21 ms·

Several piracy-related arrests spark fears of high-level crackdown

162 points by gslin 3y ago

Dwedit 3y ago
Surprise surprise, people using services that announce their IP address and intention to seed torrents get caught because they were announcing their IP addresses.
- 3abiton 3y ago
  It's weird that experts go to length to seed large amount of copyrighted work, only not to use a VPN, for 3$/month. These are IT experts too. Is it arrogance?
  - russelg 3y ago
    You need port forwarding to be an effective seeder, and many VPNs do not offer this feature anymore. Mullvad was the most recent one to announce they're pulling port forwarding support. So then, you're stuck with spinning up your own VPN, which pretty much means you're stuck renting a server from some cloud provider, which then have your info and payment information so any warrant would give you up. Could find a provider that allows crypto payment, but then it's definitely not $3/m. Not to mention bandwidth costs.
    - JamesSwift 3y ago
      Torguard offers port forwarding, and has thing handy guide/discount code to go with it ; ) https://trash-guides.info/Misc/How-to-setup-Torguard-for-port-forwarding/ https://trash-guides.info/Misc/How-to-setup-Torguard-for-por...
    - sampli 3y ago
      This is why the concept of the seedbox exists. Many can be paid for with crypto!
throw20231126 3y ago
[flagged]
_8j50 3y ago
What are some good ways to automate getting all the latest torrents based on some patterns? Also, are private trackers still a thing? What are some good ones? I had access to a good invite-only tracker but lost it ages ago.
DoodahMan 3y ago
crack down all ya want, the scene will continue. see comments here as to why. no apologies here for flying the jolly roger. reckon piracy is a response to shit business practices. i'm not jumping through VPN hoops to watch what i want to. i'm not dealing with content being removed for whatever reason. feels like it's even worse in the sports arena. local blackouts etc. bunch of nonsense. now where's my rum?
beefnugs 3y ago
Canada will eventually make anything illegal that doesn't contain a Canadian actor or something equally dumb. So practice practice practice all your circuitous downloading and cryptography skills boys and girls
- fsflover 3y ago
  No skills are required. Just torrent in I2P.
- KMag 3y ago
  I remember some joke about pornography sites having trouble finding enough Canada-produced pornography to comply with Canadian telecommunications law. The Canadian actors kept getting into hockey fights as soon as they took their shirts off.
southernplaces7 3y ago
The big official content providers live in an expansive bubble world of sustaining themselves enough through legally sanctioned, DRM protected content streaming under restrictive moat conditions that they can afford to ignore the obvious stupidities of their distribution models. At the same time, they continue to lobby for anti-piracy controls without even slightly recognizing the deep flaws in their methods. Why? Because enough rent gets extracted from things as they are, from millions of consumers who are just content enough to keep paying, that it doesn't really matter to do anything innovatively different. Instead, the existing balance between lobbying legally against piracy and maintaining a strangled content distribution system works just well enough. This is why we keep seeing idiocies of DRM restrictions and policies that seem designed for a world in which the fully global internet and flow of information wasn't even a thing. You thus get situations where certain content is absurdly blocked in certain places without a single good practical reason because the balance I describe above isn't badly enough affected, at least for now. However if they keep pushing along this path, things will change, and possibly in nasty ways against their interest to a point where they'll have to open up more or deal with genuine damage to their rigged markets. Technology often (though sadly not always) has a funny way of suddenly breaking down dams in unexpected moments. In this case it would be especially easy for this to happen because the infrastructure of piracy is already here and easily available to anyone who puts in a modicum of effort. New innovations aren't even really necessary. it only (again, for now) lacks the incentives that could make it surge.
eur0pa 3y ago
nothing to do with the scene
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
3seashells 3y ago
Training humanity in the art of subversive communication and preparing it for the downfall into despotism.
sonicanatidae 3y ago
You ever play an arcade game called Wack-A-Mole? If so, this should seem familiar. I have the same level of compassion as the media companies that have made a business model out of shitting on the talent, the writers, the authors, the customers, etc.
vineetsinha 3y ago
HBO got rid of all seasons of Westworld for a tax write off and now nothing make sense.
tiahura 3y ago
[flagged]
MyFirstSass 3y ago
I'm from the region and every regular person pays for streaming these days, especially youngsters. I've searched for content on danish trackers once, for content that wasn't on any services, and i think a few people use it for that, ie. fans or film buffs. Often whole seasons are removed, content jumps around, or stuff just disappears forever even if you've paid for it. So this operation seems very excessive. Maybe there's an active strategy to remove old stuff to keep people interested in the newer? Either way this weird cultural goldfish-memory is tragic. There's so much out there not on streaming these days.
- ornornor 3y ago
