14 ms·

You're stealing income, specifically from me and all of my coworkers. Perhaps you think that you're only stealing from Producers and A list actors, but there ar

You're stealing income, specifically from me and all of my coworkers. Perhaps you think that you're only stealing from Producers and A list actors, but there are entire departments that receive residuals on a production. - On screen performers, stunt performers like myself and actors who grind out a comfortable living. Those residuals also go to qualifying for health insurance through earnings. You are directly stealing from my ability to provide health insurance to my family. - Assistant Directors, who are saints dealing with every logistical problem imaginable. The best of them only work 1-2 movies a year because the workload causes severe burnout. - The Union themselves! The more money that flows through the union, the more powerful they are. The more safer movie sets become and the better life is provided for the workforce that makes your entertainment. - Yourself! You are reducing the value of producing quality TV and Movies by stealing them. Every time one a show is pirated, there is less incentive to spend more money on an entertainment spectacle. Go check out my imdb and see how many of my credits you've watched https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1968249/ https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1968249/ For every show imagine that it's a nickel you stole from my income. WOuldn't be surprised if you took a buck or two out of mine. Now multiply that by all the on screen performers and ADs and others I mentioned. Now multiply that all the people who steal like you. You're directly responsible for sucking the quality of life away from people who make your entertainment and reducing the desire to make things you enjoy. You're going to end up with shows that are AI generated CGI sponsored by Mt. Dew and Chevy trucks. Stop stealing our shit.

