17 ms·

I know it's morally dubious, but I'm completely back in pirateland because of all the changes/price hikes/partitioning in the streaming space. My interests make

by belval 4y ago

I know it's morally dubious, but I'm completely back in pirateland because of all the changes/price hikes/partitioning in the streaming space. My interests make it so I only watch 1-2 shows per platform so I'd be approaching ~100$/month. And even if I was swimming in money, it's often easier to just download the shows I want and watch them on Plex/Jellyfin than trying to navigate the (often ad-riddled) interfaces of the various platforms and finding where the content I want is. One example is Rick and Morty, it's made by Adult Swim, but they don't have a streaming service in Canada. It seems to be on Primevideo but under a different system than their regular content. The other way to watch it is to buy it from my cable provider (I don't have cable). So to watch a 20-minutes animated show I'd have to take a +40$ subscription.

FredPret 4y ago
I always ignore Prime Video because you can’t watch everything you see without subscribing to some channel.
- haliskerbas 4y ago
  They have a "free to me" toggle, does it work for you?
  - bombcar 4y ago
    It does, and what I do is remember/bookmark the things that are in the weird channels, and then subscribe to one and cancel during the free period, and binge watch them all. muahahaha
wmeredith 4y ago
I'm in a similar mindset, but I often buy physical media copies of such things instead of pirating them or even if I pirate them. I want to support the art, because I'd like more of it in the future.
- SamuelAdams 4y ago
  Actually a recent trend is to not release DVD’s / blue rays because it keeps people on streaming services. I would love to buy a blu-ray of Hamilton the musical but Disney hasn’t made that available yet, despite being able to stream it on Disney+ since 2020.
  - radicaldreamer 4y ago
    Even when they do release physical media, they often don’t have the best version of a show available. For example, Disney 4k UHD physical discs offer HDR10 but Dolby Vision is limited to Disney+ for the same films as are the IMAX enhanced cuts (expanded aspect ratios). A small exception to this is the newly announced Criterion edition of Wall-E, which includes Dolby Vision.
  - tim-- 4y ago
    Disney has never had a history of really being any good at physical media releases, but at this point it's starting to become a bit of a joke. Even their 'higher end' 4k UHD media releases are missing features that Disney+ has, like Dolby Vision. https://www.flatpanelshd.com/focus.php?subaction=showfull&id=1603781613 https://www.flatpanelshd.com/focus.php?subaction=showfull&id...
matai_kolila 4y ago
Meh, maintaining the fully automated TV show downloader I used to use was a pain in the butt and it was always having some issue or another. I'll gladly pay the $100 or w/e per month to avoid it, and I haven't had a problem like yours where something I wanted to watch wasn't available. As I get older, I find myself more willing than before to trade cash for time, and this is exactly one of those scenarios. Rick and Morty came close, but Youtube TV taped the episodes for me so I watch them there.
- Justin_K 4y ago
  What were you using? Nzb / sonarr / radarr / Plex is quite an amazing setup. Very low maint.
  - colordrops 4y ago
    I assume you run these behind a VPN? Or is traffic obfuscation part of these packages?
    - coldtea 4y ago
      Or like most they just doesn't care about that?
    - collegeburner 4y ago
      it's not P2P so the chance of getting a nastygram to your ISP is basically 0. why would he bother?
    - matai_kolila 4y ago
      No need, you can sign up for any of the hundreds of private torrent sites and the RIAA isn't legally able to join and send anything to your ISP, and without literally the RIAA sending the letters to your ISP, your ISP doesn't care.
    - dotnet00 4y ago
      Plex/Sonarr etc don't handle the actual downloading part, so they don't need to be behind a VPN. They simply look up the show metadata from public databases and find downloads available from indexes you have registered, passing on the download that best fits your criteria to whatever download client you have configured (so the download client is the only part that needs to be behind a VPN).
thatguy0900 4y ago
I'm back in pirate land now that Bleach is on Disney plue and not crunchy roll. Beginning of the end for crunchy roll, the last service that really had everything in its market space
- yamazakiwi 4y ago
  I wish Summertime Rendering would get out of Disney Plus jail. I've thought about pirating it multiple times. Western shows get more formulaic by the day and anecdotally most of my friends that watch anime watch 98% anime and 2% occasional popular show on netflix. Anime fans will be more likely to drop non-anime streaming services in favor of additional anime streaming services. e.g. trade Hulu for HiDive
lstamour 4y ago
Actually you can get Rick and Morty legally in Canada via StackTV on Amazon channels for $12.99/month if you’re an Amazon Prime member.[1] You can also watch episodes in the Global TV app, but you do have to have a subscription to Global TV to watch those, though it is often included in basic packages that start at $25/month ($15 for Alt TV) as CRTC mandated that channels be made available a la carte with a cheaper “Starter” package.[2] That said the cheapest (legal) way to get Rick & Morty is to record it yourself over-the-air for free given that Global is a nationally broadcast TV channel, for now. Edit: Actually, I’m not sure this is still the case.[3] 1. https://www.adultswim.ca/where-to-watch/ https://www.adultswim.ca/where-to-watch/ 2. https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/television/program/alacarte.htm https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/television/program/alacarte.htm 3. https://blog.fagstein.com/2018/11/13/corus-asks-crtc-to-shut-down-44-global-tv-transmitters/ https://blog.fagstein.com/2018/11/13/corus-asks-crtc-to-shut...
- black_puppydog 4y ago
  I mean... this answer is probably the best illustration of GP's point... Talk about customer hostility... (the companies/pricing being customer hostile, not you of course)
  - lstamour 4y ago
    Oh the hostility is definitely still present despite (perhaps because of) the CRTC’s regulations. For example, Bell successfully lobbied the CRTC to mandate that you can only buy TV from your ISP if watching on a home ISP cable package. This doesn’t apply to Crave/Netflix/OTT, but if you want to a-la-carte buy a Global TV channel you’ll have to buy it via your ISP, often Bell. There is definitely a need for things to change yet even in the land of the free (USA), there are talks of trying to “bundle” together OTT streaming as the next wave of getting you to pay more to watch the same content.[1] There is some good news though. Often when you subscribe to internet there are limited two-year promotions that offer streaming TV at no extra cost. Unfortunately, these plans often don’t include PVR function and also don’t include the ability to skip commercials when playing on demand, but luckily a number of on-demand streaming methods can still be tricked by adblock such as Pi Hole, in my experience. Not all of them, of course. 1. https://www.wsj.com/articles/streaming-service-bundle-cable-11665151236 https://www.wsj.com/articles/streaming-service-bundle-cable-...