  > cultural goldfish-memory Goldfish having short memories is a myth. See https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-63242200 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-63242200 and https://factmyth.com/factoids/goldfish-have-a-three-second-memory/ https://factmyth.com/factoids/goldfish-have-a-three-second-m... (contains sources) for instance.
- ptek 3y ago
  I can understand people wanting to share rare local stuff which would be otherwise harder to find. In New Zealand even though tvnz has streaming, all the older material still hasn't been digitised.
- akikoo 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - dang 3y ago
    "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - klodolph 3y ago
    I think you would be hard-pressed to find someone who always uses the word “every person” to mean “each and every person, without exception”. It is, unfortunately, not mathematical.
ptek 3y ago
I think back in the Amiga days the major groups were Trilogy and Paradox late 80s-92
oldpersonintx 3y ago
can you imagine going to prison over dreck like Indiana Jones:Dial Of Destiny or The Marvels?
- stuckinhell 3y ago
  I'm fairly certain many executives believe those movies failed due to piracy.
- baz00 3y ago
  The Marvels failed because it was vomitus garbage
- Aaronstotle 3y ago
  I think any person who saw The Marvels trailer could have told you that movie was going to bomb.
  - kyriakos 3y ago
    They released multiple trailers hinting to come back of older characters and yet it bombed. It wasn't just the plot in this case but the characters didn't have neither the star power behind nor the coherence that characters like iron man and captain america had. Marvel movies kept upping the stakes with every movie reaching the point where it makes no sense why other superheroes don't join in to help. For example where were the avengers during the events of The Eternals?
- ghaff 3y ago
  You can never go home again, so to speak, to watch the first Indiana Jones film cold. But Last Crusade and Dial of Destiny were IMO perfectly good (though not great) films.
typon 3y ago
I wanted to watch a special by my favourite comedian Stewart Lee. It's only available on BBC iPlayer and most VPNs I have tried don't seem to work with it. Is it really unethical for me to torrent that special that I literally can't pay for even if I wanted to? Information wants to get out (almost like a gas), and as long as it's suppressed, torrenting will remain relevant.
- Avamander 3y ago
  It's even more "fun" when it's the same streaming service, but your region is not amongst the blessed ones. One still has to pay the same price for the subscription as those that get a better catalogue, not to mention the differences in purchasing power. I struggle to see how avoiding in some sense unethical business practices is (as) unethical. EUIPO nicely published a study recently that very clearly says that it's primarily a service and economic issue. The amount of available service providers and the amount of piracy heavily correlated.
- WendyTheWillow 3y ago
  Yes, it is unethical to pirate content you don’t own the rights to. The problem comes from the false belief of entitlement to the media. The common argument that it’s the “only way” to obey certain content forgets the alternative, which is to not consume that content. You aren’t entitled to watch what you want. Obviously this is closer to “littering” than it is to murder, but technically it’s unethical.
  - kps 3y ago
    > Obviously this is closer to “littering” than it is to murder Littering leaves behind something that costs money (effort) to deal with. Trespassing is a better analogy: temporarily using something that doesn't belong to you, in a way that is undetectable if no one catches you in the act.
  - executesorder66 3y ago
    That's debatable. It's illegal to torrent, but not necessarily unethical. Is it really unethical to make an identical copy of a file? How would you feel if I made an identical copy of your car and drove off with the copy? Furthermore the people involved in making the content put a lot of time and effort into making this work of art. (Whether it is good art is for the perciever to decide) and now the distributor is preventing audiences from viewing/accessing the art for no good reason. Is that ethical? I see torrenting as a case of civil disobedience. Yes it is not legal, but it IS ethical. It is protesting stupid laws and policies. When distributers don't let you legally access content, they should get fucked over, and people should pirate it to send a message: "We would have paid for this, but you didn't want to let us. So fuck you, we will get it for free then. See how much blocking legal access helps you."
stuckinhell 3y ago
Not surprised this is happening. Disney has had 10 major film bombs in row. Alot of executives must believe it's due to piracy.
- baz00 3y ago
  As a follower of all things arrrrrrrr, the reason I didn't watch the Disney stuff was because I'm fucking fed up with their fucking garbage. I don't steal it or watch it in the cinema!
  - mythrwy 3y ago
    They are now producing a product that isn't even worth minimal effort to steal.
  - ospzfmbbzr 3y ago
    > Content so bad it's not worth stealing. Even torrents take time away from something else I could download that's better -- like all the movies made before it all went to shit. Naturally the solution is to erase the past by memory-holing old content so people will not have anything for comparison to make the current content look bad.
  - hotnfresh 3y ago
