Posted: 14th Jul, 2009 By: MarkJ
The popular British comic icon, Stephen Fry, shocked some of the attendants at last night’s
iTunes (Apple) Live event when he admitted to using his broadband ISP connection to download music and TV shows illegally via BitTorrent file sharing (P2P) networks. He then promptly criticised the creative industry for trying to criminalise those who do it purely for personal consumption.
The event, which was held at Camden's Roundhouse venue, has seen some interesting moments in the past but this was certainly more interesting than most. However Fry did criticise those who downloaded illegally on an "
industrial scale", but warned that making examples of "
ordinary people" was stupid.
Fry didn't stop there though; he also slammed the recent Digital Britain report for representing too many industry views, as opposed to those of the general public. He then criticised the industry he worked in for being a "
molly coddled" and "
overpaid business". He added that most people probably do feel guilty about downloading something illegally.
The remarks, which should soon be made available via a free podcast on the Apple iTunes store, are likely to cause a mix of opinions. For the record, Fry downloaded episodes of 24 and the season finale of House, the latter of which he also downloaded legally too.