5 ms·

I used to pirate lots of music when in University but I stopped because currently all music I listen to is on Spotify which is cheap and costs like $4 in my cou

by dielll 4y ago

I used to pirate lots of music when in University but I stopped because currently all music I listen to is on Spotify which is cheap and costs like $4 in my country, even if it was the full $10 I still wouldn't mind paying for it. However, for movies and TV shows I need to pay for like 5 services to get all the movies and TV shows that I need. No way I am paying all those. SO I will keep pirating Movies and TV shows

pbhjpbhj 4y ago
If the big media approach were about paying for content creation then surely we'd have regulations requiring that shows be available to any selling platform willing to pay the per user cost. Instead it's about creating fiefdoms to lock up content and hold tv/movie culture hostage. Copyright laws give commercial interests too much power against media consumers. I guess the only way to win is not too play ...
mattnewton 4y ago
I agree, I think that "pirates" are basically made up of three camps; people who would pay if it was convenient, people who would pay if it was cheaper and people who would never pay anyways. I think the first camp is the largest and the only one really worth going after from a business sense. It's what I think Gabe Newell means when he says "Piracy is a Service problem" https://www.eurogamer.net/newell-stop-piracy-by-offering-superior-service#:~:text=%22One%20thing%20that%20we%20have,re%20receiving%20from%20the%20pirates https://www.eurogamer.net/newell-stop-piracy-by-offering-sup....
- newsclues 4y ago
  I wonder what the split between people that won’t pay are people who don’t have the financial means and people who refuse to pay out of principal.
  - robonerd 4y ago
    Varies greatly from country to country.
- null0pointer 4y ago
  There’s a fourth camp: People who have no other choice because the content has not been made available in their region.
  - mattnewton 4y ago
    True! It's a rather extreme form of inconvenience.
- tbyehl 4y ago
  > Piracy is a Service problem And in the context of video streaming, the service gap keeps widening. Music exists in an alternate universe of IP where no creator or rightsholder truly has exclusive control over anything except commercial distribution of physical media. It's crazy but that's how we got to a place where any streaming or subscription service we choose likely has all the music we want to listen to and piracy stopped being a rational decision. Movies and television don't have that. Netflix thrived for a while as the streaming platform of choice for content owners, but their catalog was never anywhere close to exhaustive. Then there was Hulu for the content owners who didn't want Netflix ruling distribution. And Prime for who-knows-why. And now everyone with exclusive rights to content wants to put anything of value on their own exclusive platform. Combine all their fees and cutting the cord legally approaches the price of a moderate CATV package and if you want any of the CATV things that aren't available with on-demand streaming platforms, such as cable news networks, that's another much pricier subscription from Sling or AT&T. Meanwhile, piracy keeps getting easier and better. Anything running an Intel CPU from the past 5-6 years with an integrated GPU will make a perfectly adequate Plex server that can transcode 4K content. In appliance form from Synology that starts around $300, or DIY for half that with used PC from eBay. The software stack to completely automate piracy is a handful of Docker containers that any modern NAS or appliance-style Linux distro makes simple enough for a non-geek to muddle through installing and configuring, and some expressly target that purpose. A paid USENET service and indexer cost about the same as a single streaming subscription. Content selection isn't limited to what content owners have chosen to make available for streaming, content never disappears so long as you're willing to store it, and everything is consolidated to a single "streaming service" that supports pretty much any platform that can access Netflix. And, as it has been for years, people who don't want to put in that effort can probably find a friend who's willing to share.
  - everforward 4y ago
    I don't disagree in premise, but you're vastly overestimating the average person's computer knowledge (which is annoyingly easy to do). Even figuring out where Plex wants the video files to be is going to be a lot for some people, much less figuring out how to get the torrent files into that location. That's assuming they've already figured out how to get the drives in, plug it in correctly, partition the system, figure out what software they need, and installed it. The non-IT people I've talked IT with would struggle with that. E.g. a common misconception is that Explorer is the only way to see or interact with files. They're going to be confused as soon as they have to use something other than Explorer. I don't even know if NFS would help, or if it would be more confusing that a file exists both "in Explorer" and "in the browser". I think that's why Popcorn Time drew so much heat. It was easy enough that your grandma could use it, which was a problem for IP owners. Usenet doesn't form an existential threat, and the users are motivated enough to find other ways if they need. My grandma is sure as hell not going to be setting up a Plex server running rtorrent with auto-downloaders and auto-sorters to make sure that she gets the latest episodes of her soaps.
Avamander 4y ago
> However, for movies and TV shows I need to pay for like 5 services to get all the movies and TV shows that I need. No way I am paying all those. These services are also very georestricted, even if you might want to pay, it might not be possible. What's worse is that streaming or lending services rarely adjust prices to match purchasing power. If you're in the wrong country you'll practically pay three or ten times as much and get one tenth the content.
