Ok so I’m still thinking about piracy – though I still think we need to phrase the whole debate better. After all, Pirates are cool. This, I presume, is why the Industry (or The Man, an even cooler name if you ask me) is desperate to rebrand internet Pirates as Thieves. However like so much else in the virtual world this is still giving far too much kudos to the activity. “Surfing for pirate p2p networks” is a very glamourous term for sitting in your bedroom watching a download bar creep across the screen…

Anyway, despite some impassioned debate on all Shooting People bulletins this morning I still feel that “piracy” is just an easy scapegoat for the problems of our free-to-view culture. As an Englishman I grew up with the firm idea that there were two sorts of TV and Radio programme, those that were paid for by advertising and those that were paid for by the BBC License Payer. Programmes with adverts were generally not as good, but you didn’t mind so much because you hadn’t had to pay for them. It still remains every British Citizen’s natural right to complain about the BBC because that’s my money you’re giving to Jonathan Ross.

With the launch of the superb BBC iPlayer though all that has changed. At the moment the only television I watch is “Stuart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle”, “Newswipe” and French police drama “Spiral”. All of these I watch at random points of sleeplessness throughout the week using the BBC iPlayer. I do still have a television and so somewhere along the line a license fee has gone into the pot to pay for all these three rare delights but I could quite happily – and legally – live without one.

If you’re reading this in America the case is clearer. If you follow my link to David Hepworth’s brilliant programme about the history of music bootlegging you will be listening to a radio programme that I helped pay for – but for you – it’s free. OK you’re paying for the broadband (or is that free as the air now as well?) but you’re not paying for the content and if I sold (or just broke) my TV I wouldn’t have to either.

How different is watching “Stuart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle” on iPlayer to watching a pirated copy of “In The Loop”? The BBC have paid Armando Iannucci for his creative role in both and both the pirate and legitimate platforms hinge on the idea that this stuff is out there – it exists – it has been made and, as such, is mine if I can get hold of it. (I have not done this, I’m only too desperate to go to the cinema and pay to see this film – and by the sound of things, so should you be.)

Again, I’m not trying to say that therefore pirating is ok, just that we need to think carefully about how stuff gets paid for. I am a fan of the licence fee, I’m a fan of public service broadcasting and a production ethos of something other than a simple ratings chase. However increasingly it’s just looking like a tax on technophobes…