rambambram 4y ago
Impressive list of movies! And a very good point you make. NB: Your website loads pretty slow for me (I'm in Europe), and the video on the homepage is unavailable, it says.
- Stunting 4y ago
  Thank you, It's long overdue to update. I appreciate the bump
  - mech422 4y ago
    Yeah - I have to admit, I was impressed with your list of credits... I live under a rock and haven't seen many of them, but I really enjoyed 'The Accountant' and I'm a sucker for anything Spiderman/Marvel
    - Stunting 4y ago
      The Acct was heavily provided by now Action Director Sam Hargrave, and you should look through his credits. He's most well known for Extraction on Netflix, but he's been doing it for a while. If you liked Acct, you'll probably like the other stuff he did before he was well known outside of our circle.
      - mech422 4y ago
        oh - Thanks!
  - rambambram 4y ago
    We're on HN, so you probably know your way around websites. But let me know if I can help you with an 'internet friendly' website (quick loading, no third party code, stats without tracking, clear layout, beautiful styles, easy editing, and more).
californical 4y ago
Is it really stealing if they wouldn’t have ever paid for it in the first place? If it’s not easy to find and use on a subscription service that I already have, I’m just not gonna try to search for it or pay for it. What difference would it make if I pirated it and watched it anyways? (FWIW I personally don’t pirate anything, I just really don’t see the merit to the “stealing” argument)
- Stunting 4y ago
  Yes it is really stealing. You want something. You don't want to pay for it. You take it without paying. That's stealing. If you really truly didn't want to watch it, you wouldn't steal it.
  - dml2135 4y ago
    You don't take it, you make a new, identical copy of it, leaving any previously existing copy intact.
    - Stunting 4y ago
      I'll go into your mailbox and take your paycheck. I'll provide you with a new identical copy of it. I'll leave the previous existing copy intact, but in my possession. Which one of us gets to deposit the money?
      - JamesBarney 4y ago
        You're copying the check but stealing the money. The money and the check are not the same thing. If I copy your car key and use it to steal your car. I've copied the key but stolen your car.
        Stunting 4y ago
        You're copying the entertainment value provided and stealing the income that is related to that value.
al_ak 4y ago
It's literally not the job of consumers to provide for your income. That may be a harsh lesson, but it's true.
- Stunting 4y ago
  This literally how the financial system is set up. Consumers provide money to a workforce that provides good and services that society enjoys. In turn, that workforce consumes goods and services providing income to a different workforce. When you steal cool stuff, cool stuff stops getting made.
- bin_bash 4y ago
  It's literally the job of consumers to pay for the things they consume.
  - sgtnoodle 4y ago
    That's the expectation perhaps, but that's not what "job" means.
    - Stunting 4y ago
      It's the definition. Not paying for redefines one to being a thief.
      - sgtnoodle 4y ago
        That's a rather extreme definition of what a job is, in my opinion.
delusional 4y ago
Whatever chief executive that decided to create their own streaming platform for a price that's too high is stealing your money. They are the ones that made it more convenient to pirate.
- Stunting 4y ago
  Ah, now that is a point. I don't expect consumers to take on my personal union politics. That is the duty of the workforce and their union.. Which is more powerful if consumers don't steal money out of their pocket. Pay for cool things and you'll get more cool things.
  - samstave 4y ago
    Make "cool things" overly priced, especially in a fucked up inflationary market manipulated by corruption and influence, where for the last several years everything costs more which is tangible and required to survive, (food, shelter, transport, employment) Then the ephemeral luxuries, such as entertainment, begin to take a more relaxed position on our moral compass when one compares paying for entertainment services, vs, using funds for food.
    - Stunting 4y ago
      To you. The service I provide to society is entertainment. Perhaps in the dystopian sand planet of the future that won't hold much value but right now on Today's earth, entertainment is a service that is valued by society. In the future, I suspect we'll still have storytellers for the same reason we do today. To Inspire, educate, and entertain. I cannot envision society with zero entertainment.
    - Kye 4y ago
      I went looking for a la carte options for all the Star Treks. They really want almost $50 per season for DS9, a show that premiered almost 30 years ago. There's just no reasonable way to justify that but greed. I can't believe people like Stunting actually see much of that ~$50, and I think they're here fighting over people not giving them their scraps when there's no guarantee people are making a choice between paying $50, paying $10 to Paramount, or downloading a copy ("pirating" IP is a made up concept no one uses outside the world of RIAA, MPAA, and similar).
ProAm 4y ago
> Stop stealing our shit. While I agree with your sentiment, you can also make a better product. This is an easy fix with some of the smartest minds in the industry. People showed Netflix early on they were willing to PAY for ease of use.
- JohnTHaller 4y ago
  You're responding to a stuntperson who, unfortunately, has no control over the distribution of the product they worked on.
  - Stunting 4y ago
    Yet. I do have minor creative input depending on the production. When an audience shows they enjoy something I am able to argue more fiercly to include a similar thing into the next one. And someday I'll be makign my own productions.
  - ProAm 4y ago
    > You're responding to a stuntperson who, unfortunately, has no control over the distribution of the product they worked on. And he is yelling at us, which also have no control, he should be yelling at the people he works for that do have control.
    - Stunting 4y ago
      - ProAm 4y ago
        :) I know you're not yelling, more figure of speech. (did not mean to offend) But this is on HN where we allow pay-wall bypassing for all articles (which is also theft) so you wont get sympathy there. Like I said I agree with your sentiment, its just not the way to fix it. And I dont think it's a difficult problem to solve, especially from an extremely profitable and rich company.
- 4y ago
isatty 4y ago
Well then let us pay for shit in a convenient way. Like OP said, if there’s something like steam or Spotify then I’d gladly pay for it. I still rent movies weekly on AppleTV because it’s a convenient experience. Geo gating, shitty compression and making us choose between n apps is not the way. Also, we’re going to end up with shitty generated content regardless of my $10. If you’re making strong statements like OP is stealing from _you_, then go advocate for change. You’re in the industry.
- Stunting 4y ago
  you are able to pay for individual film and tv shows right now through Amazon and Apple, i'm sure others. I do advocate for change, within my own union. Today I am educating consumers on who exactly they are stealing from when they pirate shows.
  - CodeMage 4y ago
    Every single show or movie I wanted to watch over the last year has been an exclusive to some streaming service or other. Amazon used to let me buy anything, and the Prime was there to entice me so I don't have to pay for individual catalog items, but that's not the case anymore. Now I have a choice between: 1. paying for a crapton of streaming services so I can watch a handful of things I'd like 2. pirating 3. not watching most of the stuff I think I would like to watch I'm not picking option 1 for what I hope are obvious reasons. I really don't want to pick option 2 because I empathize with people like you, who would be affected by that. For the moment, I'm picking option 3. However, if you really want to "educate consumers", you might be more successful if you change your tone so it doesn't sound like aggressive victim-blaming. People like you and people like me are being screwed by a third group.
    - Stunting 4y ago