- matheusmoreira 4y ago
  Not only do we get a fraction of all available content due region locking, the quality of the content we do get is abysmal. Netflix has compression artifacts on 90% black frames. It actually hurts to watch highly dynamic footage or any scene containing color gradients. Other streaming platforms are even worse. It's honestly insulting that this is what I get as a paying customer while copyright infringement offers me immaculate encodes sourced from blu-rays at zero cost.
  - Avamander 4y ago
    > The quality of the content we do get is abysmal You must have a very specific blessed hardware to actually get what you're paying for. Then you have to hope that the provider isn't automatically picking lower quality for your "viewing experience". The native Netflix Windows app allows you to watch 4K HDR video with Atmos, that's about it with a PC. The app hasn't been updated for four years, can't do optical surround audio and hardware decoding is broken with older Nvidia graphics cards. What a wondrous experience. Pirates on the other hand can just wait for the content to download and watch it offline, with whatever OS, whenever, with any HDMI cable or screen. Disclaimer, Dolby Vision is still more nuanced because how closed it is, but it's still less restrictive.
    - matheusmoreira 4y ago
      > You must have a very specific blessed hardware to actually get what you're paying for. Yeah. Running Linux in order to enjoy your computing freedom? They can't own our computer and prevent us from copying so they simply refuse to do business with people like us. Guess copyright infringement is our only option. > Then you have to hope that the provider isn't automatically picking lower quality for your "viewing experience". Even on my 100+ megabits/second link they do this. Would it kill them to allow me to download the whole thing ahead of time so I can watch offline and in high quality? Download the next episode while I'm watching the current one? Connection goes down? The content just stops playing. Reminds me of satellite TV and the loss of service due to weather. "Pirates" just don't have any of these problems. > The native Netflix Windows app allows you to watch 4K HDR video with Atmos, that's about it with a PC. The app hasn't been updated for four years, can't do optical surround audio and hardware decoding is broken with older Nvidia graphics cards. What a wondrous experience. God I hate the streaming platform software so much. I can't even begin to describe how much it sucks. Something simple like seeking or even rewinding 5-10 seconds is such a aggravating experience, it's actually trained me not to even attempt it anymore. On mpv I can just use arrow keys and it does what I asked it to do instantly. We had better software than this in the 90s. > Pirates on the other hand can just wait for the content to download and watch it offline, with whatever OS, whenever, with any HDMI cable or screen. Yeah. That's what we get for trying to support creators: companies that give less of a shit about quality than literal enthusiasts sharing files online for the love of it. One would think these corporations worth zillions of dollars would be able to beat these amateurs when it comes to offering superior service. Nope.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
I keep bringing this up, but I think it is very illustrative of the problem with media companies and how they leverage copyright: Do you all remember when Kodi plus Covenant let you watch very nearly anything, at any time, with a wide variety of audio and subtitle language choices? That was the last time I felt like I lived in the future. I would have paid good money for that, but no one sells it, at any price, because everyone want their own fucking fiefdom.
GekkePrutser 4y ago
Music piracy is not worth it anymore. Besides the price being OK (though for me a tenner is still a lot for how much I use), the convenience is extreme. What kills piracy is more convenience than price IMO. I remember having to edit all those M3TAG headers removing all the crap like "--From Warezzz.com Team--", removing bad rips, bad categorisation etc. Spotify and Apple music solved that. But for TV/Movies the convenience is becoming more and more crap with the fragmentation in all these services. Besides the price you also have to deal with multiple viewing apps, multiple contracts with different T&C's etc. If the industry really wanted they could bring piracy to a halt today by offering everything for a reasonable price just like with music.
Claude_Shannon 4y ago
You are not entitled to labor of someone else for free. Don't act like you're forced to pirate, if you don't want to play the price - don't watch that show! It is that simple.
- pnt12 4y ago
  Sure, it's "wrong" but people do it anyway. It can be argued how wrong it is, eg compared to theft, but let's go with it for sake of argument. There are many ways to fight this. One regulation and fiscalization, sure. Companies spend their private money in lobbying and governments spend public money in writing and enforcing the laws. Another way is to turn it into a business opportunity. Steam and Spotify put a great dent in piracy, as they offer convenient services. Netflix did it briefly, but after the multiplication of streaming services and exclusives, movie and TV piracy went up again. I'm all for the second approach - innovation and improvement of services for the consumer instead of anti-consumer regulation paid by public money.
- account42 4y ago
  The only ones acting entitled here are the copyright holder that demand that society bends over backwards to pretend that information cannot be efforlessly copied. This becomes even more insane for content that has become part of peoples culture and you still want to further profit off it. You're not entitled to a business model. Don't act like your'e forced to live off coyright fees, if you don't want people to pirate your content - don't release it in the first place! It is that simple.

