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Nobody said they don't get cracked but it's far easier to pay $10/month for a Netflix subscription than it is to hunt down rips of everything on there. If ther

Nobody said they don't get cracked but it's far easier to pay $10/month for a Netflix subscription than it is to hunt down rips of everything on there. If there was no DRM you could just save the movie to your HD with little effort. Enough people pay for streaming services to make them a viable business model. That's all the empirical data you need to show that DRM does work for its indented purpose.

AnthonyMouse 9y ago
> If there was no DRM you could just save the movie to your HD with little effort. ...after subscribing to the streaming service. At which point they have your money. And it's not like you can cancel your subscription after that because then you wouldn't get new content, which is the entire point of having a streaming service instead of watching the same pile of old DVDs you've had since 1998.
yorwba 9y ago
I'm pretty sure people would pay for streaming services even if a DRM-free copy were easily available. Why? Because streaming a movie is no fun when the server can't deliver the necessary bandwidth. Maintaining an infrastructure that can handle streaming at the scale of Netflix costs money no pirate bay will ever be able to afford. So streaming services could still compete with the free offering based on quality of service.
- khedoros1 9y ago
  > Maintaining an infrastructure that can handle streaming at the scale of Netflix costs money no pirate bay will ever be able to afford. Popcorn Time? The streaming bandwidth is handled by the very people watching the video.
- CaptSpify 9y ago
  Distribution is virtually free. It's essentially a solved problem. The hard and expensive part is being a gatekeeper. If companies gave up the idea that they need to play gatekeeper with their media, they could distribute it at virtually no cost. And this to me, is the critical problem with all of these services. We don't need gatekeepers anymore, because that's a leftover from physical media. Those days are gone, and the gatekeepers need to die.
  - posterboy 9y ago
    bootleg markets all around shkwed that years before broad-band, I believe.
    - CaptSpify 9y ago
      Even bootleg markets took some effort because you are still dealing with physical media. With virtual goods, there's nothing to deal with other than uploading.

AnthonyMouse 9y ago

> If there was no DRM you could just save the movie to your HD with little effort. ...after subscribing to the streaming service. At which point they have your money. And it's not like you can cancel your subscription after that because then you wouldn't get new content, which is the entire point of having a streaming service instead of watching the same pile of old DVDs you've had since 1998.

yorwba 9y ago

I'm pretty sure people would pay for streaming services even if a DRM-free copy were easily available. Why? Because streaming a movie is no fun when the server can't deliver the necessary bandwidth. Maintaining an infrastructure that can handle streaming at the scale of Netflix costs money no pirate bay will ever be able to afford. So streaming services could still compete with the free offering based on quality of service.

khedoros1 9y ago
> Maintaining an infrastructure that can handle streaming at the scale of Netflix costs money no pirate bay will ever be able to afford. Popcorn Time? The streaming bandwidth is handled by the very people watching the video.
CaptSpify 9y ago
Distribution is virtually free. It's essentially a solved problem. The hard and expensive part is being a gatekeeper. If companies gave up the idea that they need to play gatekeeper with their media, they could distribute it at virtually no cost. And this to me, is the critical problem with all of these services. We don't need gatekeepers anymore, because that's a leftover from physical media. Those days are gone, and the gatekeepers need to die.
- posterboy 9y ago
  bootleg markets all around shkwed that years before broad-band, I believe.
  - CaptSpify 9y ago
    Even bootleg markets took some effort because you are still dealing with physical media. With virtual goods, there's nothing to deal with other than uploading.