6 ms·

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

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
    - kristofferR 6y ago
      Spotify started P2P, but moved away from it. The rest of what you're saying is hilariously inaccurate, you don't have to wait for downloads, if you want to pirate-streaming of 4K HDR Blu-Rays you just get Real-Debrid and TVZion for example.
ChrisLomont 6y ago
>I would be surprised if the actual loss was anywhere near the amount it cost to run the investigation. That is true of lots of crimes, but it's not reasonable to then conclude we should not prosecute those crimes. Prosecution does have a deterrent effect. See [1] for a good overview of the field. [1] https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/449268 https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/449268
- thefounder 6y ago
  Yeah putting people in jail for pirating movies will definitely make them and the world better.
  - non-entity 6y ago
    You wouldn't steal a car...
    - Izkata 6y ago
      I remember those. If anything I think they turned people on to piracy, not off, because the general sentiment upon seeing it was "...but I would totally download/duplicate one!"
  - Semaphor 6y ago
    I’d think from what they quoted, that they were speaking for the general case. I’d have made the same argument and I think that the whole MAFIAA is toxic and a stain.
  - ChrisLomont 6y ago
    Your sarcastic comment implies there is no pirate whose imprisonment would add value to society. Some groups pirate for profit. Is that still ok in your view? Some groups use the profits to fund terrorist and drug activity. Is that ok? Some use it along with human smuggling, racketeering, loan-sharking, prostitution, contract killing, and more (see [1]). Are these ok? So is it possible there exists a pirate whose jail sentence may make the world a better place? ( I know the pop hacker belief is this doesn't happen, but I've yet to meet a hacker that has reviewed the peer reviewed literature on it, so don't retort without checking empirical evidence. I'll post but one paper below). The reason various mob like groups turn to piracy is that pirated products have value and have very often have high profit margins, so piracy becomes a very profitable business. A group willing to do this illegally is often willing to do other high-profit risky and illegal activity. [1] https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9417.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9417.html
bleepblorp 6y ago
A basic principle of economics is elasticity of demand, which means that people will buy more of something if it's cheaper and less of something if it's more expensive. Piracy "loss" estimates from publishing cartels pretend that elasticity of demand does not exist and assume that anyone who would copy an intangible good at a price of $0 would pay whatever price the publishing cartel demanded if the $0 option was not available. While this may be true in the very narrow case of monopoly software products used by businesses in their line of trade, it's absolutely not true for commodity consumer goods. Very, very few people who have collected a few thousand movies (etc), at a price of $0, would have anywhere as large a collection if they were forced to pay cartel prices for each title. At the absolute best, the cartel belief that they are entitled to full profits from every copy made is in complete ignorance of several hundred years of economic theory. At worst, it's a lie. Anti-piracy enforcement is not about profit. It's about being vindictive for its own sake.

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
  - kristofferR 6y ago
    Spotify started P2P, but moved away from it. The rest of what you're saying is hilariously inaccurate, you don't have to wait for downloads, if you want to pirate-streaming of 4K HDR Blu-Rays you just get Real-Debrid and TVZion for example.

ChrisLomont 6y ago

>I would be surprised if the actual loss was anywhere near the amount it cost to run the investigation. That is true of lots of crimes, but it's not reasonable to then conclude we should not prosecute those crimes. Prosecution does have a deterrent effect. See [1] for a good overview of the field. [1] https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/449268 https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/449268

thefounder 6y ago
Yeah putting people in jail for pirating movies will definitely make them and the world better.
- non-entity 6y ago
  You wouldn't steal a car...
  - Izkata 6y ago
    I remember those. If anything I think they turned people on to piracy, not off, because the general sentiment upon seeing it was "...but I would totally download/duplicate one!"
- Semaphor 6y ago
  I’d think from what they quoted, that they were speaking for the general case. I’d have made the same argument and I think that the whole MAFIAA is toxic and a stain.
- ChrisLomont 6y ago
  Your sarcastic comment implies there is no pirate whose imprisonment would add value to society. Some groups pirate for profit. Is that still ok in your view? Some groups use the profits to fund terrorist and drug activity. Is that ok? Some use it along with human smuggling, racketeering, loan-sharking, prostitution, contract killing, and more (see [1]). Are these ok? So is it possible there exists a pirate whose jail sentence may make the world a better place? ( I know the pop hacker belief is this doesn't happen, but I've yet to meet a hacker that has reviewed the peer reviewed literature on it, so don't retort without checking empirical evidence. I'll post but one paper below). The reason various mob like groups turn to piracy is that pirated products have value and have very often have high profit margins, so piracy becomes a very profitable business. A group willing to do this illegally is often willing to do other high-profit risky and illegal activity. [1] https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9417.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9417.html

bleepblorp 6y ago

A basic principle of economics is elasticity of demand, which means that people will buy more of something if it's cheaper and less of something if it's more expensive. Piracy "loss" estimates from publishing cartels pretend that elasticity of demand does not exist and assume that anyone who would copy an intangible good at a price of $0 would pay whatever price the publishing cartel demanded if the $0 option was not available. While this may be true in the very narrow case of monopoly software products used by businesses in their line of trade, it's absolutely not true for commodity consumer goods. Very, very few people who have collected a few thousand movies (etc), at a price of $0, would have anywhere as large a collection if they were forced to pay cartel prices for each title. At the absolute best, the cartel belief that they are entitled to full profits from every copy made is in complete ignorance of several hundred years of economic theory. At worst, it's a lie. Anti-piracy enforcement is not about profit. It's about being vindictive for its own sake.