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I'm not sure that it is theft, pure and simple.

Theft is to illegally deprive somebody of what is rightfully theirs - in the case of video piracy, the income from the legitimate sales they lose.

If the copyright owner isn't marketing the product on video he isn't losing any sales, so you could argue that there's no theft.

talking of Sandy does hardcore......is this any good?

Theft is to illegally deprive somebody of what is rightfully theirs. That is a very sailianet point.(I bet I spelled that wrong).

The new Star Wars film isn't out on video yet, so I will sell it on video because they are not marketing it on video yet. Therefore it is not stealing.(or so your logic goes).

Regardless of format or release or whatever, to exhibit the copyrighted works of other artists without their permission is still theft.

Um, and that's it as far as I'm concerned.

Cheers,

Big Jim

salient.

more importantly, another top episode tonight.

Point taken, BJ, I know I'm making a very subtle difference here.

The important word in your post is "yet". If there is a new Star Wars film (showing my ignorance here) then we can expect it to be released on video at some time in the future.

TAC and TVX give us no indication that there will ever be video releases of the material they have copyright to.

In fact, apart from taking our money, they make no contact at all. (I feel another rant coming on . . . . . )

No address to write to, no e-mail address, no phone number (apart from the all-important one where we can subscribe so they can get our cash).

They don't even have the common decency to publish accurate transmission times despite the fact that everything is on tape and the duration of every show can be measured to the second. (Although TAC are much better at this most of the time than TVX, who can be as much as 45 mins adrift.)

In the meantime they continue to broadcast only softcore in spite of the fact that we all know the hardcore versions exist and they know that we want to see them.

That's taking the piss.

Especially when, in TAC's case, they show the hardcore on a European satellite channel only available to those who can justify getting separate system specifically for that purpose.

And then they rub our noses in it a bit more by charging Spice Platinum subscribers only a couple of quid more for h/c than the rest of us suckers have to pay for s/c.

We all want to see the h/c stuff and yet they give us no indication if we'll ever be able to see it legitimately, which makes most of us very angry and frustrated.

Is it any wonder that people are prepared.to pirate it?

I would never knowingly buy a pirate item if I could get the real thing from a legitimate source - that would be to bite the hand that feeds.

One final puzzlement, BJ: you say you have no control over the marketing of the productions you do for TAC, which means that they must own the copyright, which means that they are the ones theoretically hurt by pirates, not you.

So you ought to be glad that your artistic efforts are getting to the wider audience that they seek to deny you. Yes?

True, TAC are the ones who suffer financially if my work is pirated, but if you figure in the trickle down effect, it will be me who suffers eventually.

As I have all of my eggs in a singular basket, the prosperity of TAC directly effects my own income.

On the other hand, it is flattering that people think my work is good enough to pirate. No wait, I shouldn't have said that, that could be interpreteted as an invitation to steal.

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones will be out in May. I've seen the latest trailer and I'm not impressed. The new digital film makes everything look like a CGI cartoon.

Thanks for the compliment Woody. Much appreciated.

Good night all!

The ITC would close both TVX & TAC down instantly if they both chose to ignore their broadcast agreements and put out hardcore material. This is the same reason why Channel 5, Channel 4, BBC and ITV don't show hardcore movies. The same rules apply for every company.

The point I've been making in several recent posts is that I believe the ITC rules are now illegal under UK law and would fail if challenged in court.

As far as I know neither TAC nor TVX has bothered to make such a challenge.

If the ITC Regulations are illegal, don't you think the BBC, ITV, CHANNEL 4 and CHANNEL 5 would have challenged them by now as they have far deeper pockets and far more to gain than either TAC OR TVX.

I wouldn't they're particularly interested in showing real h/c stuff on a regular basis.

As it is, they seem to get away with showing some quite strong scenes when they feel the need to