anewguy9000 4y ago
its legally dubious but not morally ;) pirated sports are even a better product. they dont have ads. so if i pay for sports on tv, im actually paying to watch ads?? it should be the other way around, and if it were, i would probably sign up. also give me all your money
- mynameisvlad 4y ago
  How would pirated sports work without ads? It’s a live product, so it wouldn’t work in the standard *arr pipeline. Are there live streams with ads blacked out by a host?
  - mgkimsal 4y ago
    Dunno exactly, but there's gotta be some original camera feeds from on the ground that don't have those. The ads we saw years ago were overlayed at the top of the screen, taking up around 20% of the vertical space. And... every time you started a stream, there were 1-2 minutes of the same stupid commercials (trucks, etc).
    - mynameisvlad 4y ago
      Ah so it’s just streaming the most premium product available. Usually that’s something like NFL RedZone/MLB.tv/etc which offers direct feeds, out of market, with blackouts etc. Have enough people feeding your provider with streams and you have a legally dubious nationwide ad-free service for that league. I thought you meant it somehow got rid of commercials on normal channels, but live. That wouldn’t make sense. But these channels don’t have traditional commercials in the first place.
      - tshaddox 4y ago
        Yeah, I think the premium services offer feeds directly from the local TV production. Sometimes they'll offer multiple feeds from the same game, one of which will be a national broadcast feed and another will be a local production with different commentators.
forrestthewoods 4y ago
I like how you use one difficult example (Rick and Morty) to justify a wholesale move back into piracy. I use a Roku. It has all the apps. Sometimes I forget what show is in which app. JustWatch is helpful. I can legally buy Rick and Morty season 6 from iTunes. I’m laying in bed and could buy it in about 15 seconds. If there was no such thing as piracy and streaming services were free then dealing with all the different services would be a mild nuisance. IMHO people pirate primarily because of money. Everything else is just a weak attempt to morally justify something they know is wrong. At the very least pay for most of your content. Don’t pirate everything just because that one anime from Japan you love is hard to legally pay for.
- pirateperp1 4y ago
  > I like how you use one difficult example (Rick and Morty) to justify a wholesale move back into piracy. Ah yes, the ol' blame the user. > streaming services were free then dealing with all the different services would be a mild nuisance Sure. > IMHO people pirate primarily because of money The biggest video games are all free. > At the very least pay for most of your content. Because of piracy, all the streaming services operate like free to play games. Disney+ gets $80/yr from payers. Not bad. Compare to Clash of Clans which is closer to $10-15/yr (per payer). They're doing a good job. I am not 100% sure what the payers are paying for. Lack of technical knowledge to pirate? You're right, nobody who would know how to do this would pay.
  - andsoitis 4y ago
    > The biggest video games are all free. Huh?
    - ask_b123 4y ago
      https://steamdb.info/graph/ https://steamdb.info/graph/ Top 5 currently and Top 4 all time peak. And outside Steam others like Fortnite, Candy Crush, Roblox, Club Penguin... Many at the top here have a free-to-play model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-played_video_games_by_player_count https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-played_video_game...
taylodl 4y ago
You make the case for pay-per-view shows. I'm not an industry insider so I don't know how much revenue they may be leaving on the table from people like us who would have purchased an episode or season of something but not sign up for $14.99 per month. Right now I'm consolidating my streaming services. It's gotten to be too much and I simply don't watch enough to warrant the cost.
Aissen 4y ago
Most of those are without commitment, why not round-robin between them every month ?
webmobdev 4y ago
+1 - Another pirate user here. I have a Prime & NetFlix account but I purposefully never use it and still prefer to download pirated copies of their show (mainly for better video quality, convenience of offline viewing in any device and most importantly protecting my privacy). I have no doubt that there is no stopping advertisement on streaming platform and it will equal the level on television once it becomes normalised, and will be even worse because it will BE accompanied with more datamining of our personal data and tracking. Many smart TVs are already using the built-in webcam and microphone to determine how you watch ads, and all this intrusive method of monitoring is only going to get worse.
- parentheses 4y ago
  Unless you have an antiquated internet connection, you should be seeing 4k HDR video. A movie in 4k is anywhere from 10-30 gigs and often you can’t find all content at this quality level. So, in theory using the service directly should give you better video quality unless you’re waiting to download 5-15 gigs per hour of content you want the option to watch.
  - webmobdev 4y ago
    To clarify, it's about quality and file size - I find that some pirates do a better job of offering high quality videos with better compression (and thus smaller file size). Especially if they use more modern codecs like HEVC. (And right now, I don't really care about 4k quality or Dolby vision). The ability to watch it offline (without any nonsensical 24-48 hour limitation) in any device is the real pleasure (I used to be able to connect my iPad to my TV to watch some series on Prime, but they annoyingly disabled support for that). But as I also mentioned, all the above pales in comparison to their plan to spy and profile us to serve us ads, when the very reason that people have dumped TV and pay a premium for streaming platform is to avoid advertisements.
rcarr 4y ago
Morally, would it not be better to just rotate subscriptions? One month with Netflix, one month with Prime, one with Paramount etc? Or maybe rotate every quarter? You could claim that by pirating you’re instead protesting about the fragmentation of the streaming landscape and are holding out for an everything-in-one-place service like Spotify/Apple Music but I’m not sure you’ll get far with it due to the nature of the movie industry. Personally I think you’re probably better off with the rotation approach - after a few economic cycles, the streaming services that aren’t pulling in enough subscribers will end up getting bought by bigger competitors and we’ll probably end up with just a few big ones standing. I don’t think Apple or Prime are going anywhere because they‘re supported by other aspects of the company. Marvel, Star Wars and just general franchise fatigue is kicking in for Disney but they’re always going to have the kid stuff to fall back on so I think they’re safe as well. Which leaves Netflix, Paramount, HBO, Hulu etc scrapping each other for anyone without kids or who don’t mind the extra subscription.
