Bit Torrent Downloading - File Sharing

If you enjoy high quality audio drama (and/or audiobooks) then you're not alone. Millions of people worldwide love this form of entertainment and appreciate the hard work that goes into making it. For those who don't know, it takes months of pain staking work to create a great recorded work. Countless hours are spent writing the script - which is no easy task. Then a cast must be assembled. Casting takes great effort and can be an incredible challenge. It may take up to a year to fill the necessary roles. Once the cast is assembled rehearsal takes time. Recording an audio dramas can take anywhere from a few days to several weeks. Mixing and Editing are exhaustively long processes taking weeks or months to complete. The road to a great full-cast audio drama is an extensively long one to say the least.

It is not cheap to produce a full-cast audio drama! A professionally produced audio drama can cost several thousand dollars to make. A three hour show can cost anywhere from $10,000 - $50,000 (U.S. dollars) or more to produce.

Some professional radio theater groups have an audio publisher that makes their shows available to purchase. Some self publish selling them through places like itunes or lulu.com. (Many amateur radio theater groups kindly make their programs available as a free download available from their websites.)

There are those who work in the radio/audio drama field who actually depend on the sales of radio dramas. Making and selling radio dramas is their livelihood. This is how they feed and cloth their families. This is what puts a roof over their head. They don't live luxuriant life styles and they're not rich. The fact is creating and selling radio dramas is how they make an honest living. There are those who work in the field of radio drama who write, direct, produce or mix and edit that do so on a percentage of sales basis. That means if the radio drama sells they get a small percentage of the sales. And they only get paid if the radio drama sells.

Selling radio dramas is also how many radio theater groups keep up and running. By selling their shows they are able to have the funds to continue producing more wonderful shows for our entertainment. File sharing puts them out of business. That means eventually there will come a time when there will be no new radio dramas. If you think it's no big deal to file share a radio drama  because it's published by an audiobook publisher (or the BBC) then think again. Publishers who don't make money on the shows they produce stop making shows. Once again the result of bittorrent file sharing is the end of great radio drama being produced.

The bottom-line is this: it takes thousands of dollars and months of hard work and effort to bring you a single full-cast audio (radio) drama. But it only takes a couple of minutes for all that hard work and effort to be stolen away when it is uploaded onto a file sharing website. Bit torrent (or bittorrent) website file sharing is nothing less than theft. When you upload or download audiobooks and audio dramas using bit torrent websites you steal people's hard work and their livelihood (their means of making a living.) If you think it's no big deal to download for free then consider this example: Do you work hard at your job then expect to get a paycheck at the end of each pay period? Let's suppose you have direct deposit. How would you feel if you checked your bank balance and your money wasn't in your account? Would you call the bank and ask them why the money wasn't in your account? How would you like this answer? We liked what you do so much that we decided to give your money away. We decided to deposit your paycheck into the account of someone else.

For those who still don't get it... Bit torrent file sharing copyrighted material is stealing, if you do it you are stealing. Consider this: Ever had anything stolen from you? Computer, car, wallet, purse, stereo, camera? Ever had you home broken into? Ever had someone charge an unauthorized amount on your credit card? Did you like it? Did it make you feel good? No? That's how the people who work hard to make radio dramas feel when someone uploads their hard work onto a bit torrent website for everyone in the world to download for free.

If you think you're doing the world a favor by uploading your radio drama collection (audio books, music, movies or anything else) onto a bittorrent file sharing website for people to share on the internet you really need to pull your head out of your A$$. You're not beating the system. You're not defeating big business. You're not sticking to the man. You're screwing the hard working little people out of their hard work and their pittance of an income. So if you're file sharing, uploading or downloading, think about someone besides yourself. If you want it then go buy it. Get off your lazy A$$, get a job, earn the money and buy it.

If you appreciate having professional radio theater groups who make great audio dramas then don't file share copyrighted audio/radio dramas (or audiobooks). Boycott bit torrent websites.

#108 The Valley of Fear - Sherlock Holmes (BBC)

Sherlock Holmes is pitted against Professor Moriarty, the world's greatest criminal mastermind, when a coded warning of imminent danger sends Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson to the fortress-like country house of the reclusive Jack Douglas. When they arrive too late to prevent a tragic death, the great detective and his chronicler must follow a series of bewildering clues to find a murderer who has vanished into thin air. Only then will they solve the mystery of the dead man's desperate plea: 'Am I never going to get out of the valley of fear?'

From the BBC:
What is the connection between a corpse with a missing face and a ruthless secret society which once terrorized a desolate region of the United States? With the aid of a local guidebook, a missing dumb-bell and Dr Watson's umbrella, Holmes unravels a tangled web which stretches over fifteen years and two continents; and in the center of that web lurks the sinister presence of the most brilliant criminal mind in all England - Professor James Moriarty. Clive Merrison stars as Holmes with Michael Williams as Watson in this adventure, part of the unique fully dramatized BBC canon of Conan Doyle's short stories and novels featuring the world-famous sleuth.

http://www.amazon.com/Sherlock-Holmes-Valley-Fear-Dramatized/dp/B0007WAASI

#107 A Study in Scarlet - Sherlock Holmes (BBC)

Clive Merrison and Michael Williams are Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in this classic tale of mystery. If you've never heard how Holmes and Watson came to be a team then it's time to tune in to this great detective story and learn how it all began. Excellent dramatization of the Holmes chronology by the BBC as always.

