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It won't make a dent on piracy, in fact the use of Kodi will likely now increase as any press is good press. Just like electricity, people will always take the

It won't make a dent on piracy, in fact the use of Kodi will likely now increase as any press is good press. Just like electricity, people will always take the path of least resistance. If I open Netflix to watch an episode of something, and they only have half of the series/season, I'm just going to use Kodi to watch it for free. Why would I order a DVD and wait for days? Or buy it and wait hours to download it? Or setup another subscription service for a monthly cost? Why do any of this when I can be watching it within seconds, cost doesn't even factor in, it's just so easy and convenient. If Kodi/Exodus was a fully legal, licensed platform whereby I could pay monthly/per-show (at an agreeable price), I'd pay - because it's so easy to use and it has almost everything. Until that day though, I've cancelled all streaming services (as they removed my favourite shows or only offer series/seasons I don't want) apart from Prime as I like the delivery times and cloud storage. I don't even have a TV aerial anymore as that broke, I just have 3 TVs, 3 Firesticks and a Chromecast, job done.

Ascetik 10y ago
>Why do any of this when I can be watching it within seconds, cost doesn't even factor in, it's just so easy and convenient. Because it is stealing. Some people still believe in paying for value. Prime has a boat-load of movies and tv shows available for free or pay to watch on demand. I think their prices are a little high for 24hr rental (3.99$), but still it is legal. It is better to not go to jail than to feed one's entertainment lust.
- pavel_lishin 10y ago
  > Some people still believe in paying for value. But apparently not all people believe in charging for value, since a lot of shows, movies, etc. aren't available to stream. What good is half a season of something, especially if it's the second half? I've not watches shows just because there's no way to catch up to where the current Hulu/Netflix/Whatever offering was. Sometimes I'd pirate it, but sometimes I wasn't really sold enough on the premise to bother. I wonder what the marketing department would think of that. "Your attempts to sell me something failed so hard, I refused to bother stealing it."
  - abakker 10y ago
    Completely agree. It is frequently the media companies' unwillingness to sell to buyers on their own terms that leads to this problem. Additionally, the fact that most content is irrelevant to most buyers. Obviously, the traditional model was designed to subsidize creating something for everyone. But, now, it has been subverted to improve margins by creating everything for everybody / lowest common denominator. On the off chance that it fits my tastes, I still have to buy the rest of the crap just to view what I want. I'll pay for content, but I want to be able to buy what I want. Content creators have always had a tough time monetizing the content vs the mode of delivery. You pay for the theater when you go to the movies, you pay for the bandwidth when you stream, you pay for the dvd printing when you buy a DVD. It would be nice if the licensing per item were fixed, and the mode of delivery were left up to the buyer.
    - monocasa 10y ago
      Yep. As Gave Newell says, "piracy is a service problem."
      - CaptSpify 10y ago
        Honestly, I think it's more than that, I think it's an economic problem. Our economic model no longer matches reality. We used to bake the costs of production into the cost of a unit, which makes sense for physical goods. That makes no sense with digital goods. 15 years ago things like Napster were supposed to be the wake-up call for that. Instead we chose to ignore that lesson, and now we're collectively suffering for it today.
    - scarface74 10y ago
      I agree completely. I don't have cable, but I pay for SlingTV, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and CBS All Access. If a tv series isn't on one of those platforms, I will find it somewhere else. But I won't pay $30 for one tv series.
- thatcat 10y ago
  >stealing >go to jail(for watching) So much hyperbole. The article refers to people selling preloaded piracy boxes for profit, which is different than setting up your own.
  - gmarx 10y ago
    You can argue about whether to call it stealing but it is breaking the law. It's shocking to me the way so many people, especially in the generation after me, have proudly abandoned any pretense to morals or ethics. Sure GenX has its share of amoral people, but at least they had the good taste to lie about it. I mean, that's kind of admitting that morality is important
    - dmix 10y ago
      You can consider copyright infringement wrong and simultaneously believe criminalizing it as theft is a bad idea. For example jay-walking is wrong because it's dangerous but many people do it anyway and it's not generally villianized. So then is the solution having police patrols in the streets fining/arresting people as a deterance? Will that reduce the problem and legitimately help both pedestrians and drivers? Or will educating people on the risks, creating alternatives such as adding more crossing points, improving cars ability to detect pedestrians, etc, etc, be a better solution? Not everything is black or white, good or bad.
      - praneshp 10y ago
        I'm think simultaneously improving pedestrian facilities while making penalties on jaywalking harsh is an okay idea, especially if the goal is 100% compliance.
      - thatcat 10y ago
        What if you just noticed that there are already tunnels under all the roads? Is it then immoral to walk under the road when some people interpret that as technically jay walking even though you're not directly effecting anyone in the way that the law assumes you will?
- comstock 10y ago
  I'm curious about this. If there was a public poll, my guess is that the public would be overwhelmingly against sending people to prison for copyright violation. There's some evidence to support this [0]. In fact, I think it's a fact that shows just how messed up the law is. That people can be overwhelmingly against harsh penalties for copyright violation, yet they still exists... [0] https://torrentfreak.com/piracy-socially-acceptable-110228/ https://torrentfreak.com/piracy-socially-acceptable-110228/
  - praneshp 10y ago
    Because the general public at large is not the one suffering from copyright violation? The affected parties are the ones that should be polled; but I agree that we might not agree on who is really affected.
    - comstock 10y ago