- TurkishPoptart 4y ago
  There's no question of morals here. These streaming companies murdered Blockbuster, whose death must be avenged.
- esalman 4y ago
  Good idea, except a lot of people including me do not have time to do this every month. Personally I pay annualy for peacock (at a promotional discount price of $20, to watch premier league), prime (also annually because shopping) and Disney (because kids). I also have access to Netflix, Paramount and HBO etc. subscriptions for free- via fnf or promotions. If I badly want to watch something, I either check on Justwatch if it is available on a service I subscribe to, or I just pirate it.
  - nitrixion 4y ago
    This is what we do also. I have many streaming subscriptions. If a show is not available or is only available with ads (Prime Video does this a lot), then I feel zero remorse torrenting the show. Additionally, if a show was ever on a streaming service while I had a subscription, I feel zero remorse for downloading that show once it is removed from that streaming service. These license holders are getting more greedy by the year. If they don't want to provide the content for a reasonable fee through a streaming service, then they don't get my money. Simple as that.
artificial 4y ago
Why not just buy the Rick and morty episodes or seasons, for example, on iTunes/appletv?
- skulk 4y ago
  I don't know how Apple sells media, but if you "buy" content on Amazon, you're still subject to licensing terms that Amazon negotiated, which often means you don't have permanent access to said content. Someone sued Amazon for this: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6882808-Caudel-v-Amazon.html https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6882808-Caudel-v-Ama...
- jbverschoor 4y ago
  Then what? If your disk is full and apple removes it from their collection you can't download it anymore. It just doesn't make any sense.. Just sell me an NFT and use that to access ANY quality or media of that publication. Then I can also just resell my NFT, just like we would with videos, dvd, and games
  - artificial 4y ago
    I see what you're saying, you don't license access to the content though, what's sold is the version (usually). Do you still watch shows on VHS? Should that translate to a 16k Ultrabluraymega stream? Maybe. The NFT thing is interesting. It's just pogs to me, like Gollum consumed by the precious, he can't own it but he can have his name listed as an "owner" in an online distributed database. There's still authorization involved and if it exists it can be revoked. All said, I'm not too worried about something less than the price of a beer or a good meal. For the record I bought all of Rick and Morty over time (keep in mind this is over a span of 5+ years) and I'm not a huge media consoomer. I do value my time and don't mind compensating creators. I had a phase where downloading was neat years ago. My compulsion to justify an entitlement need to others work has dwindled to non existence. Most of the new shows aren't interesting or are largely agenda driven, box checking, easy to translate for international audiences crap.
pbhjpbhj 4y ago
I'd personally like to see a sort of 'least favoured nation'-type deal where copyright holders are obligated to offer their show at the lowest cost to all streaming services. Streaming services get to compete on value added, producers get their pay, consumers get their fix. Maybe allow a 6 month exclusivity or something similar. It seems like a pipe dream but it shouldn't, we (the demos) are supposed to be the ones to principally profit from copyright.
nscalf 4y ago
I don't find this particularly morally dubious. These companies are approaching monopoly powers and using it to squeeze consumers. Disney owns about 1/3 of all box office revenue. The government has shown they're unwilling to break up monopolies, or even really limit them in any meaningful way. Also, I don't quite know my feelings on this yet, but there is something real about some shows and movies being part of the milieu. Something doesn't sit quite right about repeatedly increasing the pricing via anti-consumer acquisitions on products that are contributing a substantial part of how the society collectively feels and thinks. It feels like you have to make more money to live in the same society.
- themitigating 4y ago
  It's morally dubious to pick and choose what laws you follow. It doesn't matter if you think they are monopolies, that's not your judgment to make
  - Melatonic 4y ago
    or we need new laws that update what a "monopoly" is
  - Super_Jambo 4y ago
    Outsourcing your moral decisions to the legal system seems a lot more dubious to me. I don't think you can claim a coherent moral philosophy when the morality of an action depends on the legal jurisdiction you happen to be standing in.
  - pigscantfly 4y ago
    Practicing civil disobedience against laws you believe unethical is not morally dubious, it's legally dubious. If anything, I'd consider it a display of moral fortitude to prize one's ethics above the potential consequences.
    - Blammar 4y ago
      Exactly. And now it's time for Godwin, more or less: would you have followed the laws in Nazi Germany that made Jews less than human?
spaniard89277 4y ago
This. I do have a Netflix Subscription because of family and I just got tired and got back to downloading stuff. Now I just have a folder where I can find everything fine, and double click stuff.
kennend3 4y ago
I'm also Canadian and recently cancelled prime. It is weird how amazon prime video offers Canadian programming to Americans, but want me to buy an additional subscription to watch a Canadian show in Canada?? I'm with you on this one, between the price hikes, geo-restrictions, etc streaming is rapidly declining.
_-_-__-_-_- 4y ago
This is exactly what I'm currently working towards at home. Buying a few more hard drives and a new case for my current desktop to turn it into a local media server and cancelling all streaming services. Someone tells me about a show, I add it to a list and then find it later. Throw it up on Jellyfin and I can watch it anywhere using Tailscale (based on Wireguard). One of the instances that pushed me was "buying" a movie on NFB (the National Film Board of Canada). I could only watch the movie in their player in a browser. But, I had paid 12~20$ for the movie. Instead, I found a Firefox plugin to download the video file and I used Jellyfin to watch it. Being Canadian, lots of media is region-locked.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  > Someone tells me about a show, I add it to a list and then find it later. Throw it up on Jellyfin and I can watch it anywhere using Tailscale (based on Wireguard). Jellyfin FTW. I spent a half-dozen attempts over a dozen years trying to make XBMC work such that I was spending more time using it than messing with it (including just getting lost in their UI with an accidental button press and having to figure out how to get out of whatever unfortunate mode I'd become stuck in) and that anyone other than me was able and willing to use it. None succeeded. Painful set-up, painful UI (the themes don't help because they don't change the way it behaves), and you have a copy of XBMC on some XBMC-capable device attached to every TV you want to watch on. Jellyfin solved all those problems. Edit settings in a browser, leave the TV UI to do TV UI stuff. Clients on every major platform (even if the best ones are paid on some platforms—my paid tvOS app was entirely worth the could-find-it-in-the-couch-cushions amount of money it cost). Roku, Android, tvOS, whatever. Stream to any computer, tablet, or phone without installing anything. It's great.