by dielll 4y ago

pbhjpbhj 4y ago

If the big media approach were about paying for content creation then surely we'd have regulations requiring that shows be available to any selling platform willing to pay the per user cost. Instead it's about creating fiefdoms to lock up content and hold tv/movie culture hostage. Copyright laws give commercial interests too much power against media consumers. I guess the only way to win is not too play ...

mattnewton 4y ago

I agree, I think that "pirates" are basically made up of three camps; people who would pay if it was convenient, people who would pay if it was cheaper and people who would never pay anyways. I think the first camp is the largest and the only one really worth going after from a business sense. It's what I think Gabe Newell means when he says "Piracy is a Service problem" https://www.eurogamer.net/newell-stop-piracy-by-offering-superior-service#:~:text=%22One%20thing%20that%20we%20have,re%20receiving%20from%20the%20pirates https://www.eurogamer.net/newell-stop-piracy-by-offering-sup....

newsclues 4y ago
I wonder what the split between people that won’t pay are people who don’t have the financial means and people who refuse to pay out of principal.
- robonerd 4y ago
  Varies greatly from country to country.
null0pointer 4y ago
There’s a fourth camp: People who have no other choice because the content has not been made available in their region.
- mattnewton 4y ago
  True! It's a rather extreme form of inconvenience.
tbyehl 4y ago
> Piracy is a Service problem And in the context of video streaming, the service gap keeps widening. Music exists in an alternate universe of IP where no creator or rightsholder truly has exclusive control over anything except commercial distribution of physical media. It's crazy but that's how we got to a place where any streaming or subscription service we choose likely has all the music we want to listen to and piracy stopped being a rational decision. Movies and television don't have that. Netflix thrived for a while as the streaming platform of choice for content owners, but their catalog was never anywhere close to exhaustive. Then there was Hulu for the content owners who didn't want Netflix ruling distribution. And Prime for who-knows-why. And now everyone with exclusive rights to content wants to put anything of value on their own exclusive platform. Combine all their fees and cutting the cord legally approaches the price of a moderate CATV package and if you want any of the CATV things that aren't available with on-demand streaming platforms, such as cable news networks, that's another much pricier subscription from Sling or AT&T. Meanwhile, piracy keeps getting easier and better. Anything running an Intel CPU from the past 5-6 years with an integrated GPU will make a perfectly adequate Plex server that can transcode 4K content. In appliance form from Synology that starts around $300, or DIY for half that with used PC from eBay. The software stack to completely automate piracy is a handful of Docker containers that any modern NAS or appliance-style Linux distro makes simple enough for a non-geek to muddle through installing and configuring, and some expressly target that purpose. A paid USENET service and indexer cost about the same as a single streaming subscription. Content selection isn't limited to what content owners have chosen to make available for streaming, content never disappears so long as you're willing to store it, and everything is consolidated to a single "streaming service" that supports pretty much any platform that can access Netflix. And, as it has been for years, people who don't want to put in that effort can probably find a friend who's willing to share.
- everforward 4y ago
  I don't disagree in premise, but you're vastly overestimating the average person's computer knowledge (which is annoyingly easy to do). Even figuring out where Plex wants the video files to be is going to be a lot for some people, much less figuring out how to get the torrent files into that location. That's assuming they've already figured out how to get the drives in, plug it in correctly, partition the system, figure out what software they need, and installed it. The non-IT people I've talked IT with would struggle with that. E.g. a common misconception is that Explorer is the only way to see or interact with files. They're going to be confused as soon as they have to use something other than Explorer. I don't even know if NFS would help, or if it would be more confusing that a file exists both "in Explorer" and "in the browser". I think that's why Popcorn Time drew so much heat. It was easy enough that your grandma could use it, which was a problem for IP owners. Usenet doesn't form an existential threat, and the users are motivated enough to find other ways if they need. My grandma is sure as hell not going to be setting up a Plex server running rtorrent with auto-downloaders and auto-sorters to make sure that she gets the latest episodes of her soaps.

