-fashioned weird media distrubution outlet, archaically called 'the tellybox'. I'm not sure what channel it was, someone else must have been on the remote because it wasn't Film4 and it had advertisement included in it's output.
There was the most absurd scene where a bloke working in an office appeared to have downloaded the new Coldplay CD or something and every other worker turned into a government mind-controlled automaton and tried to mock him for it.
They chanted the refrain 'Knock-off Nigel' and danced around in the mire of their crippling credit card debt, frolicking in the knowledge that their homes had developed negative-equity status and relishing the fact that they were infinitely superior because they had paid extra for their consumer goods.
I will admit right now that I am (in their eyes) a stupid wealthy thief, I invest my money in areas where it will accumulate and grow, I occasionally splash out on consumer items which grab my covetous eye by the ball, and I download computer games, films, foreign TV, pr0nographie and cracked software by the veritable turd-load.
In 10 years time, who is going to be doing the mocking? Me who bought a house outright with no mortgage in my early 20's and refuse to even entertain a credit card, or all the 'It won't happen to me' up to their fucking eyeballs in debt, can't even sell their shitty flats in rotting buildings, imaginary people who buy Prada at full price and dance around on adverts wishing they had seen the Dark Knight without paying for it, and not even knowing how shit a film it is.
Haha, I totally agree. And I hate that advert. Actually I hate pretty much all adverts, especially anything for an internet company. "We need to fly to barcelona!" ARghgh!
It's weird really reading about all the recession and prices going up, and everyone getting into the shit, because really in the last year we've just been getting more and more financially secure. We bought a house with a small mortgage, that with our deposit worked out less than the rent we were paying. I got pregnant, and found out the government likes to just throw money at you, and my boyfriend got a job that almost doubled his salary, and has just got another that's doubled it again. AND he's a contractor, which means he can be paid through an umbrella company so take the majority of wages as dividends, tax free
So while everyone else is scrimping and saving, we're waiting till the prices hit rock bottom to buy another house on the cheap, and splashing out on new laptops and plasma TV without having to worry about debt and credit cards. I don't even have a credit card.
I'm not really one for spending a lot of money, unless it's for something I know I'll get the use out of, like electronics. I don't buy designer clothes, I don't go out spugging £200 over a weekend drinking and clubbing, although I do spend money on nice food and nice weed. I also never buy from high-street stores if I can buy online, you can always find it cheaper, and it's easy to wangle a discount and/or free delivery.
I actually can't remember the last time I bought a CD or DVD. I just buy terabyte hard drives lol. So much more value for money
I'm always so impressed with people who had the sense to start saving in their teens to buy a house, like yourself I guess Tef, and my friend Amy. She's now in the same position as you and loving it basically.
Firstly, lets not turn this into a "pirating is good" thread, it's got nothing to do with whether I agree or not, but for legal reasons I am prohibited for many reasons from allowing such things to openly and supportedly appearing on TF.
Secondly... The advert is really really crap, if anything it's going to make more people pirate stuff. The people who thought it up must be rolling around laughing, while they count their consultation fees and continue to illegally download the next tunes for their iphones. Really really crap idea, seriously.
Thirdly... Teflon, I somehow found myself reading your post in the style of Stewie and for the first time, it trully made sense to me...
Ashy - Regarding your financial situation, you've done well and had luck on your side by the sounds of it. Not wanting to put a real dampener on your situation, but as easily as it can be a good positive thing, it can turn into a seriously nasty negative one, which is extremely difficult to get out of and through absolutely no fault of your own. My own personal experience sways from doing as well as possible, to a careless solicitor putting us right back down to the bottom in the space of 1 signature and now we are having to fight tooth and nail to try and force our way back up a little, it's seems to get a damn sight harder to believe possible as you get older too.
Ashy - Regarding your financial situation, you've done well and had luck on your side by the sounds of it. Not wanting to put a real dampener on your situation, but as easily as it can be a good positive thing, it can turn into a seriously nasty negative one, which is extremely difficult to get out of and through absolutely no fault of your own. My own personal experience sways from doing as well as possible, to a careless solicitor putting us right back down to the bottom in the space of 1 signature and now we are having to fight tooth and nail to try and force our way back up a little, it's seems to get a damn sight harder to believe possible as you get older too.
It's funny I had the luck conversation with James on the weekend. I was going to say to him "we are so lucky" but then I thought about it a bit more and luck doesn't really come into it. We've knuckled down hard, studied and got qualifications, saved, not spent money on crap, and put more effort in this year than ever before to improving our lives.
We could easily have sat in a rented flat with shit jobs playing wow for another year, but I found that actually making an effort to do things, from eating healthier and cooking home meals, to exercising, and paying off debt instead of spugging cash on useless crap, can just make your lifestyle so much better so quickly. I'm just upset I didn't realise and start earlier.
Your situation sounds nuts It's scary that you have to trust so much in someone you don't really know to handle stuff for you, and that they can just fuck it all up and you're the one left in the lurch. I don't really understand how that sort of thing can happen tbh :S Can't you take him to court for negligence or something?