      Clearly copyright violation has an affect on all parties involved. But I don't understand your comment really. Law shouldn't reflect the will of a powerful minority, it should reflect what the population in general finds acceptable. If most people find copyright violation acceptable, I can't see any argument for harsh penalties in a democracy.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- fictioncircle 10y ago
  > Because it is stealing. Some people still believe in paying for value. I'll care about people stealing from an oligopoly when people care about regulating natural monopolies and oligopolies to the point they behave reasonably.
- mikeash 10y ago
  It's not stealing, it's unauthorized copying. And I'm pretty sure retail end-user pirates don't go to jail. In any case, the moral argument doesn't appear to work. People just don't care.
  - scotty79 10y ago
    > In any case, the moral argument doesn't appear to work. Why would it work? You could equally successfully try to shame people into not breathing without payment.
    - mikeash 10y ago
      There's no reason to think it would work, but that doesn't stop people from shouting it every time someone discusses the reasons why people pirate.
      - 0xdeadbeefbabe 10y ago
        Maybe if it were called "copying" instead of "piracy" (on the high seas).
- morganvachon 10y ago
  > It is better to not go to jail than to feed one's entertainment lust. While I agree with your post overall that ideally the end consumer shouldn't access such content illegally, the days of the end user going to jail or being fined over illicit downloads are long gone. The content companies and the governments finally woke up to the reality that going after those who profit from making the content available, rather than the end user, is the correct thing to do. As the GP said, people will naturally take the easiest path, and often downloading a TV episode from an illicit source is easier than attempting to purchase it legally (for some shows one must subscribe to as many as four streaming services to get all seasons/series). All of that said, it really is a game of whack-a-mole the governments and content companies are playing by going after the little guys distributing the content. Just as with the war on drugs and the war on terrorism, it's a war that will never be won.
- e12e 10y ago
  > Because it is stealing. In theft you take something from someone else, and they are then deprived of what you took. I take your loaf of bread, you have one less loaf of bread. If I copy your movie, you still have your movie. Now, if I (somehow) get hold of a copy of a digital file you want to sell me, you'll be less likely to be able to get me to buy it (although, studies have shown that those that copy content a lot, also tend to pay for content a lot). So we need another word than "theft" - and that word certainly isn't "piracy" - people that violate copyright, rarely murder people or disrupt trade routes and critical infrastructure. I'm not saying we don't need some system of compensation if we want to continue to produce art - but just as a boycott is a very passive act of resistance, so is not paying for crippled (DRM) content. Unfortunately it doesn't seem that there's a need to prove that someone watching a copy for free would be more likely to pay for that copy than go outside and play a game of catch if the content wasn't available for copying.
  - jjaredsimpson 10y ago
    If I copy all your emails and financial records have I harmed you? Are you only harmed if I remove your access to those records?
    - reloop 10y ago
      These arguments always comes up in these types of discussions. In reality though personal information has far less protection than commercial information. If you take nude pictures of yourself you might as well keep your credit card in frame, since that's essentially the only way someone would be sentenced for copying them later.
    - AtheistOfFail 10y ago
      No. If you begin committing identity theft, Yes.
    - mcdoug 10y ago
      That's yet a different issue. Watching an old episode of Seinfeld does not violate anyone's privacy. Theft: you have a painting. I took it. Copyright infringement: You painted a painting. I took a picture of it and sold/gave away prints to all my friends. Violation of privacy: I got into your phone and looked at all your dick pics. Warrantless search: The police got into your phone and looked at all your dick pics, possibly finding evidence of a crime. They are different issues which can look similar at times, but are actually completely separate. Pretending like they are is just adding muck to this discussion.
- forgetsusername 10y ago
  >Prime has a boat-load of movies and tv shows available for free or pay to watch on demand. ...in the US.
- adekok 10y ago
  By the same token, when I go to say (Forbes.com), the advertisers are stealing bandwidth from me. Unless I use an adblocker, the ads use bandwidth that I pay for. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160317/09274333934/why-are-people-using-ad-blockers-ads-can-eat-up-to-79-mobile-data-allotments.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160317/09274333934/why-a... i.e. the advertisers entire business model is lowering their costs by pushing those costs onto me. Then after I install an adblocker, they complain that I'm the one who's stealing. No, I'm trying to read an article. If Forbes refuses to let me read articles with an adblocker in place, I'll just go somewhere else. And that's ignoring all of the arguments around artificial monopolies, and the perverting of the copyright system through the "immortal mouse".
- IgorPartola 10y ago
  I will make the argument I always make when this comes up: it's not stealing it's depriving rights holders of potential revenue. But it's really not because the market value of the content is approaching $0. That is, if I can't watch an episode of Buffy for free, I won't pay for it. I just won't watch it. This the cost I'm willing to pay is exactly $0. Therefore they lose no revenue. If you are uncomfortable with that mental gymnastics, here is a slightly less harsh approach. I currently pay for Netflix, HBO Now, Spotify, and Audible. So I am willing to pay $40-50/month for access to high quality commercial-free content on unlimited basis. But back when iTunes was the only option for streaming at something like $1/episode and $5/movie, I would not dream of it. So I guess the cost I am willing to pay is not quite $0 per each piece of content, but it's definitely not $20 each. I think a market adjustment is coming for content producers because I do believe lots of people have similar price points.
- curyous 10y ago
  It's not stealing, it's sharing. You're not depriving anyone of anything. It's not a lost sale. The TV and movie industries are making more money than they ever have, because of all the sharing.
- dclowd9901 10y ago
