31 ms·
> I want some way of telling them "I don't want to wade through crap..." Yarr matey, one way do be not parting ways with coin for said services, instead making
by warent 3y ago
> I want some way of telling them "I don't want to wade through crap..."
Yarr matey, one way do be not parting ways with coin for said services, instead making a more... equitable re-appropriation
- ModernMech 3y agoI genuinely don't understand this sentiment in 2023. Maybe in 2003 it was reasonable, but if you have the money, just spend it to buy the content you want. I get that there's a lot of "crap" that you don't want to see, but I appreciate some of that, and I'm sure you appreciate some of what I call "crap". I don't see how you go from that situation to justifying not paying for it. There's a price for the content and it's not $0. You can either pay it, or enjoy free things. There's so much content out there. Can you offer a full throated defense of why you feel it's okay to pirate media in 2023, with so many options for consuming media legally, on whatever device, at any time? That was the dream of pirates in 2003, but we've achieved that dream legally today and it's still not good enough for the pirates it seems.
- doubled112 3y agoI don't pirate because I just can't be bothered. It's all too much work for a short temporary experience, but I do remember the promises. Streaming was going to "save us" from the big cable companies. No ads, just pay that small subscription fee and watch what you want when you want it. Now there are a dozen subscription fees, I'm getting ads anyway, and I'm not getting content I want to pay money for. Some are even streaming live TV now, with no way to watch what you just watched again.
- oefrha 3y agoPirating popular shows is actually pretty darn easy, and you get the benefit of watching it with your favorite player wherever you want to, not with the crap player they offer under scenarios they dictate. Want to watch an HBO show offline on a plane or train, no problem. I actually “pirate” some of stuff I pay for.
- ModernMech 3y ago> the benefit of watching it with your favorite player wherever you want to, not with the crap player they offer under scenarios they dictate This is the part I don't get. Why do you feel you have this right? FYIW, HBO Max allows you to download episodes for offline viewing, so it's not exactly true they are dictating the scenarios. I watch HBO all the time on plane rides.
- jjulius 3y agoYou seem to have missed the key line: >I actually “pirate” some of stuff I pay for. So, if someone pays for HBO Max and watches the latest episode of Barry at home via the app, but, as I do, feel that HBO's UI/UX is dogshit, and they then download a copy of it and slap it on their phone or laptop in a way that's more comfortable to them for their flight tomorrow, what's the difference? OP continues to pay HBO, but that next view is just on a local device. Edit: HBO Max downloads "expire" after 30 days, and you have 48 hours to finish it once you've started[1]. You're also limited to 30 downloads at once. This is hardly 'convenient' for some people. [1]https://help.hbomax.com/us/Answer/Detail/000001242 https://help.hbomax.com/us/Answer/Detail/000001242
- monetus 3y agoI had a power outage recently, and everything I had downloaded but a children's movie had expired... This feature really got eaten by that policy.
- wincy 3y agoI use Apple Shortcuts + VPN + seed box and the shortcut grabs the magnet link and hits my torrent boxes API. I shared the Shortcut with my wife and it has made pirating so dang convenient and easy we’ve filled up 20TB of space, whoops, time to delete some shows. It’s also fantastic because I know -exactly- what my children are watching and if there’s some episode of Paw Patrol that’s particularly annoying it get deleted.
- jjulius 3y ago>I don't pirate because I just can't be bothered. It's all too much work for a short temporary experience, but I do remember the promises. This is the opposite of my experience. It took next-to-no effort, maybe an hour or two one time, to set up my Synology NAS box with Plex, Sonarr and Radarr. The result isn't something temporary, it's a fully-working system that obtains all of the shows and movies I want to watch and drops them onto Plex almost immediately. All I have to do is fire up Plex and the latest episodes of everything are right there, often within an hour of them airing on the east coast. I'm on the west coast, so this sometimes means I get to check them out before they air here. The result is a carefully curated library that's far more tailored to my tastes than any algorithm has offered me on any service.
