16 ms·

Piracy Is Back: Piracy Statistics for 2023

84 points by franczesko 3y ago

dstick 3y ago
> For years, consumers griped about cable bundling and having to pay high prices for hundreds of channels they never watched in order to get the handful they enjoyed. Despite the growing availability of legal streaming options since then, piracy statistics show that infringement has remained a real concern. That's the thing isn't it? It was convenient when streaming first came on the scene. Everything in one place. "I'll gladly pay for the convenience". After roughly a decade it's approaching the state where it's as fractured as before, but now you pay a lot more - all services combined. So I'm not surprised it's growing again.
- CubsFan1060 3y ago
  I wish I had a way to quantify it, but it also seems like _investment_ has skyrocketed. 20 years ago HBO might make a high quality, high budget show. Now we have shows like the Marvel TV Shows, Wheel of Time, Foundation, House of the Dragon, the Mandalorian, Rings of Power, etc.. that all have MASSIVE budgets. A lot of that was funded by free money, but I think the quality and expectation of TV shows has gone up quite a bit.
  - DeathArrow 3y ago
    What if you aren't into sci-fi and fantasy?
    - TeMPOraL 3y ago
      Then it should be even better, because more mainstream interests means consuming media with more investment behind them.
    - BLKNSLVR 3y ago
      I don't understand the question.
      - DeathArrow 3y ago
        When talking about new, great content, parent mentioned only sci-fi and fantasy content: Marvel TV Shows, Wheel of Time, Foundation, House of the Dragon, the Mandalorian, Rings of Power, etc So, it seemed that if you are into that stuff, you have some amazing content. But what if you are not?
        ghaff 3y ago
        I tend towards SF myself but Deadwood, Russian Doll, Ted Lasso, The Morning Show, Succession... There's a lot of quality TV out there on streaming across a range of genres.
        BLKNSLVR 3y ago
        Sorry, I was trying to be funny... Context switch: I think I'll be forever disappointed that The Peripheral got axed.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 3y ago
    But I still need at least 3 services to watch them. When pirating is just as easy and at worst costs you 1 service: a VPN.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      >But I still need at least 3 services to watch them. Which costs you maybe a third of what a cable TV subscription cost you.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Aside from the odd miniseries, TV was mostly sitcoms, cop shows, reality TV over time, etc. Even HBO was mostly a way to watch movies until the Sopranos came along. There's been a massive transformation over the past few decades to TV being something on par with film in terms of talent and production values. I have no idea what the shows on network TV even are these days and, as far as I'm aware, there's nothing with any sort of buzz.
- TheJoeMan 3y ago
  I own a full cable package with rights to ESPN, but didn't have the app downloaded on my phone. I tried to catch the end of a game in the web browser, and ESPN.com refused to allow access via web. Guess what was faster to search for?
  - bearjaws 3y ago
    Let's not even talk about the NFL, there are 2 times a year where I cannot watch a Dolphins game, living in Florida, while paying for NFL+ / NFL Game Pass. The whole streaming rights system is a joke, I forget the exact issue but IIRC NFL doesn't have rights to sell the games to local broadcasters, so it simply isn't available in the teams home state on their service.
- nehal3m 3y ago
  I don't mind paying for a service at all; I'll happily switch one service for another every month or few months. The main sticking point the diaspora causes for me is I can't find what I want. Maybe some people subscribe to a service and happily browse and watch what's available. I'm not a huge show or movie buff so I tend to go by personal recommendations so for me the process is flipped. I start with a movie or a show and go 'okay, where do I watch this?'. Finding out is ridiculously annoying. Furthermore, there are services like Prime that will show you what they have in stock that is for sale AND what's included with the subscription in the same view. That means I can't tell at a glance what I can watch as part of my subscription and what I have to pay extra for. It seems purposely obtuse to me, to nickel and dime. And even if I do pay extra to 'buy' a movie, the Sony debacle has shown that I can't assume I can watch stuff that I have bought indefinitely.
  - WithinReason 3y ago
    It's easy to find where to stream a show from: https://www.justwatch.com https://www.justwatch.com https://reelgood.com/ https://reelgood.com/
    - nehal3m 3y ago
      I'm sure that works well in the US. In my locale not so much.
      - WithinReason 3y ago
        Is it inaccurate if you set your country?
    - Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
      Thank you. Piracy is still way ahead of this madness
- e12e 3y ago
  Even when I have access to streaming from a provider - streaming from my own box is more reliable and convenient: access to my library from a single app; if it's on the disk I know I can watch it whenever. It's easier to find the media on a pirate site, than to try to guess which service has streaming rights for a show or movie in my country.
- zxt_tzx 3y ago
  I think it's interesting to contrast this with music. Music is dominated by a few big labels, which makes it very easy for each provider (Spotify, Apple Music etc.) to provide a complete catalogue and thus convenience. (Though this does mean Spotify's unit economics are much worse, partially explaining the foray into podcasts and recent layoffs etc.) Furthermore, whereas we hardly rewatch the same movies, we constantly re-listen to the same music we first encountered in our adolescence (nobody can convince me that the 90s is not the pinnacle of pop music). This makes things like playlists a lot more valuable and sticky. I am not particularly ideological about copyright/piracy one way or another, but I know I probably won't be pirating music anytime soon.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    I subscribe to Apple Music but, honestly, if music streaming services went away tomorrow I'd be pretty happy with my own library which is mostly music I bought on physical media at some point or other. (Yes, some is from Napster but mostly replacing songs on old vinyl albums.)
  - BLKNSLVR 3y ago
    I feel like I'm a fairly way out there outlier, but I still find modern music that beats nostalgia. But I also find music that was "before my time" that's just fucking magical as well. You have to put effort in though, because passively you're just fed slops. The good stuff, the real nourishment, has to be dug out of the ground.
