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Shazam-like technology used to identify bars illegally streaming soccer games
- unixhero 7y agoSigh
- Scoundreller 7y agoThis is an old story. The update is the Spanish gov fining the league 1/240th of their top player’s salary (250k/61m) for abusing 10m of their residents’ personal technology and privacy. Another way of putting it is 1/100th of the team salary for the lowest spending team (250k/24m). Which, in-turn, spends 1/33rd as much as the top spender.
- mosselman 7y agoWhat are `(250k/61m)` and `(250k/24m)`? 250.000 euros per 61 months? How can that be expressed in a fine? 250.000 * 61? I am confused, sorry.
- indeed30 7y ago250k is the fine, 61m is the top salary, 250k/61m is 1/244
- ummonk 7y agoI assume 250k was the fine, 61m the top player's salary, and 24 million the lowest team salary.
- ankit219 7y ago61M is the yearly salary of Lionel Messi. The top earner in Spanish League. 24M is the annual revenue of the smallest spending team in Spanish League.
- Scoundreller 7y ago24m was the sum of the player salaries of the smallest spending team. If they’re not losing money, their revenue is higher than that.
- deogeo 7y ago"the recordings of others will always be illegal because they violate the Fundamental Right to the Secrecy of Communications, established in Article 18.3 of the Spanish Constitution." [1] A very mild punishment for 10 million instances of breaking their constitution. Since the law is equal for all, I can only assume an individual spying on conversations would be treated with similar clemency. And despite what the league says, yes, it is spying. They listen in for some piece of data that they're curious about. That they discard irrelevant bits client-side doesn't change that. [1] https://www.ilpabogados.com/en/is-it-legal-to-record-a-conversation/ https://www.ilpabogados.com/en/is-it-legal-to-record-a-conve...
- closetohome 7y agoThe part I'm confused by is how the Spanish government reacted more quickly than Google. I would assume the app and organization would be banned from the store before anything else happened.
- Scoundreller 7y agoAn App Store isn’t going to ban a provider that its users want. Though if soccer leagues can fine players, I don’t see why Google couldn’t fine its “players” too. I know they’re not the police/judge/jury, but should they be limited to a binary allow/ban? State-intervention was definitely needed in this case.
- throwaway2048 7y agoThis will lead to an arms race with deploying cellular, GPS and wifi jammers. You can order them online right now for low prices, at low power they are very unlikely to ever be investigated. https://www.jammer-store.com/gps-blockers-jammers/ https://www.jammer-store.com/gps-blockers-jammers/ Do note things like this are HIGHLY illegal, and carry pretty insane fines if you are caught.
- flyGuyOnTheSly 7y agoNo bar is going to install a cell, gps or wifi jammer to avoid a small fine... as doing so would put them out of business. No customer is going to hang out in a bar where their cell phone doesn't work.
- maccard 7y ago> No customer is going to hang out in a bar where their cell phone doesn't work. I don't think that's true - there's plenty of coffee shops/bars where my phone is totally dead as most of the walls in the city I live in are solid stone and at least a foot thick.
- dewey 7y agoSports bars are a bit different in that regard as people want to look at their bets or look at stats / follow events on Twitter etc
- bluedino 7y agoWhat bar is going to be quiet enough for sound fingerprinting to work?
- dagw 7y agoSince you know exactly what you are listening for I imagine you can handle quite a lot of noise in your signal. If you want to take it one step further I imagine you could create a special audio fingerprint that is easy to detect over the normal sort of background noise in a bar (which tends to be quite uniform) and broadcast that at regular intervals.
- thisisitnownow 7y agoIt's insane that they can get away with this with so little consequence.
- jMyles 7y agoedit: I misunderstood OP's comment; makes much more sense when I read it in the light suggested by anchpop below. ...that they can get away with copying a bytestream and decoding the result onto a screen? Which harms nobody? The insane part is that people, even on HN, have become convinced that someone can own knowledge to such exclusivity that copying bytes can be a crime.
- anchpop 7y agoThe commenter was probably referring to the actions taken by LaLiga, not the bars illegally streaming.
- jMyles 7y agoRiiiight. OK, that makes more sense. My bad. OK, so more on topic then: what's coming down the pipeline for hardware protection against this crap? Why don't we yet have small LEDs wired in series with microphone and camera on phones? It's crazy that my phone can record without my even realizing it.