    Lots of the genre TV shows these days—like the Netflix Marvel stuff, or most of the Star Wars or Disney Marvel tv shows—can only be saved by fan edits because of the absurdly slow plotting, used to stretch a bit over a movie of plot to fill three or more movies worth of time. The scripts and editing are beyond flabby, they’re morbidly obese. Even if you’re paying for the service, the best version of the product’s usually coming from pirates.
  - kyriakos 3y ago
    Watched all marvel movies up to endgame at the cinema. After that watched a few at home and gave up. It's not piracy it's repetitive uninspiring plots, bad special effects, and characters that we don't care about. The Critical Drinker has a series of videos about what's wrong with movies these days, even if he's always exaggerating his points are spot on. https://youtube.com/@TheCriticalDrinker?si=IwnFx_y3YCA-zBzU https://youtube.com/@TheCriticalDrinker?si=IwnFx_y3YCA-zBzU
gustavus 3y ago
When my son was younger he liked Paw Patrol, so we bought several season of Paw Patrol, I now have a duaghter that is the same age and likes Paw Patrol. I pulled up my handy Youtube subscription, went into my bought movies and found out that the Paw Patrol season I had bought and paid for was no longer available because it was now only available on KidsToons+ or PreimerParenting or some other bull hockey like that. I decided at that point if they can yank away media I had already paid for on a whim, we no long had a contract. Now I am working on buying myself a fine sailing ship, and unfurling the jolly roger to sail the high seas seeking booty and plunder and buried treasure.
- gamblor956 3y ago
  YouTube does not remove purchased videos, those are yours to keep watching for as long as YouTube retains the right to keep distributing them (which is separate from the right to rent/sell them; generally the rightsholder agrees to indefinite distribution rights for sales as a basic contractual provision since it would otherwise render the "sales" right meaningless). Note that it is the exceptional case that YouTube would lose the right to show Paw Patrol to purchasers. Given the popularity of the show, something like that would have made national news. Politicians would be talking about it right now.
  - xp84 3y ago
    All that sounds reasonable, but you have much more faith than I do that the studios won’t just do whatever they want anyway. This is the same YouTube which will demonetize or take down any content for having seven seconds of a song overheard in the background just because the rightsholder asks them to. YouTube’s very existence is only at the mercy of content rightsholders to not sue them into oblivion like they almost did 15 years ago. In my experience, those entities will do whatever the fuck they want and YouTube will happily comply.
    - gamblor956 3y ago
      I have faith that large corporations will not openly do things that would cause them billions of dollars in direct damages and billions of dollars in reputational harm, in addition to the criminal charges they would be facing in the E.U. for such an act. Simply put, the story doesn't make any sense, and a deep dive into the Paw Patrol reddit forums didn't reveal any other person having this issue.
zoogeny 3y ago
Recently a friend of mine recommended me to watch the movie Heavenly Creatures. I went to justwatch.ca to see if it was streaming anywhere in Canada [1]. Not only was it not listed as streaming, it wasn't even listed to purchase anywhere. I went to as many places as I could think to find it: Amazon, Apple, Netflix, even Cineplex online. I was not able to find it anywhere available in Canada to stream for any amount of money. I found an article online that corroborates this is true [2] and recommends using a VPN to access content in other regions. It made me realize that we are very much at risk of losing our cultural memory. For this particular movie I could use a VPN I suppose, but I imagine that some movies/music/books will someday not be available in any region in any form. 1. https://www.justwatch.com/ca/movie/heavenly-creatures https://www.justwatch.com/ca/movie/heavenly-creatures 2. https://www.entoin.com/entertainment/heavenly-creatures-on-netflix https://www.entoin.com/entertainment/heavenly-creatures-on-n...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- jfghi 3y ago
  Recently I tried to purchase an exercise book to find that the printed copy released in 2013 was nowhere to be found new or used although I remember it being for sale as recently as last year. Instead there is only a kindle version available.
- jhbadger 3y ago
  In the US (and perhaps elsewhere) I recently witnessed this with Angels & Insects, the 1995 movie based on a novella by A.S. Byatt (who died last week). Not only does it not appear to be available streaming, but the DVD is out of print and used copies seem to be going for $40+.
- hellotomyrars 3y ago
  I pay for prime currently and Netflix in the past I still used torrents for content that I had access to because it was significantly more convenient to have an mp4 file. I prefer to use my player of choice. Also stupid restrictions on quality per device. You can’t get more than 720p on Netflix unless you use edge. That kind of restriction is so boneheaded stupid. The economics of it all is so insane anyways. How much money is a company getting if I watch their film once on Netflix vs how much are they getting if I buy it on physical media. The difference is difficult for me to justify . Also I don’t want to have a bunch of physical media taking up space. Do I rip them and sell the discs? Throw them away? Donate them? What is the morality of that? Anyways instead of trying to square the ethics of capitalism with the content I like, I’ll just do it on my own terms. Things do go down the memory hole though even in piracy. Less obscure stuff vanishes entirely.
A4ET8a8uTh0 3y ago