  - nicoco 3y ago
    > I am not particularly ideological about copyright/piracy one way or another, but I know I probably won't be pirating music anytime soon. And yet, if musicians being able to pay the bills is your concern, saving what you pay to spotify and buying a few albums on bandcamp instead is possibly the way to go. From https://neurodifferent.me/@clowncollege/109994297731928004 https://neurodifferent.me/@clowncollege/109994297731928004 : > I've been a professional musician since the end days of selling CDs, and I would like to say that having experienced the decline of CD sales because of piracy transition into the paid streaming era it's unambiguous that musicians were better off when mostly everyone was pirating and then some people bought CDs or other merch out of a desire to support vs today when everyone pays a nominal fee to a corporation that pays us nothing and also satisfies their desire to support despite not actually offering support.
- pier25 3y ago
  On top of that, the services do crap like not offering 4k hdr versions of modern content. In Netflix all third party films are offered in caveman 1080p sdr. In Prime and HBO it's similar.
  - TremendousJudge 3y ago
    And good luck trying to figure out what hardware you need to have in order to actually get the high-bitrate version of the video.
- DeathArrow 3y ago
  >That's the thing isn't it? It was convenient when streaming first came on the scene. Everything in one place. I have to subscribe to a service where maybe only a tv show interests me and the rest is junk. Subscribe to another service for another tv show, and so on. That is not convenient. Give me a website where I can pick from all online available media I can only watch and pay what I want.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    You can do that in many (though not all) cases on Amazon and Apple if you pay a la carte.
- bluescrn 3y ago
  Streaming services have fragmented, increased prices, and fought back against account sharing at a bad time, too - as inflation and cost-of-living have skyrocketed. Need to save some money? - First thing to cut back on is entertainment-related subscriptions.
jampekka 3y ago
> Internet piracy isn’t ethically justifiable, but it is convenient. Intellectual property isn't ethically justifiable, but it is convenient for some. > Illegal downloading of copyrighted materials takes up 24% of the global bandwidth. In many (most?) jurisdictions downloading material is not illegal. Have these been subtracted from this figure, or is this yet another lie? Given the history of this propaganda, I'm quite sure it's the latter.
- still-old 3y ago
  How ethical is it to not report how much you(dataprot) got paid for this schilling?
- voisin 3y ago
  > Illegal downloading of copyrighted materials takes up 24% of the global bandwidth. This seems shockingly high. I wonder how different this is geographically. I would think streaming via Netflix and others, YouTube, Twitch, etc would have shrunk illegal streaming to a much smaller percentage of the total.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    I'm sure it varies a lot geographically. In the US, I expect the bulk is streaming services as you say. While I'm sure there are many outliers on a forum like this, most people subscribe to a few services and watch what's available. I know I do. I'll rarely look for something elsewhere if I can't easily get it via streaming (whether subscription or a la carte). I have no particular insight into the global situation but certainly availability is patchier and incomes are often lower.
    - voisin 3y ago
      So let’s say it varies geographically and the majority is in developing nations where finances don’t allow for relative luxuries like streaming services so people disproportionately turn to torrents. I suspect this is accurate. In this instance, what’s the point of trying to lock down illegal streaming? There isn’t an opportunity cost being missed, and the people can’t afford to pay fines, so it seems like a no win situation. Let them be and maybe as those countries develop and people become wealthier they follow the same path as developed nations where most people pay for the ease of streaming.
scrlk 3y ago
To quote Gabe Newell: > "We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable."
- baka367 3y ago
  I agree with Gabe here. I basically stopped pirating games once I could add something that I like to my collection during steam sale for a nice discount instead of waiting for days for whatever service to ship it. I can also return it if I end up not lilinkg it, not like with a physical copy.
  - trey-jones 3y ago
    Yes, but price is definitely a part of the service. This one is easy for me: Disney jacks prices by 80%, people decide not to pay for it.
    - al_borland 3y ago
      Price is part of it, and paying customers should never have a worse experience than those getting something for free. With DRM, activation severs that can be shut down, exclusivity deals, and fragmentation of marketplaces… paying customers often get a worse experience.
      - nicolaslem 3y ago
        I wish Valve used their weight to cut down on the DRM, online activation and micro-transaction bullshit.
        sensanaty 3y ago
unixhero 3y ago
Victimless activity (crime word omitted)
- Zambyte 3y ago
  Unauthorized copying
  - xyst 3y ago
    You wouldn’t download a car?
    - BLKNSLVR 3y ago
      You wouldn't steal a succulent Chinese meal https://www.redbubble.com/i/t-shirt/You-Wouldn-t-Steal-A-Succulent-Chinese-Meal-text-only-Meme-by-sticker-stacker/84423536.FB110 https://www.redbubble.com/i/t-shirt/You-Wouldn-t-Steal-A-Suc...
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
leetrout 3y ago
> Digital video piracy is costing the US economy between $29.2 and $71 billion each year. ... > This number surely affects the US economy in terms of lost movie industry revenue as well as lost jobs and tax revenue. So no facts to back this up that I saw. Some amount of piracy is uncountable because the user never would have bought the media anyway.
- Semaphor 3y ago
  > So no facts to back this up MAFIAA and friends were never big on facts.
- Shaanie 3y ago
  I suspect it's most content and not just some. I may prefer to watch a specific movie, like Heat (1995), but if it's not available on the streaming services I currently pay for I'm more likely to watch something else rather than pay 15 bucks (or whatever) for it.
- bluefirebrand 3y ago
  Yeah, these numbers are always very dishonest. There's no accounting for * People who were never planning to buy, including people who just plain could not afford to buy if they wanted to. * People who bought after pirating * People who pirated something that was not available anywhere to purchase in their region It's basically impossible to account for all of these different reasons, but arguably none of those were really ever going to contribute the money. Besides, people have no moral duty to support the US economy.
  - Freak_NL 3y ago
    * People who just hoard media. There are many people who will download anything within a given set of parameters and only ever watch a fraction of it. It's a form of local digital library building.
    - bluefirebrand 3y ago
      Yeah, that's true too. Basically mass data archiving, which is actually a super valuable service to society if we want to have any hope of keeping less popular digital information alive for the future.