Melatonic 4y ago
This is part of the reason I love Roku Search - you search for whatever show directly on the Roku and it tells you exactly what services you can stream it on for free or buy it on. Makes everything much more seamless
papito 4y ago
So is mine, but I cut the cord 10 years ago, when my Internet + TV bill hit $250. Cable bills basically keep going up until you leave. Now, because of inflation, $100 is not even what it was 10 years ago, so I am not sure why people are getting torqued about this. It's still a very good deal, considering the quality and amount of entertainment that you get, which is light years better compared to back when Facebook was still cool.
vinaypai 4y ago
It's contradictory to claim they're monopolies but also complain that you would have to subscribe to multiple services to get what you want.
evandale 4y ago
> don't have a streaming service in Canada This is all I need to justify my piracy. If you're not going to let me pay for something or force me into bullshit like needing cable to sign up for a streaming service then I'll gladly watch what I want to watch without paying. and don't even get me started on C-11...
helsinkiandrew 4y ago
> so to watch a 20 minutes animated show I’d have to take a +40$ subscription. You can buy season 6 on Apple TV and Google play for $19 according to this site: https://www.justwatch.com/ca/tv-show/rick-and-morty/season-6 https://www.justwatch.com/ca/tv-show/rick-and-morty/season-6
- iso1631 4y ago
  If there is no way to give money for a service I have no problems with getting it via other means -- when Discovery season 4 came out it wasn't available in the UK, so I downloaded it. A week later after the backlash they put it up for sale, and I spent the £20 or whatever to buy the series. I have no problems paying for netflix, disney, prime, and now paramount plus. I subscribe to apple TV for for all mankind, then I stop when it's finished. What I won't do though is pay to watch adverts, that was Cable/Sky TV's market, not interested. Sell me the program and I'll buy it, try to include adverts and I'll get it elsewhere.
varenc 4y ago
I pay for a bunch of streaming services, for semi-moral reasons, but I still pirate 99% of content. Pirating is the only way to get accurate high-quality subtitles. I’ll automatically download them from Opensubtitles and then strip out the very distracting non-dialogue parts like “[ominous music]”. Also streaming services often have out-of-sync subtitles, like DS9 on prime video. With pirated content I automatically get perfectly synced dialogue-only subs in the exact font, size, and styling of my choosing. Other benefits of pirating include: - knowing exactly what bitrate/resolution you’re getting. Streaming services love to stealthily downgrade Chrome users to 720p. Pirated content often uses more computationally complex encoding letting you get more quality in fewer bits. - easy playback of 4K content on the desktop. Often streaming services restrict 4K to certain hardware devices only. (where they can do L1 DRM protection) - general playback flexibility. Instead of relying on each streaming service's bespoke interface, I can use my preferred media player (IINA/mpv) with all my favourite keybindings. Also, I can try out things like vapoursynth motion interpolation to get pseudo-60fps, or real-time upscaling of cartoons with Anime4K.
deleted 4y ago
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efsavage 4y ago
This is a moral question, but the answer doesn't really matter because there's a more important issue that preempts it, which is that you're ignoring a signal that if these these things aren't worth your money they're probably not worth your time either. I'm no fan of the companies involved, or their policies, or even copyright law as it stands, but I've gotten to a point where if something entertaining isn't worth the price, I just don't buy it. I have no "right" to watch a TV show that some monopoly is infringing upon. We all have so many things competing for our time and money, take advantage of that. If Rick & Morty isn't worth $40 to you, spend that $40 and those 20 minutes on something of better value. And yes, I still watch TV, though far less (2-4 hours/week) than I did before I adopted this thought process. And yes, I do watch, and pay for, Rick and Morty :D
lijogdfljk 4y ago
> And even if I was swimming in money, it's often easier to just download the shows I want and watch them on Plex/Jellyfin than trying to navigate the (often ad-riddled) interfaces of the various platforms and finding where the content I want is. I'm not quite there yet, but even when i already pay for the service (for example Amazon) i'm tempted to pirate it. My local Plex server is so much more usable than Amazon's terrible streaming app. Amazon's app freezes frequently for me, gets loading widgets stuck overlaying the movie/show, etc. I'm debating finding a way to download shows i pay for and then watch them locally. A bit of a grey area between paying and pirating, but i'm done with their crap UXs. I'll avoid pirating as long as i can because i make plenty to justify not pirating; but i will gladly solve their terrible UX problems myself if i am able. I am paying for it after all. TOS be damned.
citizenpaul 4y ago
FULL CIRCLE! haha. People used to have this crazy bundle of streaming services called "cable TV" People started to complain that it was getting too expense to pay $150+(even with commercials) a month when you only watch a dozen of the hundreds of channels at most. Then came streaming services. People were thrilled they could only pay for one channel at a time for 10-15$ per month.... problem solved.
zenosmosis 4y ago
I'm in Nicaragua and have a $10/mo. HBO Max subscription which includes Rick and Morty.
golergka 4y ago
Also, there's a LOT of illegal streaming services now that are much more convenient. They offer all shows and movies from any platform, better interface than Netflix and lower subscription cost, if any — often they are completely free and are monetized with ads. May it's something that is blocked or just not so popular in first world countries, but most of my Russian acquaintances use these services almost exclusively.
parentheses 4y ago
hbo max

