f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Some good comments from The Who legend about illegal downloading here:

Pete Townshend on Apple and illegal downloading

Couldn't agree with him more

Jimbob

iTrader: (13)

Agreed.

Its companies Like Apple with iTunes and people like Simon Cowell ruining our music.

Just thank god for singers like Adele.

tony de wonderful

Pete is ok paying for his downloaded `material` with his credit card lol.

ScoobyDoo555

Agreed. The irony being that Apple produce one of the (Music) Industry-standard music production and recording software packages, Logic Studio.

Bizarre.

zip106

For research purposes, of course.

Chip

Oh yeah , kiddy fiddling wasn't it?

The Zohan

Who?
With his history of downloading illegal material of the worst kind i think I'll take this diatribe with a pinch of salt http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2648987.stm
I'll get my coat...

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

"Hope I die before I get old".....

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

I think you'll all find he was cleared of any kiddy fiddling charges and although that is never going to be good enough for the SN NSR kangaroo court it is good enough for the real ones so how about we stick to the topic being discussed just for once eh?

The Zohan

removing the blinkers or extracting head from sand or own *** can be enlightening
and OJ Simpson didn't kill his wife either now did he - if you have enough money your lawyers can literally get you away with murder or viewing child ****, which he admitted to!

Rock legend Pete Townshend has admitted paying to view a child pornography site on the internet but said he did so "just to see what was there".

The star's admission came after a UK newspaper report said a British musician was among those identified by a US police investigation for downloading child pornography from the internet.

The Who guitarist, speaking from his home in Richmond, London, strongly denied being a paedophile and said police were aware he had studied child pornography but only for research.

He is either a sick **** caught out or an incredibly stupid or possibly the most naive man on the planet - either way hardly worth a listen to...

Dedrater

If you agree with his comments, then you really haven't thought it through.

If I copy a song from the internet, I have a copy and so does the person I copied it from. If I go pinch his sons bike, I have a bike and his child has no bike.

The Zohan

a bit like not thinking through signing up to a child **** site and using your own credit card - for research purposes only

Dedrater

http://www.page2live.com/2010/01/27/...ete-townshend/

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Or maybe he was genuinely researching the availability of that sort of material on the Internet and seeing as he was leading a campaign aganst the availability of such material and had done a lot of research and written many articles on the subject in 2001/2002 there is just a chance that he is not a kiddy fiddler isn't there?

I know that will not be good enough for you, but I just feel that particular side of the story was worth adding as you seem to have missed it out

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

I wonder whether he's stopped to consider just how much harm the music industry has done to the technology industry.

Does he, for example, care about the 'loudness war' which the industry has waged upon music lovers for years, and which has completely spoiled the sound of many if not most albums? Has this done anything to promote or support the hi-fi industry at all? Or has it contributed towards the "MP3 is good enough" attitude which, ironically, makes illegal downloads all the more attractive?

Has he noticed the strong correlation between the success of a music format and the ease with which it can be copied? SACD and DVD-A were hard to copy, and were total commercial flops. Tapes, CDs and now MP3s are easily copied and have been tremendously successful. Coincidence?

Perhaps he should also think about the implications of his subscription model - the 'music as food' analogy - and what they might mean for the audio industry too. The technological shackles, the inevitable pointless battle between equipment makers and hackers, the cost of implementing all the technology and the barrier to entry for newcomers to the audio business that it would mean. Look at products like the Logitech (Slim Devices) Squeezebox, for example - a great little piece of kit (IMHO), very successful, truly innovative, and completely impossible for a start-up to invent at all in an environment where music only ever comes in encrypted form.

Dedrater

You know that he is on the Sexual Offenders Register yeah?

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Yes because he was guilty of the offence of accessing child pornography and the law is the law! It does not necessarily make him a paedophile though!

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Nope, not comparable. You can't create a copy of a bike by clicking a mouse. A song, film or photograph in an electronic format is a completely different entity to a physcial object.

Now if we all downloaded films and music for free there wouldn't be any as no one could afford to make them. To say it doesn't take anything away from the creators of such material is just not true!