- oh_sigh 7y agoSo you wouldn't mind if I copied bytes of yours, such as private pictures, private documents, etc?
- jMyles 7y agoObviously it is my responsibility to keep those bytes away from you. If you come into possession of them in the absence of some kind of contractual obligation regarding how you'll handle them (ie a privacy policy to which you and I have jointly agreed), then yes of course you can do what you wish with them. Isn't this the same argument currently making its way through the public mindshare regarding WikiLeaks? Of course they had a right to distribute and comment on the contents of the State Dept. cables. The fact that the government claimed they were private (classified) can not overcome the basic thrust of freedoms of the press and speech.
- gspjj 7y agofootball
- rolltiide 7y ago> Spanish data protection agency claims that the app didn’t make [the use of the microphone permission] clear, and has ordered LaLiga to take down the app by June 30th So all they have to do is describe what it does and hope users don't uninstall it? seems lesser than getting removed from the app stores
- xythian 7y agoI'm waiting for a company to start paying $X to the first Y people that passively find illegal streaming. Turn people into fully aware copyright cops on your behalf. You leave an app running in the background and it listens 24x7 for unauthorized sports broadcasts.
- raverbashing 7y agoOh but that exists (kinda) They pay people to go around bars and find the ones that are showing the games without the glass drawing on the corner (drawing also changes depending on the day, etc)
- tsumnia 7y agoI've always thought that people would be more than willing to opt in to data collection services if they were paid. I gladly answer location questions via Google Rewards because they give me 10 to 50 cents each time. It doesn't need to be a minimum wage thing, just none of the subterfuge.
- hedvig 7y agoIronic no? This was one of the major criticism of communism in practice. Except now your neighbor snoops on you for a small profit in protecting the outsized profits of capital.
- Gibbon1 7y agoThe funny thing of course is under communism copyright and patents don't exist. On the other hand under Stalinism and Maoism owning a printing press was illegal.
- escapecharacter 7y agoI’m really into the dark future of DRM enforcement drones flying around cities listening for illegal streaming.
- daenz 7y agoIt will be like red light cameras, where you just receive a ticket/bill in the mail, with a photo of proof of the date and time of the infraction.
- will_brown 7y agoThe should be so lucky...PPV is a crazy industry in terms of structure but local ppv providers would send uncover patrons to bars to find illegal ppv streams and next thing a bar/restaurant knows they got served with a lawsuit usually for about $10,000 (for UFC events anyway).
- Scoundreller 7y agoHere's several legal decisions about that happening in several Canadian cities: https://www.canlii.org/en/#search/text=setanta%20ufc https://www.canlii.org/en/#search/text=setanta%20ufc
- slg 7y agoI am not sure how many people outside the UK are aware of this, but a similar thing has existed there for nearly 70 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_detector_van https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_detector_van
- dcminter 7y agoThe vans exist. The implied technology within them not so much. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/08/bbc-tv-licence-vans-wi-fi-snooping-analysis/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/08/bbc-tv-licence-v...
- 7y ago
- acd 7y agoIn certain EU countries that could be A) Illegal wiretapping B) GDPR violation If they happen to record other private information such as what political party one likes, or religion one likes they would be even more in legal trouble. And also recording anything about sexual life which could happen in a bar conversation say between friends.
- zwaps 7y agoIt is a violation, for both a) and b). They got into trouble. They didn't pay a lot of money for that, though.
- Scoundreller 7y agoThey might have lost a lot of legal cases if their basis was illegally gained evidence. But I have no idea how Spanish civil law works.
- SmellyGeekBoy 7y agoThis was pre-GDPR. It would be interesting to see how it would play out today.
- josecastillo 7y agoThis reminds me of a short story by Paul Ford from a few years back[1]: We had gone to a baseball game at the beginning of the season. They had played a song on the public address system, and she sang along without permission. They used to factor that into ticket price—they still do if you pay extra or have a season pass—but now other companies handled the followup. And here was the video from that day, one of many tens of thousands simultaneously recorded from gun scanners on the stadium roof. In the video my daughter wore a cap and a blue T-shirt. I sat beside her, my arm over her shoulder, grinning. Her voice was clear and high; the ambient roar of the audience beyond us filtered down to static... I told my waiting daughter to go ahead and pay the few dollars, just part of the latent cost of a ticket. She tapped and the tablet made its cash-register sound, and the video was irrevocably destroyed so that it could never again be shared. [1] https://www.ftrain.com/nanolaw https://www.ftrain.com/nanolaw
- sneakernets 7y agoI had written (in college) a small story about an "RIAA Task Force" collaborating with the FBI to raid small brick-and-mortar businesses with occupants above some fabled "listener limit" that dared to have an FM Radio or iPod connected to a boombox in the corner of the store somewhere. Everything from Barbershops to Butchershops were raided, and the small infringing devices confiscated. Given that the RIAA tried to sue a grandmother once, This wasn't too far-fetched.