We've been in the shit and climbed back out of it in the last year, and by the end of this year the only thing we will have to worry about is our mortgage. If you asked me 18 months ago I'd tell you I couldn't sleep at night for the amount of debt and problems we had, it got me so stressed out and depressed. I think a lot (not all) of these people who are struggling with debt and credit problems just need to stop running away from their problems, have a think and sort their life out. That's what we did and now we are reaping the benefits of being sensible.
But yes, I do also know that part of James's contracting work means that he can be out of a job with less than a months notice at any time. And with me not working atm to watch the baby we could all of a sudden be in a whole world of trouble. That is the gamble you take. That's why we were thinking about buying some houses when the housing slump hits rock bottom, would be a great investment if we can work it out. We will always have our house in Scotland renting out, and we can fall back on that if it all goes tits up.
Your situation sounds nuts It's scary that you have to trust so much in someone you don't really know to handle stuff for you, and that they can just fuck it all up and you're the one left in the lurch. I don't really understand how that sort of thing can happen tbh :S Can't you take him to court for negligence or something?
When you have to sell your new home to cover the cost of selling the previous home, because the solicitor you used to buy that previous home 3 years beforehand failed to spot a fatal floor in the legal documents that makes the house your trying to sell basically unsellable and you end up losing pretty much £100K in the space of 1 transaction, your not left in much of a position to take legal action.
At the same time, no legal firm will touch it because it is against another legal firm, the law society wouldn't touch it because their stupidly low time scale had lapsed, even though they said we had an air tight case against the firm.
To pay some mercenary legal person to privately take it to court for us would have cost over £1000 an hour just for the initial consult and although the one guy that was helpful and who went through it with us initially for free did say we would win, he also said that after costs, we would have ended up with about 2K of the 100K back in our pockets if we were lucky.
Legal aid was a no go because we earn above XK a year.
We really did try from every possible angle and any way we looked at it, we lost out and were not getting the money back.
End result, we are now in very cheap rented accomodation, with 1 manageable loan and very little chance of being able to get back on the property ladder in the next 5 years and through no fault at all of our own.
And to stay on topic..... The solicitors first name was also Nigel...
And to stay on topic..... The solicitors first name was also Nigel...
lol he really is a Knock-off Nigel!
Not meaning to pry, but I'm just confused How did you manage to buy an unsellable house in the first place? And if you couldn't sell the old place, how come you are not just still living there now? Instead of renting a place? Was it one of the houses that got fucked in floods last year or something ?
It's shocking that even though it's obvious you're not at fault and all these people say you would win your case, that no one is willing or able to help you. I thought if you won a court case you had to get the other side to pay your expenses? Otherwise what is the point in anyone taking anyone to court?
Ive pretty much said a zillion times before, fundementally i dont agree with piracy, as it is pretty much stealing, without actually physically stealing anything. Despite what the bastards want you to think downloading a cd is not the same as running off with one from HMV, because it doesnt prevent someone else buying it, it didnt cost anything for the one you took etc and more than likely you wouldnt buy it anyway. Theres probably 2-3 bands whos music i actually buy, because i want it, although they dont often make music anymore and i only go to the cinema for movies i really want to see.
That said, i dont really agree with the way media is sold. Staggered releases of USA, UK cinema, sky, dvd etc meaning if you cant be arsed to go to a cinema full of chav idiots for nearly £10 plus snacks, you have to wait months for a dvd release and then pay like £20 (or whatever a dvd costs lol) for some movie thats probably shite. Then with music its like oo ill buy their new album, oh theyve suddenly gone jazz and the cd sucks.
Theres very few mass consumer products u cant really try before you buy, that also dont let you take them back if you simply dont like them.
Also its like the stop smoking ads that make smokers and ex-smokers go out for a ciggy, everytime i see that advert it reminds me to go start off a few torrents :/
I agree with Pura about piracy being different from physical theft, you're simply making a copy of something someone else owns, you're not taking it from them (although my mind just drifted to the bash.org quote - "Getting my song back fucker" lol). I bet about 80% of the music that people illegally download, they probably wouldn't buy anyway.
I remember when I was younger and used to make tapes off the radio, trying to pause it before the DJ started talking at the end of the song. No one ever kicked up a fuss about that so why is it suddenly so different?
I think maybe people would feel different about it if you didn't see all these multimillionaire record labels and artists living the life, they get most of that money just from the celebrity and appearances, the money from actual record sales is small in comparison. Personally, I think I need the money more
Teflon, I somehow found myself reading your post in the style of Stewie and for the first time, it trully made sense to me...
Reading it back, I can see what you mean. Maybe I turn into Stewie when I am blind drunk (and stuff), and do 'one of those posts you forget you even wrote by the next day.'