If steam and gog proved anything, it is that piracy is a service level issue. It is so much easier for me to purchase from of those, because I can trust ( at least until Gabe dies in Steam's case ) to some reasonable extent that they won't try to pull a rug from under me. CD Projekt is a public company now, but you CAN download raw ISOs if you are so inclined. If there was a similar reasonable repository for other media. Right now.. what we have almost the exact opposite that will likely result in a spike of piracy. I have 3 streaming services ( wife's bidding; don't judge ), but it is going to end up soon if they don't have anything worthwhile on it -- and I already argue that they do not.
- amatecha 3y ago
  Unfortunately, Steam has indeed engaged in some degree of "rug-pulling". Their client has locked out older OSes, and thus prevented users from continuing to be able to play the games they purchased for those given OSes. I've been on Steam since 2004, just a few months after it launched, and I have purchased some ~600 titles on there since that time. Of course, there are countless titles that are no longer playable because Steam will no longer run on the OSes some of the earliest titles were designed for. In some cases the titles will run in a newer version of Windows, but a computer that initially ran Windows XP can't realistically be upgraded to Windows 10. I still have ~every computer I've ever owned, and that includes the one I originally ran Steam on. So, after buying a ton of games, nothing changed on my end, but Valve decided to end access to my purchases because they decided I need to buy a new computer so I can continue to play what already ran just fine since 2004. There was quite a long time that I didn't foresee this inevitability with Steam and purchased a ton of games, but now I only buy them on steep discount because I know I'm only getting a "temporary pass" to play them until Valve decides my computer is too old. Oh yeah needless to say, GOG is awesome in this regard. All my purchases are backed up on my NAS. I can play them on my Windows XP/7 computers if I want to. As much as it's a hassle to store all that stuff (and not have cool social/network features like Steam does), at least I can keep and play my games as long as I want, without limitation.
  - opan 3y ago
    There's a chance those older Windows titles would work in Proton on GNU/Linux. Probably not the solution you want, but I thought it worth mentioning.
croes 3y ago
I would like to see the same enthusiasm in the prosecution of financial crimes committed by Wall Street & Co.
- fmajid 3y ago
  “Treason doth never prosper: what ’s the reason? Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.” ― John Harrington
- winternett 3y ago
  The other day I saw Netflix promoting they were streaming the WIZ (The 1970s movie With Michael Jackson FFS)... No new edit of the movie even, just a 40 year old movie that is now re-released for the 120th time, on streaming. There is often little to no value in new media, it's just rising costs in light of no alternative options for entertainment. Any other business doing that would fail, but these companies are having a field day on re-runs and low-effort content because social media encourages everyone to be isolated indoors on the Internet 24/7 when they're not working for large companies. A lot of the independent films being released rival that of major studios now, and no one is really citing the disparity in quality amidst the rising costs of online entertainment. I still kept most of my DVDs and a DVD player for the same very reason... I'll replay old movies if there are no new options forever and be happy if I need to. Most modern movies and shows are low-effort and rehashed ideas anyways, especially as Ai editing comes into play, the quality will decline in volumes of lazy work IMO... The single best way we can send a firm message is by not playing into funding the corruption. Instead of gamified Wall Street investing, high yield saving accounts and gambling on my own business ideas is still risky, but potentially far more profitable and stable than the markets in this new capitalist model. Don't play the game if the field is skewed for you to lose.
- plagiarist 3y ago
  You would have to be able to subscribe to Justice+. It's costly but subscriptions come with government handouts so I think you end up making money.
- TacticalCoder 3y ago
  > I would like to see the same enthusiasm in the prosecution of financial crimes committed by Wall Street & Co. What about corrupt politicians?
uconnectlol 3y ago
why am i paying severe amounts of tax money to protect the investment [1] of some garbage software, movie, and music firms whose product quality for the last 20 years have been at an all time disgraceful low to the point where i'm basically getting scammed if i buy their products but there is a cartel of such companies so no matter what alternative i choose it's just as bad. 1. and not even. the threat of piracy is just theoretical
- InCityDreams 3y ago
  >why am i paying severe amounts of tax money Define "severe"?
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    All the court costs for litigating copyright issues are explicitly costs, the lack of creativity from people not being able to use previously created media an implicit cost. Societies want to incentivize creating media, not creating a monopoly for 100+ years. Copyright protections should last 10 years.
- darigo 3y ago
  ha, your comment reminds of that quote from the mentor: "We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals"
echelon_musk 3y ago
I'm confused by this article. They seem to equate the scene with p2p. Admittedly I did only skim read TFA.