- ankit219 7y agoOne of those cases where both sides are in the mud. La Liga is struggling with piracy of games for long. They have been trying to make money of their product (football essentially features two of the greatest players to play the game in last 10 years, only one now) but struggle due to their whacky ideas and no care about fans. Sample this: The timings of games are as early as 12PM (spanish siesta is at 4PM) and as late as 11 PM local time. They host 10 rounds every week, most in different slots to get more eyeballs. They have acted in bad faith in a sense too. Spanish law requires one of those 10 games to be free to air. They made sure that game is one held on Friday or Monday at 11 PM (teams' fans call it graveyard shift) and nothing on f2a tv on weekend.The ones listed are the ideas which made through while others like having one random game in US thankfully did not. Though, given their ineptitude, its a sure wonder how they managed to execute this so well. Bars should not be streaming the games illegally either. But since the cable prices are too high, and nothing on free to air, they have to in order to attract crowds. There is no official streaming service - albeit not bundled with cable tv subscription - that people in these countries can make use of to watch games. The path forward maybe what Formula1 did by introducing a streaming service which is not geo blocked. This way, I can watch a race at reasonable subscription from anywhere in the world. They also allow me a racer only feed, or the global feed, or a feed from a particular stand. I will definitely buy it if any official football league offers that too.
- airstrike 7y ago> But since the cable prices are too high, and nothing on free to air, they have to in order to attract crowds. Somehow I find it hard to believe a business can't afford cable. Even if it costs $200 / month, surely they ought to be able to cover that.
- CtrlAltT5wpm 7y agoTake this with a grain or two of salt, as I don't recall the source, but it seems plausible - I read somewhere that when it comes to businesses like bars, at least in the US, there is a normal rate applied to the cable package, and an additional rate applied 'per head' for the event in question. This may only be for pay-per-view events where multiple people can congregate at a single location which has paid the PPV fee, and not necessarily for widely broadcast events; I've seen sports bars charge cover for highly anticipated MMA matches. How those rules are enforced is beyond me. Tangentially related, some of the legitimate, paid-for streams have been of pretty low quality, cutting out frequently. Not sure if it's because of draconian DRM or just excessive demand, but it would be interesting to find out.
- duxup 7y agoI'd like to see physical switches on all electronics that CUT POWER to cameras and mics and have a clear indicator when they are active or not. I don't know that people would use them, but I'd like to have the option.
- iscrewyou 7y agoI would use them! I loved the physical WiFi switches on old laptops. These need to come back. A physical button for airplay mode. I would buy the latest iPhone the day it comes if Apple does this.
- Gibbon1 7y agoI think the law needs to recognize an intermediate expectation of privacy. Right now we have a hard level[1] or no expectation at all[2]. And that's it. And intermediate rule should make anything but incidental recording criminal[3] [1] Film a lady in a dressing room? go to jail. [2] Topless at the beach? Perverts can record you and upload the videos to porn sites. [3] Camera recording people around the store, legal. Using AI to track who they are and collate that with other camera's? Felony, go to prison.
- Scoundreller 7y agoEasier said than done. On circuits that use small enough amounts of power, they can run parasitically from the power through pullup resistors on I/O lines. I've seen microcontrollers continue to work fine after lifting their power pin.
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y agoIt's possible for bars to mute audio and turn on subtitles.
- kristofferR 7y agoIt is also possible for bars to not serve alcohol. What's your point?
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y agoThe point being, a "Shazam-like" detection strategy would not work in that setting.
- hammock 7y agoTangentially related: there is a cool app called Tunity that "shazams" a muted TV, e.g. at a bar, finds the game and lets you play the audio from your phone - syncing it perfectly to the video picture that you shazamed. So you can sit at a bar or waiting room or somewhere with muted TVs, and listen to the audio of the game.
- scarface74 7y agoHow can this possibly be legal? It seems cool though.
