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I keep hoping for the day the entertainment industry decides to solve the obvious problems that cause people to pirate, but instead we keep getting this endless

by jorams 3y ago

I keep hoping for the day the entertainment industry decides to solve the obvious problems that cause people to pirate, but instead we keep getting this endless lobbying for dystopian measures and technology that only exists to destroy value (DRM). Piracy simply offers a better product. You own the source material. Sell it. Make it available for streaming. Everywhere.

beerpls 3y ago
It’s honestly difficult being on this site some days the way people are such consumers No, I really don’t want “a better product”. I don’t want to be “sold” anything. I made the choice long ago just to not invest in garbage media. It was easy when they made it cumbersome to get. Instead of sitting around pouting, demanding the media corps behave in a not sociopathic way, I realized there are way better things to invest my limited life in than consuming propaganda And looking back I cringe hard at how many grown adults can’t get off this tit no matter how unreasonable the supply chain is. But to each his own
jasmer 3y ago
" decides to solve the obvious problems that cause people to pirate" - you mean like giving away everything for free? Well yeah, something someone else made, but for free, instead of $4.99, that's a 'better product' for consumers ... until there exists non such products to buy. It's an enduring bit of weird logic at HN, that somehow IP should not exist, 'because mega corps!' If anti-piracy did not exist within regular countries, then literally zero content that required investment would get made, it's that simple. If people can trivially access content 'for free' they generally will do that. For music, it's not so bad, it just so happens most of the best music is cheap to make and niche artists couldn't command a high price anyhow, ergo the long-tail slot on Spotify has some efficiency to it. But there are innumerable productions which we all enjoy which require investment and without some kind of rights management, those literally disappear. It's all theoretical until you make something that is 'stolen' and it hits home pretty fast. Some arguments could definitely be made that the long-tail of piracy is actually beneficial, even to content producers, as it leaks content to areas wherein individuals couldn't afford to buy it, but that's a specific argument. It's a bit ominous for countries to be blocking other countries etc. but this issue likely has to be looked at somehow. If 'piracy' is below certain thresholds they should just not worry about it, but that may not be the case.
- mxkopy 3y ago
  The Amazon Video app crashes so frequently it's unusable; it's actually more convenient to torrent. Spotify too has a hissy fit every time I lose wifi connection, I'd keep all my songs locally if I weren't listening to new music every week. Etc. Etc. While it's true that the cost is a problem to consumers, most won't jump through the hoops for it alone. I try to teach my friends to pirate things as much as I can, and they never want to because they don't want viruses or to go to "sus websites". Consumers in general don't want to break the law. Only the most dedicated ones with time and knowledge to spare will really go through with it.
  - martin8412 3y ago
    Infuse has so rarely crashed on me, and it works entirely locally without internet connection.
- tm-guimaraes 3y ago
  It seems that "Piracy is a service problem" is still not in people minds. Steam already proved that. Spotify already proved that. The netflix of 7 years ago proved that. Best sellers such as witcher3 that had no DRM what so ever also proved that. It's not about long tails or any other argument, it's much simpler than that. People are willing to pay for a decent service, people are unwillingly to have extra work. A Pirate website is never going to be more accessible than an official one always because of funding to do proper UX, so, even if all kinds of DRM were forbidden, actual legal services would always have the upper hand, and the better their service the less of a need for piracy. When steam started getting traction, PC piracy plummeted. When spotify became available, same thing happenned for music. When each film studio didn't have its own streaming service, the piracy was falling. Witcher 3 was a best seller on PC (and this is an AAA game, not a 5$ indie) when you could just copy paste your friends installer instead of buying. Everything is so goddam simple, provide good service, good value, and only people that don't actually have the budget to buy your stuff will pirate. Piracy is like union strikes, yes they are annoying and bring profits down, and it's bullshit that I have to wait 5 hours for a train because of a strike. But it is a necessary mechanism of power balance. > If people can trivially access content 'for free' they generally will do that. "trivially" is not so simple. what about app store access in every device? from tv boxes, phone to PC. what about shared settings, data etc between them? there is no success pirate story on that, only techies that have such hobie have something compared to an actual nice setup. It's the "why dropbox" comment. Pirates can't get enough money or legal ground to build something comparable to what a legal company can build. This means it's ok if it is forbidden to block bullshit practices like DRM and remote deletion, if you actually care for the customers, no pirate app/website can compete with you.
pjc50 3y ago
It's notable that because of the writer's strike, the streaming services are pulling some very recent series in order to not pay residuals. So things like the Willow series aren't going to be on sale or watchable anywhere official at all. Extraordinary value destruction. There's even been a few things made and simply never released due to weird economic decisions.