  "paying for value" I'm sorry, where is the value FOR ME in paying for something that is constantly taken away from you, and where the inventory is always in flux? It's essentially pointless. It's like having a membership to a gym where they're always changing out the equipment, but never have enough variety to get a full workout. I _do_ want to pay for these services, but they need to provide value.
- hueving 10y ago
  >Some people still believe in paying for value. I get value from the sun, but I don't cut a check to it every month. Economics shows that on any large scale, people aren't going to pay more for something equivalent to something they get for free.
flyinghamster 10y ago
You're falling for the "Kodi is only a piracy platform" myth. You can certainly use Kodi for viewing things you've recorded over-the-air (which is my own use case), without resorting to pirated media.
- givinguflac 10y ago
  Thank you. People like to hate on Kodi but really it's the add-ons. People love open software, but they hate on the devs of kodi even though they kick and scream about these add ons (and even added a toggle to not allow add ons by default.) My web browser can be used for piracy, but you don't see people hating Mozilla. It's silly.
- rasjani 10y ago
  Or even other (scraped) content from legal sources/addons. My personal usecase is essentialy watching /r/video and my YouTube subscriptions from couch with a unified interface.
  - Sunset 10y ago
    The Nasa and Esa addons are pretty nifty.
- dkonofalski 10y ago
  Not only that, but my Kodi server is basically my client portfolio and my home movie repository. I can upload home movies and just tell my parents, who live on the other side of the country, to refresh Kodi and they get to see the latest videos of their grandkids. With clients, I physically go to client locations and pitch them and I can show them previous spots that I've done, in person and on my iPad, without making them publicly available and potentially violating contracts and agreements that I have.
colinramsay 10y ago
I have used Kodi with software such as Sickrage to download tv shows but with Netflix and Amazon Prime subscriptions alongside iPlayer that covers the majority of shows we watch. The Raspberry Pi running Sickrage is now rarely used whereas the PS4 running Netflix is used most evenings. As you say, it's the path of least resistance.
rhino369 10y ago
These raids (not this one in particular) can have a real impact. I'm an unabashed pirate, but it's gotten harder and harder to find a good, safe public tracker for BitTorrent. My dad can't even figure it out anymore after the private tracker I got him an invite for shutdown. When kickass went down, people said it's like hydra. But I can't figure out where the new heads are. I'm down to piratebay and usenet only. Sure I could spend time figuring it all out again, but that takes time and effort. So I end up buying stuff. They'll never stop all piracy. They just want to make sure the masses don't know how to easily pirate. It's an 80/20 situation.
- seer 10y ago
  It takes a little bit of time for other trackers to gain traction. Right now I think the most promising public tracker I know is idope.se, enjoy :)
- elcct 10y ago
  Why tracker? You can find most stuff using Google and various file sharing services.
  - rhino369 10y ago
    I was having a hell of a time finding ebooks for my wife just googling for it. I had to download IRC. Total blast from the past. I learned how to do it, but it took a while.
- Thimothy 10y ago
  I'm just going to leave this HN submission that got into the front page a little while ago here... It's not the same as a full fledged tracker, but for that YIFI movie that everybody has seen, it's nice. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13423629 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13423629
- tomjen3 10y ago
  There are plenty of vpn we don't keep any logs services that you can run a torrent through - at that point it doesn't matter how safe the tracker is.
frebord 10y ago
We are in the middle of such an uncomfortable transition. Every company has their own stupid fucking platform, which you may or may not be able to get on your device, or which may or may not support streaming to your streaming device. I am someone who wants an elegant simple solution to something like this in my house, why the fuck can't I just have one god damn app that can load ALL of my shows/movies/livetv and takes care of payment to whichever company is providing the content or gives them a way to insert ads for free content. It is no wonder that people use Kodi.
- manarth 10y ago
  why the fuck can't I just have one god damn app that can load ALL of my shows/movies/livetv and takes care of payment to whichever company is providing the content Which is what Apple have tried to do with the TV app [1]. Except it doesn't include Netflix. Or Amazon [2]. And I'm sure there are plenty of others. Walled gardens eh? [1] http://www.apple.com/newsroom/2016/10/apple-unveils-new-tv-app-for-apple-tv-iphone-and-ipad.html http://www.apple.com/newsroom/2016/10/apple-unveils-new-tv-a... [2] http://bgr.com/2016/11/17/apple-tv-universal-app/ http://bgr.com/2016/11/17/apple-tv-universal-app/
mustacheemperor 10y ago
I used to pay for a hulu subscription, because even with a few ads it was really convenient. Now, there are less of the shows I want to watch, and the ads are absolutely, insultingly ridicululous. It will seriously play 10 minutes of ads in 5 minute increments for a 20 minute show. Every ad block is now 3 advertisements long, some of them require you to interact, and every show has at least 3 breaks for ads. Sometimes it'll run ads AFTER the show ends so you watch ads to see the credits, or in order to see the next episode! They have literally made streaming worse than regular TV and after this weekend I finally had enough and just installed Kodi.
- djrogers 10y ago
  > 10 minutes of ads in 5 minute increments for a 20 minute show So just about like broadcast TV > Sometimes it'll run ads AFTER the show ends so you watch ads to see the credits, or in order to see the next episode! Also just like broadcast TV. The horror!!! > They have literally made streaming worse than regular TV Sounds more like they've just foolishly brought the worst of broadcast to the web. I'm sure you realize Hulu has an ad-free option, right? So in order to save yourself the $2-$3 it would cost you to go ad-free on hulu you've decided to just take it instead. Why? Because you deserve to get it for free? Does Hollywood simply exist to entertain you at no cost? That's a hell of a sense of entitlement you've got yourself there kiddo...
  - yjftsjthsd-h 10y ago
    > just like broadcast TV You've conveniently skipped the mention of ads that require interaction, which is far worse. > $2-$3 it would cost you to go ad-free It appears to cost $12,and apparently only removes ads on some shows... so, no. That's a hell of a sense of superiority you've got yourself there kiddo...
    - LukeShu 10y ago