- gorbypark 7y agoThat's a great idea. I've always wanted to create an app that would pretty much do exactly that, except for doing outdoor guerilla movies (kind of like a renegade drive in movie theatre). As to not annoy neighbours, you'd listen to a stream of the audio on your phone with headphones. It would be pretty easy to setup a stream, but because of differences in phones and network latency there'd have to be client-side syncing.
- borumpilot 7y ago...when the venue has a hearTV device installed and you are connected to their network... But cool nevertheless.
- hammock 7y agoI don't know what heartv is. I used it at a random bar and it just synced to the audio fingerprint.
- xenospn 7y agoJust give everyone headphones.
- PhasmaFelis 7y agoSemi-related, the technology used in Shazam and other music ID services grew from companies that monitored radio stations to make sure they were playing all the ads they'd been paid for. In the mid-2000s, I worked on a Shazam-like text message service that would ID songs on the radio for you, and send you an iTunes purchase link. You texted us the radio station you were listening to, and we sent that and the timestamp to a server run by a company with listening stations all over the US, and it told us what song it was hearing at that time. The company's main clients were advertisers checking up on radio stations, but the technology worked just as well for music. It was a pretty sweet little service for the time, but sadly we never launched. I was amused when I saw far more polished apps like Shazam doing essentially the same thing, years later.
- rconti 7y agoClever. Illegal, but clever.
- jimbob45 7y agoIt doesn't feel like sports leagues want me to be a fan anymore. Take the NBA for example. I can't attend games because they're outside of my price range. I can't buy merchandise because a simple jersey costs north of $50. I can't watch the games because the subscription per month costs too much and bars are starting to get priced out of the range too. Encouraging my kid to play in high school to go pro is a joke since there are no minor leagues that he could fall into since he's not a genetic freak. I want to be a fan but it feels like the sports leagues don't really value fans anymore. Instead, they want to safeguard their product so that only the rich can enjoy it.
- SmellyGeekBoy 7y agoSo don't be a fan anymore? I can't afford to own a Ferrari... so I don't.
- narnianal 7y agoWhat about it is Shazam-like? Are they a super hero? Are they funny? I don't get it.
- shusson 7y ago> The app does explain in the terms of service that by giving the app permission, users are consenting to LaLiga using their phones to detect fraudulent behavior, like pirated soccer games. Completely missed this on my first pass. Makes the story a bit less dramatic, still a serious privacy breach, but not so nefarious.
- myself248 7y agoI've never been in a bar where the TVs had their audio on. The sports games are on screens but muted, and some have closed-captioning turned on. Wouldn't that defeat this? Slightly off-topic but I feel like relating it: When I was a kid, we'd watch baseball games on TV, but muted. Then we'd turn on the radio and tune in whatever station was simulcasting the game. Because the radio announcers assume you can't see the action, they narrate a lot more of what's going on, so we could follow the gameplay without having to be glued to the screen every instant. We also didn't have air conditioning, so baseball season was windows-open season, and more than once a pedestrian would pause to listen, sometimes holler "HEY WHAT'S THE SCORE?" into the house, we'd holler back, they'd continue down the sidewalk. _Everyone_ watched the Tigers in the 80s, and it was said that when a game was on, you could walk clear from Trenton to Mt Clemens and never be out of the sound of Ernie Harwell's voice.
- schnevets 7y agoSports in bars is a very different experience with sound on vs. off. Without sound, it's a background distraction that a few folks may be interested in. With sound on (even if the commentary is indecipherable), it's a collective experience that holds everyone's attention. Usually the bar will mute or put on music during commercial breaks. I do wonder if alternative commentary would ever catch on. Imagine if instead of talking heads you had a music track that would mimic the tension of the game like a music score.
- KingMachiavelli 7y agoPersonally, I feel a slapstick comedy track would work best. /joke What could work really well is some live radio, podcast, twitch of commentary to supplement the detectable pirated audio. The biggest issue would be syncing the video and audio.
- Scoundreller 7y agoThat could be solved with a camera pointed at the pirated video feed and then... oh wait...
- jdietrich 7y agoSky Sports use a far simpler solution that doesn't violate anyone's privacy. The satellite feed that's licensed for public venues has a small beer glass logo burned in to the image. The amount of beer in the glass changes every day on a pseudorandom basis. An inspector can check whether a pub has the right license simply by looking at the screen - if the glass is missing or contains the wrong amount of beer, it's an unlicensed stream. It's plausibly hackable by a sufficiently motivated person, but it's a remarkably simple and effective deterrent. https://mindyourdecisions.com/blog/2016/12/13/game-theory-applied-why-is-there-a-pint-glass-in-the-corner-of-tvs-at-pubs/ https://mindyourdecisions.com/blog/2016/12/13/game-theory-ap...