Xiol32 3y ago
Is this really surprising? When it was just Netflix charging a few dollars a month for loads of content, it was great. It was easier than safer than pirating, and people turned to it in droves. Now content is spread over dozens of streaming services, with price rises happening annually and cost of living biting hard for the average person. Most of the time, you only want a handful of shows from a given service anyway, and some of those services aren't even available in your country. The only way to combat piracy is to make it harder than just paying for content. We were there at one point, and now the tables are turning again.
- ajross 3y ago
  > and cost of living biting hard for the average person This is a meme that won't die. This is simply false. Real wages, real per capita GDP, real median income et. al. are all higher now than before covid. There was a 13 month burst of inflation (which correlated almost perfectly with wage growth, FWIW), and it seems like everyone lost their minds.
  - polygamous_bat 3y ago
    > Real wages, real per capita GDP, real median income et. al. are all higher now than before covid. You literally said nothing about cost of living here?
    - ajross 3y ago
      I literally did? That's what "real" means: having more real wages means you can buy more stuff. It's already adjusted for price rises. Check out FRED if you don't believe me: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A939RX0Q048SBEA https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A939RX0Q048SBEA https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N You and the upthread commenter are just citing a meme. It is not true. Period.
      - elashri 3y ago
ptrrrrrrppr 3y ago
It's always funny for me how the lost profits they calculate are inflated as hell. Here for example, they state that the US economy lost 29B$ due to piracy. In majority of the cases people who downloaded some of these shows/music would never buy all of these at full price. I personally subscribe to 3-5 streaming services and still if I'm looking for something classic (e.g. 1995 Heat) it always turns out to be either unavailable in my region or only provided on some niche platform I've never heard of. If you're just watching what's hot right now then everything works fine, but any other case you're in trouble and have to dig through the internet just like in the old days of pirate bay.
- CoastalCoder 3y ago
  I'm very naive about economics, but couldn't we go further and say that the money would just be spent somewhere else in that same economy?
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    It is spent somewhere else by those pirating, because almost everyone lived paycheck to paycheck anyway.
  - xyst 3y ago
    Like concerts or merch where the artist or creator gets much more money than through parasitic music labels and film studios? I agree here. Person finds pirated music by X artist. Decides they really love the artist and in turn buys concert experience or merch.
- libertine 3y ago
  > It's always funny for me how the lost profits they calculate are inflated as hell. It's also funny they don't account for the free distribution, reach, branding, and market penetration that Piracy gives them. We've had the release of the GTA VI trailer a few days ago and it reminded me of how me and my friends became truly fans of the series with GTA Vice City. We were kids and couldn't afford it so we had to play it in some other way - plus with the modding scene bringing Multi Theft Auto (MTA) we could play GTA Vice City online with friends. If it wasn't for that there are plenty of people who wouldn't have helped make the franchise into what it became. They got fans for free, who wouldn't be able to play the game either way, thanks to mass distribution. Those folks ended up becoming paying customers into the franchise later down the line.
kotaKat 3y ago
> But before you ditch the streaming services for an illegal torrent, take a look at the alarming piracy statistics we’ve compiled. They’ll show you that piracy is making a comeback, but they’ll also warn you against falling into this bad habit. Gross. What is this, a spokesperson for the MPAA?
mkl95 3y ago
Looks like all those interest rate hikes are working after all. Just not in a way that pleases everyone.
AlexandrB 3y ago
> Internet piracy isn’t ethically justifiable, but it is convenient. I don't know. After the recent Sony debacle[1], I wouldn't blame anyone who goes out and downloads the content that was removed from their libraries. You already paid for it, after all. [1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/12/playstation-is-erasing-1318-seasons-of-discovery-shows-from-customer-libraries/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/12/playstation-is-erasi...
figmert 3y ago
> Internet piracy isn’t ethically justifiable Is it not? What about when a company like Sony pulls millions of purchased digital content without a refund? What about when discovery pulls a whole lot of content so they can write it off? What about when companies push for digital only releases without a way to physically own the content? No, piracy isn't just ethical, it is the only way one can ensure they actually own what they buy.
- zxt_tzx 3y ago
  To spell out what I think you're saying, the way to be ethical and have ownership is to pay for the content and then download a version of it so that you both supported the creator and have a copy of what you paid for.
  - TremendousJudge 3y ago
    But then you're a criminal anyway?
- BLKNSLVR 3y ago
  cough Hollywood accounting cough
- flkenosad 3y ago
  Not to mention archiving. I trust anon pirates to keep content unaltered and available more than any single centralized organization.
  - HideousKojima 3y ago
    Like how the only way to watch the Michael Jackson episode of the Simpsons is to either buy secondhand copies of the DVDs, or pirate.
    - BLKNSLVR 3y ago
      Let's not mention the original cuts of Star Wars. Pirates are (involuntary) archivists.
e12e 3y ago
It seems they forgot to list the most popular sites for pirater material... /s
sbarre 3y ago
This is always the stat that I take exception to: > More than 70,000 jobs per year in the US alone are lost because of the lost revenues that came from music piracy. > (RIAA) > Music industry piracy statistics highlight the costs of music piracy and the immense consequences on the American economy. Music theft costs American workers significant losses in jobs and earnings as well as costing the US government substantial lost tax revenues. I get all the rest, and I'm at a point in my life where I pay for my media, and I don't believe in any philosophical or moral justification for piracy (nor do I condemn it - to each their own but don't be a hypocrite about what you're doing). But these kinds of reports always lose me when they tack on these huge numbers of job and revenue losses. The majority of people who pirate wouldn't spend the money if they couldn't pirate. So these are totally fake numbers.
- twothamendment 3y ago
  In with ya. When reading that pirated music costs 70,000 jobs I just laugh. I don't think there would be more jobs (maybe a few), but that the people at the top would have a bigger salary or bonus.
  - BLKNSLVR 3y ago
    70,000 more musicians who could be earning $0.10 per month from their streams played on Spotify.
- Miraltar 3y ago
  Not to mention they don't throw the unspent money into a thrash can, it's just spent elsewhere...