by belval 4y ago

FredPret 4y ago

I always ignore Prime Video because you can’t watch everything you see without subscribing to some channel.

haliskerbas 4y ago
They have a "free to me" toggle, does it work for you?
- bombcar 4y ago
  It does, and what I do is remember/bookmark the things that are in the weird channels, and then subscribe to one and cancel during the free period, and binge watch them all. muahahaha

wmeredith 4y ago

I'm in a similar mindset, but I often buy physical media copies of such things instead of pirating them or even if I pirate them. I want to support the art, because I'd like more of it in the future.

SamuelAdams 4y ago
Actually a recent trend is to not release DVD’s / blue rays because it keeps people on streaming services. I would love to buy a blu-ray of Hamilton the musical but Disney hasn’t made that available yet, despite being able to stream it on Disney+ since 2020.
- radicaldreamer 4y ago
  Even when they do release physical media, they often don’t have the best version of a show available. For example, Disney 4k UHD physical discs offer HDR10 but Dolby Vision is limited to Disney+ for the same films as are the IMAX enhanced cuts (expanded aspect ratios). A small exception to this is the newly announced Criterion edition of Wall-E, which includes Dolby Vision.
- tim-- 4y ago
  Disney has never had a history of really being any good at physical media releases, but at this point it's starting to become a bit of a joke. Even their 'higher end' 4k UHD media releases are missing features that Disney+ has, like Dolby Vision. https://www.flatpanelshd.com/focus.php?subaction=showfull&id=1603781613 https://www.flatpanelshd.com/focus.php?subaction=showfull&id...

matai_kolila 4y ago

Meh, maintaining the fully automated TV show downloader I used to use was a pain in the butt and it was always having some issue or another. I'll gladly pay the $100 or w/e per month to avoid it, and I haven't had a problem like yours where something I wanted to watch wasn't available. As I get older, I find myself more willing than before to trade cash for time, and this is exactly one of those scenarios. Rick and Morty came close, but Youtube TV taped the episodes for me so I watch them there.

Justin_K 4y ago
What were you using? Nzb / sonarr / radarr / Plex is quite an amazing setup. Very low maint.
- colordrops 4y ago
  I assume you run these behind a VPN? Or is traffic obfuscation part of these packages?
  - coldtea 4y ago
    Or like most they just doesn't care about that?
  - collegeburner 4y ago
    it's not P2P so the chance of getting a nastygram to your ISP is basically 0. why would he bother?
  - matai_kolila 4y ago
    No need, you can sign up for any of the hundreds of private torrent sites and the RIAA isn't legally able to join and send anything to your ISP, and without literally the RIAA sending the letters to your ISP, your ISP doesn't care.
  - dotnet00 4y ago
    Plex/Sonarr etc don't handle the actual downloading part, so they don't need to be behind a VPN. They simply look up the show metadata from public databases and find downloads available from indexes you have registered, passing on the download that best fits your criteria to whatever download client you have configured (so the download client is the only part that needs to be behind a VPN).

thatguy0900 4y ago

I'm back in pirate land now that Bleach is on Disney plue and not crunchy roll. Beginning of the end for crunchy roll, the last service that really had everything in its market space

yamazakiwi 4y ago
I wish Summertime Rendering would get out of Disney Plus jail. I've thought about pirating it multiple times. Western shows get more formulaic by the day and anecdotally most of my friends that watch anime watch 98% anime and 2% occasional popular show on netflix. Anime fans will be more likely to drop non-anime streaming services in favor of additional anime streaming services. e.g. trade Hulu for HiDive

lstamour 4y ago

Actually you can get Rick and Morty legally in Canada via StackTV on Amazon channels for $12.99/month if you’re an Amazon Prime member.[1] You can also watch episodes in the Global TV app, but you do have to have a subscription to Global TV to watch those, though it is often included in basic packages that start at $25/month ($15 for Alt TV) as CRTC mandated that channels be made available a la carte with a cheaper “Starter” package.[2] That said the cheapest (legal) way to get Rick & Morty is to record it yourself over-the-air for free given that Global is a nationally broadcast TV channel, for now. Edit: Actually, I’m not sure this is still the case.[3] 1. https://www.adultswim.ca/where-to-watch/ https://www.adultswim.ca/where-to-watch/ 2. https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/television/program/alacarte.htm https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/television/program/alacarte.htm 3. https://blog.fagstein.com/2018/11/13/corus-asks-crtc-to-shut-down-44-global-tv-transmitters/ https://blog.fagstein.com/2018/11/13/corus-asks-crtc-to-shut...

black_puppydog 4y ago
I mean... this answer is probably the best illustration of GP's point... Talk about customer hostility... (the companies/pricing being customer hostile, not you of course)
- lstamour 4y ago
  Oh the hostility is definitely still present despite (perhaps because of) the CRTC’s regulations. For example, Bell successfully lobbied the CRTC to mandate that you can only buy TV from your ISP if watching on a home ISP cable package. This doesn’t apply to Crave/Netflix/OTT, but if you want to a-la-carte buy a Global TV channel you’ll have to buy it via your ISP, often Bell. There is definitely a need for things to change yet even in the land of the free (USA), there are talks of trying to “bundle” together OTT streaming as the next wave of getting you to pay more to watch the same content.[1] There is some good news though. Often when you subscribe to internet there are limited two-year promotions that offer streaming TV at no extra cost. Unfortunately, these plans often don’t include PVR function and also don’t include the ability to skip commercials when playing on demand, but luckily a number of on-demand streaming methods can still be tricked by adblock such as Pi Hole, in my experience. Not all of them, of course. 1. https://www.wsj.com/articles/streaming-service-bundle-cable-11665151236 https://www.wsj.com/articles/streaming-service-bundle-cable-...

