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>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 peopl

• 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.