Finster 3y ago
https://slate.com/technology/2011/07/netflix-streaming-is-killing-piracy.html https://slate.com/technology/2011/07/netflix-streaming-is-ki... > It’s convenient, it’s not that expensive, and the selection is just good enough. Welp, netflix (and others) are 3 for 3 on eroding those advantages.
savgore 3y ago
Always struck by the economics these sort of orgs must be fabricating to assume that: "Digital video piracy is costing the US economy between $29.2 and $71 billion each year." (What an absolutely huge margin) and "Annual global revenue losses from digital piracy are between $40 and $97.1 billion in the movie industry." As if all these people who consume this pirate content would be purchasing it if the free alternative wasn't available to them. It's a very out of touch assumption to be making I think.
stonecharioteer 3y ago
I started building a 48TB NAS this year after giving up on consumer-grade external hard drives. I am fed up of wanting to watch something and needing to figure out which platform to watch it in. I'm even more fed up when stuff is region locked. What makes things worse are device limits. I have nearly a dozen devices at home and would like to watch on whatever device I'm currently using. Just because you're concerned about people sharing passwords, you should not limit me to using your app on one or two devices. It's a broken system. Streaming is... Horrible. The experience of having to wait a year for a season of a show when US has it on day one is horrible. And stuff which is in copyright limbo? Being unable to watch older cartoons because it's politically incorrect or because it's inappropriate for today's audiences is downright demeaning. I'd like to laugh at a Tom and Jerry bit without worrying about 2023's current comedy palette. Spotify also ruined my music tastes by randomly polluting my playlists with stuff it thinks I should listen to because other people around me do. I do not. I'd rather listen to offline music that I've downloaded and made into manual playlists. I used to scrobble my music so I'd get recommendations. Right now, I just want to listen to a small subset of music I loved 10 years ago. Nothing new excites me. Piracy isn't just about free stuff. It's about being able to use something freely. I'm still paying for these platforms, but I don't stream anything off them anymore. My parents use my accounts instead. I'm going to use Plex with my NAS so I can stream anything I want into my devices.
Levitz 3y ago
It's inherently dishonest to go on and about how piracy hurts industries without taking a moment to point the enormous benefit it gave them. There is absolutely, completely no way in hell the music and video industries would have their current sizes and audiences without piracy. Netflix and Spotify wouldn't have been made if it wasn't for piracy to begin with. What kind of insane madman would ever license material to these companies in a world with no piracy whatsoever? What kind of audience is there in the first place? I don't, for a single one goddamned second, believe that the vast majority of musicians and film makers haven't resorted to pirated material, the cost to actually have a decent collection otherwise is preposterous, the cultural benefit of piracy is ginormous, it can hardly be put into words.
elashri 3y ago
I really find it very misleading to report the piracy in terms of lost money. Because this always assumes that if no piracy exists, then 100% of people who did it will pay for the material otherwise. The argument goes along, this really hurts the economy by this amount. Which reminds me of the argument 'but think of the children' when talking about online privacy.
isubasinghe 3y ago
This is silly, it assumes people will purchase instead. I pirate stuff because I am bored and just want to watch something, my order of priorities are: Pirate, not watch, purchase.
DeathArrow 3y ago
So the answer is more DRM, more surveillance? What about making stuff cheaper so people have less incentive to download said stuff?
vb-8448 3y ago
Illegal streaming turning back is a sign that nowadays there are too many legal streaming services, and they cost too much. In Europe, you can spend several hundreds/month € and still non be able to view everything legally.
cheese_van 3y ago
"As of 31 December 2023, due to our content licensing arrangements with content providers, you will no longer be able to watch any of your previously purchased Discovery content and the content will be removed from your video library." When consumers are dissuaded from purchasing content, when a purchase is not a purchase, arguments against piracy are almost insulting.
pierat 3y ago
> Internet piracy isn’t ethically justifiable.... It ABSOLUTELY is ethically justifiable. https://xkcd.com/488/ https://xkcd.com/488/ And these companies aren't happy will selling us media one time. They demand that we buy it in VHS... Then DVD... Then HDDVD, oh nope BLURay. Then 'streaming'. And our rights go down and down each iteration. I also have stacks of movies in various formats. Again, even format shifting something like a Macrovision'ed VHS or ripping a DVD is a crime. So buying legit and format shifting is a crime? Cool, I'll just download and be a pirate. It's laughable that they even try to play the 'ethics' card. Like, how else would Weird Al get his $12 sandwich for the millions of plays? https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/weird-al-yankovic-spotify-wrapped-video-criticism-1234905887/ https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/weird-al-yanko...
that_guy_iain 3y ago
> Internet piracy isn’t ethically justifiable, but it is convenient. I don't know. I used to pirate heavily and always said once I could afford to buy stuff I would buy stuff. Then I could afford to buy stuff so I bought stuff, I used Netflix, Amazon Prime, Spotify, etc. Then I started to lose things I bought. Until they make digital purchases an actual purchase then I choose to boycott them and pirate instead. Boycotting them and not enjoying things because of this would be cutting my face off to spite my face and hurt me more than the company with the unethical business model. But if I pirate it, it only hurts them.
- timbit42 3y ago
  This is what Charlie Brown feels like when trying to kick Lucy Van Pelt's football.
Semaphor 3y ago
Recently wanted to rewatch Continuum. Amazon Prime in Germany has S2-4 as stream, sells S1-4. But everything only in German, and no subs. Apple sells something? Maybe only S1? I don’t understand how I can see it without an iTunes account or maybe iTunes installed? Good job having a worse UX than either Google or Amazon, though, that takes work. Google has only S1, and again only in German. Sure is convenient to be able to get what I want at all, because apparently no one else sells or rents it. Sure, I could buy the DVDs (probably for a fraction of the price of buying it at Amazon), go through the hassle of ripping everything, fix the subtitles etc. like I did for ReGenesis, but that’s hours of work, so yeah, you bet I go with the convenient version, and I find it perfectly ethically justifiable.
