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> Netflix has more than 110 million subscribers. > Netflix operates in more than 200 countries The five largest public torrent trackers track 30-50 million pee

by wz1000 9y ago

> Netflix has more than 110 million subscribers. > Netflix operates in more than 200 countries The five largest public torrent trackers track 30-50 million peers at any given time, serving over 10 million torrents. Torrents are estimated to have over a quarter of a billion active users. Torrents can be streamed, and in the end you have a DRM free copy of the file that you can rewatch at your pleasure, on any device(adding custom subtitles if you need them). It amazes me how much effort has been expended on pushing malware to almost everybody(binary, unauditable blobs in every browser) solely so that massive cartels can make money on something that has been solved since 2001. Subscribing to Netflix, or any other proprietary streaming (dis)service is not only foolish(in the sense of surrendering your own freedom, not to mention your hard earned money to nefarious corporate interests), but deeply unethical.

madeofpalk 9y ago
> not to mention your hard earned money to nefarious corporate interests Yes, this is the basis of our society. I work for money to buy things, mostly from corporations. There's nothing nefarious about that. I find it really hard to believe that paying for content is unethical.
- wz1000 9y ago
  > I find it really hard to believe that paying for content is unethical. Your money isn't going to the people who created the content. It is going to cartels that have no interests in common with you, and have massive lobbying power in order to force you to download malware and restrict the access of information from you.
  - madeofpalk 9y ago
    Of course money goes to the creators. I have an actor friend who was in a 'Netflix Original'. He got paid for it. Sure, others are making profits on it but, again, that's not surprising. That's how our society works. I wasn't 'lobbied' or forced to install 'malware'. I'm aware of what's going on (I too have heard of R.M.S.!) and I made a conscious decision to subscribe to such services.
    - madeofpalk 9y ago
      > It is going to cartels that have no interests in common with you To elaborate - we absolutely have something in common. These 'cartels' (businesses) don't give a flying fuck about DRM, they just want to be able to sell things. Often, they make good things that I want to buy. Good set of interests to have in common.
    - saryant 9y ago
      I met RMS once. He spoke at my college's CS department and then gave a campus-wide talk. At the CS reception he told a retired professor to switch banks and just not tell his wife because the bank didn't support a FOSS browser—while eating the dandruff in his hair. Later, at the wider talk, he called our IT department fascists for requiring authentication to join the Wifi network, then put a halo on his head, proclaimed himself the Jesus Christ of software and tried to auction off a stuffed gnu to a dead silent crowd. Good times.
  - raverbashing 9y ago
    > Your money isn't going to the people who created the content Patently false and easily verifiable.
    - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
      How about "isn't primarily going ...". Media is an investment, which is why were getting lots of "low creativity" movies, re-boots, extended franchises, sequels, etc.. People will risk money for art, but investors don't want to risk anything: some franchises can basically churn out anything and be sure to make a huge profit (which Hollywood accountants can spin as a loss by charging millions for IPR). I think the spirit of the former comment is "when a movie makes $$$ profit how much of that is going to the colourist, or the make-up artist, the IT support, the animation assistants, ... all people essential to the movie. Versus how much goes to investors whose only part is being already rich?". The creators get wages, but how many of the creators get profits, and how often is it more than simple investors get?
      - soundwave106 9y ago