by jorams 3y ago

beerpls 3y ago

It’s honestly difficult being on this site some days the way people are such consumers No, I really don’t want “a better product”. I don’t want to be “sold” anything. I made the choice long ago just to not invest in garbage media. It was easy when they made it cumbersome to get. Instead of sitting around pouting, demanding the media corps behave in a not sociopathic way, I realized there are way better things to invest my limited life in than consuming propaganda And looking back I cringe hard at how many grown adults can’t get off this tit no matter how unreasonable the supply chain is. But to each his own

jasmer 3y ago

" decides to solve the obvious problems that cause people to pirate" - you mean like giving away everything for free? Well yeah, something someone else made, but for free, instead of $4.99, that's a 'better product' for consumers ... until there exists non such products to buy. It's an enduring bit of weird logic at HN, that somehow IP should not exist, 'because mega corps!' If anti-piracy did not exist within regular countries, then literally zero content that required investment would get made, it's that simple. If people can trivially access content 'for free' they generally will do that. For music, it's not so bad, it just so happens most of the best music is cheap to make and niche artists couldn't command a high price anyhow, ergo the long-tail slot on Spotify has some efficiency to it. But there are innumerable productions which we all enjoy which require investment and without some kind of rights management, those literally disappear. It's all theoretical until you make something that is 'stolen' and it hits home pretty fast. Some arguments could definitely be made that the long-tail of piracy is actually beneficial, even to content producers, as it leaks content to areas wherein individuals couldn't afford to buy it, but that's a specific argument. It's a bit ominous for countries to be blocking other countries etc. but this issue likely has to be looked at somehow. If 'piracy' is below certain thresholds they should just not worry about it, but that may not be the case.

mxkopy 3y ago
The Amazon Video app crashes so frequently it's unusable; it's actually more convenient to torrent. Spotify too has a hissy fit every time I lose wifi connection, I'd keep all my songs locally if I weren't listening to new music every week. Etc. Etc. While it's true that the cost is a problem to consumers, most won't jump through the hoops for it alone. I try to teach my friends to pirate things as much as I can, and they never want to because they don't want viruses or to go to "sus websites". Consumers in general don't want to break the law. Only the most dedicated ones with time and knowledge to spare will really go through with it.
- martin8412 3y ago
  Infuse has so rarely crashed on me, and it works entirely locally without internet connection.
tm-guimaraes 3y ago
It seems that "Piracy is a service problem" is still not in people minds. Steam already proved that. Spotify already proved that. The netflix of 7 years ago proved that. Best sellers such as witcher3 that had no DRM what so ever also proved that. It's not about long tails or any other argument, it's much simpler than that. People are willing to pay for a decent service, people are unwillingly to have extra work. A Pirate website is never going to be more accessible than an official one always because of funding to do proper UX, so, even if all kinds of DRM were forbidden, actual legal services would always have the upper hand, and the better their service the less of a need for piracy. When steam started getting traction, PC piracy plummeted. When spotify became available, same thing happenned for music. When each film studio didn't have its own streaming service, the piracy was falling. Witcher 3 was a best seller on PC (and this is an AAA game, not a 5$ indie) when you could just copy paste your friends installer instead of buying. Everything is so goddam simple, provide good service, good value, and only people that don't actually have the budget to buy your stuff will pirate. Piracy is like union strikes, yes they are annoying and bring profits down, and it's bullshit that I have to wait 5 hours for a train because of a strike. But it is a necessary mechanism of power balance. > If people can trivially access content 'for free' they generally will do that. "trivially" is not so simple. what about app store access in every device? from tv boxes, phone to PC. what about shared settings, data etc between them? there is no success pirate story on that, only techies that have such hobie have something compared to an actual nice setup. It's the "why dropbox" comment. Pirates can't get enough money or legal ground to build something comparable to what a legal company can build. This means it's ok if it is forbidden to block bullshit practices like DRM and remote deletion, if you actually care for the customers, no pirate app/website can compete with you.

pjc50 3y ago

It's notable that because of the writer's strike, the streaming services are pulling some very recent series in order to not pay residuals. So things like the Willow series aren't going to be on sale or watchable anywhere official at all. Extraordinary value destruction. There's even been a few things made and simply never released due to weird economic decisions.