162 points by gslin 3y ago

Surprise surprise, people using services that announce their IP address and intention to seed torrents get caught because they were announcing their IP addresses.

3abiton 3y ago
It's weird that experts go to length to seed large amount of copyrighted work, only not to use a VPN, for 3$/month. These are IT experts too. Is it arrogance?
- russelg 3y ago
  You need port forwarding to be an effective seeder, and many VPNs do not offer this feature anymore. Mullvad was the most recent one to announce they're pulling port forwarding support. So then, you're stuck with spinning up your own VPN, which pretty much means you're stuck renting a server from some cloud provider, which then have your info and payment information so any warrant would give you up. Could find a provider that allows crypto payment, but then it's definitely not $3/m. Not to mention bandwidth costs.
  - JamesSwift 3y ago
    Torguard offers port forwarding, and has thing handy guide/discount code to go with it ; ) https://trash-guides.info/Misc/How-to-setup-Torguard-for-port-forwarding/ https://trash-guides.info/Misc/How-to-setup-Torguard-for-por...
  - sampli 3y ago
    This is why the concept of the seedbox exists. Many can be paid for with crypto!

throw20231126 3y ago

[flagged]

_8j50 3y ago

What are some good ways to automate getting all the latest torrents based on some patterns? Also, are private trackers still a thing? What are some good ones? I had access to a good invite-only tracker but lost it ages ago.

DoodahMan 3y ago

crack down all ya want, the scene will continue. see comments here as to why. no apologies here for flying the jolly roger. reckon piracy is a response to shit business practices. i'm not jumping through VPN hoops to watch what i want to. i'm not dealing with content being removed for whatever reason. feels like it's even worse in the sports arena. local blackouts etc. bunch of nonsense. now where's my rum?

beefnugs 3y ago

Canada will eventually make anything illegal that doesn't contain a Canadian actor or something equally dumb. So practice practice practice all your circuitous downloading and cryptography skills boys and girls

fsflover 3y ago
No skills are required. Just torrent in I2P.
KMag 3y ago
I remember some joke about pornography sites having trouble finding enough Canada-produced pornography to comply with Canadian telecommunications law. The Canadian actors kept getting into hockey fights as soon as they took their shirts off.

southernplaces7 3y ago

The big official content providers live in an expansive bubble world of sustaining themselves enough through legally sanctioned, DRM protected content streaming under restrictive moat conditions that they can afford to ignore the obvious stupidities of their distribution models. At the same time, they continue to lobby for anti-piracy controls without even slightly recognizing the deep flaws in their methods. Why? Because enough rent gets extracted from things as they are, from millions of consumers who are just content enough to keep paying, that it doesn't really matter to do anything innovatively different. Instead, the existing balance between lobbying legally against piracy and maintaining a strangled content distribution system works just well enough. This is why we keep seeing idiocies of DRM restrictions and policies that seem designed for a world in which the fully global internet and flow of information wasn't even a thing. You thus get situations where certain content is absurdly blocked in certain places without a single good practical reason because the balance I describe above isn't badly enough affected, at least for now. However if they keep pushing along this path, things will change, and possibly in nasty ways against their interest to a point where they'll have to open up more or deal with genuine damage to their rigged markets. Technology often (though sadly not always) has a funny way of suddenly breaking down dams in unexpected moments. In this case it would be especially easy for this to happen because the infrastructure of piracy is already here and easily available to anyone who puts in a modicum of effort. New innovations aren't even really necessary. it only (again, for now) lacks the incentives that could make it surge.

eur0pa 3y ago

nothing to do with the scene

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

3seashells 3y ago

Training humanity in the art of subversive communication and preparing it for the downfall into despotism.

sonicanatidae 3y ago

You ever play an arcade game called Wack-A-Mole? If so, this should seem familiar. I have the same level of compassion as the media companies that have made a business model out of shitting on the talent, the writers, the authors, the customers, etc.

vineetsinha 3y ago

HBO got rid of all seasons of Westworld for a tax write off and now nothing make sense.

tiahura 3y ago

[flagged]

MyFirstSass 3y ago

I'm from the region and every regular person pays for streaming these days, especially youngsters. I've searched for content on danish trackers once, for content that wasn't on any services, and i think a few people use it for that, ie. fans or film buffs. Often whole seasons are removed, content jumps around, or stuff just disappears forever even if you've paid for it. So this operation seems very excessive. Maybe there's an active strategy to remove old stuff to keep people interested in the newer? Either way this weird cultural goldfish-memory is tragic. There's so much out there not on streaming these days.