      I appreciate you not pirating. You are only being screwed if you think you are entitled to the entertainment. You are not. You have an option to pay for the service as offered, steal it, or move on. Entertainment abounds in our society and is readily available at little to no cost all around you via local theater, open mic nights, libraries, etc. The connivence of having that entertainment pumped directly on demand to your home is a luxury that has a certain value to it. Currently that luxury is available via paying for the service or stealing it. The theft is relatively low risk, even by hilariously paying for a services that help hide your theft. That's the number one reason these services are being stolen.
christophilus 4y ago
I don't pirate (out of principle), but I also basically don't stream because I'm a Linux user and your streaming platforms suck big fat ones. If you want people to "stop stealing our shit", you should really address how crappy the distribution system is. - Can't get it in __ country - Can only watch it on __ closed-source devices - Can't watch it offline - A is only available on platform 1, B is only on platform 2, and I don't want either crappy platform Anyway, as I said, I don't really watch movies much anymore, and haven't seen any of the ones on your IMDB page, I mostly play games or read books these days, but I'd probably watch more if the distribution system was better.
- Stunting 4y ago
  This is a valid complaint. I would tell you that on the many streaming services available for free like youtube, vimeo, etc. There is probably a small filmmaker who is making the type of show you enjoy. Finding them, providing value by first clicks and shares and eventually with income as they grow will encourage more filmmakers to make things you like.
- servilio 4y ago
  Add: - Can't get it with subtitles/dub in _ language
ashayh 4y ago
| You're going to end up with shows that are AI generated CGI sponsored by Mt. Dew and Chevy trucks. As opposed to movies/shows already high on CGI with poor and rehashed storylines, and whitewashed to cater to CCP censorship?
- Stunting 4y ago
  Yes. It will get worse. Support the type of content you want and you'll see more.
dml2135 4y ago
> Every time one a show is pirated, there is less incentive to spend more money on an entertainment spectacle. I'm fine with this. Some of the best movies ever were made in the 70s, after the Hollywood studio system collapsed and a ton of money was sucked out of the industry.
threwsacompany 4y ago
And you are stealing people's attention spans. Which is more criminal?!
- Stunting 4y ago
  :D
Tao331 4y ago
I think your real anger should be directed at the studios that aren't fairly structuring your benefits and compensation, as well as the union that is not getting these for you.
- Stunting 4y ago
  My real and passionate anger is directed constructively at those entities. Today I am providing a face and a name to people who think "piracy isn't stealing"
hypertele-Xii 4y ago
Uh huh, I'll stop stealing from you when you stop stealing from me. Advertizements everywhere stealing my attention, public space, and landscape beauty. Stealth taxes on empty hard drives and other storage media. Hardware-destroying rootkits and other malware (lost a DVD drive to DRM, will you reimburse me?). Draconian control mechanisms and lobbying stealing my control of the devices I own. Mountains upon mountains of disposable plastic promotional crap stealing my planet and ecosystem. I'm not stealing from you. I'm extracting some small reparation for the many toxic behaviors your industry engages in. When you start offering an honest product I'll start honest buying. And I do - I pay more combined to good people producing good content via Patreon than a monthly Netflix subscription.
- Stunting 4y ago
  You, personally, are stealing from my income. All those issues you raise are valid and important issues to address. Stealing because those things make you angry makes you part of the problem.
  - michaelmrose 4y ago
    The world is full of problems. We are looking at actual massive potentially civilization or species ending issues in the large and dealing with trying to make a living, manage illness, deal with death, parenting in the small. If you live in a big city you probably walk by people in the street slowly dying from a drawn out form of suicide because you can't possible change all their lives on your way to the grocery store or coffee shop and people at large are choosing to do the same with your income stream. They opt to deal with problems more important and more personal than fixing the way in which culture is monetized so as to funnel slightly more money to rich folks who could do more for society as soylent green in hopes that a few extra bucks will stick to the hands of useful folks like yourself. For myself I'm not angry nor do I have any intention of fixing the problem because nobody with any decision making power gives two shits what my opinion on anything is. I have monetarily in life about nothing and indeed will have nothing tomorrow and the next day. You feel like people are violating the social contract by not paying for multimedia. Part of your problem is that you even believe that we are part of the same society or share the same ethics. We really aren't. I am not the benefactor of the current situation nor do I have any meaningful power to negotiate new ground rules or even enforce existing ones so rejection makes worlds more sense. You say stop downloading and I hear enjoy poverty but with fewer books, music, movies, games. I wont actually be supporting the folks you mentioned to any greater degree but you will find such more ethically palatable. HALF of America is sharing 12% of the income. We don't have anything but you can stick a $200 PC and plug it into a $20 monitor and courtesy of a $10 internet essentials package download as many books music movies shows as you can possibly consume. I don't feel like making my shitty life shittier in order for you to feel better. Artificial scarcity is a dumb way to run a society and its not my fault the people with all the money in this society have chosen it.
sleepybrett 4y ago
When I lend a physical dvd to my friend is that stealing?
- Stunting 4y ago
  Did you purchase, rent, or legally borrow the physical dvd? When you lend it out, are you still able to enjoy the entertainment service provided by the dvd? The answers to these questions are the answers to your questions.
digisign 4y ago
When you work for the devil, don't be surprised to become collateral damage. Thinking of all the stealing they've done from the public domain it makes my blood boil. Charging top dollar for artists work that have been dead for decades is a disgrace. How about "stealing" from the public and renting it out in perpetuity... Winnie the Pooh, anyone?
- brewdad 4y ago
  Why are you consuming the goods provided by "Satan"?
- Stunting 4y ago
  "I steal from you because I find your parent company morally reprehensible, yet I would still like to enjoy the services provided by that company." Hell of a position.
  - digisign 4y ago
    Most of the money goes to the top, and if you are going to throw around inaccurate/loaded terms like stealing, two can play at that game. 1%ers take a larger slice of the pie than street thugs but we are misdirected and situation quietly swept under the rug.
danielovichdk 4y ago
How much money do you make per movie ? Honest question
- Stunting 4y ago
  I don't give out exact income on the internet. Our base pay is daily rate governed through SAG-Aftra CBA with the Producer's guild and scaled off the budget of the production. Then there are OT factors and bumps that go along with how difficult the particular work is.
rjbwork 4y ago
I, and nobody I know, has pirated games or music since Steam blew up about 12-15 years ago and Spotify/RDIO and similar blew up about 10 years ago. There was about a decade when Netflix went full in on online streaming and was offering a fantastic service for a reasonable price with a far superior experience to piracy. That is no longer the case, and the unbundling to now a dozen+ of subscriptions is driving pretty much all my techie friends back to movie/tv piracy. I personally don't really watch much TV and might watch one or two movies a year, so I'll just not watch anything. I've already cancelled my Netflix subscription about a year ago, and I prefer playing video games and reading books anyway. Until your industry can offer a product experience that is superior to piracy, people are going to pirate. The games and music industries have largely solved this problem. When will yours?
