3 ms·

Not actually related to article, but the title made me think this... I feel like the piracy / p2p / scenegroup communities have been aging and being whittled d

Not actually related to article, but the title made me think this... I feel like the piracy / p2p / scenegroup communities have been aging and being whittled down by brutal relentless lawsuits and lobbying from corps. I get the impression not many younger people are interested and are generally more content to accept the corporate slop they are given. This is a bad thing. However u feel about piracy, keeping the skills alive to circumvent unfair systems imposed on you is really important for society and egality imo. MIT should teach a computer piracy course.

1letterunixname 3y ago
Aye, with an internship on the crimson permanent assurance laying waste to The Very Big Corporation of America. https://youtu.be/aSO9OFJNMBA https://youtu.be/aSO9OFJNMBA
midoridensha 3y ago
If it weren't for software pirates, countless old pieces of software (esp. DOS-era games) would be forever lost now. Society owes software pirates a huge debt of gratitude for keeping historical digital data archived. However, I feel your perception of the piracy/p2p communities might be dated. I think they took a bit of a nosedive a while back when Netflix reigned supreme, at least for movies, but due to the fragmentation of streaming services and the constant removal of content and increase in prices and now the crackdown on account-sharing, movie/TV piracy seems to be alive and healthy. I'm not so sure about music piracy though; the streaming services there haven't made the huge mistakes the movie/TV services have, so having a single streaming service for music seems to be quite popular these days because it's so convenient. Software piracy appears to be largely dead, thanks to the move to SaaS and online gaming. But my perception could be quite biased too.
- ghaff 3y ago
  >the streaming services there haven't made the huge mistakes the movie/TV services have I'm not sure it's so much mistakes of the streaming services as the fact that music has a near enough to universal for most people licensing scheme from a handful of major labels that the major services can offer a near-universal essentially interchangeable (other than UX and integration with other services) service to consumers. Whereas the fragmented (and frequently changing) rights owners in the film/TV business have no equivalent. I'm honestly not sure of the impact on piracy though. A lot of us shrug our shoulders, see all the content that is at there with a few subscriptions, and just ignore all the stuff we can't trivially watch.
  - midoridensha 3y ago
    >I'm not sure it's so much mistakes of the streaming services as the fact that music has a near enough to universal for most people licensing scheme It is the mistakes they've made: you're specifying the exact mistake I'm referring to. >Whereas the fragmented (and frequently changing) rights owners in the film/TV business have no equivalent. I'm honestly not sure of the impact on piracy though. Well, to listen to all the music you want, you just need one subscription for $10/month or whatever it is. To watch the films and TV you want, you need 10 different subscriptions, and it adds up to a lot of money. Why would this not have an impact on piracy? >and just ignore all the stuff we can't trivially watch. Maybe you do, but I imagine a lot of people turn to the high seas when they really want to watch one thing, and it's only available on some service they're not subscribed to, when they're already subscribed to several other services.
- no_time 3y ago
  >Software piracy appears to be largely dead Certainly not dead, but the multi decade long DRM arms race and the more insular nature of the scene recently means there isnt many new people joining. On the other hand, I'd say the groups that are already established are doing better in the last few years than they did before. Just to name a few recent breakthroughs: - WIBU dongles getting fully emulated in software by R2R. Used in higher end software like Propellerhead Reason. - The first scene proper of Office 365 by BTCR - Denuvo is still getting cracked after all these years.

1letterunixname 3y ago

Aye, with an internship on the crimson permanent assurance laying waste to The Very Big Corporation of America. https://youtu.be/aSO9OFJNMBA https://youtu.be/aSO9OFJNMBA

midoridensha 3y ago

If it weren't for software pirates, countless old pieces of software (esp. DOS-era games) would be forever lost now. Society owes software pirates a huge debt of gratitude for keeping historical digital data archived. However, I feel your perception of the piracy/p2p communities might be dated. I think they took a bit of a nosedive a while back when Netflix reigned supreme, at least for movies, but due to the fragmentation of streaming services and the constant removal of content and increase in prices and now the crackdown on account-sharing, movie/TV piracy seems to be alive and healthy. I'm not so sure about music piracy though; the streaming services there haven't made the huge mistakes the movie/TV services have, so having a single streaming service for music seems to be quite popular these days because it's so convenient. Software piracy appears to be largely dead, thanks to the move to SaaS and online gaming. But my perception could be quite biased too.

ghaff 3y ago
>the streaming services there haven't made the huge mistakes the movie/TV services have I'm not sure it's so much mistakes of the streaming services as the fact that music has a near enough to universal for most people licensing scheme from a handful of major labels that the major services can offer a near-universal essentially interchangeable (other than UX and integration with other services) service to consumers. Whereas the fragmented (and frequently changing) rights owners in the film/TV business have no equivalent. I'm honestly not sure of the impact on piracy though. A lot of us shrug our shoulders, see all the content that is at there with a few subscriptions, and just ignore all the stuff we can't trivially watch.
- midoridensha 3y ago
  >I'm not sure it's so much mistakes of the streaming services as the fact that music has a near enough to universal for most people licensing scheme It is the mistakes they've made: you're specifying the exact mistake I'm referring to. >Whereas the fragmented (and frequently changing) rights owners in the film/TV business have no equivalent. I'm honestly not sure of the impact on piracy though. Well, to listen to all the music you want, you just need one subscription for $10/month or whatever it is. To watch the films and TV you want, you need 10 different subscriptions, and it adds up to a lot of money. Why would this not have an impact on piracy? >and just ignore all the stuff we can't trivially watch. Maybe you do, but I imagine a lot of people turn to the high seas when they really want to watch one thing, and it's only available on some service they're not subscribed to, when they're already subscribed to several other services.
no_time 3y ago
>Software piracy appears to be largely dead Certainly not dead, but the multi decade long DRM arms race and the more insular nature of the scene recently means there isnt many new people joining. On the other hand, I'd say the groups that are already established are doing better in the last few years than they did before. Just to name a few recent breakthroughs: - WIBU dongles getting fully emulated in software by R2R. Used in higher end software like Propellerhead Reason. - The first scene proper of Office 365 by BTCR - Denuvo is still getting cracked after all these years.