4 ms·

It feels so weird to grow up in an age of rampant, unabashed piracy, where literally everyone around you is burning CDs or cracking games or handing out copied

by tomc1985 6y ago

It feels so weird to grow up in an age of rampant, unabashed piracy, where literally everyone around you is burning CDs or cracking games or handing out copied mixtapes, and see questions like these. It just goes to show how thoroughly streaming squashed piracy (at least before everything fractured into the current landscape), and how short our collective memories are. Data yearns to be free -- sharing it and copying it cost nothing. Shows are just video data. Forcing real-world, scarcity economics, in a realm where the only currency of the land is plentiful, seems strange to me. There are so many other ways to monetize media content, and yet we keep going back to DRM and publisher-controlled walled-gardens. It's a complete and total shame.

Xortl 6y ago
If someone puts great effort and cost into producing media, why would others be entitled to get the fruits of that labor for free? Game of Thrones is a luxury, not a necessity; people aren't entitled to it just because they want it and refuse to pay for it.
- pastage 6y ago
  Streaming services are still less convenient, though they are moee accesible now, and it shows, piracy is less and less popular every year.
- efreak 6y ago
  I don't mind paying for the latest album/ebook/videogame. What I mind is not being able to watch GoT in HD on Linux. I mind paying for the latest album then not being able to play it on my openhome DLNA devices. I mind not being able to play a random selection of more than 1000 or so songs from my library (a big enough playlist to not hear the same song multiple times daily). I mind not being able to crossfade my music, or use a media player that can adjust for the shitty speakers in my phone. I can finally share my video game library with my friend, but if I want to play even a free game while they use my library, that's not possible (the only limitation here should be playing the same game). I mind paying for an ebook, then not being able to read it in purple 34pt copperplate against a green background with line breaks where they belong (get thee hence PDF). I mind not being able to search the contents of multiple ebooks I own for the name of a character because I forgot the book title or because it's a cameo in another series. I mind not being able to create a playlist of music that contains files from my Google play music library, my Dropbox folder, and my desktop. I mind buying media from a DRM provider, then they decide to shut their service down and I can never access those files again; I may have some chance if I install their software before they shut down their servers, but I'll lose access if I ever upgrade my computer/OS (Nintendo DSi store, various other defunct ebook/music/video game providers). I mind that the e-book I downloaded through my library's OverDrive subscription cannot be read offline at all because it's not available as an epub or on Amazon, and thus it can't be downloaded to read offline, and for the same reason I also can't take notes or have multiple bookmarks. I mind that I can't give away my purchased ebooks after I'm done with them. I mind the fact that to watch movies away from home, I need to get a more expensive tablet (cellular version) and pay monthly for an extra data line that likely limits me to only watching 3-4 movies anyways. Free is nice, yes. But money isn't the only reason for piracy. Downloading is easier and frequently faster than ripping the DRM off myself.
II2II 6y ago
Is it weird? We may have DRM and walled gardens, but media distribution is much more consumer friendly than it used to be. There are many services that offer streaming at a flat rate, where you can watch or listen what you please and when you please without being subjected to third-party advertising. You can also subscribe and unsubscribe with ease, without paying additional fees. Contrast that to prior decades where none of that was true. There are other services that offer perpetual licenses (I am hesitant to call them purchases) of books, music, videos, and software. You can access that content across multiple devices. In some cases you can even legally acquire it without DRM. Contrast that to early digital media. I remember floppy based software that would disable the installation media once it was installed to a hard drive. You could not re-download your music in the early days of iTunes, and they were considered consumer friendly. I doubt that many people actually expected information to be free. What they wanted was for information to be convenient and cheap. As for those who actually did want information to be free, there are options out there that respect the creator's wishes (creative commons licensing, open source, etc.).
chipotle_coyote 6y ago
I don't mean to pick on you, per se, but I think there's a long-standing confusion about creative works that's captured in your line: > Data yearns to be free -- sharing it and copying it costs nothing. The latter part of that is true (setting aside quibbles about bandwidth and storage not being absolutely 100% free), but here's the thing: back in the days of physical media, of books and DVDs and CDs and what have you, the bulk of the price was never the physical media itself. The paper and plastic was never the valuable part. > There are so many other ways to monetize media content... Maybe, but just about all the ones that I've seen boil down to one of three methods: - charge people directly for the content - give the content away for free and sell ads against the content - give the content away for free and make ancillary sales (e.g., merchandise) Charging people for content doesn't require DRM: essentially all digital music sales are now DRM-free, for instance, and many ebooks are, depending on the publisher. Also, two other observations. First, while music publishers were always unduly whiny about the ability to record music at all, burning CDs and making mix tapes did cost money; it may have "felt" just like putting your entire music library up on Napster, but unless you had enough money to just hand out thousands of CDs of other people's music on street corners, it wasn't. It's not really super surprising that digital music piracy made those music publishers a lot soggier and hard to light. Second, "data yearns to be free" sounds like a rephrasing of "information wants to be free," and I think it's worth remembering that the full quote from Stewart Brand went on to say "Information also wants to be expensive. This tension will not go away." Technology may let us reduce the marginal cost of reproducing anything that can be expressed as data to zero, but that doesn't make everything that ben expressed as data valueless.
- tomc1985 6y ago
  Information doesn't 'want' to be expensive. We, people, want it to be expensive. And I'm with the folks want it to be cheap. Both groups will do what they can within their power to achieve their goals.