anewguy9000 4y ago

its legally dubious but not morally ;) pirated sports are even a better product. they dont have ads. so if i pay for sports on tv, im actually paying to watch ads?? it should be the other way around, and if it were, i would probably sign up. also give me all your money

mynameisvlad 4y ago
How would pirated sports work without ads? It’s a live product, so it wouldn’t work in the standard *arr pipeline. Are there live streams with ads blacked out by a host?
- mgkimsal 4y ago
  Dunno exactly, but there's gotta be some original camera feeds from on the ground that don't have those. The ads we saw years ago were overlayed at the top of the screen, taking up around 20% of the vertical space. And... every time you started a stream, there were 1-2 minutes of the same stupid commercials (trucks, etc).
  - mynameisvlad 4y ago
    Ah so it’s just streaming the most premium product available. Usually that’s something like NFL RedZone/MLB.tv/etc which offers direct feeds, out of market, with blackouts etc. Have enough people feeding your provider with streams and you have a legally dubious nationwide ad-free service for that league. I thought you meant it somehow got rid of commercials on normal channels, but live. That wouldn’t make sense. But these channels don’t have traditional commercials in the first place.
    - tshaddox 4y ago
      Yeah, I think the premium services offer feeds directly from the local TV production. Sometimes they'll offer multiple feeds from the same game, one of which will be a national broadcast feed and another will be a local production with different commentators.

forrestthewoods 4y ago

I like how you use one difficult example (Rick and Morty) to justify a wholesale move back into piracy. I use a Roku. It has all the apps. Sometimes I forget what show is in which app. JustWatch is helpful. I can legally buy Rick and Morty season 6 from iTunes. I’m laying in bed and could buy it in about 15 seconds. If there was no such thing as piracy and streaming services were free then dealing with all the different services would be a mild nuisance. IMHO people pirate primarily because of money. Everything else is just a weak attempt to morally justify something they know is wrong. At the very least pay for most of your content. Don’t pirate everything just because that one anime from Japan you love is hard to legally pay for.

pirateperp1 4y ago
> I like how you use one difficult example (Rick and Morty) to justify a wholesale move back into piracy. Ah yes, the ol' blame the user. > streaming services were free then dealing with all the different services would be a mild nuisance Sure. > IMHO people pirate primarily because of money The biggest video games are all free. > At the very least pay for most of your content. Because of piracy, all the streaming services operate like free to play games. Disney+ gets $80/yr from payers. Not bad. Compare to Clash of Clans which is closer to $10-15/yr (per payer). They're doing a good job. I am not 100% sure what the payers are paying for. Lack of technical knowledge to pirate? You're right, nobody who would know how to do this would pay.
- andsoitis 4y ago
  > The biggest video games are all free. Huh?
  - ask_b123 4y ago
    https://steamdb.info/graph/ https://steamdb.info/graph/ Top 5 currently and Top 4 all time peak. And outside Steam others like Fortnite, Candy Crush, Roblox, Club Penguin... Many at the top here have a free-to-play model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-played_video_games_by_player_count https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-played_video_game...

taylodl 4y ago

You make the case for pay-per-view shows. I'm not an industry insider so I don't know how much revenue they may be leaving on the table from people like us who would have purchased an episode or season of something but not sign up for $14.99 per month. Right now I'm consolidating my streaming services. It's gotten to be too much and I simply don't watch enough to warrant the cost.

Aissen 4y ago

Most of those are without commitment, why not round-robin between them every month ?

webmobdev 4y ago

+1 - Another pirate user here. I have a Prime & NetFlix account but I purposefully never use it and still prefer to download pirated copies of their show (mainly for better video quality, convenience of offline viewing in any device and most importantly protecting my privacy). I have no doubt that there is no stopping advertisement on streaming platform and it will equal the level on television once it becomes normalised, and will be even worse because it will BE accompanied with more datamining of our personal data and tracking. Many smart TVs are already using the built-in webcam and microphone to determine how you watch ads, and all this intrusive method of monitoring is only going to get worse.

parentheses 4y ago
Unless you have an antiquated internet connection, you should be seeing 4k HDR video. A movie in 4k is anywhere from 10-30 gigs and often you can’t find all content at this quality level. So, in theory using the service directly should give you better video quality unless you’re waiting to download 5-15 gigs per hour of content you want the option to watch.
- webmobdev 4y ago
  To clarify, it's about quality and file size - I find that some pirates do a better job of offering high quality videos with better compression (and thus smaller file size). Especially if they use more modern codecs like HEVC. (And right now, I don't really care about 4k quality or Dolby vision). The ability to watch it offline (without any nonsensical 24-48 hour limitation) in any device is the real pleasure (I used to be able to connect my iPad to my TV to watch some series on Prime, but they annoyingly disabled support for that). But as I also mentioned, all the above pales in comparison to their plan to spy and profile us to serve us ads, when the very reason that people have dumped TV and pay a premium for streaming platform is to avoid advertisements.

rcarr 4y ago

Morally, would it not be better to just rotate subscriptions? One month with Netflix, one month with Prime, one with Paramount etc? Or maybe rotate every quarter? You could claim that by pirating you’re instead protesting about the fragmentation of the streaming landscape and are holding out for an everything-in-one-place service like Spotify/Apple Music but I’m not sure you’ll get far with it due to the nature of the movie industry. Personally I think you’re probably better off with the rotation approach - after a few economic cycles, the streaming services that aren’t pulling in enough subscribers will end up getting bought by bigger competitors and we’ll probably end up with just a few big ones standing. I don’t think Apple or Prime are going anywhere because they‘re supported by other aspects of the company. Marvel, Star Wars and just general franchise fatigue is kicking in for Disney but they’re always going to have the kid stuff to fall back on so I think they’re safe as well. Which leaves Netflix, Paramount, HBO, Hulu etc scrapping each other for anyone without kids or who don’t mind the extra subscription.

