Fry used BitTorrent to watch Laurie's 'House'
Updated on 13 July 2009
Actor and author Stephen Fry has admitted to having illegally downloaded former comedy partner Hugh Laurie’s medical drama House, Benjamin Cohen writes.
Fry told an audience at the iTunes Festival in London that he used the BitTorrent file sharing system to illegally download the programme.
"The last thing I illegally downloaded. Was it a gay sex romp?... It was the season finale of House," he said.
He claimed that he had legally downloaded the entire series, but while in Indonesia was unable to get hold of the final episode legally so resorted to file sharing.
Fry also criticised the prosecution of the founders of Pirate Bay and said that the entertainment industry’s approach to piracy was flawed, asking if they were so blind as to think "someone who BitTorrents an episode of 24 is the same as someone who steals somebody's handbag."
Via Twitter he later said: "Hope I'm not misunderstood. Such a pity if I get misrepresented as a 'help yourself and be a pirate' advocate."
Fry seems to be one of the few people in the entertainment industry who actually understands why people file share. His example of having downloaded House was one that many young people will understand - he would have downloaded the file legally if he were allowed. It was geographical restrictions placed on the file by the industry that meant he decided to access pirate material.
Whenever I research file sharing, the main reason given by the young people I speak to is the fact that there is content they cannot easily find legal copies of content, which they want to consume in a format that works with their mp3 player. In effect, this is the same argument that Fry gives: you can’t always get legal digital content.
But things are changing. A survey of 1,000 teenage music fans by the Leading Question shows that a third fewer are resorting to illegally downloading music. Some 26 per cent admitted to file sharing, down from 42 per cent a year earlier.
65 per cent favoured streaming music on Spotify or YouTube.
Of course, YouTube has fought a long-running battle against users posting copyrighted material, and is itself in a dispute with the PRS who license music in the UK. PRS say the music available on the site at the moment should not legally be there.
Spotify, the ad-funded music streaming service, has two million members, but its founder Daniel Ek recently admitted that the company was not on target to reach revenue forecasts.
And neither of these really work on mobile devices, and they don’t have full-length TV or film clips either. The industry has still to find a business model that can deliver accessible content for free.