Xortl 6y ago

If someone puts great effort and cost into producing media, why would others be entitled to get the fruits of that labor for free? Game of Thrones is a luxury, not a necessity; people aren't entitled to it just because they want it and refuse to pay for it.

pastage 6y ago
Streaming services are still less convenient, though they are moee accesible now, and it shows, piracy is less and less popular every year.
efreak 6y ago
I don't mind paying for the latest album/ebook/videogame. What I mind is not being able to watch GoT in HD on Linux. I mind paying for the latest album then not being able to play it on my openhome DLNA devices. I mind not being able to play a random selection of more than 1000 or so songs from my library (a big enough playlist to not hear the same song multiple times daily). I mind not being able to crossfade my music, or use a media player that can adjust for the shitty speakers in my phone. I can finally share my video game library with my friend, but if I want to play even a free game while they use my library, that's not possible (the only limitation here should be playing the same game). I mind paying for an ebook, then not being able to read it in purple 34pt copperplate against a green background with line breaks where they belong (get thee hence PDF). I mind not being able to search the contents of multiple ebooks I own for the name of a character because I forgot the book title or because it's a cameo in another series. I mind not being able to create a playlist of music that contains files from my Google play music library, my Dropbox folder, and my desktop. I mind buying media from a DRM provider, then they decide to shut their service down and I can never access those files again; I may have some chance if I install their software before they shut down their servers, but I'll lose access if I ever upgrade my computer/OS (Nintendo DSi store, various other defunct ebook/music/video game providers). I mind that the e-book I downloaded through my library's OverDrive subscription cannot be read offline at all because it's not available as an epub or on Amazon, and thus it can't be downloaded to read offline, and for the same reason I also can't take notes or have multiple bookmarks. I mind that I can't give away my purchased ebooks after I'm done with them. I mind the fact that to watch movies away from home, I need to get a more expensive tablet (cellular version) and pay monthly for an extra data line that likely limits me to only watching 3-4 movies anyways. Free is nice, yes. But money isn't the only reason for piracy. Downloading is easier and frequently faster than ripping the DRM off myself.

II2II 6y ago

Is it weird? We may have DRM and walled gardens, but media distribution is much more consumer friendly than it used to be. There are many services that offer streaming at a flat rate, where you can watch or listen what you please and when you please without being subjected to third-party advertising. You can also subscribe and unsubscribe with ease, without paying additional fees. Contrast that to prior decades where none of that was true. There are other services that offer perpetual licenses (I am hesitant to call them purchases) of books, music, videos, and software. You can access that content across multiple devices. In some cases you can even legally acquire it without DRM. Contrast that to early digital media. I remember floppy based software that would disable the installation media once it was installed to a hard drive. You could not re-download your music in the early days of iTunes, and they were considered consumer friendly. I doubt that many people actually expected information to be free. What they wanted was for information to be convenient and cheap. As for those who actually did want information to be free, there are options out there that respect the creator's wishes (creative commons licensing, open source, etc.).

chipotle_coyote 6y ago

I don't mean to pick on you, per se, but I think there's a long-standing confusion about creative works that's captured in your line: > Data yearns to be free -- sharing it and copying it costs nothing. The latter part of that is true (setting aside quibbles about bandwidth and storage not being absolutely 100% free), but here's the thing: back in the days of physical media, of books and DVDs and CDs and what have you, the bulk of the price was never the physical media itself. The paper and plastic was never the valuable part. > There are so many other ways to monetize media content... Maybe, but just about all the ones that I've seen boil down to one of three methods: - charge people directly for the content - give the content away for free and sell ads against the content - give the content away for free and make ancillary sales (e.g., merchandise) Charging people for content doesn't require DRM: essentially all digital music sales are now DRM-free, for instance, and many ebooks are, depending on the publisher. Also, two other observations. First, while music publishers were always unduly whiny about the ability to record music at all, burning CDs and making mix tapes did cost money; it may have "felt" just like putting your entire music library up on Napster, but unless you had enough money to just hand out thousands of CDs of other people's music on street corners, it wasn't. It's not really super surprising that digital music piracy made those music publishers a lot soggier and hard to light. Second, "data yearns to be free" sounds like a rephrasing of "information wants to be free," and I think it's worth remembering that the full quote from Stewart Brand went on to say "Information also wants to be expensive. This tension will not go away." Technology may let us reduce the marginal cost of reproducing anything that can be expressed as data to zero, but that doesn't make everything that ben expressed as data valueless.

tomc1985 6y ago
Information doesn't 'want' to be expensive. We, people, want it to be expensive. And I'm with the folks want it to be cheap. Both groups will do what they can within their power to achieve their goals.