Interesting arrangement. Not quite the (vague) point I was trying to make, but tangentially related. The common and most important element of course is that the content *is* paid for, not "stolen" as the anti-sharing forces and their apologists frequently declare. I would suppose that a sizeable fraction of downloaders on the internet have paid for the content in some way, possibly multiple times. So the accusations that the creators haven't been compensated for the content people are "stealing" rings a bit hollow.
The arrangement you describe seems a bit iffy since you don't all seem to reside together even if you're sharing the bill. Your arrangement seems similiar to paying for service at one location and stringing cables to the neighbors, which is frowned upon by the providers. On the other hand, if everyone in your group subscribed to a package at their own residence that at least contained the channels of the shows they actually retrieve and watch, then your arrangement is just a more elaborate form of a DVR.
My argument was more along the lines of:
- I am required to purchase a bundle including channels in which I have no interest in order to subsidize less 'popular' content that can't be sustained by an ala carte model.
- I am given no alternative. It's pay for this bundle and all the content, or nothing.
- I am legally permitted to record content on any of those channels using some form of recording device (usually a DVR) to watch at a later time.
- There is no mandated time limit on how long I can retain the recording or how many times I can watch it.
- There is no mandated restriction on the reason I did not watch the content as it was broadcast. "I wasn't interested at the time" seems just as valid as "I wasn't home", "I had to respond to an unexpected emergency", "Thought it might be cool so I recorded it just in case".
- There seems to be no real limitation I know of on the method the content is recorded for viewing at a later date. DVR, video tape, camera etc. As long as it's for my personal use, I'm legally allowed to timeshift content I have paid for.
So now I've subscribed and paid for a bunch of content and all parties have been compensated according to the model created to make sure that happens. And it's sustainable because the content providers are still in business (and reaping record profits), the content creators are still in business (and were compensated enough to keep making more content), etc. I've paid more than I wanted to sustain a business model that includes a rich and varied ecosystem of channels rather than being able to sustain the most popular.
So sometime later, I become interested in a show that was broadcast on a channel I subsidized, or I'm traveling and don't have access to my recordings at home, or my DVR broke, or whatever. So I find the show on TPB, retrieve it and watch it. Suddenly I'm a pirate "stealing" content I didn't pay for when I fact I did.
There are a lot of holes in this reasoning I'm sure (many of the actions above probably violated terms of service if not laws), but the essential fact remains: the content was paid for which takes some of the wind out of the sails of the argument that all filesharing/unauthorized downloading equates to theft and lost sales. That argument would be a lot stronger in an ala carte model where the customer was allowed to pay only for the content desired rather than being forced to pay for additional content that wasn't.