ornornor 3y ago
> cultural goldfish-memory Goldfish having short memories is a myth. See https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-63242200 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-63242200 and https://factmyth.com/factoids/goldfish-have-a-three-second-memory/ https://factmyth.com/factoids/goldfish-have-a-three-second-m... (contains sources) for instance.
ptek 3y ago
I can understand people wanting to share rare local stuff which would be otherwise harder to find. In New Zealand even though tvnz has streaming, all the older material still hasn't been digitised.
akikoo 3y ago
[flagged]
- dang 3y ago
  "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- klodolph 3y ago
  I think you would be hard-pressed to find someone who always uses the word “every person” to mean “each and every person, without exception”. It is, unfortunately, not mathematical.

ptek 3y ago

I think back in the Amiga days the major groups were Trilogy and Paradox late 80s-92

oldpersonintx 3y ago

can you imagine going to prison over dreck like Indiana Jones:Dial Of Destiny or The Marvels?

stuckinhell 3y ago
I'm fairly certain many executives believe those movies failed due to piracy.
baz00 3y ago
The Marvels failed because it was vomitus garbage
Aaronstotle 3y ago
I think any person who saw The Marvels trailer could have told you that movie was going to bomb.
- kyriakos 3y ago
  They released multiple trailers hinting to come back of older characters and yet it bombed. It wasn't just the plot in this case but the characters didn't have neither the star power behind nor the coherence that characters like iron man and captain america had. Marvel movies kept upping the stakes with every movie reaching the point where it makes no sense why other superheroes don't join in to help. For example where were the avengers during the events of The Eternals?
ghaff 3y ago
You can never go home again, so to speak, to watch the first Indiana Jones film cold. But Last Crusade and Dial of Destiny were IMO perfectly good (though not great) films.

typon 3y ago

I wanted to watch a special by my favourite comedian Stewart Lee. It's only available on BBC iPlayer and most VPNs I have tried don't seem to work with it. Is it really unethical for me to torrent that special that I literally can't pay for even if I wanted to? Information wants to get out (almost like a gas), and as long as it's suppressed, torrenting will remain relevant.

Avamander 3y ago
It's even more "fun" when it's the same streaming service, but your region is not amongst the blessed ones. One still has to pay the same price for the subscription as those that get a better catalogue, not to mention the differences in purchasing power. I struggle to see how avoiding in some sense unethical business practices is (as) unethical. EUIPO nicely published a study recently that very clearly says that it's primarily a service and economic issue. The amount of available service providers and the amount of piracy heavily correlated.
WendyTheWillow 3y ago
Yes, it is unethical to pirate content you don’t own the rights to. The problem comes from the false belief of entitlement to the media. The common argument that it’s the “only way” to obey certain content forgets the alternative, which is to not consume that content. You aren’t entitled to watch what you want. Obviously this is closer to “littering” than it is to murder, but technically it’s unethical.
- kps 3y ago
  > Obviously this is closer to “littering” than it is to murder Littering leaves behind something that costs money (effort) to deal with. Trespassing is a better analogy: temporarily using something that doesn't belong to you, in a way that is undetectable if no one catches you in the act.
- executesorder66 3y ago
  That's debatable. It's illegal to torrent, but not necessarily unethical. Is it really unethical to make an identical copy of a file? How would you feel if I made an identical copy of your car and drove off with the copy? Furthermore the people involved in making the content put a lot of time and effort into making this work of art. (Whether it is good art is for the perciever to decide) and now the distributor is preventing audiences from viewing/accessing the art for no good reason. Is that ethical? I see torrenting as a case of civil disobedience. Yes it is not legal, but it IS ethical. It is protesting stupid laws and policies. When distributers don't let you legally access content, they should get fucked over, and people should pirate it to send a message: "We would have paid for this, but you didn't want to let us. So fuck you, we will get it for free then. See how much blocking legal access helps you."

stuckinhell 3y ago

Not surprised this is happening. Disney has had 10 major film bombs in row. Alot of executives must believe it's due to piracy.

baz00 3y ago
As a follower of all things arrrrrrrr, the reason I didn't watch the Disney stuff was because I'm fucking fed up with their fucking garbage. I don't steal it or watch it in the cinema!
- mythrwy 3y ago
  They are now producing a product that isn't even worth minimal effort to steal.
- ospzfmbbzr 3y ago
  > Content so bad it's not worth stealing. Even torrents take time away from something else I could download that's better -- like all the movies made before it all went to shit. Naturally the solution is to erase the past by memory-holing old content so people will not have anything for comparison to make the current content look bad.
- hotnfresh 3y ago
  Lots of the genre TV shows these days—like the Netflix Marvel stuff, or most of the Star Wars or Disney Marvel tv shows—can only be saved by fan edits because of the absurdly slow plotting, used to stretch a bit over a movie of plot to fill three or more movies worth of time. The scripts and editing are beyond flabby, they’re morbidly obese. Even if you’re paying for the service, the best version of the product’s usually coming from pirates.
- kyriakos 3y ago
  Watched all marvel movies up to endgame at the cinema. After that watched a few at home and gave up. It's not piracy it's repetitive uninspiring plots, bad special effects, and characters that we don't care about. The Critical Drinker has a series of videos about what's wrong with movies these days, even if he's always exaggerating his points are spot on. https://youtube.com/@TheCriticalDrinker?si=IwnFx_y3YCA-zBzU https://youtube.com/@TheCriticalDrinker?si=IwnFx_y3YCA-zBzU