- glanzwulf 3y ago
  Same boat here, also Germany. Wanted to watch the Bourdain show "No Reservations" and it's practically impossible. There are only 3 ways: 1. Import the DVDs from the US, but pay a high cost for the DVDs, the high cost of shipping, the taxes and customs and eventually, once it arrives, watch it. 2. Be a criminal, get a VPN, fake address and data, prepaid US credit card and subscribe to discovery in the US and watch it. 3. Be a criminal and pirate it easily. Is piracy really the problem?
animuchan 3y ago
> 70,000 jobs a year are lost in the United States due to music piracy. In other words, if not for the piracy, a significant part of the workforce would be music producers by now. Napster saved us all from a weirdly dystopian future.
mdtrooper 3y ago
Well, the history of telephony started with a big public companies in each country and therefore the private companies started but if you have a friend with the number phone in company-foo and you have the number phone in company-bar. You can phone your friend and company-foo and company-bar do the economic accounts ( I don't know maybe it is a big data). But the streaming platforms (netflix, disney...) are separate islands. I think that the all content (films, tv series...) should in all platforms and if the user want to see a "disney film" in his netflix app, the netflix company do the economic balance/account with disney. And the streaming platform war will be for good content for to avoid your user want to see other content from other platforms...because you as streaming company must paid to this content from other platform.
Solim 3y ago
It would be even more popular if the new generations were more tech savvy. Kids growing up with iphones do not have computers and a huge percentage that do, doesn't know how to use torrents, vpn, proxys etc.
- BLKNSLVR 3y ago
  My daughter at age eight or nine, all on her lonesome, worked out where she could stream episodes of Miraculous Ladybug online. Which then evolved to Brooklyn 99 as she got a bit older. No subs, no sign up, I had no idea for a long time. She had no concept of what was legal, illegal or copyright, she just went a found what she wanted to watch. She'll be alright I reckon.
libertine 3y ago
It will continue to thrive if companies insist on packaging content into several streaming services and wrapping them under subscriptions, region locks, and platforms, and then proceed to ask for more money and limit its usability. This is more of a symptom than anything else. In the 00's was mostly due to distribution, now it's mostly fragmentation and subscription layers.
flerchin 3y ago
I would like to see a chart of the data, but this is just lies and misdirection. FWIW, I pirate _nothing_.
tamarlikesdata 3y ago
It's a loud wake-up call to the media industry. The high piracy rates reflect a public rebellion against restrictive access and high costs of content. This situation is less about breaking the law and more about demanding a fairer, more accessible media landscape. It's high time for a major overhaul of how we view copyright and content distribution in the digital age.
- Loughla 3y ago
  We have come back around to the reason that Netflix was so popular when it started. Too many walled gardens and exclusive content locked behind too high of a price. We had cable, people hated it so they "cut the cable" and media companies just changed where that cable was plugged into homes. Now instead of cable/satellite services, it's just streaming. But the outcome is the same. It's a mess. And as always, instead of looking for effective solutions, media is trying to guilt people into paying for their services. Is it time for Netflix 2.0? If so, what does that look like now that every company is trying to sustain their own streaming service? Is it a small box that you attach to your TV that brings all of these disparate services together in one easy to use location? Are we just seeing the long game of trying to get people to sign back up for cable and satellite?
  - baggachipz 3y ago
    > Now instead of cable/satellite services, it's just streaming. But the outcome is the same. It's even worse. Instead of having everything in one place, we have to guess which streaming app has what we want, navigate to it, and use its proprietary interface to find the content. A major leap backwards in user experience.
GaggiX 3y ago
Well, hopefully it will lead more companies to a revenue model that is more compatible with the lack of scarcity that the digital world has.
2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
> Digital video piracy is costing the US economy between $29.2 and $71 billion each year. Oh please. Just because something is pirated doesn't mean that it's a lost sale.
sonicanatidae 3y ago
Maybe.. just maybe, if media companies stopped treating customers like garbage...wait....nevermind...that'll never happen. Piracy it is!
cik 3y ago
Let's see. I live in the middle east, subscribing to Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime. I was in the middle of watching something and it was removed from Netflix. No problem - I'll simply open up CBS Streaming Whatever, only to be hit by a geofence. Which form of thievery is the right one for me now. Do I use a VPN to connect to servers in another country, thereby continuing to watch my show on Netflix? Do I VPN to the service (in this case CBS) to watch it in the US, just because? As a paying customer, I frankly don't care. I open up qbittorrent, and I download the show. Why - because I can no longer pay for it in my country. Many of us simply want to watch things. Whenever a company makes that difficult, we pirate. Once you open the door to an alternative, easy to use distribution mechanism, frankly it's hard to close.
deleted 3y ago
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g-b-r 3y ago
Is this the beginning of a new piracy scare? To push for further drm?
casperb 3y ago
I don’t like the frame of “it costs the economy X billion”. Without piracy people would not have bought it. It is not a cost. Maybe “street value” would be a better term? If it was payed for, it would have the value of X billion. But it costs nothing.
ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
I have a friend that pirates everything. He's constantly telling me about movies and shows that just came out; usually seeing them before anyone else. For me, even if it elicits scorn, I like to pay for my media. As a youngster, I pirated. Nowadays, after knowing many artists and people involved in the creative end of things, I can't really justify that posture, anymore. A big problem, is that all the streamers are breaking the landscape into hundreds of different parts. It's pure profit-seeking, and I can't actually argue against the business sense. But it makes being a consumer, a nightmare. Book DRM is similar. I like to use the same reader for all my books, but was forced to crack many of them, just so I could read all my books on the same app. I also brought pirated books, because they didn't sell the ones I wanted, in the US. I would have been thrilled to pay, but they didn't want my money. Bundles tend to become corrupted. Cable bundles are pretty much worthless, to me. They all force you to have sports, and sports are what makes the bundles expensive. I couldn't care any less, about sports. I guess I'm in a minority. I would love to see the ability to "build your own bundle," including temporary subscriptions to services that carry just one show I want to see (I remember subscribing to YouTube Premium, just for one show. I found it to be an awful app, and quickly unsubbed, once I'd watched the show). Maybe even the ability to select individual shows, from different publishers, and watch them all on the same app. AppleTV is getting closer to that, but still has a loooong way to go. The tech is definitely already here. The issue is with the distributors.
thewaywego 3y ago
>Internet piracy isn’t ethically justifiable it's quite easy once you realize buying isn't owning >Digital video piracy is costing the US economy between $29.2 and $71 billion each year. these numbers are so laughably vague and only exist to justify the existence of the content mafia.
akaij 3y ago
If a friend of mine had written this article as a joke, I'd laugh my ass off because it's that funny.
joshstrange 3y ago
Piracy has a better UI/UX than legal streaming. Once that scale tipped it's not coming back without major changes. With piracy you can watch all your shows, no matter the network/streaming-service, on one "service", one app/ui, no ads, no tracking. You literally cannot pay for that level if you wanted to. That's absurd. If there was a legal way to do what I listed above that cost $200/mo I'd probably pay it. But you know they'd start to screw it up in record time adding in ads and the like.
