Fry admits illegal downloading
Updated on 13 July 2009
Technology geek Stephen Fry has admitted illegally downloading a hit US show starring his former comedy partner Hugh Laurie.
The broadcaster and wit told an audience in London that he had used BitTorrent file-sharing to get a copy of Laurie's show House.
Speaking at the iTunes Festival in London's Roundhouse, Fry said: "The last thing I illegally downloaded. Was it a gay sex romp? ... It was the season finale of House."
The QI host pointed out he had legally downloaded the entire series but was in Indonesia and had been unable to download a legitimate copy of the final episode, according to www.stuff.tv.
Asked how he felt about his own work being pirated, Fry, who writes a newspaper column about technology, said: "I'm against cynical bootlegging but I work in a very mollycoddled, overpaid business."
Fry was invited to speak about copyright and the future of music as part of the free festival, sharing a bill with bands such as The Temper Trap and Mumford & Sons.
After his speech he said he was not simply suggesting people should help themselves to downloads. Using his Twitter feed, he said: "Hope I'm not misunderstood. Such a pity if I get misrepresented as a 'help yourself and be a pirate' advocate ..."
Fry's comments come as a new study suggests the number of teenagers illegally sharing music has dropped significantly.
Just 26% of 14- to 18-year-olds admitted filesharing at least once a month, compared with 42% just over a year earlier, according to the survey by research agency The Leading Question.
It suggests they are instead increasingly using "streamed" services such as Spotify to listen to music, rather than downloading copies of tracks.
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