      I believe the "$2-$3" was intended to be the difference between the with-ads subscription ($8), and the without-ads subscription ($12).
droopyEyelids 10y ago
Hey! When we (educated technologists) are talking about this, let's make sure to recognize that Kodi is just a media playing customized gnu/linux. The problem is with piracy plugins. Let's not besmirch Kodi, it's really a shining example of successful non-commercial open source.
forgetsusername 10y ago
>Or buy it and wait hours to download it? How it it streamable on Kodi, but takes so long to download from a legitimate source?
rconti 10y ago
Your example of Netflix having only half a season and then having to add a second subscription service to watch the rest is a straw man. It feels more like "I already pay for Netflix, so why do I have to pay anyone else for content Netflix doesn't have?" That's a bit like asking why you should pay for CNN and HBO. Basic cable should come with ALL the content, right?
- parennoob 10y ago
  Your example actually highlights the problem with cable. There is no way to get – say, only HBO, ESPN, and no CNN. Cable would force OP to buy 37 useless channels whose content is being subsidized by people paying for the 5 channels they actually watch.
  - tomjen3 10y ago
    Danish cable companies have very recently begun to offer mix your own channel packages (I assume some channels costs more) that was great for me because I called up my provider and finally got them to give me just an internet connection.
- IgorPartola 10y ago
  There is a large number of TV shows and movies that is not available on any streaming service. There is also a large number that's available, but only from a very specific content provider. For example last I checked, Seinfeld was only available on I think TBS's website, with an awful Flash-based player and really intrusive commercials. Oh, and what was available was something like a set of 5 rotating episodes, not the whole thing. Another example is Conan the Destroyer (been on an Arnold kick lately) which as far as I saw could only be purchased on BluRay or DVD. I am not saying the content providers owe anyone a streaming option. But grandparent is right about path of least resistance.
- orclev 10y ago
  It's not actually. Just as one example there was a series I started watching on Netflix, got through the first season, started watching the second, and then it disappeared off Netflix. For various reasons a lot of series aren't being carried by Netflix anymore (it's about a 50/50 split as to whether Netflix or the content producers are to blame). In order to finish off the second season I had to either skip a bunch of episodes and come in on the tail end of the second season on Hulu (because they don't have anything but the most recent episodes of the current season), wait until the next season started airing and watch the full second season then, or else pay Amazon to purchase the streaming for the entire season (this was in addition to the cost of the prime membership already being paid for). OP was right, streaming services are fractured and disjointed right now and nobody offers everything. Netflix has shifted primarily to their own content and increasingly only carries independent and foreign films and shows. Hulu is an ad packed disaster area on top of having a horrible streaming experience on current content designed to try to prop up the failing cable subscription model. Amazon is the best bet for most other content but is of course the most expensive of all the options since it isn't a proper subscription service like Netflix or Hulu but instead more closely emulates the Blockbuster Video model of old. None of the options is a really fully satisfying replacement for a cable TV subscription, but each is just good enough that it's still better than cable TV. In aggregate, the experience is definitely the best option, but it's still really frustrating (not to mention expensive) to constantly need to juggle between the three major services (and the dozens of smaller ones) in order to access the content you want when you want it.
forrestthewoods 10y ago
> at an agreeable price Piracy is about wanting stuff for free. Nothing more and nothing less. iTunes has 99% of pirated content. You can start streaming damn near any movie or TV show you want with about 4 clicks. It takes less than 30 seconds. But it costs money. Piracy isn't a convenience problem. It's a not wanting to spend money for things problem.
- TheOneTrueKyle 10y ago
  Nah
- da_n 10y ago
  I've built up quite a digital collection on iTunes, all purchased more than 4 years ago when I realised my investment in content was completely locked to the iTunes platform, with no legal means to transfer the purchased content to other platforms. For some movies I paid the same price as a Blu-ray disk, for lower quality and vendor lock-in. I refuse to invest any further money into content that I am only legally allowed to access on one vendors platform, so I purchase Blu-ray versions and keep a digital backup available that can be played on vendor strategy tax unencumbered software such as Emby and Kodi. Itunes, Google Play, Amazon Movies, non of these are viable options.
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  Then why do some people currently pirate and spend money on things?
  - forrestthewoods 10y ago
    Because the things they pirate cost more than they feel it's worth. So they just take a free copy instead.
    - CaptSpify 10y ago
      But that doesn't answer my question. If "Piracy is about wanting stuff for free. Nothing more and nothing less", then why would someone who can get it for free choose not to?
Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
To the movie industry, here are my demands: high quality, DRM free downloads of MKV files, with nice subtitles, multiple audio tracks, etc, that can be purchased using only open source software on the client. I won't settle for anything less. That's what the competetion offers.
- jbob2000 10y ago
  "But the people I hired can't do that, and the people who can do it don't want to work for me".
  - Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
    Oh, I'll totally build it for you, movie companies. My email's in my profile.
- Nadya 10y ago
  >That's what the competetion offers. To add insult to injury, the competition often delivers this experience for free or even at a loss (eg. buying the BR to rip it, re-encode it, and add subtitles)
serge2k 10y ago
I used to do that, but with Amazon I can usually just pay for the new season as it comes out. So that's what I do with shows I watch weekly (pretty much just always sunny at this point). This is if I can't get them already with Hulu/HBO Now/whatever. It's more about convenience than cost. I've even considered getting cable but with the ads and the fact that my provider is very expensive (unless you bundle internet, not happening) it's not worth it.

