6 ms·

Wow, that's a whole lot of work put into this, and I don't understand why... What do these scene members have to gain? If anything, they're doing the media com

by bserge 6y ago

Wow, that's a whole lot of work put into this, and I don't understand why... What do these scene members have to gain? If anything, they're doing the media companies a service, free viral campaigns. Without pirated content, a lot of people would never hear or care about their movies, TV shows, music. If they can't afford it, they won't buy it anyway. Microsoft and Adobe seem to have realized this, and now they're making things accessible to most people, so many ex-pirates used to their products are buying them. Not so for the media companies. Why does Netflix USA/UK/etc have different content? Why do games have region locks and ridiculous DRM? All for the risk of being accused of fraud, causing "massive losses", and prison time. I guess sticking it to the MAFIAA feels nice, but is it worth the risk?

threesquared 6y ago
A good deal of it is status, like being involved in the most prolific group etc. But also the way "The Scene" works is almost gamified. Groups battle each other to obtain pre-release material and then race each other to disseminate to the sites they affiliate with. If you are first you win the PRE and your releases is the only one accepted by the whole scene. It becomes addictive. Secondly money is involved, less scrupulous sites run pay to leech servers where people pay for slots and some groups are donated hardware etc for access. Also there are connections to various forms of cyber crime from contacts you can make from being involved.
- kristofferR 6y ago
  There's likely also the sharing is caring aspect, millions of people really appreciate their efforts - and they're aware of that. On the flip side some people really doesn't appreciate it, which makes it even more fun I guess (unless you get caught).
hogFeast 6y ago
Yep, the loss to these companies is not the price of the movie. It is not the tens of millions of dollars quoted. If you pirate a movie, the person buying it is rarely someone who would pay full price. I would be surprised if the actual loss was anywhere near the amount it cost to run the investigation. Also, there really isn't a massive amount of sophistication when it comes to distribution. Most of the media business still feels stuck in the 90s, definitely changing but still "business as usual" (for example, the English Premier League...probably the most valuable sports league in the world, same distribution since inception in the early 90s) thinking whilst the sand is shifting beneath their feet (if you look at the late teen-early twenties demo, much of the media business is already irrelevant). But yeah: spend your time chasing down people for a few hundred thousand bucks, that will work.
- kristofferR 6y ago
  Yeah, you are basically forced to pirate movies if you want it in good streaming quality. Most of the 4K HDR movies on Netflix are just available as 1080p SDR even with a 4K subscription, to get 4K HDR Atmos quality streaming you gotta pirate them. It's so damn dumb.
  - wil421 6y ago
    Not against pirating in the least bit but you can’t say you have to pirate to get the best 4K it’s just easier and cheaper. Disregarding the not available in my region argument. The Blu-Ray is still available for purchase in most regions. The people in the article were not ripping streaming services they were ripping unreleased DVDs and Blu-Rays.
    - kristofferR 6y ago
      Blu-Ray is not an option, I'm talking about streaming here.
      - wil421 6y ago
        There are many 4K rental options available but at $6.99 or so a pop means pirating is cheaper and easier once again. Cross platform sharing of rentals or digital purchases is crap, pirating is again easier.
  - hogFeast 6y ago
    It is also way easier to access and (often) faster...or so I am told. We are in 2020, and some guy in his mother's basement with a PHP site is able to provide better service than multi-billion dollar media companies... ...maybe if they didn't spend all their time suing people.
    - curryst 6y ago
      In fairness, the average user and use case is very different. Pirating is less instant gratification since you have to wait on the download. Pirates are also generally okay with having the only peer be someone uploading at 5KB/s. Trackers go down with relative frequency. None of that would fly on a paid streaming site. I have wondered why no streaming service uses or offers some sort of P2P. I would think it would be great for popular releases, and you could shift some of your bandwidth costs. It also helps get you around ISPs who want you to pay for interconnects. Maybe they're just concerned about delivering it in a raw format? I would've expected they could put some DRM on it
bluejekyll 6y ago
> Microsoft and Adobe seem to have realized this, and now they're making things accessible to most people, so many ex-pirates used to their products are buying them. Not so for the media companies. Why does Netflix USA/UK/etc have different content? Why do games have region locks and ridiculous DRM? The thing here seems to be ease of access. Adobe products were at one point more easily gotten in pirated fashion than legitimate. The same was even true for MS products. Once both companies adopted new distribution models, the pirated software was no longer the easiest option. Additionally, while costly to some, the ease of upgrades and getting patches became easier by using the legitimate channel. This is important for professionals. The media companies appear to recognize this at this point, but they fear losing control of the distribution model. They don’t want to cede that all to Netflix, but this seems like it might be a losing option for all but the biggest media companies (like Disney). It will be interesting to see how this all plays out, since most people are not going to want to purchase single media channels, and will generally want a single source like Netflix. Until this becomes simpler for consumers, pirating for some is the simplest means of getting access to the content.
- bnjms 6y ago
  > but this seems like it might be a losing option for all but the biggest media companies (like Disney) Only because our system allowed purchase of Fox. And content/distribution conglomeration. A mistake.
- GoblinSlayer 6y ago
  Do they also watch only one tv channel?
  - obmelvin 6y ago
    Comparing Netflix to a single cable channel is disingenuous. I can't the only one who feels that Netflix is "too much" and that the last thing I need is even more content for more money. Obviously, there is nothing wrong with subscribing to multiple services. But by the same token, there is certainly a market segment that is just going to buy a single service.
phkahler 6y ago
>> Wow, that's a whole lot of work put into this, and I don't understand why... What do these scene members have to gain? That's what I was wondering. Do they monetize the activity with ad revenue? Other than that I cant think of any motivation other than some kind of status seeking.
- TheNorthman 6y ago
  > Do they monetize the activity with ad revenue? They aren't allowed to. In general, releases are nuked [0] if they don't follow certain rules [1]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuke_(warez) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuke_(warez) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_(warez)#What_is_defined https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_(warez)#What_is_defin...
a5withtrrs 6y ago
The why? For fame, for glory, to chase the adrenaline rush that comes with being the first in a race to release something everyone else is trying to do? To feel like you have reach over millions of people who will eventually download your release... A few groups tie back to 'organised crime', in that they cut the releases back to DVDs for sale at markets for the less technologically literate. But I'd say by and large the people in 'the scene' are doing it for the love, whatever that love happens to be.
dariosalvi78 6y ago
>> Why does Netflix USA/UK/etc have different content? Why do games have region locks and ridiculous DRM? I pay Netflix in the country I live, but I can't find content in my native language, so, guess what? I get pirate movies. Similar reasoning applies to some old films: very hard to find online in any legal way or at a reasonable price. I'd love to pay a fair price to get access to films, but the industry makes it very hard for me. So thank you pirates, you make my life easier.
- frank2 6y ago
  >I pay Netflix in the country I live, but I can't find content in my native language, so, guess what? I get pirate movies. Are most of the movies you pirate in your native language?
  - dariosalvi78 6y ago
    Yes. I don't have problems with other languages, but it's for my daughter. I want to watch movies with her in my language so that she gets used to it. Audio is cheap, I don't know why they don't include all languages the movie was translated to.