DeathArrow 3y ago
>"Digital video piracy is costing the US economy between $29.2 and $71 billion each year." That is assuming that people would pay if forced to stop downloading. But what if people just quit watching the said content instead? Then should we make some laws to force people to buy content to save US economy between $29.2 and $71 billion each year? Isn't there a kind of a difference between stealing a car and downloading a movie? Anyway, legally obtained or illegally, it would be nice for people to binge watch content less. Get out with friends, get some fresh air, do something nice.
solatic 3y ago
The winning formula is really simple: offer an unlimited catalog (emphasis on unlimited - including all studios and publishers) and bill monthly subscription by the hour: watch up to 24 hours a month commercial-free post-billed for $29, with additional ten hour blocks for $10. Why 24 hours? Because most TV seasons are ~12 episodes each now and there's 22 working days per month to allow for an hour of TV before bed. I would wager that most people would agree that ~$1/hour for entertainment is a fair price. The pricing model makes it easy to track how to compensate for a show's performance and scales with additional viewing. Unused time can be used to help recoup costs of unpopular productions, in the same way that cable bundling forces you to pay for shows you don't watch. Let people define caps per user on their account, both to protect against a surprise bill at the end of the month and as a parental control to ensure children don't watch too much TV. It's not that hard! The industry just needs to get its shit together and set standards for opening up distribution.
supernikita 3y ago
Streaming as copyright violation ???? I have not followed up on recent legal developments, but as far as I remember: streaming is no COPYright violation since you do not create a copy.
JakeStone 3y ago
No verifiable sources cited, just large amounts of scary percentages. If everybody is pirating, then everything will go away. We've heard this since cassette tapes, video tapes, decss, torrents, and we'll continue hearing it with new tech. I say to the streaming companies and the content creators, stop bluffing. Shut it down since pirates are apparently chatting you billions. Cash in your options, go to your private island retreat and never darken our door again. I have physical books, and walks are usually nice.
msp26 3y ago
What is the current state of private trackers in 2023? Is it worth bothering with?
tjpnz 3y ago
I agree with the arguments on fragmentation being an issue but I do wonder to what degree it's the content being produced. There's a reason why the recent South Park resonated with so many, and if you think it's because of bigotry you're not really getting it. People will hesitate when asked to pay money for a product they feel isn't genuine, regardless of how they view the world.
ponderings 3y ago
If people would pay for these the economy would grow by 1-2 Trillion! Sadly "4 in 10 US adults say they have no disposable income" and there are about half a million films. Say 1000 are worth watching depending on interests. Works out to about 0 per movie. They could also not watch any. A sensible goal if you ask me, unrealistic of course but we can afford to be ambitious with other peoples money. They also wanted to read books, listen to music, read scientific publications.. preposterous! Who do these people think they are?
glimshe 3y ago
How about illegal removal of legally purchased content like the Discovery removal from Sony?
DyslexicAtheist 3y ago
wonder if this coincides with the Netflix promise to be the single platform to get all content failing. I'm on Netflix & Prime yet I still don't find the things I want to watch.
- mkl95 3y ago
  I also got Netflix and Prime. Recently, I wanted to rewatch House M.D. on Prime, but it's not available in my country anymore. I'm forced to use a VPN to enjoy content I am already paying for.
xet7 3y ago
The Dutch firm Ecory was commissioned to research the impact of piracy for several months, eventually submitting a 304-page report to the EU in May 2015. The report concluded that: “In general, the results do not show robust statistical evidence of displacement of sales by online copyright infringements. That does not necessarily mean that piracy has no effect but only that the statistical analysis does not prove with sufficient reliability that there is an effect.” 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-... https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2017/09/displacement_study.pdf https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2017/09/displacement_s... https://web.archive.org/web/20231206082938/https://gizmodo.com/the-eu-suppressed-a-300-page-study-that-found-piracy-do-1818629537 https://web.archive.org/web/20231206082938/https://gizmodo.c... https://web.archive.org/web/20231204151912/https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2017/09/displacement_study.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20231204151912/https://cdn.netzp... If piracy is a problem, solution is to make it possible to buy that content online. Not everything is yet possible to buy.