Ascetik 10y ago

>Why do any of this when I can be watching it within seconds, cost doesn't even factor in, it's just so easy and convenient. Because it is stealing. Some people still believe in paying for value. Prime has a boat-load of movies and tv shows available for free or pay to watch on demand. I think their prices are a little high for 24hr rental (3.99$), but still it is legal. It is better to not go to jail than to feed one's entertainment lust.

pavel_lishin 10y ago
> Some people still believe in paying for value. But apparently not all people believe in charging for value, since a lot of shows, movies, etc. aren't available to stream. What good is half a season of something, especially if it's the second half? I've not watches shows just because there's no way to catch up to where the current Hulu/Netflix/Whatever offering was. Sometimes I'd pirate it, but sometimes I wasn't really sold enough on the premise to bother. I wonder what the marketing department would think of that. "Your attempts to sell me something failed so hard, I refused to bother stealing it."
- abakker 10y ago
  Completely agree. It is frequently the media companies' unwillingness to sell to buyers on their own terms that leads to this problem. Additionally, the fact that most content is irrelevant to most buyers. Obviously, the traditional model was designed to subsidize creating something for everyone. But, now, it has been subverted to improve margins by creating everything for everybody / lowest common denominator. On the off chance that it fits my tastes, I still have to buy the rest of the crap just to view what I want. I'll pay for content, but I want to be able to buy what I want. Content creators have always had a tough time monetizing the content vs the mode of delivery. You pay for the theater when you go to the movies, you pay for the bandwidth when you stream, you pay for the dvd printing when you buy a DVD. It would be nice if the licensing per item were fixed, and the mode of delivery were left up to the buyer.
  - monocasa 10y ago
    Yep. As Gave Newell says, "piracy is a service problem."
    - CaptSpify 10y ago
      Honestly, I think it's more than that, I think it's an economic problem. Our economic model no longer matches reality. We used to bake the costs of production into the cost of a unit, which makes sense for physical goods. That makes no sense with digital goods. 15 years ago things like Napster were supposed to be the wake-up call for that. Instead we chose to ignore that lesson, and now we're collectively suffering for it today.
  - scarface74 10y ago
    I agree completely. I don't have cable, but I pay for SlingTV, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and CBS All Access. If a tv series isn't on one of those platforms, I will find it somewhere else. But I won't pay $30 for one tv series.
thatcat 10y ago
>stealing >go to jail(for watching) So much hyperbole. The article refers to people selling preloaded piracy boxes for profit, which is different than setting up your own.
- gmarx 10y ago
  You can argue about whether to call it stealing but it is breaking the law. It's shocking to me the way so many people, especially in the generation after me, have proudly abandoned any pretense to morals or ethics. Sure GenX has its share of amoral people, but at least they had the good taste to lie about it. I mean, that's kind of admitting that morality is important
  - dmix 10y ago
    You can consider copyright infringement wrong and simultaneously believe criminalizing it as theft is a bad idea. For example jay-walking is wrong because it's dangerous but many people do it anyway and it's not generally villianized. So then is the solution having police patrols in the streets fining/arresting people as a deterance? Will that reduce the problem and legitimately help both pedestrians and drivers? Or will educating people on the risks, creating alternatives such as adding more crossing points, improving cars ability to detect pedestrians, etc, etc, be a better solution? Not everything is black or white, good or bad.
    - praneshp 10y ago
      I'm think simultaneously improving pedestrian facilities while making penalties on jaywalking harsh is an okay idea, especially if the goal is 100% compliance.
    - thatcat 10y ago
      What if you just noticed that there are already tunnels under all the roads? Is it then immoral to walk under the road when some people interpret that as technically jay walking even though you're not directly effecting anyone in the way that the law assumes you will?
comstock 10y ago
I'm curious about this. If there was a public poll, my guess is that the public would be overwhelmingly against sending people to prison for copyright violation. There's some evidence to support this [0]. In fact, I think it's a fact that shows just how messed up the law is. That people can be overwhelmingly against harsh penalties for copyright violation, yet they still exists... [0] https://torrentfreak.com/piracy-socially-acceptable-110228/ https://torrentfreak.com/piracy-socially-acceptable-110228/
- praneshp 10y ago
  Because the general public at large is not the one suffering from copyright violation? The affected parties are the ones that should be polled; but I agree that we might not agree on who is really affected.
  - comstock 10y ago
    Clearly copyright violation has an affect on all parties involved. But I don't understand your comment really. Law shouldn't reflect the will of a powerful minority, it should reflect what the population in general finds acceptable. If most people find copyright violation acceptable, I can't see any argument for harsh penalties in a democracy.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
fictioncircle 10y ago
> Because it is stealing. Some people still believe in paying for value. I'll care about people stealing from an oligopoly when people care about regulating natural monopolies and oligopolies to the point they behave reasonably.
mikeash 10y ago
It's not stealing, it's unauthorized copying. And I'm pretty sure retail end-user pirates don't go to jail. In any case, the moral argument doesn't appear to work. People just don't care.
- scotty79 10y ago
  > In any case, the moral argument doesn't appear to work. Why would it work? You could equally successfully try to shame people into not breathing without payment.
  - mikeash 10y ago