gustavus 3y ago

When my son was younger he liked Paw Patrol, so we bought several season of Paw Patrol, I now have a duaghter that is the same age and likes Paw Patrol. I pulled up my handy Youtube subscription, went into my bought movies and found out that the Paw Patrol season I had bought and paid for was no longer available because it was now only available on KidsToons+ or PreimerParenting or some other bull hockey like that. I decided at that point if they can yank away media I had already paid for on a whim, we no long had a contract. Now I am working on buying myself a fine sailing ship, and unfurling the jolly roger to sail the high seas seeking booty and plunder and buried treasure.

gamblor956 3y ago
YouTube does not remove purchased videos, those are yours to keep watching for as long as YouTube retains the right to keep distributing them (which is separate from the right to rent/sell them; generally the rightsholder agrees to indefinite distribution rights for sales as a basic contractual provision since it would otherwise render the "sales" right meaningless). Note that it is the exceptional case that YouTube would lose the right to show Paw Patrol to purchasers. Given the popularity of the show, something like that would have made national news. Politicians would be talking about it right now.
- xp84 3y ago
  All that sounds reasonable, but you have much more faith than I do that the studios won’t just do whatever they want anyway. This is the same YouTube which will demonetize or take down any content for having seven seconds of a song overheard in the background just because the rightsholder asks them to. YouTube’s very existence is only at the mercy of content rightsholders to not sue them into oblivion like they almost did 15 years ago. In my experience, those entities will do whatever the fuck they want and YouTube will happily comply.
  - gamblor956 3y ago
    I have faith that large corporations will not openly do things that would cause them billions of dollars in direct damages and billions of dollars in reputational harm, in addition to the criminal charges they would be facing in the E.U. for such an act. Simply put, the story doesn't make any sense, and a deep dive into the Paw Patrol reddit forums didn't reveal any other person having this issue.

zoogeny 3y ago

Recently a friend of mine recommended me to watch the movie Heavenly Creatures. I went to justwatch.ca to see if it was streaming anywhere in Canada [1]. Not only was it not listed as streaming, it wasn't even listed to purchase anywhere. I went to as many places as I could think to find it: Amazon, Apple, Netflix, even Cineplex online. I was not able to find it anywhere available in Canada to stream for any amount of money. I found an article online that corroborates this is true [2] and recommends using a VPN to access content in other regions. It made me realize that we are very much at risk of losing our cultural memory. For this particular movie I could use a VPN I suppose, but I imagine that some movies/music/books will someday not be available in any region in any form. 1. https://www.justwatch.com/ca/movie/heavenly-creatures https://www.justwatch.com/ca/movie/heavenly-creatures 2. https://www.entoin.com/entertainment/heavenly-creatures-on-netflix https://www.entoin.com/entertainment/heavenly-creatures-on-n...

deleted 3y ago
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jfghi 3y ago
Recently I tried to purchase an exercise book to find that the printed copy released in 2013 was nowhere to be found new or used although I remember it being for sale as recently as last year. Instead there is only a kindle version available.
jhbadger 3y ago
In the US (and perhaps elsewhere) I recently witnessed this with Angels & Insects, the 1995 movie based on a novella by A.S. Byatt (who died last week). Not only does it not appear to be available streaming, but the DVD is out of print and used copies seem to be going for $40+.
hellotomyrars 3y ago
I pay for prime currently and Netflix in the past I still used torrents for content that I had access to because it was significantly more convenient to have an mp4 file. I prefer to use my player of choice. Also stupid restrictions on quality per device. You can’t get more than 720p on Netflix unless you use edge. That kind of restriction is so boneheaded stupid. The economics of it all is so insane anyways. How much money is a company getting if I watch their film once on Netflix vs how much are they getting if I buy it on physical media. The difference is difficult for me to justify . Also I don’t want to have a bunch of physical media taking up space. Do I rip them and sell the discs? Throw them away? Donate them? What is the morality of that? Anyways instead of trying to square the ethics of capitalism with the content I like, I’ll just do it on my own terms. Things do go down the memory hole though even in piracy. Less obscure stuff vanishes entirely.