- Stunting 4y ago
  Sure you're talking about economical motivators, which I hope and fight for our Union to adjust to. Until then tho..a person who steals from a moral high ground is still a thief stealing from my income.
  - rjbwork 4y ago
    No, it's not economic at all. You've repeatedly failed to grasp this in this entire comments section. It's about convenience. It is actually more convenient to pirate the handful of movies or TV shows people want to watch than to maintain a dozen subscriptions or activate just the one for the handful of shows or movies they want to watch at any given time. Steam and Spotify have made it incredibly simple to just get what you want without having to juggle or manage any kind of bullshit.
    - Stunting 4y ago
      It is very convenient to steal. You fail to grasp that still constitutes theft.
      - rjbwork 4y ago
kmeisthax 4y ago
Ugh. Never before have I seen a comment that I've agreed with so much but also wanted to yell at at the same time. To put it really bluntly, pointing out how piracy is easier than paying again is not literally stealing money out of your pocket. The whole "lost sales" and "stolen income" thing doesn't always hold water, because you can't measure all the counterfactuals involved. A lot of pirates are either just data hoarders or collectors, and you aren't really in price competition with piracy as long as you are even slightly more convenient than it. Yes, that actually used to be the case for movies and TV shows, back when you could get access to everything you could ever want to watch just by subscribing to Netflix or maybe Hulu. Piracy was actually going away, right up until everyone pulled their content from Netflix to try and grab a larger slice of a smaller pie. However, I don't want to actually trash your point too hard, because you did touch upon something worth talking about. I have noticed in HN and in other engineer-oriented spaces a certain contempt for the creative working class. I call it "kill and eat everyone below the talent line". There's this weird meme that came about around the same time that the RIAA was indiscriminately suing casual pirates. Back then, some artists - usually ones at the start of their careers or doing it as a hobby - were distributing content over the Internet for free. In fact, some of them were even able to make money off of it through crowdfunding or advertisements without directly demanding payment to read, listen, or watch their work. So people made this assumption that this business model would be both sustainable long-term and scalable to large productions. Ergo, copyright is just an artifice of history, we can just abolish it, and the "real artists" will prosper while publishers and middlemen are out of a job.[0] The problem is that "real artists" covers both the Toby Foxes of the world just as well as the Temmie Changs. Abolishing copyright beggars the songwriter in the name of the singer. A-list actors would actually survive and thrive in a crowdfunding-only market, because they have the name recognition to do so. But all the other people who support them would see their income shrink. And producers and publishers would just turn into the absolute worst kind of scummy for-sale pirates you could think of.[1] The thing about piracy is that we as tinkerers and hobbyists assume it works exactly the same for everyone else as it does for us. I.e. me and my 10,000 friends all trade files around for free. Yes, a lot of pirates are data hoarders and collectors, but there's an entire world of bootlegs and knockoffs outside of the world of BitTorrent. For-profit piracy is far more pernicious than just the person with a Plex server, and it comes in a lot of forms you wouldn't even expect. For example, when Facebook launched their video service, there was an entire cottage industry of people reuploading YouTube videos and monetizing them on Facebook. This is the sort of thing that individual filesharers would not even recognize as piracy, but is absolutely immoral and wrong, and does pull nickels and dimes out of artists' pockets. [0] The counterargument I'm making against copyright abolitionism does not apply to other things like shortening the length of copyright terms or adding more exceptions to it. Those at least still allow the existence of a creative working class. [1] Fun fact: lousy speedsubbing jobs aren't just for modern anime pirates. Before we had international copyright, it was common for publishers to just take books published in other countries, translate themselves, and sell them before the original author could.
BonoboIO 4y ago
What a coincidence, I finished „no sudden move“ seconds ago.
- Stunting 4y ago
  oh rad. I had an amazing time watching Soderbergh literally operate a camera above my recently deceased body. It was spiritual.
gernb 4y ago
I'm super sympathetic that someone is not paying for you for the time you spent making the content (me, also a content creator) But, just a suggestion, you need to find a better way to put your message. As long as you call it theft / stealing you're going to get lots of push back because copying a movie is not the same as stealing/theft so instead of making your point you'll mostly get arguments about definitions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeTybKL1pM4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeTybKL1pM4
jorams 4y ago
There's two (relevant) kinds of consumers here: Those who want access and those who want ownership. Netflix was on a path to successfully serve the first kind, the only remaining problems being region locking and an incomplete catalog. Demand for piracy went down. Then the industry got greedy, made one of those remaining problems much, much worse, and now the demand for piracy is on the rise again. The industry spends a lot of resources making life worse for the second kind, in a misguided attempt to both satisfy them and fully prevent the possibility of piracy. Instead they fail at both. The result is an increased demand for piracy. > You're directly responsible for sucking the quality of life away from people who make your entertainment and reducing the desire to make things you enjoy. You're going to end up with shows that are AI generated CGI sponsored by Mt. Dew and Chevy trucks. So here's the problem: The only way I can spend money to encourage the production of content I want is to buy a terrible, abusive product I don't want. It only plays in 720p, it's only available through a shitty app, it may disappear from the platform it's on any time. All of it is just a wrapper for content. Please sell me the content. Whatever file comes out at the end of the production process, sell it to me. Instead I spend my money in other places. Streamers on Twitch want it. YouTubers want it. People on Patreon want it. Developers want it. Somehow they manage not to abuse the people willing to give them money.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
joemi 4y ago
Thanks for speaking up about this from a perspective not often seen here on HN. It's really pretty weird that someone needs to explain to so many people that media piracy affects actual working people.
Krasnol 4y ago
Wow I thought 2022 nobody would still be so 90s in this regard. Most of those who pirate, wouldn't pay and since the content is not going away because somebody pirates it, it can't be stealing. And Jesus...please...it's not like you're starving out there. Start producing original stories. We don't even need all that fancy and expensive CGI crap. Just start writing properly and in a creative way. Pay THOSE people more IF they deliver (though I'm not sure anymore if you really understand what's missing here with all your sequels and remakes...). We're not the audience you should cry to, go to those managers who messed up that market so piracy is coming back again.
- rjbwork 4y ago
  > Wow I thought 2022 nobody would still be so 90s in this regard. “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” Although in this case, I have to imagine that first understanding the problem would enable the industry to fix itself and then make more money.
cwkoss 4y ago
It's not stealing if they wouldn't have paid for it otherwise.
gsk22 4y ago
Direct your anger at your employer for not offering a product the market desires -- rather than at consumers who resort to piracy because the legal route is expensive, inconvenient, or nonexistent.