    There's no reason to think it would work, but that doesn't stop people from shouting it every time someone discusses the reasons why people pirate.
    - 0xdeadbeefbabe 10y ago
      Maybe if it were called "copying" instead of "piracy" (on the high seas).
morganvachon 10y ago
> It is better to not go to jail than to feed one's entertainment lust. While I agree with your post overall that ideally the end consumer shouldn't access such content illegally, the days of the end user going to jail or being fined over illicit downloads are long gone. The content companies and the governments finally woke up to the reality that going after those who profit from making the content available, rather than the end user, is the correct thing to do. As the GP said, people will naturally take the easiest path, and often downloading a TV episode from an illicit source is easier than attempting to purchase it legally (for some shows one must subscribe to as many as four streaming services to get all seasons/series). All of that said, it really is a game of whack-a-mole the governments and content companies are playing by going after the little guys distributing the content. Just as with the war on drugs and the war on terrorism, it's a war that will never be won.
e12e 10y ago
> Because it is stealing. In theft you take something from someone else, and they are then deprived of what you took. I take your loaf of bread, you have one less loaf of bread. If I copy your movie, you still have your movie. Now, if I (somehow) get hold of a copy of a digital file you want to sell me, you'll be less likely to be able to get me to buy it (although, studies have shown that those that copy content a lot, also tend to pay for content a lot). So we need another word than "theft" - and that word certainly isn't "piracy" - people that violate copyright, rarely murder people or disrupt trade routes and critical infrastructure. I'm not saying we don't need some system of compensation if we want to continue to produce art - but just as a boycott is a very passive act of resistance, so is not paying for crippled (DRM) content. Unfortunately it doesn't seem that there's a need to prove that someone watching a copy for free would be more likely to pay for that copy than go outside and play a game of catch if the content wasn't available for copying.
- jjaredsimpson 10y ago
  If I copy all your emails and financial records have I harmed you? Are you only harmed if I remove your access to those records?
  - reloop 10y ago
    These arguments always comes up in these types of discussions. In reality though personal information has far less protection than commercial information. If you take nude pictures of yourself you might as well keep your credit card in frame, since that's essentially the only way someone would be sentenced for copying them later.
  - AtheistOfFail 10y ago
    No. If you begin committing identity theft, Yes.
  - mcdoug 10y ago
    That's yet a different issue. Watching an old episode of Seinfeld does not violate anyone's privacy. Theft: you have a painting. I took it. Copyright infringement: You painted a painting. I took a picture of it and sold/gave away prints to all my friends. Violation of privacy: I got into your phone and looked at all your dick pics. Warrantless search: The police got into your phone and looked at all your dick pics, possibly finding evidence of a crime. They are different issues which can look similar at times, but are actually completely separate. Pretending like they are is just adding muck to this discussion.
forgetsusername 10y ago
>Prime has a boat-load of movies and tv shows available for free or pay to watch on demand. ...in the US.
adekok 10y ago
By the same token, when I go to say (Forbes.com), the advertisers are stealing bandwidth from me. Unless I use an adblocker, the ads use bandwidth that I pay for. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160317/09274333934/why-are-people-using-ad-blockers-ads-can-eat-up-to-79-mobile-data-allotments.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160317/09274333934/why-a... i.e. the advertisers entire business model is lowering their costs by pushing those costs onto me. Then after I install an adblocker, they complain that I'm the one who's stealing. No, I'm trying to read an article. If Forbes refuses to let me read articles with an adblocker in place, I'll just go somewhere else. And that's ignoring all of the arguments around artificial monopolies, and the perverting of the copyright system through the "immortal mouse".
IgorPartola 10y ago
I will make the argument I always make when this comes up: it's not stealing it's depriving rights holders of potential revenue. But it's really not because the market value of the content is approaching $0. That is, if I can't watch an episode of Buffy for free, I won't pay for it. I just won't watch it. This the cost I'm willing to pay is exactly $0. Therefore they lose no revenue. If you are uncomfortable with that mental gymnastics, here is a slightly less harsh approach. I currently pay for Netflix, HBO Now, Spotify, and Audible. So I am willing to pay $40-50/month for access to high quality commercial-free content on unlimited basis. But back when iTunes was the only option for streaming at something like $1/episode and $5/movie, I would not dream of it. So I guess the cost I am willing to pay is not quite $0 per each piece of content, but it's definitely not $20 each. I think a market adjustment is coming for content producers because I do believe lots of people have similar price points.
curyous 10y ago
It's not stealing, it's sharing. You're not depriving anyone of anything. It's not a lost sale. The TV and movie industries are making more money than they ever have, because of all the sharing.
dclowd9901 10y ago
"paying for value" I'm sorry, where is the value FOR ME in paying for something that is constantly taken away from you, and where the inventory is always in flux? It's essentially pointless. It's like having a membership to a gym where they're always changing out the equipment, but never have enough variety to get a full workout. I _do_ want to pay for these services, but they need to provide value.
hueving 10y ago
>Some people still believe in paying for value. I get value from the sun, but I don't cut a check to it every month. Economics shows that on any large scale, people aren't going to pay more for something equivalent to something they get for free.