The Zohan

Yup, so your stance had gone from him being cleared of any offences (funnily enough convicted of accessing child ****) to him doing it for a good cause - do make you mind up! Did you also believe Wild Bill Clinton when he said he didn't have sex with Monica too?

he could have got in touch with the many organisations or indeed police forces child **** units to 'research' instead he chose to sign up to a child **** site and in turn putting money in the pockets of sick ***** who make this sort of stuff!
http://www.asacp.org/
http://www.iwf.org.uk/

So he published an article(s) and is now apparently fervently against child **** is he? rather convenient given he was arrested in 1999 - seems like so good old fashioned motivation to do something positive on his own behalf.

as i said, he is either a sick ****, stupid and or naive, i guess we will never know for sure...

geesta

It's close enough for me. Sick ****

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

He was arrested in 2003 after he wrote the articles NOT 1999. Just for once can you please try and get your facts straight especially on such a sensitive subject?

Dedrater

That is why I said it, utterly stupid comment to make by him.

In your opinion then, would it be ok if I went to his house, with my own metal and copied his sons bike?

Have you got an independent source for this statement? Because it is complete bulls**t.

Thousands upon thousands of bands and artists do this exact thing, among other innovative ways, to make a ridiculously good living for themselves.

Dedrater

True, but where is this "book" that he was researching for, because it never got released did it and there was never any evidence to say he was either.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

And you call him stupid



Er .. it's common sense. If it costs $20million to make a film and NOONE was to pay to see it becuase they all nicked it off the net then the filmaker has lost $20million!

Your arugument I am guessing is the usual one that it's OK to do it as not everyone does and you wouldn't have paid to see it anyway yes?

TinyTim

iTrader: (3)

Dig, dig... keep going...

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

To be fair Dedrater he did publish a lot of articles in 2001/2002 some of which you can find around the net and maybe after being arrested and ending up on the sex offenders register he thought it best to leave the subject alone. I know I would.

None of us know for sure whether his excuses were 100% valid, but unlike some obvious kiddy fiddlers I feel it is not a cut and dried case with him. Was he naive, yes without a doubt, but is he a paedophile? Not convinced to be frank!

The Zohan

Ok so i slipped up the the date, sue me!

Jan 13, 2003 Townshend arrested by British police in child **** investigation.

He was given a tip-off that the police were going to raid his home three days before they arrived.

His credit card usage to access a child **** site was traced to him through Operation Ore the British counterpart of the US Operation Avalanche.

When confronted by the British police, he admitted using his credit card to access a child pornography website.

Townshend claimed he was researching a book which has never been written. At another time he claimed he was researching child **** to protect his son.

He confessed guilt to a crime. He was thus given a 'caution' from the British police and avoided a trial. (U.S. equivalent of a guilty plea with adjudication withheld – see note 1 on a 'caution' below under Reference).

Bob McLachlan, former head of Scotland Yard's pedophile unit slammed the caution as 'totally inappropriate.' He said: 'Why is this rock star being given such lenient treatment when he has accepted a caution and therefore admits his guilt? Townshend claims he only did it for research, a common excuse used by pedophiles.' Sun 050803

His admission to using his credit card to access a child **** website and that he had viewed child pornography images was the central component of his guilty plea.

A Scotland Yard statement stressed that access and payment for child abuse images was an offence. London Times May 8, 2003

He had access to his attorneys at all times. He avoided charges beyond a caution as the police did not detect any images of child rape on his 14 computers.

Townshend was never cleared of his offence and remained on the Sex Offender registry for the full five years 2003 – 2008.

Townshend had to give a DNA sample, check in with the British police regularly and inform them of his movements during his Sex Offender registration.

The London Times, in an article published on May 8, 2003, stated that Townshend will also have a lifelong criminal record for the caution.

On June 22, 2006 the London Times reported that Townshend had withdrawn an ‘ill-advised’ teen sex story from his blog which depicted graphic teen sex. He told the Daily Mail: ‘I've taken down my story. I want to make it clear that I respect the requirements of the sex offenders register without condition.’

Breaking conditions of a caution results in the original offense being prosecuted in a British court.