- doubled112 3y agoEasier than ever! And I have a home server to run it from. It is just that I'm never going to consume it.
- Gareth321 3y agoI put far too much time into my server but now that it's up and running it requires zero input. I tell it what I want to watch and it serves it to me on a gold platter.
- gigel82 3y agoI bought and ripped the stuff we tend to rewatch a lot (The Office, Friends, Star Trek, Stargate, etc.) and am serving them from a local Plex instance. I occasionally pirate episodes of TV shows that would require another subscription (already paying for Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBO and Prime). Honestly, I'd much rather cancel all that and just pay à la carte for content as long as it's something reasonable (like $0.50 - $1 / episode or ~ $10 / season and $2 - $15 / movie - that adds up to about the same cost based on my family's viewing patterns, plus I get flexibility). It was nice when Netflix was the only game in town and it was worthwhile to pay it for the library, now it's too much to pay all these services for just a pile of 99% excrement.
- jjulius 3y agoThis, absolutely this, for my wife and I. Movies and shows that we love, we also download because it's often been inevitable that they get dropped from a streaming service at some point. Or, they're moved over to a new service (see: Peacock/Office) and we don't think that paying an additional monthly fee just to access that one show that we only occasionally watch is worth it. Similarly, if the streaming service continues to play ads despite paying for the service, we will just pirate the content.
- ModernMech 3y ago> Similarly, if the streaming service continues to play ads despite paying for the service, we will just pirate the content. Why though? Why don't you just watch some other content? There's so much out there, and you have so many choices, available without any ads, and also if you choose you can consume free content as well. Given that you have these alternatives, why do you feel you have the right to nonetheless violate IP laws because you don't like that a subset of content carries ads or restrictions?
- jjulius 3y ago>Why though? Why don't you just watch some other content? There's so much out there, and you have so many choices, available without any ads, and also if you choose you can consume free content as well. Because that content isn't this content, and I want to see this content. >Given that you have these alternatives, why do you feel you have the right to nonetheless violate IP laws because you don't like that a subset of content carries ads or restrictions? First, see above - that content isn't this content, so if there's not a suitable alternative, well, c'est la vie. I've demonstrated that I'm willing to pay for these things, albeit to a point. If the service goes beyond that point, and I still want the content, then I'll obtain it via other means. Besides, much of the specific content I'm referring to in this scenario rakes in massive profits every quarter and is doing quite well for itself regardless of whether or not I "violate IP laws" to obtain it. That's setting aside the fact that it's been shown that piracy doesn't harm sales[1]. Further, in spite of our pirating, we'll still often inject money back towards the IP via other means. [1]https://gizmodo.com/the-eu-suppressed-a-300-page-study-that-found-piracy-do-1818629537 https://gizmodo.com/the-eu-suppressed-a-300-page-study-that-...
- geodel 3y agoSimplest answer is because one can. It is much safer to grab any digital content than physical goods. If it were easier like this to grab food from stores and restaurants, grab homes of other people, they would do that too. Its not even hypothetical, in many parts of the world this all happens very commonly.
- mynameisvlad 3y ago> Simplest answer is because one can Sure. > If it were easier like this to grab food from stores and restaurants, grab homes of other people, they would do that too. You are implying that everyone pirating content would do these things if the chance of getting caught was low. I would posit that some people who pirate would, but it's a stretch to say that the entire group would. Taking your simplest answer: just because one can does not mean one would.
- sebzim4500 3y agoFor what it's worth, I am willing to pirate shows/software but would never steal physical goods even if there was a gurantee that I would get away with it.
- acuozzo 3y ago> Can you offer a full throated defense of why you feel it's okay to pirate media in 2023 -- NOT OP -- In the general case, no, but consider the cases of: 1. "Altered media" e.g. (1) Star Wars, (2) THX 1138. 2. "Remixed media" e.g. (1) Terminator 2 not having its theatrical CDS mix, (2) Earthquake not having its SENSURROUND mix 3. "Omitted media" e.g. (1) Halloween not having its original mono soundtrack, (2) The Exorcist not having its original mono soundtrack 4. "Missing media" e.g. (1) The Star Wars Holiday Special, (2) HBO's "Real Sex" documentary show 5. "Censored media" e.g. (1) Fantasia, (2) Song of the South There are entire online communities dedicated to finding, restoring, and preserving items like the ones mentioned above. So, is piracy OK in these cases? I emphatically believe it is.