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erkt 3y ago
> Internet piracy isn’t ethically justifiable, Let's try. In the context of the ongoing debate on media piracy, recent actions by major streaming companies have brought to light a critical ethical dilemma. These corporations, wielding considerable monopolistic power, have increasingly adopted practices that can be seen as coercive and unethical, compelling consumers to reconsider the moral justification of piracy. 1. Price Hikes Amidst Monopolistic Control: Major streaming services like Disney+, Hulu, and Netflix have recently raised their subscription prices significantly. This increase, occurring within a relatively short span, demonstrates a trend of exploiting consumer dependency on these platforms. The illusion of fair pricing is often shattered by the fact that cheaper tiers lack standard features, pushing consumers towards more expensive options. 2. Dilution of Ownership Rights: The Sony PlayStation incident, where over 1,300 purchased TV shows were removed from user libraries without refunds, starkly highlights the erosion of digital ownership rights. This action represents a flagrant disregard for consumer investment and trust, characterizing a monopolistic overreach that undermines the very principles of fair trade and respect for consumer rights. 3. Ad-Inundated Streaming Experiences: The proliferation of ad-supported streaming models, even on platforms that previously promised ad-free experiences, adds another layer of coercion. This shift towards ad-laden content not only disrupts the viewing experience but also subtly coerces consumers into higher-priced, ad-free tiers. 4. Preservation of Cultural Artifacts: Piracy, in this context, emerges as a necessary counter to these unethical practices. It serves as a tool for preserving media in its original form, unaltered by corporate censorship or modern-day ethical reinterpretation. This aspect of piracy is crucial for maintaining the integrity of historical and cultural works. 5. Economic and Technical Exploitation: The technical details, such as limited bit depth and lack of HD in cheaper streaming options, are often obscured from the average consumer. This tactic of exploiting consumer ignorance for profit further emphasizes the unethical nature of these corporate strategies. In the face of such corporate tyranny, piracy becomes a form of ethical defiance. It is a stand against the exploitation and manipulation of consumer rights and choices. While the legal implications of piracy cannot be ignored, the moral compulsion to resist monopolistic coercion and preserve the integrity of media content presents a compelling counter-argument. The issue of piracy transcends mere legal boundaries and delves into the realm of ethical resistance. It's a call for fairer practices, transparency, and respect for consumer rights in the face of corporate monopolies that prioritize profit over ethical considerations.
dubeye 3y ago
I’m one of the stats. Each time I did try to legitimately download the material but it was too much hassle.
pier25 3y ago
It's not surprising at all. To begin with, most streaming services don't have sufficient content to justify its existence. We've been paying for Netflix non-stop probably since 2015 but the rest are a joke. Outside of Netflix, in the last 5 years at home we've enjoyed maybe 5 shows/movies per year in all the other services combined. Then they all do crap like not streaming 4K HDR movies when the movie is available in that format. All new movies for close to a decade have been released in that format since day one. But even outside of streaming subscriptions they fuck with enthusiasts that want to pay for movies. Stuff like iTunes not allowing you to watch the content you've paid for when moving to another country. Physical media is also not free of guilt. I have probably over a hundred 4K Blurays and I stopped buying those because Amazon US won't ship them to my country anymore. Local Amazon sells the same discs sometimes at 2x the price. Also plenty of manufacturers have stopped producing 4K HDR players. It's extremely frustrating.
thiht 3y ago
What a judgmental piece of garbage of a writing. I pay a tax on all my hard drives for piracy. I try paying for official services when it’s doable (I haven’t pirated a song or a video game in years!). But the movie/tv industry do everything they can to make themselves inconvenient and frustrating. Screw ethics.
stefantalpalaru 3y ago
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Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
It would be interesting to check if piracy is back for pc gaming or just tv (haven't read the article yet) to verify what Gabe says (pretty sure it will)

84 points by franczesko 3y ago

> For years, consumers griped about cable bundling and having to pay high prices for hundreds of channels they never watched in order to get the handful they enjoyed. Despite the growing availability of legal streaming options since then, piracy statistics show that infringement has remained a real concern. That's the thing isn't it? It was convenient when streaming first came on the scene. Everything in one place. "I'll gladly pay for the convenience". After roughly a decade it's approaching the state where it's as fractured as before, but now you pay a lot more - all services combined. So I'm not surprised it's growing again.

CubsFan1060 3y ago
I wish I had a way to quantify it, but it also seems like _investment_ has skyrocketed. 20 years ago HBO might make a high quality, high budget show. Now we have shows like the Marvel TV Shows, Wheel of Time, Foundation, House of the Dragon, the Mandalorian, Rings of Power, etc.. that all have MASSIVE budgets. A lot of that was funded by free money, but I think the quality and expectation of TV shows has gone up quite a bit.
- DeathArrow 3y ago
  What if you aren't into sci-fi and fantasy?
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    Then it should be even better, because more mainstream interests means consuming media with more investment behind them.
  - BLKNSLVR 3y ago
    I don't understand the question.
    - DeathArrow 3y ago
      When talking about new, great content, parent mentioned only sci-fi and fantasy content: Marvel TV Shows, Wheel of Time, Foundation, House of the Dragon, the Mandalorian, Rings of Power, etc So, it seemed that if you are into that stuff, you have some amazing content. But what if you are not?
      - ghaff 3y ago
        I tend towards SF myself but Deadwood, Russian Doll, Ted Lasso, The Morning Show, Succession... There's a lot of quality TV out there on streaming across a range of genres.
      - BLKNSLVR 3y ago
        Sorry, I was trying to be funny... Context switch: I think I'll be forever disappointed that The Peripheral got axed.
- 2muchcoffeeman 3y ago
  But I still need at least 3 services to watch them. When pirating is just as easy and at worst costs you 1 service: a VPN.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    >But I still need at least 3 services to watch them. Which costs you maybe a third of what a cable TV subscription cost you.
- ghaff 3y ago
  Aside from the odd miniseries, TV was mostly sitcoms, cop shows, reality TV over time, etc. Even HBO was mostly a way to watch movies until the Sopranos came along. There's been a massive transformation over the past few decades to TV being something on par with film in terms of talent and production values. I have no idea what the shows on network TV even are these days and, as far as I'm aware, there's nothing with any sort of buzz.
TheJoeMan 3y ago
I own a full cable package with rights to ESPN, but didn't have the app downloaded on my phone. I tried to catch the end of a game in the web browser, and ESPN.com refused to allow access via web. Guess what was faster to search for?
- bearjaws 3y ago
  Let's not even talk about the NFL, there are 2 times a year where I cannot watch a Dolphins game, living in Florida, while paying for NFL+ / NFL Game Pass. The whole streaming rights system is a joke, I forget the exact issue but IIRC NFL doesn't have rights to sell the games to local broadcasters, so it simply isn't available in the teams home state on their service.
nehal3m 3y ago
I don't mind paying for a service at all; I'll happily switch one service for another every month or few months. The main sticking point the diaspora causes for me is I can't find what I want. Maybe some people subscribe to a service and happily browse and watch what's available. I'm not a huge show or movie buff so I tend to go by personal recommendations so for me the process is flipped. I start with a movie or a show and go 'okay, where do I watch this?'. Finding out is ridiculously annoying. Furthermore, there are services like Prime that will show you what they have in stock that is for sale AND what's included with the subscription in the same view. That means I can't tell at a glance what I can watch as part of my subscription and what I have to pay extra for. It seems purposely obtuse to me, to nickel and dime. And even if I do pay extra to 'buy' a movie, the Sony debacle has shown that I can't assume I can watch stuff that I have bought indefinitely.