A4ET8a8uTh0 3y ago

If steam and gog proved anything, it is that piracy is a service level issue. It is so much easier for me to purchase from of those, because I can trust ( at least until Gabe dies in Steam's case ) to some reasonable extent that they won't try to pull a rug from under me. CD Projekt is a public company now, but you CAN download raw ISOs if you are so inclined. If there was a similar reasonable repository for other media. Right now.. what we have almost the exact opposite that will likely result in a spike of piracy. I have 3 streaming services ( wife's bidding; don't judge ), but it is going to end up soon if they don't have anything worthwhile on it -- and I already argue that they do not.

amatecha 3y ago
Unfortunately, Steam has indeed engaged in some degree of "rug-pulling". Their client has locked out older OSes, and thus prevented users from continuing to be able to play the games they purchased for those given OSes. I've been on Steam since 2004, just a few months after it launched, and I have purchased some ~600 titles on there since that time. Of course, there are countless titles that are no longer playable because Steam will no longer run on the OSes some of the earliest titles were designed for. In some cases the titles will run in a newer version of Windows, but a computer that initially ran Windows XP can't realistically be upgraded to Windows 10. I still have ~every computer I've ever owned, and that includes the one I originally ran Steam on. So, after buying a ton of games, nothing changed on my end, but Valve decided to end access to my purchases because they decided I need to buy a new computer so I can continue to play what already ran just fine since 2004. There was quite a long time that I didn't foresee this inevitability with Steam and purchased a ton of games, but now I only buy them on steep discount because I know I'm only getting a "temporary pass" to play them until Valve decides my computer is too old. Oh yeah needless to say, GOG is awesome in this regard. All my purchases are backed up on my NAS. I can play them on my Windows XP/7 computers if I want to. As much as it's a hassle to store all that stuff (and not have cool social/network features like Steam does), at least I can keep and play my games as long as I want, without limitation.
- opan 3y ago
  There's a chance those older Windows titles would work in Proton on GNU/Linux. Probably not the solution you want, but I thought it worth mentioning.

croes 3y ago

I would like to see the same enthusiasm in the prosecution of financial crimes committed by Wall Street & Co.

fmajid 3y ago
“Treason doth never prosper: what ’s the reason? Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.” ― John Harrington
winternett 3y ago
The other day I saw Netflix promoting they were streaming the WIZ (The 1970s movie With Michael Jackson FFS)... No new edit of the movie even, just a 40 year old movie that is now re-released for the 120th time, on streaming. There is often little to no value in new media, it's just rising costs in light of no alternative options for entertainment. Any other business doing that would fail, but these companies are having a field day on re-runs and low-effort content because social media encourages everyone to be isolated indoors on the Internet 24/7 when they're not working for large companies. A lot of the independent films being released rival that of major studios now, and no one is really citing the disparity in quality amidst the rising costs of online entertainment. I still kept most of my DVDs and a DVD player for the same very reason... I'll replay old movies if there are no new options forever and be happy if I need to. Most modern movies and shows are low-effort and rehashed ideas anyways, especially as Ai editing comes into play, the quality will decline in volumes of lazy work IMO... The single best way we can send a firm message is by not playing into funding the corruption. Instead of gamified Wall Street investing, high yield saving accounts and gambling on my own business ideas is still risky, but potentially far more profitable and stable than the markets in this new capitalist model. Don't play the game if the field is skewed for you to lose.
plagiarist 3y ago
You would have to be able to subscribe to Justice+. It's costly but subscriptions come with government handouts so I think you end up making money.
TacticalCoder 3y ago
> I would like to see the same enthusiasm in the prosecution of financial crimes committed by Wall Street & Co. What about corrupt politicians?

uconnectlol 3y ago

why am i paying severe amounts of tax money to protect the investment [1] of some garbage software, movie, and music firms whose product quality for the last 20 years have been at an all time disgraceful low to the point where i'm basically getting scammed if i buy their products but there is a cartel of such companies so no matter what alternative i choose it's just as bad. 1. and not even. the threat of piracy is just theoretical

InCityDreams 3y ago
>why am i paying severe amounts of tax money Define "severe"?
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  All the court costs for litigating copyright issues are explicitly costs, the lack of creativity from people not being able to use previously created media an implicit cost. Societies want to incentivize creating media, not creating a monopoly for 100+ years. Copyright protections should last 10 years.
darigo 3y ago
ha, your comment reminds of that quote from the mentor: "We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals"

echelon_musk 3y ago

I'm confused by this article. They seem to equate the scene with p2p. Admittedly I did only skim read TFA.