flyinghamster 10y ago

You're falling for the "Kodi is only a piracy platform" myth. You can certainly use Kodi for viewing things you've recorded over-the-air (which is my own use case), without resorting to pirated media.

givinguflac 10y ago
Thank you. People like to hate on Kodi but really it's the add-ons. People love open software, but they hate on the devs of kodi even though they kick and scream about these add ons (and even added a toggle to not allow add ons by default.) My web browser can be used for piracy, but you don't see people hating Mozilla. It's silly.
rasjani 10y ago
Or even other (scraped) content from legal sources/addons. My personal usecase is essentialy watching /r/video and my YouTube subscriptions from couch with a unified interface.
- Sunset 10y ago
  The Nasa and Esa addons are pretty nifty.
dkonofalski 10y ago
Not only that, but my Kodi server is basically my client portfolio and my home movie repository. I can upload home movies and just tell my parents, who live on the other side of the country, to refresh Kodi and they get to see the latest videos of their grandkids. With clients, I physically go to client locations and pitch them and I can show them previous spots that I've done, in person and on my iPad, without making them publicly available and potentially violating contracts and agreements that I have.

colinramsay 10y ago

I have used Kodi with software such as Sickrage to download tv shows but with Netflix and Amazon Prime subscriptions alongside iPlayer that covers the majority of shows we watch. The Raspberry Pi running Sickrage is now rarely used whereas the PS4 running Netflix is used most evenings. As you say, it's the path of least resistance.

rhino369 10y ago

These raids (not this one in particular) can have a real impact. I'm an unabashed pirate, but it's gotten harder and harder to find a good, safe public tracker for BitTorrent. My dad can't even figure it out anymore after the private tracker I got him an invite for shutdown. When kickass went down, people said it's like hydra. But I can't figure out where the new heads are. I'm down to piratebay and usenet only. Sure I could spend time figuring it all out again, but that takes time and effort. So I end up buying stuff. They'll never stop all piracy. They just want to make sure the masses don't know how to easily pirate. It's an 80/20 situation.

seer 10y ago
It takes a little bit of time for other trackers to gain traction. Right now I think the most promising public tracker I know is idope.se, enjoy :)
elcct 10y ago
Why tracker? You can find most stuff using Google and various file sharing services.
- rhino369 10y ago
  I was having a hell of a time finding ebooks for my wife just googling for it. I had to download IRC. Total blast from the past. I learned how to do it, but it took a while.
Thimothy 10y ago
I'm just going to leave this HN submission that got into the front page a little while ago here... It's not the same as a full fledged tracker, but for that YIFI movie that everybody has seen, it's nice. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13423629 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13423629
tomjen3 10y ago
There are plenty of vpn we don't keep any logs services that you can run a torrent through - at that point it doesn't matter how safe the tracker is.

frebord 10y ago

We are in the middle of such an uncomfortable transition. Every company has their own stupid fucking platform, which you may or may not be able to get on your device, or which may or may not support streaming to your streaming device. I am someone who wants an elegant simple solution to something like this in my house, why the fuck can't I just have one god damn app that can load ALL of my shows/movies/livetv and takes care of payment to whichever company is providing the content or gives them a way to insert ads for free content. It is no wonder that people use Kodi.

manarth 10y ago
why the fuck can't I just have one god damn app that can load ALL of my shows/movies/livetv and takes care of payment to whichever company is providing the content Which is what Apple have tried to do with the TV app [1]. Except it doesn't include Netflix. Or Amazon [2]. And I'm sure there are plenty of others. Walled gardens eh? [1] http://www.apple.com/newsroom/2016/10/apple-unveils-new-tv-app-for-apple-tv-iphone-and-ipad.html http://www.apple.com/newsroom/2016/10/apple-unveils-new-tv-a... [2] http://bgr.com/2016/11/17/apple-tv-universal-app/ http://bgr.com/2016/11/17/apple-tv-universal-app/

mustacheemperor 10y ago

I used to pay for a hulu subscription, because even with a few ads it was really convenient. Now, there are less of the shows I want to watch, and the ads are absolutely, insultingly ridicululous. It will seriously play 10 minutes of ads in 5 minute increments for a 20 minute show. Every ad block is now 3 advertisements long, some of them require you to interact, and every show has at least 3 breaks for ads. Sometimes it'll run ads AFTER the show ends so you watch ads to see the credits, or in order to see the next episode! They have literally made streaming worse than regular TV and after this weekend I finally had enough and just installed Kodi.

djrogers 10y ago
> 10 minutes of ads in 5 minute increments for a 20 minute show So just about like broadcast TV > Sometimes it'll run ads AFTER the show ends so you watch ads to see the credits, or in order to see the next episode! Also just like broadcast TV. The horror!!! > They have literally made streaming worse than regular TV Sounds more like they've just foolishly brought the worst of broadcast to the web. I'm sure you realize Hulu has an ad-free option, right? So in order to save yourself the $2-$3 it would cost you to go ad-free on hulu you've decided to just take it instead. Why? Because you deserve to get it for free? Does Hollywood simply exist to entertain you at no cost? That's a hell of a sense of entitlement you've got yourself there kiddo...
- yjftsjthsd-h 10y ago
  > just like broadcast TV You've conveniently skipped the mention of ads that require interaction, which is far worse. > $2-$3 it would cost you to go ad-free It appears to cost $12,and apparently only removes ads on some shows... so, no. That's a hell of a sense of superiority you've got yourself there kiddo...
  - LukeShu 10y ago
    I believe the "$2-$3" was intended to be the difference between the with-ads subscription ($8), and the without-ads subscription ($12).