by bserge 6y ago

threesquared 6y ago

A good deal of it is status, like being involved in the most prolific group etc. But also the way "The Scene" works is almost gamified. Groups battle each other to obtain pre-release material and then race each other to disseminate to the sites they affiliate with. If you are first you win the PRE and your releases is the only one accepted by the whole scene. It becomes addictive. Secondly money is involved, less scrupulous sites run pay to leech servers where people pay for slots and some groups are donated hardware etc for access. Also there are connections to various forms of cyber crime from contacts you can make from being involved.

kristofferR 6y ago
There's likely also the sharing is caring aspect, millions of people really appreciate their efforts - and they're aware of that. On the flip side some people really doesn't appreciate it, which makes it even more fun I guess (unless you get caught).

hogFeast 6y ago

Yep, the loss to these companies is not the price of the movie. It is not the tens of millions of dollars quoted. If you pirate a movie, the person buying it is rarely someone who would pay full price. I would be surprised if the actual loss was anywhere near the amount it cost to run the investigation. Also, there really isn't a massive amount of sophistication when it comes to distribution. Most of the media business still feels stuck in the 90s, definitely changing but still "business as usual" (for example, the English Premier League...probably the most valuable sports league in the world, same distribution since inception in the early 90s) thinking whilst the sand is shifting beneath their feet (if you look at the late teen-early twenties demo, much of the media business is already irrelevant). But yeah: spend your time chasing down people for a few hundred thousand bucks, that will work.

