5 ms·

Many people doesn't realize the value provided by pirate bay. Without sites like piratebay, scihub or libgen only rich privileged people would be able to enjoy

Many people doesn't realize the value provided by pirate bay. Without sites like piratebay, scihub or libgen only rich privileged people would be able to enjoy the fruits. But thanks to sites like them poor people living in any places can enjoy the privilege. I understand there are some downsides like small creators getting destroyed. But as with any technology we know digital piracy has various advantage. Also music, movies etc offered by torrents can be far reliable because Netflix etc can remove content at any minute according to their wish. DRM is the main issue in piracy and I hope we can bypass this easily. And I also think many piracy doesn't have any dent on so called big producers. They are just mad that they can't suck few bucks from poor people.

yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
> I understand there are some downsides like small creators getting destroyed Do they? I was vaguely under the impression that the overwhelming majority of people pirating stuff wouldn't have paid, and that whenever actual studies are run they show piracy benefiting the original creators.
- realusername 5y ago
  Indeed, to my knowledge, nobody ever managed to prove in a proper study that the creators actually lose money with piracy.
  - dane-pgp 5y ago
    To provide a single data point, here[0] is an article about one such study. "EU study finds piracy doesn’t hurt game sales, may actually help. Results suggest a positive effect, but there's a huge margin of error." [0] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/09/eu-study-finds-piracy-doesnt-hurt-game-sales-may-actually-help/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/09/eu-study-finds-piracy...
zionic 5y ago
For me the breaking point was when Netflix removed the entire stargate series. That was a real wake up call for me personally and I canceled my subscription. 100+ TB later…
- Chirael 5y ago
  Yeah, “show I finally have time to watch, isn’t available any more” is really irritating; every time it happens is one more push back to TPB
CuriouslyC 5y ago
Small creators aren't destroyed by piracy, because people who have money generally want to support artists that they like when they feel like that support will actually make a difference to that artist's livelihood, and will allow the artist to keep creating. A perfect example of this is Stardew Valley. I know people who pirate the vast majority of the things they consume, but have purchased multiple copies of that game so they could give it to friends.
- dbbk 5y ago
  Why are small creators inherently more entitled to 'support' than larger creators though? Why do we just decide that at a certain threshold, it's fine to take things for free?
  - matheusmoreira 5y ago
    Small creators don't lobby the government in order to extend copyright duration for the nth time.
    - chii 5y ago
      disney was once a small creator. The thing with double standards is that there's just so many to choose from!
      - mariusor 5y ago
        Maybe we're thinking about different things when we're saying "small creator" but Disney had contracts with Hollywood studios[1] almost from the start. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walt_Disney_Company#1923%E2%80%931928:_Founding_and_silent_film_era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walt_Disney_Company#1923%E...
  - scghost 5y ago
    The value of the money made is relative to how much money the person has. A person going from $0 -> $5 gets more value than a person going from $1,000,000 -> $1,000,005.
_peeley 5y ago
Content preservation is a seriously underrated aspect of piracy. Prior to getting shut down in 2016, what.cd was practically the modern-day Library of Alexandria of music. Literally anything you could ever want to listen to was available in lossless FLAC format, made available by anonymous volunteers purely out of a love of music. Now it's gone, and who knows how much music has been lost to time as a result.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  Shutting down what.cd should be considered a crime against humanity. I will never forgive copyright holders for that.
- jck 5y ago
  I only downloaded a few albums off what.cd since I only had a laptop and bad internet back then and couldn't maintain the ratio their standards demanded. However I gotta say, their content and organization was better than any music library (legal included) that I've ever seen. It is truly a shame that we lost it so the labels thought they could make more money. I would guess that humanity might have lost some rare lossless records.
franciscop 5y ago
> "small creators getting destroyed", "piracy doesn't have any dent on so called big producers" Quite the opposite, one of the very few scientific articles on the topic piracy has been found to help small-mid level artists (but hurt big artists), explanation here: https://torrentfreak.com/piracy-can-help-music-sales-of-many-artists-research-shows-180128/ https://torrentfreak.com/piracy-can-help-music-sales-of-many... For instance and as said in the article artists like Ed Sheeran became popular thanks to piracy among college students.
- garbagecoder 5y ago
  But of a dodgy source. Anyway, Microsoft word and photoshop are only standard because people pirated them.
  - franciscop 5y ago
    What dodgy source? The torrentfreak article is just a rehash of the peer reviewed one, not the source. The European Commission ordered a study on piracy, and not liking the conclusion hid its results for two years. It was only discovered when a part that did show that some piracy hurts sales was quoted, allowing people to dig into the full report and finding that piracy helped games, was neutral on books and music, and was bad for movies: https://www.newsweek.com/secret-piracy-study-european-union-669436 https://www.newsweek.com/secret-piracy-study-european-union-...

yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago

> I understand there are some downsides like small creators getting destroyed Do they? I was vaguely under the impression that the overwhelming majority of people pirating stuff wouldn't have paid, and that whenever actual studies are run they show piracy benefiting the original creators.

realusername 5y ago
Indeed, to my knowledge, nobody ever managed to prove in a proper study that the creators actually lose money with piracy.
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  To provide a single data point, here[0] is an article about one such study. "EU study finds piracy doesn’t hurt game sales, may actually help. Results suggest a positive effect, but there's a huge margin of error." [0] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/09/eu-study-finds-piracy-doesnt-hurt-game-sales-may-actually-help/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/09/eu-study-finds-piracy...

zionic 5y ago

For me the breaking point was when Netflix removed the entire stargate series. That was a real wake up call for me personally and I canceled my subscription. 100+ TB later…

Chirael 5y ago
Yeah, “show I finally have time to watch, isn’t available any more” is really irritating; every time it happens is one more push back to TPB

CuriouslyC 5y ago

Small creators aren't destroyed by piracy, because people who have money generally want to support artists that they like when they feel like that support will actually make a difference to that artist's livelihood, and will allow the artist to keep creating. A perfect example of this is Stardew Valley. I know people who pirate the vast majority of the things they consume, but have purchased multiple copies of that game so they could give it to friends.

dbbk 5y ago
Why are small creators inherently more entitled to 'support' than larger creators though? Why do we just decide that at a certain threshold, it's fine to take things for free?
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  Small creators don't lobby the government in order to extend copyright duration for the nth time.
  - chii 5y ago
    disney was once a small creator. The thing with double standards is that there's just so many to choose from!
    - mariusor 5y ago
      Maybe we're thinking about different things when we're saying "small creator" but Disney had contracts with Hollywood studios[1] almost from the start. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walt_Disney_Company#1923%E2%80%931928:_Founding_and_silent_film_era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walt_Disney_Company#1923%E...
- scghost 5y ago
  The value of the money made is relative to how much money the person has. A person going from $0 -> $5 gets more value than a person going from $1,000,000 -> $1,000,005.

_peeley 5y ago

Content preservation is a seriously underrated aspect of piracy. Prior to getting shut down in 2016, what.cd was practically the modern-day Library of Alexandria of music. Literally anything you could ever want to listen to was available in lossless FLAC format, made available by anonymous volunteers purely out of a love of music. Now it's gone, and who knows how much music has been lost to time as a result.

matheusmoreira 5y ago
Shutting down what.cd should be considered a crime against humanity. I will never forgive copyright holders for that.
jck 5y ago
I only downloaded a few albums off what.cd since I only had a laptop and bad internet back then and couldn't maintain the ratio their standards demanded. However I gotta say, their content and organization was better than any music library (legal included) that I've ever seen. It is truly a shame that we lost it so the labels thought they could make more money. I would guess that humanity might have lost some rare lossless records.

franciscop 5y ago

> "small creators getting destroyed", "piracy doesn't have any dent on so called big producers" Quite the opposite, one of the very few scientific articles on the topic piracy has been found to help small-mid level artists (but hurt big artists), explanation here: https://torrentfreak.com/piracy-can-help-music-sales-of-many-artists-research-shows-180128/ https://torrentfreak.com/piracy-can-help-music-sales-of-many... For instance and as said in the article artists like Ed Sheeran became popular thanks to piracy among college students.

garbagecoder 5y ago
But of a dodgy source. Anyway, Microsoft word and photoshop are only standard because people pirated them.
- franciscop 5y ago
  What dodgy source? The torrentfreak article is just a rehash of the peer reviewed one, not the source. The European Commission ordered a study on piracy, and not liking the conclusion hid its results for two years. It was only discovered when a part that did show that some piracy hurts sales was quoted, allowing people to dig into the full report and finding that piracy helped games, was neutral on books and music, and was bad for movies: https://www.newsweek.com/secret-piracy-study-european-union-669436 https://www.newsweek.com/secret-piracy-study-european-union-...