rambambram 4y ago

Impressive list of movies! And a very good point you make. NB: Your website loads pretty slow for me (I'm in Europe), and the video on the homepage is unavailable, it says.

Stunting 4y ago
Thank you, It's long overdue to update. I appreciate the bump
- mech422 4y ago
  Yeah - I have to admit, I was impressed with your list of credits... I live under a rock and haven't seen many of them, but I really enjoyed 'The Accountant' and I'm a sucker for anything Spiderman/Marvel
  - Stunting 4y ago
    The Acct was heavily provided by now Action Director Sam Hargrave, and you should look through his credits. He's most well known for Extraction on Netflix, but he's been doing it for a while. If you liked Acct, you'll probably like the other stuff he did before he was well known outside of our circle.
    - mech422 4y ago
      oh - Thanks!
- rambambram 4y ago
  We're on HN, so you probably know your way around websites. But let me know if I can help you with an 'internet friendly' website (quick loading, no third party code, stats without tracking, clear layout, beautiful styles, easy editing, and more).

californical 4y ago

Is it really stealing if they wouldn’t have ever paid for it in the first place? If it’s not easy to find and use on a subscription service that I already have, I’m just not gonna try to search for it or pay for it. What difference would it make if I pirated it and watched it anyways? (FWIW I personally don’t pirate anything, I just really don’t see the merit to the “stealing” argument)

Stunting 4y ago
Yes it is really stealing. You want something. You don't want to pay for it. You take it without paying. That's stealing. If you really truly didn't want to watch it, you wouldn't steal it.
- dml2135 4y ago
  You don't take it, you make a new, identical copy of it, leaving any previously existing copy intact.
  - Stunting 4y ago
    I'll go into your mailbox and take your paycheck. I'll provide you with a new identical copy of it. I'll leave the previous existing copy intact, but in my possession. Which one of us gets to deposit the money?
    - JamesBarney 4y ago
      You're copying the check but stealing the money. The money and the check are not the same thing. If I copy your car key and use it to steal your car. I've copied the key but stolen your car.
      - Stunting 4y ago
        You're copying the entertainment value provided and stealing the income that is related to that value.

al_ak 4y ago

It's literally not the job of consumers to provide for your income. That may be a harsh lesson, but it's true.

Stunting 4y ago
This literally how the financial system is set up. Consumers provide money to a workforce that provides good and services that society enjoys. In turn, that workforce consumes goods and services providing income to a different workforce. When you steal cool stuff, cool stuff stops getting made.
bin_bash 4y ago
It's literally the job of consumers to pay for the things they consume.
- sgtnoodle 4y ago
  That's the expectation perhaps, but that's not what "job" means.
  - Stunting 4y ago
    It's the definition. Not paying for redefines one to being a thief.
    - sgtnoodle 4y ago
      That's a rather extreme definition of what a job is, in my opinion.

delusional 4y ago

Whatever chief executive that decided to create their own streaming platform for a price that's too high is stealing your money. They are the ones that made it more convenient to pirate.

Stunting 4y ago
Ah, now that is a point. I don't expect consumers to take on my personal union politics. That is the duty of the workforce and their union.. Which is more powerful if consumers don't steal money out of their pocket. Pay for cool things and you'll get more cool things.
- samstave 4y ago
  Make "cool things" overly priced, especially in a fucked up inflationary market manipulated by corruption and influence, where for the last several years everything costs more which is tangible and required to survive, (food, shelter, transport, employment) Then the ephemeral luxuries, such as entertainment, begin to take a more relaxed position on our moral compass when one compares paying for entertainment services, vs, using funds for food.
  - Stunting 4y ago
    To you. The service I provide to society is entertainment. Perhaps in the dystopian sand planet of the future that won't hold much value but right now on Today's earth, entertainment is a service that is valued by society. In the future, I suspect we'll still have storytellers for the same reason we do today. To Inspire, educate, and entertain. I cannot envision society with zero entertainment.
  - Kye 4y ago
    I went looking for a la carte options for all the Star Treks. They really want almost $50 per season for DS9, a show that premiered almost 30 years ago. There's just no reasonable way to justify that but greed. I can't believe people like Stunting actually see much of that ~$50, and I think they're here fighting over people not giving them their scraps when there's no guarantee people are making a choice between paying $50, paying $10 to Paramount, or downloading a copy ("pirating" IP is a made up concept no one uses outside the world of RIAA, MPAA, and similar).

ProAm 4y ago

> Stop stealing our shit. While I agree with your sentiment, you can also make a better product. This is an easy fix with some of the smartest minds in the industry. People showed Netflix early on they were willing to PAY for ease of use.