Avamander 4y ago

> However, for movies and TV shows I need to pay for like 5 services to get all the movies and TV shows that I need. No way I am paying all those. These services are also very georestricted, even if you might want to pay, it might not be possible. What's worse is that streaming or lending services rarely adjust prices to match purchasing power. If you're in the wrong country you'll practically pay three or ten times as much and get one tenth the content.

matheusmoreira 4y ago
Not only do we get a fraction of all available content due region locking, the quality of the content we do get is abysmal. Netflix has compression artifacts on 90% black frames. It actually hurts to watch highly dynamic footage or any scene containing color gradients. Other streaming platforms are even worse. It's honestly insulting that this is what I get as a paying customer while copyright infringement offers me immaculate encodes sourced from blu-rays at zero cost.
- Avamander 4y ago
  > The quality of the content we do get is abysmal You must have a very specific blessed hardware to actually get what you're paying for. Then you have to hope that the provider isn't automatically picking lower quality for your "viewing experience". The native Netflix Windows app allows you to watch 4K HDR video with Atmos, that's about it with a PC. The app hasn't been updated for four years, can't do optical surround audio and hardware decoding is broken with older Nvidia graphics cards. What a wondrous experience. Pirates on the other hand can just wait for the content to download and watch it offline, with whatever OS, whenever, with any HDMI cable or screen. Disclaimer, Dolby Vision is still more nuanced because how closed it is, but it's still less restrictive.
  - matheusmoreira 4y ago
    > You must have a very specific blessed hardware to actually get what you're paying for. Yeah. Running Linux in order to enjoy your computing freedom? They can't own our computer and prevent us from copying so they simply refuse to do business with people like us. Guess copyright infringement is our only option. > Then you have to hope that the provider isn't automatically picking lower quality for your "viewing experience". Even on my 100+ megabits/second link they do this. Would it kill them to allow me to download the whole thing ahead of time so I can watch offline and in high quality? Download the next episode while I'm watching the current one? Connection goes down? The content just stops playing. Reminds me of satellite TV and the loss of service due to weather. "Pirates" just don't have any of these problems. > The native Netflix Windows app allows you to watch 4K HDR video with Atmos, that's about it with a PC. The app hasn't been updated for four years, can't do optical surround audio and hardware decoding is broken with older Nvidia graphics cards. What a wondrous experience. God I hate the streaming platform software so much. I can't even begin to describe how much it sucks. Something simple like seeking or even rewinding 5-10 seconds is such a aggravating experience, it's actually trained me not to even attempt it anymore. On mpv I can just use arrow keys and it does what I asked it to do instantly. We had better software than this in the 90s. > Pirates on the other hand can just wait for the content to download and watch it offline, with whatever OS, whenever, with any HDMI cable or screen. Yeah. That's what we get for trying to support creators: companies that give less of a shit about quality than literal enthusiasts sharing files online for the love of it. One would think these corporations worth zillions of dollars would be able to beat these amateurs when it comes to offering superior service. Nope.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago

I keep bringing this up, but I think it is very illustrative of the problem with media companies and how they leverage copyright: Do you all remember when Kodi plus Covenant let you watch very nearly anything, at any time, with a wide variety of audio and subtitle language choices? That was the last time I felt like I lived in the future. I would have paid good money for that, but no one sells it, at any price, because everyone want their own fucking fiefdom.

GekkePrutser 4y ago

Music piracy is not worth it anymore. Besides the price being OK (though for me a tenner is still a lot for how much I use), the convenience is extreme. What kills piracy is more convenience than price IMO. I remember having to edit all those M3TAG headers removing all the crap like "--From Warezzz.com Team--", removing bad rips, bad categorisation etc. Spotify and Apple music solved that. But for TV/Movies the convenience is becoming more and more crap with the fragmentation in all these services. Besides the price you also have to deal with multiple viewing apps, multiple contracts with different T&C's etc. If the industry really wanted they could bring piracy to a halt today by offering everything for a reasonable price just like with music.

Claude_Shannon 4y ago

You are not entitled to labor of someone else for free. Don't act like you're forced to pirate, if you don't want to play the price - don't watch that show! It is that simple.

pnt12 4y ago
Sure, it's "wrong" but people do it anyway. It can be argued how wrong it is, eg compared to theft, but let's go with it for sake of argument. There are many ways to fight this. One regulation and fiscalization, sure. Companies spend their private money in lobbying and governments spend public money in writing and enforcing the laws. Another way is to turn it into a business opportunity. Steam and Spotify put a great dent in piracy, as they offer convenient services. Netflix did it briefly, but after the multiplication of streaming services and exclusives, movie and TV piracy went up again. I'm all for the second approach - innovation and improvement of services for the consumer instead of anti-consumer regulation paid by public money.
account42 4y ago
The only ones acting entitled here are the copyright holder that demand that society bends over backwards to pretend that information cannot be efforlessly copied. This becomes even more insane for content that has become part of peoples culture and you still want to further profit off it. You're not entitled to a business model. Don't act like your'e forced to live off coyright fees, if you don't want people to pirate your content - don't release it in the first place! It is that simple.