I know it's a grey area but is there a realistic limit to "obtained" media before you need to start worrying about a letter through the post or a knock at the door?

 

I've had to upgrade a 500GB hard drive into a 3TB NAS to keep up.

And my movie, TV show, and music collection now total 1.2TB.

 

We keep talking about getting rid of our entire DVD collection which we haven't watched any of in at least 12 months - but i'd want to first download digital copies of the same films - which again i probably won't watch but it's a principle thing. What if Mrs Pasty suddenly has an urge to watch Disney's The Aristocats and we'd got rid of the DVD? Imagine the carnage!

 

How much "obtained" media are people holding on to?

and has anyone ever had any issues with "the law" or "the man" in regards to it?

Rip the DVD's I've not downloaded a lot of stuff (not even including a good version of Gravity today) and so far I've never received a letter. (probably because I've not downloaded anything)

I'm just over 1TB at the moment never had a 'visit'.

If you're not sharing it or selling it no one is going to bother with you.

 

That's "they" really care about.

if you sell the DVDs you must also delete the files since you are revoking your license to use the media.

if you sell the DVDs you must also delete the files since you are revoking your license to use the media.

encrypt the HDD, job's a good un, no?

There's always stories of friend of a friend who had a visit or a strongly worded email. For once I have a closer source, although still 2nd hand, guy at work claims he had a letter from his ISP a few years back supposedly as proxy for Paramount asking him to cease and desist. He wasn't prolific, he says he downloaded a blockbuster film that was in the cinema at the time.

I do wonder if there is a time after which they care much less, like film/TV downloaded after it has appeared on a readily available tv channel (BBC for example, not Sky Movies). There wouldn't be much difference in this case between download from interest or saved on DVR having recorded from TV.

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I know someone on Virgin who had a letter regarding their downloading and reminded them that P2P is illegal.

Usually it's only when the licence holder demands identities which does happen regularly, but not as often now these firms can't simply demand stacks of IP addresses to go fishing for settlements

Rip the DVD's I've not downloaded a lot of stuff (not even including a good version of Gravity today) and so far I've never received a letter. (probably because I've not downloaded anything)

Yeah I did look at ripping them but it was actually quicker and easier to just queue up a load of downloads and leave it running while I head to work/sleep at night.

I may have run into the "this site is blocked due to a court order" warnings but may have just found another proxy.

I have friends who may use newsbins rather than torrents and a friend who actually has a server rack in his garage, and they are constantly downloading and have never heard of them having an issue.

I use P2P to download the latest Operating Systems...  Linux that is...  I sometimes obtain regular builds..  That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it..

 

I have shed loads of MP3's and DVD's which are all ripped onto my PC - Not enough space in my house to store the physical media, so it's stored at my mothers house, my brothers, a few friends, some work mates and a guy from the pubs house..   Prove that I don't own it and didn't lend it to them to watch..

4tb and counting across 4 internal HDD's and one external.

Been "acquiring" for years (since about 2004) and not heard a peep yet.

They guy who was sending out the demand letters from IP addresses only is now serving at Her Majesty's Pleasure I think.

I too would like to RIP some DVDs' but am unsure of the best program to use.

 

I want to RIP them to .m4v format.  :yes:

I tried installing 'handbrake' on the laptop but it crashed everytime I tried to run it and rip something, would install it on the new NUC but being a teeny tiny PC I'd need an external DVD drive.

Might just queue up all the movies to download at times when we're not in.

Do you think an ISP would be suspicious if i suddenly download 300GB in a month?

I too would like to RIP some DVDs' but am unsure of the best program to use.

 

I want to RIP them to .m4v format.   :yes:

Handbrake - http://handbrake.fr/ - is pretty good. Multi-platform too.

 

Just seen PastyBoy's reply - so you might want to try it and see if it works for you.

I tried installing 'handbrake' on the laptop but it crashed everytime I tried to run it and rip something, would install it on the new NUC but being a teeny tiny PC I'd need an external DVD drive.

Might just queue up all the movies to download at times when we're not in.

Do you think an ISP would be suspicious if i suddenly download 300GB in a month?

 

I use get_iplayer to download BBC programs more as a way of time-shifting. A lot gets deleted after viewing, but some stuff I keep (around 1TB at present) in the hope I can persuade the kids to watch some of the documentaries that fit in with their GCSE subjects! I've also downloaded a few films from there too, but some have been 'obtained'. Ones that have been watched several times might end up being bought on DVD anyway. I use P2P but only for anime and Top Gear America when it's on!

 

I don't know how other ISPs would react to 300GB a month but Virgin haven't commented on my family's usage (270GB down/128GB up last month) which also includes the kids using Spotify and streamed video.

 

Oddly enough pretty much all the music we have is ripped from our own CDs (which we still have) or paid for downloads. If films were as easy to buy online (at a reasonable price and be able to play them on my choice of player) as music then I'd be happy to pay for them. Generally files are easier to watch than all the preamble you get with DVDs & Blu-rays, and I rarely by DVDs for the 'extra' content they come with.

Thanks I will check out Handbrake later this morning while Kitten's at Asda

I always thought the general consensus on obtained material was...

 

"There is no such thing as too much - only too little space to store it".

Come on Clifford, you're not trying hard enough :-)

 

I'm currently at 1.8TB of movies and 2.47TB of TV shows and 80.8GB of Audio files.

My work mate downloaded a lot and got a letter from bt about it. He got an IP address changer and hasn't heard anything since

I don't think it's simply a matter of quantity but more simply what you're downloading, my brother has received a letter specifically regarding a single film he had downloaded from his ISP on behalf of some movie studio which warned him about doing it, not to do it again and delete the downloaded film.

 

For a while there were companies actively trying to trace people down through IP addresses but have since got into trouble themselves as the methods they were using were questionable and they got destroyed when they took people to court.  Now the move seems to be at a higher level and attempting to block the content through the ISPs instead.

 

Personally I just buy blu-rays as my connection isn't that fast and the quality of the discs are superb, I'm a long way behind on my legal downloads after the Steam Christmas sale.  I do toy with ripping more blu-rays to have a digital video library but i rarely watch films that repeatedly and it can take a while to do the ripping, for some reason my software frequently defaults to audio description so I think the rip's gone fine then suddenly hear that dreaded voice again.

 

John

encrypt the HDD, job's a good un, no?

 

 

No... In that for suspicion or the baleful eye to fall upon him he'd have been torrenting (lots?!?!) or engaging in other P2P activity. If it can be proved that the media was obtained and shared, why does it matter what's on the hard drive? Unless it's a case of all thise "man v chicken" videos ("Family Guy" obviously, d'oh!) that are stashed away...