JohnTHaller 4y ago
You're responding to a stuntperson who, unfortunately, has no control over the distribution of the product they worked on.
- Stunting 4y ago
  Yet. I do have minor creative input depending on the production. When an audience shows they enjoy something I am able to argue more fiercly to include a similar thing into the next one. And someday I'll be makign my own productions.
- ProAm 4y ago
  > You're responding to a stuntperson who, unfortunately, has no control over the distribution of the product they worked on. And he is yelling at us, which also have no control, he should be yelling at the people he works for that do have control.
  - Stunting 4y ago
    - ProAm 4y ago
      :) I know you're not yelling, more figure of speech. (did not mean to offend) But this is on HN where we allow pay-wall bypassing for all articles (which is also theft) so you wont get sympathy there. Like I said I agree with your sentiment, its just not the way to fix it. And I dont think it's a difficult problem to solve, especially from an extremely profitable and rich company.
4y ago

isatty 4y ago

Well then let us pay for shit in a convenient way. Like OP said, if there’s something like steam or Spotify then I’d gladly pay for it. I still rent movies weekly on AppleTV because it’s a convenient experience. Geo gating, shitty compression and making us choose between n apps is not the way. Also, we’re going to end up with shitty generated content regardless of my $10. If you’re making strong statements like OP is stealing from _you_, then go advocate for change. You’re in the industry.

Stunting 4y ago
you are able to pay for individual film and tv shows right now through Amazon and Apple, i'm sure others. I do advocate for change, within my own union. Today I am educating consumers on who exactly they are stealing from when they pirate shows.
- CodeMage 4y ago
  Every single show or movie I wanted to watch over the last year has been an exclusive to some streaming service or other. Amazon used to let me buy anything, and the Prime was there to entice me so I don't have to pay for individual catalog items, but that's not the case anymore. Now I have a choice between: 1. paying for a crapton of streaming services so I can watch a handful of things I'd like 2. pirating 3. not watching most of the stuff I think I would like to watch I'm not picking option 1 for what I hope are obvious reasons. I really don't want to pick option 2 because I empathize with people like you, who would be affected by that. For the moment, I'm picking option 3. However, if you really want to "educate consumers", you might be more successful if you change your tone so it doesn't sound like aggressive victim-blaming. People like you and people like me are being screwed by a third group.
  - Stunting 4y ago
    I appreciate you not pirating. You are only being screwed if you think you are entitled to the entertainment. You are not. You have an option to pay for the service as offered, steal it, or move on. Entertainment abounds in our society and is readily available at little to no cost all around you via local theater, open mic nights, libraries, etc. The connivence of having that entertainment pumped directly on demand to your home is a luxury that has a certain value to it. Currently that luxury is available via paying for the service or stealing it. The theft is relatively low risk, even by hilariously paying for a services that help hide your theft. That's the number one reason these services are being stolen.

christophilus 4y ago

I don't pirate (out of principle), but I also basically don't stream because I'm a Linux user and your streaming platforms suck big fat ones. If you want people to "stop stealing our shit", you should really address how crappy the distribution system is. - Can't get it in __ country - Can only watch it on __ closed-source devices - Can't watch it offline - A is only available on platform 1, B is only on platform 2, and I don't want either crappy platform Anyway, as I said, I don't really watch movies much anymore, and haven't seen any of the ones on your IMDB page, I mostly play games or read books these days, but I'd probably watch more if the distribution system was better.

Stunting 4y ago
This is a valid complaint. I would tell you that on the many streaming services available for free like youtube, vimeo, etc. There is probably a small filmmaker who is making the type of show you enjoy. Finding them, providing value by first clicks and shares and eventually with income as they grow will encourage more filmmakers to make things you like.
servilio 4y ago
Add: - Can't get it with subtitles/dub in _ language

ashayh 4y ago

| You're going to end up with shows that are AI generated CGI sponsored by Mt. Dew and Chevy trucks. As opposed to movies/shows already high on CGI with poor and rehashed storylines, and whitewashed to cater to CCP censorship?

Stunting 4y ago
Yes. It will get worse. Support the type of content you want and you'll see more.

dml2135 4y ago

> Every time one a show is pirated, there is less incentive to spend more money on an entertainment spectacle. I'm fine with this. Some of the best movies ever were made in the 70s, after the Hollywood studio system collapsed and a ton of money was sucked out of the industry.

threwsacompany 4y ago

And you are stealing people's attention spans. Which is more criminal?!

Stunting 4y ago
:D

Tao331 4y ago

I think your real anger should be directed at the studios that aren't fairly structuring your benefits and compensation, as well as the union that is not getting these for you.

Stunting 4y ago
My real and passionate anger is directed constructively at those entities. Today I am providing a face and a name to people who think "piracy isn't stealing"

hypertele-Xii 4y ago

Uh huh, I'll stop stealing from you when you stop stealing from me. Advertizements everywhere stealing my attention, public space, and landscape beauty. Stealth taxes on empty hard drives and other storage media. Hardware-destroying rootkits and other malware (lost a DVD drive to DRM, will you reimburse me?). Draconian control mechanisms and lobbying stealing my control of the devices I own. Mountains upon mountains of disposable plastic promotional crap stealing my planet and ecosystem. I'm not stealing from you. I'm extracting some small reparation for the many toxic behaviors your industry engages in. When you start offering an honest product I'll start honest buying. And I do - I pay more combined to good people producing good content via Patreon than a monthly Netflix subscription.