From the BBC:
The story in which Conan Doyle first unleashed the most famous partnership in the history of criminal detection. An unmarked corpse, a wedding ring and a mysterious message scrawled in blood are Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson's only clues as they follow the trail of a man driven to fulfill a terrible oath he swore more than twenty years before. Clive Merrison stars as Holmes with Michael Williams as Watson in this adventure, part of the unique fully dramatised BBC canon of Conan Doyle's short stories and novels featuring the world-famous sleuth.

http://www.amazon.com/Study-Scarlet-BBC-Sherlock-Holmes/dp/0553525530

#106 At Bertram's Hotel - Miss Marple (BBC)

When Jane Marple comes up from the country for a holiday in London, she finds what she’s looking for at Bertram’s: a restored London hotel with traditional decor, impeccable service -- and an unmistakable atmosphere of danger behind the highly polished veneer. Yet not even Miss Marple can foresee the violent chain of events set in motion when an eccentric guest makes his way to the airport on the wrong day.

From the BBC:
Miss Marple, Agatha Christie s deceptively mild spinster sleuth, is being treated to a few days holiday by her niece, staying at Bertram s Hotel, a dignified, unostentatious establishment tucked away in a back street of busy Mayfair. Here is a place where sedate upper class ladies, retired military gentlemen and the higher echelons of the clergy can indulge in the comforts of a bygone age. But Miss Marple begins to feel uneasy. Something sinister lurks beneath the polished veneer. Why are so many major crimes associated in some way with the hotel or somehow implicate eminently respectable people staying there? June Whitfield stars as Miss Marple in this BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of a classic brain-teaser from the Queen of Crime.

http://www.amazon.com/Bertrams-Hotel-BBC-Radio-Collection/dp/0563524499/ref=pd_sim_m2

#105 Bill Carey Rides West - Louis L'Amour

Great acting, sound effects and music make this highly entertaining story come to life. Louis L'Amour is a master of transporting the reader, in this case the listener, back to the days of the old west. Bill Carey Rides West once again shows why Louis L'Amour is the best selling western novelist of all-time.

A note about Louis L'Amour - Unlike other writers who sometimes fictionalize locations, customs and other details of the western era L'Amour was a tireless researcher. He would search out old newspapers, diaries and maps to learn not only about the people of the western era but also the topography and geography of the area. He talked to those who knew the land and many times knew figures of historical significance to those areas. L'Amour eagerly learned about landmarks, waterholes and other points of interest found in the regions he was writing about. He learned how the Indians and settlers identified these landmarks. In order to further accurately convey the lay of the land he would traverse the landscape sometimes even taking an aerial view by plane. His tireless pursuit of details certainly shines through in his storytelling.

Bill Carey robbed the bank in Churchfield making off with two bags of gold. But not before getting himself shot up. With the law hot on his trail Bill stumbles half dead onto a ranch run by Jess Conway and his daughter Jane. Jane patches up him up but he quickly learns that this is no safe haven. The ruthless outlaw Tabat Ryerson and his gang have the Conway's mercilessly doing their bidding. As Bill starts to mend he must decide what to do, get out of the territory or stay and help the sweet young woman and her father.

From Louis L'Amour:
Life on an Ohio farm couldn't hold young Bill Carey.  He wanted the adventure he knew waited in the territories to the west.  He'd drifted into the outlaw life, and now he found himself shot up, a lawman on his trail, holed up on a small farm near the lair of Tabat Ryerson.  Ryerson, the man who'd introduced him to cattle rustling and bank robbery, a cold-blooded killer.  The man who'd turned the sweet young woman who'd saved Carey's life into an unwilling accomplice.  On a remote little farm, Carey's caught between both sides of the law, and he finds a reason for staying alive in a rancher's pretty daughter.

http://www.louislamour.com/audio/BillCarey.htm

#104 Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (BBC)

One of Jane Austen's most beloved novels and a must have for fans of her work. This dramatization doesn't disappoint.

When Mr. Dashwood dies, he must leave the bulk of his estate to the son by his first marriage, which leaves his second wife and three daughters (Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret) in straitened circumstances. They are taken in by a kindly cousin, but their lack of fortune affects the marriageability of both practical Elinor and romantic Marianne. When Elinor forms an attachment for the wealthy Edward Ferrars, his family disapproves and separates them. And though Mrs. Jennings tries to match the worthy (and rich) Colonel Brandon to her, Marianne finds the dashing and fiery Willoughby more to her taste. Both relationships are sorely tried. But this is a romance, and through the hardships and heartbreak, true love and a happy ending will find their way for both the sister who is all sense and the one who is all sensibility.

http://www.amazon.com/Sense-Sensibility-dramatization-Jane-Austen/dp/1602833141/ref=pd_sim_b_1

Post #103 Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
http://radiodramaspotlight.blogspot.com/2011/09/103-mansfield-park-jane-austen-bbc.html

Post #53 Emma by Jane Austen
http://radiodramaspotlight.blogspot.com/2011/07/53-emma-by-jane-austen-bbc.html

#103 Mansfield Park - Jane Austen (BBC)

Extremely difficult to find but a real treasure for fans of Jane Austen. This BBC full-cast radio drama features Hannah Gordon and Amanda Root.

Mansfield Park is the story of Fanny Price: the earnest, gentle girl of humble origins sent to live with Sir Thomas Bertram and his family in Mansfield Park. There she discovers a world of flirtation, betrayal and prejudice; her quiet, serious nature hides a loyal and loving heart, and her patient devotion is ultimately rewarded.

http://www.audiobookbargains.co.uk/jane-austen-mansfield-park-bbc-radio-4-drama-cd-audio-book-2976-p.asp

For more Jane Austen see:

Post #104 Sense and Sensibility
http://radiodramaspotlight.blogspot.com/2011/09/104-sense-and-sensibility-by-jane.html

Emma by Jane Austen at post # 53
http://radiodramaspotlight.blogspot.com/2011/07/53-emma-by-jane-austen-bbc.html