6 ms·

There's something to be said for the cord-cutting software ecosystem supporting more-than-casual piracy experiencing huge improvements. If you have the hardware

There's something to be said for the cord-cutting software ecosystem supporting more-than-casual piracy experiencing huge improvements. If you have the hardware, you can host your own media using Plex as a server, and Sonarr to manage your library and automate acquisition of new TV episodes. Plex is one of the best pieces of software I've ever used. It Just Works™. You need a decent internet pipeline to support remote streaming, but LAN is a breeze to setup. It's so feature-rich I don't know where to begin. I honestly prefer it to any other streaming service. Apps on just about every platform you can think of (they had yet to release apps for Nintendo consoles last I checked). I have my whole family set up on my server, and it doesn't cost them a dime. The primary drawbacks from their perspective are that they need to request shows and movies to be added, and I naturally don't have Netflix-level availability, but hey. Shit's free. So when a cord-cutter with enough savvy to pirate video can actually replicate the services rendered by Netflix et al. on their own, why would they pay five times for something centralized that they can get for free[1]? [1] Plex has $7 month premium features, with the option for a lifetime pass equal to about 2.5 years of subscription.

Cyph0n 7y ago
> The primary drawbacks from their perspective are that they need to request shows and movies to be added Have you heard of Ombi? I've never tried it, but sounds like it could help with this issue. https://ombi.io/ https://ombi.io/
- flamtap 7y ago
  I haven't! Thanks for the tip. I must take this for a spin! Sure looks like it would work better than them just texting me what they'd like added to the server, heh.
robertoandred 7y ago
Everything's free when you steal. Lame argument.
- nickthegreek 7y ago
  pirate. I keep seeing people use the word steal in this comment section.
  - robertoandred 7y ago
    No, it's stealing. Just because saying "pirate" makes you feel better doesn't mean it's not stealing.
    - eutropia 7y ago
      Just because saying "stealing" makes you feel morally self-righteous doesn't mean that physical goods and digital files are the same thing.
      - robertoandred 7y ago
        Do you sneak in to theaters? Jump turnstiles? The semantics are irrelevant, it's stealing.
    - logfromblammo 7y ago
      Piracy is copyright infringement or license term violations. Theft is a property crime. These are different things. Those heavily invested in intellectual property rights laws would like to conflate them, but they are--and always will be--fundamentally different offenses. And the industry propaganda is frankly ridiculous. Hell yes, I would download a car. But not if it came loaded up with malware, spyware, region-locking, force-fed content, and DRM schemes. The propaganda likewise portrays piracy as stealing from the creators and artists, when, in fact, this has already occurred by reassigning the copyrights to a corporate entity that routinely employs "Hollywood accounting" and other assorted dirty accounting tricks to avoid paying the creative drivers behind a cultural artifact in a manner the public would consider reasonable. Duplicating bits is in no way comparable to depriving someone of physical property and excluding them from their use of it. At worst, piracy undermines someone's economic profits, derived from the enjoyment of government-granted monopoly, which is supposed to promote the useful arts by securing to authors and inventors exclusive rights for a limited time. It is natural for opinions to vary on whether a schema that routinely re-assigns those rights to an entity separate from the author or inventor, for a period extending well beyond their lifespan, is still conformant with the intent of the law, but no matter how hard you try to force it, copying is not stealing. Forcing that for PR purposes further undermines what little respect remains for copyright infringement as its own offense. You can't inflate respect for one law by poaching it from another.

Cyph0n 7y ago

> The primary drawbacks from their perspective are that they need to request shows and movies to be added Have you heard of Ombi? I've never tried it, but sounds like it could help with this issue. https://ombi.io/ https://ombi.io/

flamtap 7y ago
I haven't! Thanks for the tip. I must take this for a spin! Sure looks like it would work better than them just texting me what they'd like added to the server, heh.

robertoandred 7y ago

Everything's free when you steal. Lame argument.

nickthegreek 7y ago
pirate. I keep seeing people use the word steal in this comment section.
- robertoandred 7y ago
  No, it's stealing. Just because saying "pirate" makes you feel better doesn't mean it's not stealing.
  - eutropia 7y ago
    Just because saying "stealing" makes you feel morally self-righteous doesn't mean that physical goods and digital files are the same thing.
    - robertoandred 7y ago
      Do you sneak in to theaters? Jump turnstiles? The semantics are irrelevant, it's stealing.
  - logfromblammo 7y ago
    Piracy is copyright infringement or license term violations. Theft is a property crime. These are different things. Those heavily invested in intellectual property rights laws would like to conflate them, but they are--and always will be--fundamentally different offenses. And the industry propaganda is frankly ridiculous. Hell yes, I would download a car. But not if it came loaded up with malware, spyware, region-locking, force-fed content, and DRM schemes. The propaganda likewise portrays piracy as stealing from the creators and artists, when, in fact, this has already occurred by reassigning the copyrights to a corporate entity that routinely employs "Hollywood accounting" and other assorted dirty accounting tricks to avoid paying the creative drivers behind a cultural artifact in a manner the public would consider reasonable. Duplicating bits is in no way comparable to depriving someone of physical property and excluding them from their use of it. At worst, piracy undermines someone's economic profits, derived from the enjoyment of government-granted monopoly, which is supposed to promote the useful arts by securing to authors and inventors exclusive rights for a limited time. It is natural for opinions to vary on whether a schema that routinely re-assigns those rights to an entity separate from the author or inventor, for a period extending well beyond their lifespan, is still conformant with the intent of the law, but no matter how hard you try to force it, copying is not stealing. Forcing that for PR purposes further undermines what little respect remains for copyright infringement as its own offense. You can't inflate respect for one law by poaching it from another.