- orf 7y agoBut what if you are pirating a legal stream? Does the beer glass change per subscriber? And then surely they would know by just asking “does this pub, at this address, have a sky sports subscription?” Seems simpler? Also, side note, I’ve never seen the glass anything other than full.
- jdietrich 7y ago>But what if you are pirating a legal stream? The glass only appears on the (vastly more expensive) pub licensed feed, not on the consumer feed. The higher cost and much smaller pool of licensed customers reduces the likelihood of someone pirating the feed and vastly simplifies the process of identifying the leak. A pirate could burn in the right logo to a standard consumer feed, but they'd need daily information from someone who can view the pub licensed feed. Given the incredibly devious history of satellite anti-piracy technology, I would fully expect Sky to have a bunch of other, subtler data hidden in the feeds and codecs.
- orf 7y agoThat makes sense, thanks! But I can't help but ask again: why would a simple lookup of address -> registration work here? Why would you need a vast array of subtler, hidden data in the feeds? If you're playing live sports in The Temeraire, and The Temeraire doesn't have a license, then boom. You're knicked. Pubs are licensed and not readily movable things owned by specific (and licensed) people. Walk in the door, if they are playing sports and this pub is not registered then you know right away. You'd in fact only target pubs that dont have a license. No need for any steganography. Of course you might want it if someone is streaming this sports feed from a pub licensed feed to the internet, but then why have the global changing beer glass?
- Lowkeyloki 7y agoThis really doesn't sit well with me. Yes, the bars in question were breaking the law. However, keep in mind that one business was using private citizens to essentially spy on other businesses without the citizens' knowledge or consent. I'm sure the users of the app technically gave legal consent via the app's terms of service. But I doubt even 1% of the app's users were actually aware of this aspect of the app. Also, this is why the permissions an app requires to operate matter. I roll my eyes just as hard as the next person when I see comments in the Google's Play store about the absurd level of permissions required by some apps. But I also think twice when I install apps requiring ridiculous permissions compared with what they're supposed to do.
- andrewstuart 7y agoCould be a good business opportunity. Make a "compliance device" for shops/hotels/supermarkets that want to comply with their licensing obligations. All the store owner does is place a listening device in their shop and it listens to what licensed content is used and automatically invoices and ensures compliance.
- Lowkeyloki 7y ago/s? Please?
- Uberphallus 7y agoComing up for YC 3Q 2019
- kelnos 7y agoThis has the same solution as any other story around copyright infringement. If you provide people with easy, convenient, legal methods to consume the content in a way that works for them, for a price they find reasonable, then they overwhelmingly won't resort to illegal means. I'm not saying these bars are correct to resort to illegal streaming, but a wise businessperson would see this as a signal that their product offering doesn't actually match demand, and work to fill that demand. You're not going to make 100% of people happy in 100% of cases, but you can get to a point where the level of illegal streaming just isn't worth cracking down on. It's such a sad waste that all this money has been spent to identify and track down illegal activity when it could have been spent making the overall legal experience good enough that most people wouldn't need to resort to illegality. It adds insult to injury to note that companies like La Liga are already making money hand-over-fist; it's not like they have some sort of crisis where the lost revenue due to illegal streaming is posing an existential threat to their business. Instead of cracking down and making enemies, they could instead work to make the experience better and turn potential enemies into satisfied customers.
- crummy 7y agoI'd like to know how someone found out it was recording. Wireshark after noticing unusual bandwidth usage? Decompiling an APK?
- slang800 7y agoHere's the original article, which goes into much greater detail than the summary on the Verge: https://www.eldiario.es/tecnologia/Liga-Futbol-microfono-telefono-aficionados_0_780772124.html https://www.eldiario.es/tecnologia/Liga-Futbol-microfono-tel... Sadly neither article investigates how effective this technology was, or how many bars actually got caught as a result of the malware in this app.
- egd 7y agoSomeone I met tried to figure out how to actually legally stream the NBA playoffs recently - apparently there's basically no way to do so without an existing cable subscription or without paying for the entire season. I'm guessing the licensing structure around all of that would make the US tax code look readable, but the result is that it's effectively impossible to decide you want to watch a specific game on a computer and give someone money to do so on a one-off basis.