Confusion was introduced into the Townshend case by British investigative journalist Duncan Campbell in an article he wrote for the UK's Guardian (041907) where he stated “(Operation) Ore has dragged big names into the spotlight - such as the musicians Pete Townshend, the Who guitarist, and Robert del Naja of Massive Attack, both falsely accused of accessing child pornography.”

Campbell said this even though he knew that Townshend had admitted to breaking the law and had accepted the consequences. Why Campbell said what he said remains a matter of conjecture. Del Naja was cleared. Townshend wasn’t.

Campbell’s arguments against Operation Ore, initially well received, were cast under a shadow when the computer expert he used, Jim Bates of Computer Investigations, was convicted in March 2008 of falsifying (he lied) his qualifications and given a six-month suspended prison sentence. As a self proclaimed pioneer of forensic computer analysis, Bates had until his conviction been used widely by police and prosecutors. He is no longer used as an expert witness by prosecutors. See 'How police put their faith in the 'expert' witness who was a fraud' Guardian UK March 23, 2008

The US Smoking Gun carries an 8-page article on Townshend from 2003 (see link below). A notable quote on the Smoking Gun reads as follows:

Townshend's paper, which he once posted on his official web site, also notes that the "pathway to 'free' pedophilic imagery is--as it were--laid out like a free line of cocaine at a decadent cocktail party: only the strong willed or terminally uncurious can resist." In the January 2002 **** treatise, Townshend notes that since 1997 he has been working on "some kind of document" relating to Internet ****, but that he feared being arrested by police who were on a "witch hunt" to catch anyone who visited illicit web pages: "Those vigilantes who research these pathways open themselves up to internet 'snoops.'"

The FBI’s manual for law enforcement when dealing with Child Molesters – Child Molesters: a behavioral analysis (available free at the link below) - the following excerpt is of relevance when dealing with those caught accessing child pornography - titles and page numbers referenced:

“Concerned Civilians” (P93 - 94)
Many individuals who report information to the authorities about deviant sexual activity they have discovered on the Internet must invent clever excuses for how and why they came upon such material. They often start out pursuing their own sexual/deviant interests, but then decide to report to law enforcement either because it went too far, they are afraid authorities might have monitored them, or they need to rationalize their perversions as having some higher purpose or value. Rather than honestly admitting their own deviant interests, they make up elaborate explanations to justify finding the material. Some claim to be journalists; researchers; or outraged, concerned members of society trying to protect a child or help law enforcement.

One especially sensitive area for investigators is the preferential sex offender who presents himself as a concerned civilian reporting what he inadvertently “discovered” in cyberspace or requesting to work with law enforcement to search for child pornography and protect children. Other than the obvious benefit of legal justification for their past or future activity, most do this as part of their need to rationalize their behavior as worthwhile and gain access to children. When these offenders are caught, instead of recognizing this activity as part of their preferential pattern of behavior, the courts sometimes give them leniency because of their “good deeds.”
http://www.abusewatch.net/CAN_Townshend_media_facts.php

Dedrater

I do not understand your logic then, can you tell me, logically, why the two statements are not compatible.


But we are led to believe that piracy is at it's most rampant and damaging than ever before, but movie studios have just posted record profits.

My only argument is the labels and movie companies need to change there current business model. Currently and it is undeniable, the content you find on torrent/usenet is better all round than you can buy in the shops or off Itunes.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Because obviously going round to someone's house with metal and the tools to fabricate a copy of a bike costs a lot of money and time and skill come to that whereas clicking a mouse and using up 10p worth of bandwidth and a bit of hard drive does not.

Different thing altogether! IMO

But that is irrelevant as it doesn't make an illegal download right. If you are 1 of 10 doing it you are not any less doing something wrong than if you are 1 of 10 million ... and as I said IF EVERYONE did it there would be no films or music!

Totally agree the labels etc. need to change especially where music is concerned. Compressed MP3 should not be the future quality wise anyway.

As a matter of interest where can I download movies in better quality than Blu Ray? That isn't a sarcy question, just wondered given your statement about Torrent etc.

paulr

http://www.zobbel.de/stat/uksales_a.htm

Sales are down, but still much higher than the 1970's. Personally i have my car ipod filled with illegal downloads, then if i like it, i buy the CD.