- themitigating 3y agoWhy would it be ok in these cases?
- toyg 3y agoFor the same reason removing party figures from pictures with Stalin was Not OK. Historical preservation is important, if we care about truth.
- laserlight 3y agoWhy would it be not OK?
- acuozzo 3y agoIf art has value, then its form has value as well since art devoid of form is just communication which is no longer art. If the form of art has value, then the original form of that art has at least as much value since it reflects the original intention of the artist which inherently has value by being part of the historical record. If the original form of art has value, then there's value in preserving it for future generations to appreciate. If there's value in preserving the original form of art, then there's value in distributing it widely since history has shown time and time again that copyright holders alone are not enough... 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1937_Fox_vault_fire 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1965_MGM_vault_fire 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Universal_Studios_fire 4. https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/bbc-archives--wiped-missing-and-lost/z4nkvk7 5. https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/the-steely-dan-songs-on-aja-that-cant-be-remixed/
- prepend 3y agoI use plex as an interface and it organizes my content in an easy to find and watch manner. It’s the fewest clicks to see new content. Comically I subscribe to many online services (Hulu, Netflix, apple+) and will end up discovering and watching new shows through plex and my rss feeds than the actual apps. So pirating still gives me the best user interface. Especially with combining content from multiple services. Also, it’s not just pirating. I ripped my couple hundred dvd collection years ago when kids kept breaking DVDs. Comically, the cheapest way to watch most movies is to buy the dvd at Walmart for $4 and rip it to watch through Plex. The file never goes away and it skips the frustration of figuring out if Wolf of WalStreet is on Netflix, or Hulu, or HBO, some stupid one off streaming service that I’ll never use (peacock, paramount, whatever whatever). So I think it’s the same reason in 2023 as it was in 2003.
- ModernMech 3y agoSo piracy gives you the best UI. Sure. But why do you believe your need for the best UI is enough to clear the bar for ethics when it comes to violating other people's IP rights? Stealing food from the store is way more convenient than going through the line. Best UI there is for grocery shopping.
- prepend 3y agoWhy do you think copyright is ethical? I certainly wouldn’t steal food from a store as that deprives the store of food. That seems cut and dry. If I could photograph food and turn it into food to feed myself, I would certainly do that, even if it was illegal. It doesn’t deprive the owner of anything. There’s lots of injustice in the world. And I think IP leans more towards unjust than just. Do I think creators should be compensated? Yes. Do I think creators’ descendents should be compensated for 90 years? Probably not. I think copyright is designed and biased toward massive corporations to the detriment of society. So I don’t feel bad when I subscribe to HBONow and also “illegally” download torrents so it’s easier for loved ones to watch. I also feel like there’s a giant PR effort from wealthy entities against a few individuals and the fact that you’d equate downloading a movie with stealing food is so weird to me that it shows how distorted the discussion is. So we need some distinction between essential rights that seem real to me (bill of rights stuff) and “rights” that only exist because of successful lobbying on behalf of a very tiny industry (content industry is only like $100-200B globally where agriculture is $1.2T in the US alone).
- ChoHag 3y ago[dead]
- duxup 3y agoI'd rather encourage better options with my money than pirate. Granted there aren't many / any. I do donate to my local PBS station ... the content they provide is pretty dang good.
- dublinben 3y agoThe Criterion Collection now offers a streaming service, which consists mostly of what would be considered "better options" than the typical mainstream chaff. https://www.criterionchannel.com/ https://www.criterionchannel.com/
- duxup 3y agoTY, that's very interesting.
- nluken 3y agoCheck out Mubi, or your local library's Kanopy account if they have one. Lots of great art films on both services.