Stunting 4y ago
You, personally, are stealing from my income. All those issues you raise are valid and important issues to address. Stealing because those things make you angry makes you part of the problem.
- michaelmrose 4y ago
  The world is full of problems. We are looking at actual massive potentially civilization or species ending issues in the large and dealing with trying to make a living, manage illness, deal with death, parenting in the small. If you live in a big city you probably walk by people in the street slowly dying from a drawn out form of suicide because you can't possible change all their lives on your way to the grocery store or coffee shop and people at large are choosing to do the same with your income stream. They opt to deal with problems more important and more personal than fixing the way in which culture is monetized so as to funnel slightly more money to rich folks who could do more for society as soylent green in hopes that a few extra bucks will stick to the hands of useful folks like yourself. For myself I'm not angry nor do I have any intention of fixing the problem because nobody with any decision making power gives two shits what my opinion on anything is. I have monetarily in life about nothing and indeed will have nothing tomorrow and the next day. You feel like people are violating the social contract by not paying for multimedia. Part of your problem is that you even believe that we are part of the same society or share the same ethics. We really aren't. I am not the benefactor of the current situation nor do I have any meaningful power to negotiate new ground rules or even enforce existing ones so rejection makes worlds more sense. You say stop downloading and I hear enjoy poverty but with fewer books, music, movies, games. I wont actually be supporting the folks you mentioned to any greater degree but you will find such more ethically palatable. HALF of America is sharing 12% of the income. We don't have anything but you can stick a $200 PC and plug it into a $20 monitor and courtesy of a $10 internet essentials package download as many books music movies shows as you can possibly consume. I don't feel like making my shitty life shittier in order for you to feel better. Artificial scarcity is a dumb way to run a society and its not my fault the people with all the money in this society have chosen it.

sleepybrett 4y ago

When I lend a physical dvd to my friend is that stealing?

Stunting 4y ago
Did you purchase, rent, or legally borrow the physical dvd? When you lend it out, are you still able to enjoy the entertainment service provided by the dvd? The answers to these questions are the answers to your questions.

digisign 4y ago

When you work for the devil, don't be surprised to become collateral damage. Thinking of all the stealing they've done from the public domain it makes my blood boil. Charging top dollar for artists work that have been dead for decades is a disgrace. How about "stealing" from the public and renting it out in perpetuity... Winnie the Pooh, anyone?

brewdad 4y ago
Why are you consuming the goods provided by "Satan"?
Stunting 4y ago
"I steal from you because I find your parent company morally reprehensible, yet I would still like to enjoy the services provided by that company." Hell of a position.
- digisign 4y ago
  Most of the money goes to the top, and if you are going to throw around inaccurate/loaded terms like stealing, two can play at that game. 1%ers take a larger slice of the pie than street thugs but we are misdirected and situation quietly swept under the rug.

danielovichdk 4y ago

How much money do you make per movie ? Honest question

Stunting 4y ago
I don't give out exact income on the internet. Our base pay is daily rate governed through SAG-Aftra CBA with the Producer's guild and scaled off the budget of the production. Then there are OT factors and bumps that go along with how difficult the particular work is.

rjbwork 4y ago

I, and nobody I know, has pirated games or music since Steam blew up about 12-15 years ago and Spotify/RDIO and similar blew up about 10 years ago. There was about a decade when Netflix went full in on online streaming and was offering a fantastic service for a reasonable price with a far superior experience to piracy. That is no longer the case, and the unbundling to now a dozen+ of subscriptions is driving pretty much all my techie friends back to movie/tv piracy. I personally don't really watch much TV and might watch one or two movies a year, so I'll just not watch anything. I've already cancelled my Netflix subscription about a year ago, and I prefer playing video games and reading books anyway. Until your industry can offer a product experience that is superior to piracy, people are going to pirate. The games and music industries have largely solved this problem. When will yours?

Stunting 4y ago
Sure you're talking about economical motivators, which I hope and fight for our Union to adjust to. Until then tho..a person who steals from a moral high ground is still a thief stealing from my income.
- rjbwork 4y ago
  No, it's not economic at all. You've repeatedly failed to grasp this in this entire comments section. It's about convenience. It is actually more convenient to pirate the handful of movies or TV shows people want to watch than to maintain a dozen subscriptions or activate just the one for the handful of shows or movies they want to watch at any given time. Steam and Spotify have made it incredibly simple to just get what you want without having to juggle or manage any kind of bullshit.
  - Stunting 4y ago
    It is very convenient to steal. You fail to grasp that still constitutes theft.
    - rjbwork 4y ago