droopyEyelids 10y ago

Hey! When we (educated technologists) are talking about this, let's make sure to recognize that Kodi is just a media playing customized gnu/linux. The problem is with piracy plugins. Let's not besmirch Kodi, it's really a shining example of successful non-commercial open source.

forgetsusername 10y ago

>Or buy it and wait hours to download it? How it it streamable on Kodi, but takes so long to download from a legitimate source?

rconti 10y ago

Your example of Netflix having only half a season and then having to add a second subscription service to watch the rest is a straw man. It feels more like "I already pay for Netflix, so why do I have to pay anyone else for content Netflix doesn't have?" That's a bit like asking why you should pay for CNN and HBO. Basic cable should come with ALL the content, right?

parennoob 10y ago
Your example actually highlights the problem with cable. There is no way to get – say, only HBO, ESPN, and no CNN. Cable would force OP to buy 37 useless channels whose content is being subsidized by people paying for the 5 channels they actually watch.
- tomjen3 10y ago
  Danish cable companies have very recently begun to offer mix your own channel packages (I assume some channels costs more) that was great for me because I called up my provider and finally got them to give me just an internet connection.
IgorPartola 10y ago
There is a large number of TV shows and movies that is not available on any streaming service. There is also a large number that's available, but only from a very specific content provider. For example last I checked, Seinfeld was only available on I think TBS's website, with an awful Flash-based player and really intrusive commercials. Oh, and what was available was something like a set of 5 rotating episodes, not the whole thing. Another example is Conan the Destroyer (been on an Arnold kick lately) which as far as I saw could only be purchased on BluRay or DVD. I am not saying the content providers owe anyone a streaming option. But grandparent is right about path of least resistance.
orclev 10y ago
It's not actually. Just as one example there was a series I started watching on Netflix, got through the first season, started watching the second, and then it disappeared off Netflix. For various reasons a lot of series aren't being carried by Netflix anymore (it's about a 50/50 split as to whether Netflix or the content producers are to blame). In order to finish off the second season I had to either skip a bunch of episodes and come in on the tail end of the second season on Hulu (because they don't have anything but the most recent episodes of the current season), wait until the next season started airing and watch the full second season then, or else pay Amazon to purchase the streaming for the entire season (this was in addition to the cost of the prime membership already being paid for). OP was right, streaming services are fractured and disjointed right now and nobody offers everything. Netflix has shifted primarily to their own content and increasingly only carries independent and foreign films and shows. Hulu is an ad packed disaster area on top of having a horrible streaming experience on current content designed to try to prop up the failing cable subscription model. Amazon is the best bet for most other content but is of course the most expensive of all the options since it isn't a proper subscription service like Netflix or Hulu but instead more closely emulates the Blockbuster Video model of old. None of the options is a really fully satisfying replacement for a cable TV subscription, but each is just good enough that it's still better than cable TV. In aggregate, the experience is definitely the best option, but it's still really frustrating (not to mention expensive) to constantly need to juggle between the three major services (and the dozens of smaller ones) in order to access the content you want when you want it.

forrestthewoods 10y ago

> at an agreeable price Piracy is about wanting stuff for free. Nothing more and nothing less. iTunes has 99% of pirated content. You can start streaming damn near any movie or TV show you want with about 4 clicks. It takes less than 30 seconds. But it costs money. Piracy isn't a convenience problem. It's a not wanting to spend money for things problem.

TheOneTrueKyle 10y ago
Nah
da_n 10y ago
I've built up quite a digital collection on iTunes, all purchased more than 4 years ago when I realised my investment in content was completely locked to the iTunes platform, with no legal means to transfer the purchased content to other platforms. For some movies I paid the same price as a Blu-ray disk, for lower quality and vendor lock-in. I refuse to invest any further money into content that I am only legally allowed to access on one vendors platform, so I purchase Blu-ray versions and keep a digital backup available that can be played on vendor strategy tax unencumbered software such as Emby and Kodi. Itunes, Google Play, Amazon Movies, non of these are viable options.
CaptSpify 10y ago
Then why do some people currently pirate and spend money on things?
- forrestthewoods 10y ago
  Because the things they pirate cost more than they feel it's worth. So they just take a free copy instead.
  - CaptSpify 10y ago
    But that doesn't answer my question. If "Piracy is about wanting stuff for free. Nothing more and nothing less", then why would someone who can get it for free choose not to?

Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago

To the movie industry, here are my demands: high quality, DRM free downloads of MKV files, with nice subtitles, multiple audio tracks, etc, that can be purchased using only open source software on the client. I won't settle for anything less. That's what the competetion offers.

jbob2000 10y ago
"But the people I hired can't do that, and the people who can do it don't want to work for me".
- Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
  Oh, I'll totally build it for you, movie companies. My email's in my profile.
Nadya 10y ago
>That's what the competetion offers. To add insult to injury, the competition often delivers this experience for free or even at a loss (eg. buying the BR to rip it, re-encode it, and add subtitles)

serge2k 10y ago

I used to do that, but with Amazon I can usually just pay for the new season as it comes out. So that's what I do with shows I watch weekly (pretty much just always sunny at this point). This is if I can't get them already with Hulu/HBO Now/whatever. It's more about convenience than cost. I've even considered getting cable but with the ads and the fact that my provider is very expensive (unless you bundle internet, not happening) it's not worth it.