TurkishPoptart 4y ago
There's no question of morals here. These streaming companies murdered Blockbuster, whose death must be avenged.
esalman 4y ago
Good idea, except a lot of people including me do not have time to do this every month. Personally I pay annualy for peacock (at a promotional discount price of $20, to watch premier league), prime (also annually because shopping) and Disney (because kids). I also have access to Netflix, Paramount and HBO etc. subscriptions for free- via fnf or promotions. If I badly want to watch something, I either check on Justwatch if it is available on a service I subscribe to, or I just pirate it.
- nitrixion 4y ago
  This is what we do also. I have many streaming subscriptions. If a show is not available or is only available with ads (Prime Video does this a lot), then I feel zero remorse torrenting the show. Additionally, if a show was ever on a streaming service while I had a subscription, I feel zero remorse for downloading that show once it is removed from that streaming service. These license holders are getting more greedy by the year. If they don't want to provide the content for a reasonable fee through a streaming service, then they don't get my money. Simple as that.

artificial 4y ago

Why not just buy the Rick and morty episodes or seasons, for example, on iTunes/appletv?

skulk 4y ago
I don't know how Apple sells media, but if you "buy" content on Amazon, you're still subject to licensing terms that Amazon negotiated, which often means you don't have permanent access to said content. Someone sued Amazon for this: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6882808-Caudel-v-Amazon.html https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6882808-Caudel-v-Ama...
jbverschoor 4y ago
Then what? If your disk is full and apple removes it from their collection you can't download it anymore. It just doesn't make any sense.. Just sell me an NFT and use that to access ANY quality or media of that publication. Then I can also just resell my NFT, just like we would with videos, dvd, and games
- artificial 4y ago
  I see what you're saying, you don't license access to the content though, what's sold is the version (usually). Do you still watch shows on VHS? Should that translate to a 16k Ultrabluraymega stream? Maybe. The NFT thing is interesting. It's just pogs to me, like Gollum consumed by the precious, he can't own it but he can have his name listed as an "owner" in an online distributed database. There's still authorization involved and if it exists it can be revoked. All said, I'm not too worried about something less than the price of a beer or a good meal. For the record I bought all of Rick and Morty over time (keep in mind this is over a span of 5+ years) and I'm not a huge media consoomer. I do value my time and don't mind compensating creators. I had a phase where downloading was neat years ago. My compulsion to justify an entitlement need to others work has dwindled to non existence. Most of the new shows aren't interesting or are largely agenda driven, box checking, easy to translate for international audiences crap.

pbhjpbhj 4y ago

I'd personally like to see a sort of 'least favoured nation'-type deal where copyright holders are obligated to offer their show at the lowest cost to all streaming services. Streaming services get to compete on value added, producers get their pay, consumers get their fix. Maybe allow a 6 month exclusivity or something similar. It seems like a pipe dream but it shouldn't, we (the demos) are supposed to be the ones to principally profit from copyright.

nscalf 4y ago

I don't find this particularly morally dubious. These companies are approaching monopoly powers and using it to squeeze consumers. Disney owns about 1/3 of all box office revenue. The government has shown they're unwilling to break up monopolies, or even really limit them in any meaningful way. Also, I don't quite know my feelings on this yet, but there is something real about some shows and movies being part of the milieu. Something doesn't sit quite right about repeatedly increasing the pricing via anti-consumer acquisitions on products that are contributing a substantial part of how the society collectively feels and thinks. It feels like you have to make more money to live in the same society.

themitigating 4y ago
It's morally dubious to pick and choose what laws you follow. It doesn't matter if you think they are monopolies, that's not your judgment to make
- Melatonic 4y ago
  or we need new laws that update what a "monopoly" is
- Super_Jambo 4y ago
  Outsourcing your moral decisions to the legal system seems a lot more dubious to me. I don't think you can claim a coherent moral philosophy when the morality of an action depends on the legal jurisdiction you happen to be standing in.
- pigscantfly 4y ago
  Practicing civil disobedience against laws you believe unethical is not morally dubious, it's legally dubious. If anything, I'd consider it a display of moral fortitude to prize one's ethics above the potential consequences.
  - Blammar 4y ago
    Exactly. And now it's time for Godwin, more or less: would you have followed the laws in Nazi Germany that made Jews less than human?

spaniard89277 4y ago

This. I do have a Netflix Subscription because of family and I just got tired and got back to downloading stuff. Now I just have a folder where I can find everything fine, and double click stuff.

kennend3 4y ago

I'm also Canadian and recently cancelled prime. It is weird how amazon prime video offers Canadian programming to Americans, but want me to buy an additional subscription to watch a Canadian show in Canada?? I'm with you on this one, between the price hikes, geo-restrictions, etc streaming is rapidly declining.

_-_-__-_-_- 4y ago

This is exactly what I'm currently working towards at home. Buying a few more hard drives and a new case for my current desktop to turn it into a local media server and cancelling all streaming services. Someone tells me about a show, I add it to a list and then find it later. Throw it up on Jellyfin and I can watch it anywhere using Tailscale (based on Wireguard). One of the instances that pushed me was "buying" a movie on NFB (the National Film Board of Canada). I could only watch the movie in their player in a browser. But, I had paid 12~20$ for the movie. Instead, I found a Firefox plugin to download the video file and I used Jellyfin to watch it. Being Canadian, lots of media is region-locked.

yamtaddle 4y ago
> Someone tells me about a show, I add it to a list and then find it later. Throw it up on Jellyfin and I can watch it anywhere using Tailscale (based on Wireguard). Jellyfin FTW. I spent a half-dozen attempts over a dozen years trying to make XBMC work such that I was spending more time using it than messing with it (including just getting lost in their UI with an accidental button press and having to figure out how to get out of whatever unfortunate mode I'd become stuck in) and that anyone other than me was able and willing to use it. None succeeded. Painful set-up, painful UI (the themes don't help because they don't change the way it behaves), and you have a copy of XBMC on some XBMC-capable device attached to every TV you want to watch on. Jellyfin solved all those problems. Edit settings in a browser, leave the TV UI to do TV UI stuff. Clients on every major platform (even if the best ones are paid on some platforms—my paid tvOS app was entirely worth the could-find-it-in-the-couch-cushions amount of money it cost). Roku, Android, tvOS, whatever. Stream to any computer, tablet, or phone without installing anything. It's great.