- xnyan 7y agoIt’s so much easier to stream the NBA finals from a pirate site than it is to pay - if there even is a way to pay. I’m looking at waiting 10 days for a cable installer and at least 50 a month plus multiple calls to setup and then cancel to watch the one event I want to watch via cable, or 2 clicks and an ad-free 1080p 60 fps stream on my browser. I’m not saying piracy is legal or moral, but the difference in cost benefit effort and value is so extreme I don’t know how you can realistically expect someone who knows all the options to chose cable.
- fourmii 7y agoReally, how about just signing up to the NBA League Pass? Sure it's expensive, but it doesn't need cable installation, just watch it from basically any internet accessible device.
- jgunsch 7y agoNBA League Pass doesn't actually let you stream the playoffs (if you're in the USA), nor do you get to watch your local team. It's meant to be a supplement to a cable subscription, or a full subscription for international viewers. https://www.quora.com/Does-the-NBA-League-Pass-offer-a-playoff-package https://www.quora.com/Does-the-NBA-League-Pass-offer-a-playo...
- wjossey 7y agoLeague pass does not apply to nationally broadcast games or games in your local market. I live in LA and root for the Celtics, and watch all the home broadcasts with their arena feed. If I lived in Boston it’s not an option and I have to have a cable subscription. If the team is on a national broadcast, it is also blacked out. That being said, I listen to the finals on the local radio broadcasts via the NBA app because those are never blacked out.
- coldfinger 7y agoDoes this spy act occur on iphone?
- gruez 7y agoPossibly, although they’d only be able to do it inconspicuously if the apps in the foreground (otherwise there’s a red bar at the top)
- coldfinger 7y agodoes this spy act occur on ios?
- floatingatoll 7y agoUS folks - What law or court has proven that Shazam is fair use? The sports broadcasters sue five second clips off the air, yet Shazam is allowed to transform clips of games for this purpose?
- ashtonian 7y agoIP law in this country need to go away. It doesn't help the market as a whole, it doesn't encourage content creation it encourages legal spending and manipulation. You shouldn't get paid for having and idea you should get paid and be excited to create content to be first to market and have an consumer base. If somebody can come along and do it better there should be no legal barriers. The result is a highly competitive iterative market that grows exponentially and benefits the consumer. The only protections should be around branding ie you say you are who you are. Everything else can be accomplished with trade secrets. This is especially true when you consider the world is shrinking and the lvels of control are local only. So all of your competitors abroad are benefiting from it while locally we waste millions arguing in court over who is allowed to bring product to market. It creates things like the epi pen markup. There was an alternative, cheaper within a few days but they were blocked from marketing and change the applicator to avoid a broad patent on it. Also would like to point out that there is a reason why patents and io don't exist in some of the oldest markets (food/clothing). Because otherwise there would be no industry or growth. They live on brand protection and secrets..
- dymk 7y agoOne of the strongest tools you have as an individual or small business is IP law. It means that the big incumbent that you're trying to take on can't just swoop in and copy what differentiates you from them, and eat you alive.
- Schiphol 7y agoThat's a weird angle. This story is not at all about "piracy", but about an app using the microphone in a clearly illegitimate, and probably illegal, way.
- kuu 7y agoYep, it's illegal, they've been fined (by a ridiculous amount by the way)
- theoh 7y agoThere was a proposed system back in the 90s which involved multiple decryption keys. https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~mernst/pubs/heraclitean-tr9413-abstract.html https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~mernst/pubs/heraclitean-tr9...
- steveharman 7y agoI thought a better deal for customers might happen in the UK when BT competed against Sky for Premier League football rights. What actually happened was a bidding war that drove up the cost of the rights which was then passed down to legitimate subscribers. Or forced them into less legitimate ways of viewing the content
- ourcat 7y agoQ: If, as a developer, you were asked to implement something like this, would you? Piracy issues aside, this would be a no-no for me on moral grounds.
- m0llusk 7y agoMaking copies and sharing used to be hard so it made sense to charge money for copies and build business models around that. Now both discovery and copies are nearly free so business models must change. With pay to release payment is collected from patrons and the results can be shared. Modern makers, producers, and business people need to accept modern reality instead of blockading about sharing being theft when it clearly is not.