        What is also true though is that The Pirate Bay or Megaupload are about as poor of a choice for content creators as it gets. As far as I know, the amount of money The Pirate Bay and Megaupload have paid content creators is diddly squat, and the amount of original programming produced by these two places is zero. There are certainly reasons for not liking DRM, but "freedom to pirate" seems like a pretty poor one. You are right about investors retreating to "safe low creativity", especially in times of downturn. Traditional movie theaters are in decline, so of course traditional cinema is playing it safe for now with reboots and sequels. Netflix, on the other hand, is more awash in investor cash... so at the moment, they are able to take greater risks. As far as cutting out the "investor" side goes, it would be interesting to see a content host that is explicitly non-profit. Beyond major content hosts, I think the Soundclouds / Bandcamps / Patreons etc. definitely have their place, and have been helpful for some not-so-commercial / hobbyist artists. Even these platforms however seem to struggle with the conflict between making a profit vs serving the artistic community sometimes.
- Walf 9y ago
  Some people think that it doesn't cost anything to make movies/TV.
  - dexterdog 9y ago
    And some people think that downloading copyrighted content is the same as stealing a loaf of bread.
    - Walf 9y ago
      Both idiots.
- wz1000 9y ago
  > There's nothing nefarious about that. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/10/25/15-years-ago-congress-kept-mickey-mouse-out-of-the-public-domain-will-they-do-it-again/?utm_term=.018a8d20cb8d https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/10/25... A small example of the nefarious behaviour you support by paying for Netflix. > Yes, this is the basis of our society. I work for money to buy things, mostly from corporations Intellectual Property is by definition "non-excludable", which means my having access to some information does not exclude you from having access to the same information, unlike land or food or clothing. It is very different from these, and using your Government to violate the sovereignty of other nations and individuals to impose your warped up notions of property is deeply unethical.
  - madeofpalk 9y ago
    What?
    - klapinat0r 9y ago
      I think he meant to use exclusivity as a straw man to show that "IP is not food", instead of the more often misused: "not paying is not equal to stealing". Both are obviously false, but I think that was the intend (argument by confusion?).
  - raverbashing 9y ago
    So did Stallman finally start using a web browser?
synotna 9y ago
How much money do those top 5 torrent trackers generate for the content creators? How much money do the "cartels" generate for the content creators? I believe the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people involved in the production of the thousands of TV shows and movies earned much more money from those "cartels" than those torrent trackers
- wz1000 9y ago
  The cartel is directly infringing on my freedom, with the use of the governments guns. Many hundreds of thousands(if not millions or billions) of people are under compensated for the work they do, work which is much more valuable. Make a list of every volunteer open source developer, 12 year old working in a Bangladeshi sweatshop and stay at home mom. If you want to blame anything, blame capitalism. Funny how the reasoning gets inverted while discussing Intellectual Property. Suddenly, we need to threaten peaceful individuals with violence and imprisonment in order to make markets work and to ensure that resource allocation for un-excludable goods happens via capitalist forms. We go from "Capitalism is human nature" to "We must use guns to make sure peaceful actions don't disrupt capitalism from functioning" without a hint of irony or self awareness.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - mindfulplay 9y ago
    What. Are. You. Talking. About.
    - wz1000 9y ago
      What happens when I violate IP laws? The police comes knocking on the door, even though I didn't deprive anyone of anything or harm anyone in any way. The only reason companies like Netflix are able to exist in the face of alternatives that are many times better in every single way(like torrents) is because of this underlying foundation of violence.
rimliu 9y ago
I am pretty sure much more malware was distributed over torrent than on Netflix. And for me at least Netflix is much more convenient than torrent ever was. I do not even have a torrent client on my machine, and I cannot even recall when I last had it.
juanmirocks 9y ago
Agreed and disagreed. Netflix or YouTube prowess is indeed only because they have to push their agenda. Torrents solved that problem already. But torrents indeed did not solve the problem of paying to creators. I am looking forward to new decentralized solutions using Blockchain.

