Stephen Fry's Thoughts on Digital Piracy

At the iTunes festival in the UK last month, author/actor/comedian Stephen Fry took the stage. While many in the audience were probably prepared to be amused, instead Fry spoke passionately about the conflict and the questionable tactics of organizations like the RIAA to vilify individuals who download songs illegally. In short, Fry calls for common sense to prevail, painting a picture of the history of shared communication/information as the basis for the belief that piracy today does not negatively affect sales to the extent record companies would have you believe, and that alienating the biggest fans of music isn't good business.

It seems to me, a subscription service, or free ad-supported service is the only long-term solution to satisfy the studios and our appetite for music. Yet subscription services just aren't catching on...

You can listen below. (Caution, occasional NSFW language.)

And Now, Some Stats For The Pirates

It may come as a shock to the law-abiding reader, but some people choose to get their media by more nefarious means. This week the Hollywood Reporter took a look at the most pirated TV shows of the week.

The winner (or loser, depending on how you look at it) was Heroes, with 1.76 million downloads, just beating out Lost with 1.7 million downloads. It would be interesting to see how those numbers compare to the number of times those shows were purchased on iTunes over the same period. The stats come from a company called ShowInsider. It sort of begs the question though: if you know how many copies of a specific file are being downloaded, shouldn't you be able to stop it?

Rounding out the top ten were: "House," "24," "The Big Bang Theory," "How I Met Your Mother," "South Park," "Family Guy," "Gossip Girl," and "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles". The Hollywood Reporter plans on making this a new weekly feature. We will not.