The music and film companies obviously do well for themselves. Once musicians and actors stop earning 7-figure sums for being shite I'll reconsider but as it stands my piracy isn't putting their guitar-shaped swimming pools filled with cocaine in any danger. I think south park sorta got it right when they showed celebrities not being able to afford jets/private island - downloading a song doesn't hurt anyone, because for every person who downloads it there'll be 5 more who are stupid enough to buy the album.
games industry however, I sometimes feel some sympathy for. Like the other industries this is powered by people who want to make great media, unfortunately it's funded by people who want to make money (but that's a totally different rant), but some games products are reasonably priced (orange box, for instance) and no one person gets paid obscene amounts of money for making games. Granted the games industry has went the way of films, in that the standard price is far in excess of what the product is worth for most things, but again this is the fault of the money makers, not the developers.
RE:The advert (finally!), it's rubbish. I love the fact that copyright infringement is now an accepted part of Brittish culture, and nobody cares. If some film/band/game is amazingly good, I'll buy the DVD/album/DVD, but I'm not going to pay £15 for some Rachel Stephens * album that I'll listen to once won't listen to.
I wonder if there's anyway that copyright infringement could be made out to be bad to the public...I mean I'm sure it funds terrorism/paedophilia/identity theft/<current fearmongering buzzword> but I don't think that's enough.
*(that was me reaching for a contemporary pop artist...I feel I may be outa the loop)
Who hasn't downloaded something or other that they shouldn't? Or bought copied films, games and music?
On a grand scale I suppose its wrong! But if we all did it all of the time it would be on a grand scale, if you get what I mean. I'm against those that copy and sell on markets and stuff and wont buy off them as you never know what your getting anyway.
That advert is annoying though. I had the kids running round the back garden singing it the other day.
Seems like we're diverting this thread into a debate on our piracy habits but whatever
I used to download music and stuff but I don't any more. I've never pirated games as the industry really does suffer for it, and it's an industry I love. Music I sort of feel the same way, though I feel more strongly with some artists. For example there's one guitarist i love called Andy Mckee. The guy can barely afford to keep himself going yet people openly tell him that they stole his music. Madonna on the other hand would probably not notice.
Haven't downloaded anything for ages, preferring instead to get my music cheap second hand from amazon market place and other such places.
I think the only thing I'd download would be big sort of enterprise level programs. I reason that they won't notice one little student taking their stuff and get most of their money from corporate licenses. Whatever helps me sleep at night
If your average musician or film actor was earning say the same as say a self employed plasterer I'd say piracy is bad. The fact that piracy means the difference between someone being able to afford 4 mansions instead of 3 leaves me thinking that internet music and film piracy is the peoples revenge and all those mansion dwelling, champaign swilling greedy mofos should stfu whining.
That advert pisses me off. The way they try to imply that anyone who downloads stuff is just as likely to nick other peoples food out of the office fridge is a bad joke.
The people/organization behind it are greedy scumbags.
so i was installing something and found a copy of "Nuts" lying around that belongs to my brother (felt like I needed a refresher course in why I hate that magazine).
Seems they're running adds about "knock-off Nigels" too, but written from the perspective of the "nuts girls". General summary is if you're not prepared to pay for stuff, they won't have sex with you. This includes dinner, and DVDs. Of course, I'm not too sure who would see a lasting relationship with a "nuts girl" ever working.
The thing is organisations like FASt, FACT, MPAA etc go on about how pirated stuff is very poor quality and that but they still just dont get it. Ever since the net was used to download stuff in te 90's they have missed and continue to miss a new media. There was a huge opportunity to generate insane amounts of cash through micro payments and selling their wares at reasonable prices, but they were unwilling and/or either too ignorant of technology to realise that they could have a new income generating machine. Ive been saying this for at least 10yrsnow.
The knock off Nigel advert wont convert anyone imo to dob in a friend or anything for piracy. it may work for a handful of people but that's all.
And still we get the corporations that think mp3's are still the same as CD, DVD, or whatever other media and sell it for a similar price. its taken years for iTunes to see the light and even they are criticised for not lowering prices when they had the opportunity.
On one hand piracy is a result of the corporations insatiable greed to sell us products we dont necessarily want. On the other there will always be someone out there looking for a bargain, and since no payment is always a good bargain then it cannot be stopped.
Music I sort of feel the same way, though I feel more strongly with some artists. For example there's one guitarist i love called Andy Mckee. The guy can barely afford to keep himself going yet people openly tell him that they stole his music.
Andy Mckee rocks, I've watched loads of his videos on youtube. Amazing talent!
We also have the same surname !
It's not like they can ever really stop it, there are websites promoting new file sharing programs, so even if they keep shutting down some networks, others will simply replace them.
Knock-Off Nigel
It's scary that you have to trust so much in someone you don't really know to handle stuff for you, and that they can just fuck it all up and you're the one left in the lurch. I don't really understand how that sort of thing can happen tbh :S Can't you take him to court for negligence or something? 
How did you manage to buy an unsellable house in the first place? And if you couldn't sell the old place, how come you are not just still living there now? Instead of renting a place? Was it one of the houses that got fucked in floods last year or something 
?
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