by wz1000 9y ago

madeofpalk 9y ago

> not to mention your hard earned money to nefarious corporate interests Yes, this is the basis of our society. I work for money to buy things, mostly from corporations. There's nothing nefarious about that. I find it really hard to believe that paying for content is unethical.

wz1000 9y ago
> I find it really hard to believe that paying for content is unethical. Your money isn't going to the people who created the content. It is going to cartels that have no interests in common with you, and have massive lobbying power in order to force you to download malware and restrict the access of information from you.
- madeofpalk 9y ago
  Of course money goes to the creators. I have an actor friend who was in a 'Netflix Original'. He got paid for it. Sure, others are making profits on it but, again, that's not surprising. That's how our society works. I wasn't 'lobbied' or forced to install 'malware'. I'm aware of what's going on (I too have heard of R.M.S.!) and I made a conscious decision to subscribe to such services.
  - madeofpalk 9y ago
    > It is going to cartels that have no interests in common with you To elaborate - we absolutely have something in common. These 'cartels' (businesses) don't give a flying fuck about DRM, they just want to be able to sell things. Often, they make good things that I want to buy. Good set of interests to have in common.
  - saryant 9y ago
    I met RMS once. He spoke at my college's CS department and then gave a campus-wide talk. At the CS reception he told a retired professor to switch banks and just not tell his wife because the bank didn't support a FOSS browser—while eating the dandruff in his hair. Later, at the wider talk, he called our IT department fascists for requiring authentication to join the Wifi network, then put a halo on his head, proclaimed himself the Jesus Christ of software and tried to auction off a stuffed gnu to a dead silent crowd. Good times.
- raverbashing 9y ago
  > Your money isn't going to the people who created the content Patently false and easily verifiable.
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    How about "isn't primarily going ...". Media is an investment, which is why were getting lots of "low creativity" movies, re-boots, extended franchises, sequels, etc.. People will risk money for art, but investors don't want to risk anything: some franchises can basically churn out anything and be sure to make a huge profit (which Hollywood accountants can spin as a loss by charging millions for IPR). I think the spirit of the former comment is "when a movie makes $$$ profit how much of that is going to the colourist, or the make-up artist, the IT support, the animation assistants, ... all people essential to the movie. Versus how much goes to investors whose only part is being already rich?". The creators get wages, but how many of the creators get profits, and how often is it more than simple investors get?
    - soundwave106 9y ago
      What is also true though is that The Pirate Bay or Megaupload are about as poor of a choice for content creators as it gets. As far as I know, the amount of money The Pirate Bay and Megaupload have paid content creators is diddly squat, and the amount of original programming produced by these two places is zero. There are certainly reasons for not liking DRM, but "freedom to pirate" seems like a pretty poor one. You are right about investors retreating to "safe low creativity", especially in times of downturn. Traditional movie theaters are in decline, so of course traditional cinema is playing it safe for now with reboots and sequels. Netflix, on the other hand, is more awash in investor cash... so at the moment, they are able to take greater risks. As far as cutting out the "investor" side goes, it would be interesting to see a content host that is explicitly non-profit. Beyond major content hosts, I think the Soundclouds / Bandcamps / Patreons etc. definitely have their place, and have been helpful for some not-so-commercial / hobbyist artists. Even these platforms however seem to struggle with the conflict between making a profit vs serving the artistic community sometimes.
Walf 9y ago
Some people think that it doesn't cost anything to make movies/TV.
- dexterdog 9y ago
  And some people think that downloading copyrighted content is the same as stealing a loaf of bread.
  - Walf 9y ago
    Both idiots.
wz1000 9y ago
> There's nothing nefarious about that. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/10/25/15-years-ago-congress-kept-mickey-mouse-out-of-the-public-domain-will-they-do-it-again/?utm_term=.018a8d20cb8d https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/10/25... A small example of the nefarious behaviour you support by paying for Netflix. > Yes, this is the basis of our society. I work for money to buy things, mostly from corporations Intellectual Property is by definition "non-excludable", which means my having access to some information does not exclude you from having access to the same information, unlike land or food or clothing. It is very different from these, and using your Government to violate the sovereignty of other nations and individuals to impose your warped up notions of property is deeply unethical.
- madeofpalk 9y ago
  What?
  - klapinat0r 9y ago
    I think he meant to use exclusivity as a straw man to show that "IP is not food", instead of the more often misused: "not paying is not equal to stealing". Both are obviously false, but I think that was the intend (argument by confusion?).
- raverbashing 9y ago
  So did Stallman finally start using a web browser?

synotna 9y ago

How much money do those top 5 torrent trackers generate for the content creators? How much money do the "cartels" generate for the content creators? I believe the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people involved in the production of the thousands of TV shows and movies earned much more money from those "cartels" than those torrent trackers

wz1000 9y ago
The cartel is directly infringing on my freedom, with the use of the governments guns. Many hundreds of thousands(if not millions or billions) of people are under compensated for the work they do, work which is much more valuable. Make a list of every volunteer open source developer, 12 year old working in a Bangladeshi sweatshop and stay at home mom. If you want to blame anything, blame capitalism. Funny how the reasoning gets inverted while discussing Intellectual Property. Suddenly, we need to threaten peaceful individuals with violence and imprisonment in order to make markets work and to ensure that resource allocation for un-excludable goods happens via capitalist forms. We go from "Capitalism is human nature" to "We must use guns to make sure peaceful actions don't disrupt capitalism from functioning" without a hint of irony or self awareness.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- mindfulplay 9y ago
  What. Are. You. Talking. About.
  - wz1000 9y ago
    What happens when I violate IP laws? The police comes knocking on the door, even though I didn't deprive anyone of anything or harm anyone in any way. The only reason companies like Netflix are able to exist in the face of alternatives that are many times better in every single way(like torrents) is because of this underlying foundation of violence.

rimliu 9y ago

I am pretty sure much more malware was distributed over torrent than on Netflix. And for me at least Netflix is much more convenient than torrent ever was. I do not even have a torrent client on my machine, and I cannot even recall when I last had it.

juanmirocks 9y ago

Agreed and disagreed. Netflix or YouTube prowess is indeed only because they have to push their agenda. Torrents solved that problem already. But torrents indeed did not solve the problem of paying to creators. I am looking forward to new decentralized solutions using Blockchain.