kmeisthax 4y ago

Ugh. Never before have I seen a comment that I've agreed with so much but also wanted to yell at at the same time. To put it really bluntly, pointing out how piracy is easier than paying again is not literally stealing money out of your pocket. The whole "lost sales" and "stolen income" thing doesn't always hold water, because you can't measure all the counterfactuals involved. A lot of pirates are either just data hoarders or collectors, and you aren't really in price competition with piracy as long as you are even slightly more convenient than it. Yes, that actually used to be the case for movies and TV shows, back when you could get access to everything you could ever want to watch just by subscribing to Netflix or maybe Hulu. Piracy was actually going away, right up until everyone pulled their content from Netflix to try and grab a larger slice of a smaller pie. However, I don't want to actually trash your point too hard, because you did touch upon something worth talking about. I have noticed in HN and in other engineer-oriented spaces a certain contempt for the creative working class. I call it "kill and eat everyone below the talent line". There's this weird meme that came about around the same time that the RIAA was indiscriminately suing casual pirates. Back then, some artists - usually ones at the start of their careers or doing it as a hobby - were distributing content over the Internet for free. In fact, some of them were even able to make money off of it through crowdfunding or advertisements without directly demanding payment to read, listen, or watch their work. So people made this assumption that this business model would be both sustainable long-term and scalable to large productions. Ergo, copyright is just an artifice of history, we can just abolish it, and the "real artists" will prosper while publishers and middlemen are out of a job.[0] The problem is that "real artists" covers both the Toby Foxes of the world just as well as the Temmie Changs. Abolishing copyright beggars the songwriter in the name of the singer. A-list actors would actually survive and thrive in a crowdfunding-only market, because they have the name recognition to do so. But all the other people who support them would see their income shrink. And producers and publishers would just turn into the absolute worst kind of scummy for-sale pirates you could think of.[1] The thing about piracy is that we as tinkerers and hobbyists assume it works exactly the same for everyone else as it does for us. I.e. me and my 10,000 friends all trade files around for free. Yes, a lot of pirates are data hoarders and collectors, but there's an entire world of bootlegs and knockoffs outside of the world of BitTorrent. For-profit piracy is far more pernicious than just the person with a Plex server, and it comes in a lot of forms you wouldn't even expect. For example, when Facebook launched their video service, there was an entire cottage industry of people reuploading YouTube videos and monetizing them on Facebook. This is the sort of thing that individual filesharers would not even recognize as piracy, but is absolutely immoral and wrong, and does pull nickels and dimes out of artists' pockets. [0] The counterargument I'm making against copyright abolitionism does not apply to other things like shortening the length of copyright terms or adding more exceptions to it. Those at least still allow the existence of a creative working class. [1] Fun fact: lousy speedsubbing jobs aren't just for modern anime pirates. Before we had international copyright, it was common for publishers to just take books published in other countries, translate themselves, and sell them before the original author could.

BonoboIO 4y ago

What a coincidence, I finished „no sudden move“ seconds ago.

Stunting 4y ago
oh rad. I had an amazing time watching Soderbergh literally operate a camera above my recently deceased body. It was spiritual.

gernb 4y ago

I'm super sympathetic that someone is not paying for you for the time you spent making the content (me, also a content creator) But, just a suggestion, you need to find a better way to put your message. As long as you call it theft / stealing you're going to get lots of push back because copying a movie is not the same as stealing/theft so instead of making your point you'll mostly get arguments about definitions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeTybKL1pM4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeTybKL1pM4

jorams 4y ago

There's two (relevant) kinds of consumers here: Those who want access and those who want ownership. Netflix was on a path to successfully serve the first kind, the only remaining problems being region locking and an incomplete catalog. Demand for piracy went down. Then the industry got greedy, made one of those remaining problems much, much worse, and now the demand for piracy is on the rise again. The industry spends a lot of resources making life worse for the second kind, in a misguided attempt to both satisfy them and fully prevent the possibility of piracy. Instead they fail at both. The result is an increased demand for piracy. > You're directly responsible for sucking the quality of life away from people who make your entertainment and reducing the desire to make things you enjoy. You're going to end up with shows that are AI generated CGI sponsored by Mt. Dew and Chevy trucks. So here's the problem: The only way I can spend money to encourage the production of content I want is to buy a terrible, abusive product I don't want. It only plays in 720p, it's only available through a shitty app, it may disappear from the platform it's on any time. All of it is just a wrapper for content. Please sell me the content. Whatever file comes out at the end of the production process, sell it to me. Instead I spend my money in other places. Streamers on Twitch want it. YouTubers want it. People on Patreon want it. Developers want it. Somehow they manage not to abuse the people willing to give them money.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

joemi 4y ago

Thanks for speaking up about this from a perspective not often seen here on HN. It's really pretty weird that someone needs to explain to so many people that media piracy affects actual working people.

Krasnol 4y ago

Wow I thought 2022 nobody would still be so 90s in this regard. Most of those who pirate, wouldn't pay and since the content is not going away because somebody pirates it, it can't be stealing. And Jesus...please...it's not like you're starving out there. Start producing original stories. We don't even need all that fancy and expensive CGI crap. Just start writing properly and in a creative way. Pay THOSE people more IF they deliver (though I'm not sure anymore if you really understand what's missing here with all your sequels and remakes...). We're not the audience you should cry to, go to those managers who messed up that market so piracy is coming back again.

rjbwork 4y ago
> Wow I thought 2022 nobody would still be so 90s in this regard. “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” Although in this case, I have to imagine that first understanding the problem would enable the industry to fix itself and then make more money.

cwkoss 4y ago

It's not stealing if they wouldn't have paid for it otherwise.

gsk22 4y ago

Direct your anger at your employer for not offering a product the market desires -- rather than at consumers who resort to piracy because the legal route is expensive, inconvenient, or nonexistent.