kristofferR 6y ago
Yeah, you are basically forced to pirate movies if you want it in good streaming quality. Most of the 4K HDR movies on Netflix are just available as 1080p SDR even with a 4K subscription, to get 4K HDR Atmos quality streaming you gotta pirate them. It's so damn dumb.
- wil421 6y ago
  Not against pirating in the least bit but you can’t say you have to pirate to get the best 4K it’s just easier and cheaper. Disregarding the not available in my region argument. The Blu-Ray is still available for purchase in most regions. The people in the article were not ripping streaming services they were ripping unreleased DVDs and Blu-Rays.
  - kristofferR 6y ago
    Blu-Ray is not an option, I'm talking about streaming here.
    - wil421 6y ago
      There are many 4K rental options available but at $6.99 or so a pop means pirating is cheaper and easier once again. Cross platform sharing of rentals or digital purchases is crap, pirating is again easier.
- hogFeast 6y ago
  It is also way easier to access and (often) faster...or so I am told. We are in 2020, and some guy in his mother's basement with a PHP site is able to provide better service than multi-billion dollar media companies... ...maybe if they didn't spend all their time suing people.
  - curryst 6y ago
    In fairness, the average user and use case is very different. Pirating is less instant gratification since you have to wait on the download. Pirates are also generally okay with having the only peer be someone uploading at 5KB/s. Trackers go down with relative frequency. None of that would fly on a paid streaming site. I have wondered why no streaming service uses or offers some sort of P2P. I would think it would be great for popular releases, and you could shift some of your bandwidth costs. It also helps get you around ISPs who want you to pay for interconnects. Maybe they're just concerned about delivering it in a raw format? I would've expected they could put some DRM on it

bluejekyll 6y ago

> Microsoft and Adobe seem to have realized this, and now they're making things accessible to most people, so many ex-pirates used to their products are buying them. Not so for the media companies. Why does Netflix USA/UK/etc have different content? Why do games have region locks and ridiculous DRM? The thing here seems to be ease of access. Adobe products were at one point more easily gotten in pirated fashion than legitimate. The same was even true for MS products. Once both companies adopted new distribution models, the pirated software was no longer the easiest option. Additionally, while costly to some, the ease of upgrades and getting patches became easier by using the legitimate channel. This is important for professionals. The media companies appear to recognize this at this point, but they fear losing control of the distribution model. They don’t want to cede that all to Netflix, but this seems like it might be a losing option for all but the biggest media companies (like Disney). It will be interesting to see how this all plays out, since most people are not going to want to purchase single media channels, and will generally want a single source like Netflix. Until this becomes simpler for consumers, pirating for some is the simplest means of getting access to the content.

bnjms 6y ago
> but this seems like it might be a losing option for all but the biggest media companies (like Disney) Only because our system allowed purchase of Fox. And content/distribution conglomeration. A mistake.
GoblinSlayer 6y ago
Do they also watch only one tv channel?
- obmelvin 6y ago
  Comparing Netflix to a single cable channel is disingenuous. I can't the only one who feels that Netflix is "too much" and that the last thing I need is even more content for more money. Obviously, there is nothing wrong with subscribing to multiple services. But by the same token, there is certainly a market segment that is just going to buy a single service.

phkahler 6y ago

>> Wow, that's a whole lot of work put into this, and I don't understand why... What do these scene members have to gain? That's what I was wondering. Do they monetize the activity with ad revenue? Other than that I cant think of any motivation other than some kind of status seeking.

TheNorthman 6y ago
> Do they monetize the activity with ad revenue? They aren't allowed to. In general, releases are nuked [0] if they don't follow certain rules [1]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuke_(warez) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuke_(warez) [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_(warez)#What_is_defined https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_(warez)#What_is_defin...

a5withtrrs 6y ago

The why? For fame, for glory, to chase the adrenaline rush that comes with being the first in a race to release something everyone else is trying to do? To feel like you have reach over millions of people who will eventually download your release... A few groups tie back to 'organised crime', in that they cut the releases back to DVDs for sale at markets for the less technologically literate. But I'd say by and large the people in 'the scene' are doing it for the love, whatever that love happens to be.

dariosalvi78 6y ago

>> Why does Netflix USA/UK/etc have different content? Why do games have region locks and ridiculous DRM? I pay Netflix in the country I live, but I can't find content in my native language, so, guess what? I get pirate movies. Similar reasoning applies to some old films: very hard to find online in any legal way or at a reasonable price. I'd love to pay a fair price to get access to films, but the industry makes it very hard for me. So thank you pirates, you make my life easier.

frank2 6y ago
>I pay Netflix in the country I live, but I can't find content in my native language, so, guess what? I get pirate movies. Are most of the movies you pirate in your native language?
- dariosalvi78 6y ago
  Yes. I don't have problems with other languages, but it's for my daughter. I want to watch movies with her in my language so that she gets used to it. Audio is cheap, I don't know why they don't include all languages the movie was translated to.