Melatonic 4y ago

This is part of the reason I love Roku Search - you search for whatever show directly on the Roku and it tells you exactly what services you can stream it on for free or buy it on. Makes everything much more seamless

papito 4y ago

So is mine, but I cut the cord 10 years ago, when my Internet + TV bill hit $250. Cable bills basically keep going up until you leave. Now, because of inflation, $100 is not even what it was 10 years ago, so I am not sure why people are getting torqued about this. It's still a very good deal, considering the quality and amount of entertainment that you get, which is light years better compared to back when Facebook was still cool.

vinaypai 4y ago

It's contradictory to claim they're monopolies but also complain that you would have to subscribe to multiple services to get what you want.

evandale 4y ago

> don't have a streaming service in Canada This is all I need to justify my piracy. If you're not going to let me pay for something or force me into bullshit like needing cable to sign up for a streaming service then I'll gladly watch what I want to watch without paying. and don't even get me started on C-11...

helsinkiandrew 4y ago

> so to watch a 20 minutes animated show I’d have to take a +40$ subscription. You can buy season 6 on Apple TV and Google play for $19 according to this site: https://www.justwatch.com/ca/tv-show/rick-and-morty/season-6 https://www.justwatch.com/ca/tv-show/rick-and-morty/season-6

iso1631 4y ago
If there is no way to give money for a service I have no problems with getting it via other means -- when Discovery season 4 came out it wasn't available in the UK, so I downloaded it. A week later after the backlash they put it up for sale, and I spent the £20 or whatever to buy the series. I have no problems paying for netflix, disney, prime, and now paramount plus. I subscribe to apple TV for for all mankind, then I stop when it's finished. What I won't do though is pay to watch adverts, that was Cable/Sky TV's market, not interested. Sell me the program and I'll buy it, try to include adverts and I'll get it elsewhere.

varenc 4y ago

I pay for a bunch of streaming services, for semi-moral reasons, but I still pirate 99% of content. Pirating is the only way to get accurate high-quality subtitles. I’ll automatically download them from Opensubtitles and then strip out the very distracting non-dialogue parts like “[ominous music]”. Also streaming services often have out-of-sync subtitles, like DS9 on prime video. With pirated content I automatically get perfectly synced dialogue-only subs in the exact font, size, and styling of my choosing. Other benefits of pirating include: - knowing exactly what bitrate/resolution you’re getting. Streaming services love to stealthily downgrade Chrome users to 720p. Pirated content often uses more computationally complex encoding letting you get more quality in fewer bits. - easy playback of 4K content on the desktop. Often streaming services restrict 4K to certain hardware devices only. (where they can do L1 DRM protection) - general playback flexibility. Instead of relying on each streaming service's bespoke interface, I can use my preferred media player (IINA/mpv) with all my favourite keybindings. Also, I can try out things like vapoursynth motion interpolation to get pseudo-60fps, or real-time upscaling of cartoons with Anime4K.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

efsavage 4y ago

This is a moral question, but the answer doesn't really matter because there's a more important issue that preempts it, which is that you're ignoring a signal that if these these things aren't worth your money they're probably not worth your time either. I'm no fan of the companies involved, or their policies, or even copyright law as it stands, but I've gotten to a point where if something entertaining isn't worth the price, I just don't buy it. I have no "right" to watch a TV show that some monopoly is infringing upon. We all have so many things competing for our time and money, take advantage of that. If Rick & Morty isn't worth $40 to you, spend that $40 and those 20 minutes on something of better value. And yes, I still watch TV, though far less (2-4 hours/week) than I did before I adopted this thought process. And yes, I do watch, and pay for, Rick and Morty :D

lijogdfljk 4y ago

> And even if I was swimming in money, it's often easier to just download the shows I want and watch them on Plex/Jellyfin than trying to navigate the (often ad-riddled) interfaces of the various platforms and finding where the content I want is. I'm not quite there yet, but even when i already pay for the service (for example Amazon) i'm tempted to pirate it. My local Plex server is so much more usable than Amazon's terrible streaming app. Amazon's app freezes frequently for me, gets loading widgets stuck overlaying the movie/show, etc. I'm debating finding a way to download shows i pay for and then watch them locally. A bit of a grey area between paying and pirating, but i'm done with their crap UXs. I'll avoid pirating as long as i can because i make plenty to justify not pirating; but i will gladly solve their terrible UX problems myself if i am able. I am paying for it after all. TOS be damned.

citizenpaul 4y ago

FULL CIRCLE! haha. People used to have this crazy bundle of streaming services called "cable TV" People started to complain that it was getting too expense to pay $150+(even with commercials) a month when you only watch a dozen of the hundreds of channels at most. Then came streaming services. People were thrilled they could only pay for one channel at a time for 10-15$ per month.... problem solved.

zenosmosis 4y ago

I'm in Nicaragua and have a $10/mo. HBO Max subscription which includes Rick and Morty.

golergka 4y ago

Also, there's a LOT of illegal streaming services now that are much more convenient. They offer all shows and movies from any platform, better interface than Netflix and lower subscription cost, if any — often they are completely free and are monetized with ads. May it's something that is blocked or just not so popular in first world countries, but most of my Russian acquaintances use these services almost exclusively.

parentheses 4y ago

hbo max