- WithinReason 3y ago
  It's easy to find where to stream a show from: https://www.justwatch.com https://www.justwatch.com https://reelgood.com/ https://reelgood.com/
  - nehal3m 3y ago
    I'm sure that works well in the US. In my locale not so much.
    - WithinReason 3y ago
      Is it inaccurate if you set your country?
  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
    Thank you. Piracy is still way ahead of this madness
e12e 3y ago
Even when I have access to streaming from a provider - streaming from my own box is more reliable and convenient: access to my library from a single app; if it's on the disk I know I can watch it whenever. It's easier to find the media on a pirate site, than to try to guess which service has streaming rights for a show or movie in my country.
zxt_tzx 3y ago
I think it's interesting to contrast this with music. Music is dominated by a few big labels, which makes it very easy for each provider (Spotify, Apple Music etc.) to provide a complete catalogue and thus convenience. (Though this does mean Spotify's unit economics are much worse, partially explaining the foray into podcasts and recent layoffs etc.) Furthermore, whereas we hardly rewatch the same movies, we constantly re-listen to the same music we first encountered in our adolescence (nobody can convince me that the 90s is not the pinnacle of pop music). This makes things like playlists a lot more valuable and sticky. I am not particularly ideological about copyright/piracy one way or another, but I know I probably won't be pirating music anytime soon.
- ghaff 3y ago
  I subscribe to Apple Music but, honestly, if music streaming services went away tomorrow I'd be pretty happy with my own library which is mostly music I bought on physical media at some point or other. (Yes, some is from Napster but mostly replacing songs on old vinyl albums.)
- BLKNSLVR 3y ago
  I feel like I'm a fairly way out there outlier, but I still find modern music that beats nostalgia. But I also find music that was "before my time" that's just fucking magical as well. You have to put effort in though, because passively you're just fed slops. The good stuff, the real nourishment, has to be dug out of the ground.
- nicoco 3y ago
  > I am not particularly ideological about copyright/piracy one way or another, but I know I probably won't be pirating music anytime soon. And yet, if musicians being able to pay the bills is your concern, saving what you pay to spotify and buying a few albums on bandcamp instead is possibly the way to go. From https://neurodifferent.me/@clowncollege/109994297731928004 https://neurodifferent.me/@clowncollege/109994297731928004 : > I've been a professional musician since the end days of selling CDs, and I would like to say that having experienced the decline of CD sales because of piracy transition into the paid streaming era it's unambiguous that musicians were better off when mostly everyone was pirating and then some people bought CDs or other merch out of a desire to support vs today when everyone pays a nominal fee to a corporation that pays us nothing and also satisfies their desire to support despite not actually offering support.
pier25 3y ago
On top of that, the services do crap like not offering 4k hdr versions of modern content. In Netflix all third party films are offered in caveman 1080p sdr. In Prime and HBO it's similar.
- TremendousJudge 3y ago
  And good luck trying to figure out what hardware you need to have in order to actually get the high-bitrate version of the video.
DeathArrow 3y ago
>That's the thing isn't it? It was convenient when streaming first came on the scene. Everything in one place. I have to subscribe to a service where maybe only a tv show interests me and the rest is junk. Subscribe to another service for another tv show, and so on. That is not convenient. Give me a website where I can pick from all online available media I can only watch and pay what I want.
- ghaff 3y ago
  You can do that in many (though not all) cases on Amazon and Apple if you pay a la carte.
bluescrn 3y ago
Streaming services have fragmented, increased prices, and fought back against account sharing at a bad time, too - as inflation and cost-of-living have skyrocketed. Need to save some money? - First thing to cut back on is entertainment-related subscriptions.

jampekka 3y ago

> Internet piracy isn’t ethically justifiable, but it is convenient. Intellectual property isn't ethically justifiable, but it is convenient for some. > Illegal downloading of copyrighted materials takes up 24% of the global bandwidth. In many (most?) jurisdictions downloading material is not illegal. Have these been subtracted from this figure, or is this yet another lie? Given the history of this propaganda, I'm quite sure it's the latter.

still-old 3y ago
How ethical is it to not report how much you(dataprot) got paid for this schilling?
voisin 3y ago
> Illegal downloading of copyrighted materials takes up 24% of the global bandwidth. This seems shockingly high. I wonder how different this is geographically. I would think streaming via Netflix and others, YouTube, Twitch, etc would have shrunk illegal streaming to a much smaller percentage of the total.
- ghaff 3y ago
  I'm sure it varies a lot geographically. In the US, I expect the bulk is streaming services as you say. While I'm sure there are many outliers on a forum like this, most people subscribe to a few services and watch what's available. I know I do. I'll rarely look for something elsewhere if I can't easily get it via streaming (whether subscription or a la carte). I have no particular insight into the global situation but certainly availability is patchier and incomes are often lower.
  - voisin 3y ago
    So let’s say it varies geographically and the majority is in developing nations where finances don’t allow for relative luxuries like streaming services so people disproportionately turn to torrents. I suspect this is accurate. In this instance, what’s the point of trying to lock down illegal streaming? There isn’t an opportunity cost being missed, and the people can’t afford to pay fines, so it seems like a no win situation. Let them be and maybe as those countries develop and people become wealthier they follow the same path as developed nations where most people pay for the ease of streaming.

scrlk 3y ago

To quote Gabe Newell: > "We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable."

baka367 3y ago
I agree with Gabe here. I basically stopped pirating games once I could add something that I like to my collection during steam sale for a nice discount instead of waiting for days for whatever service to ship it. I can also return it if I end up not lilinkg it, not like with a physical copy.
- trey-jones 3y ago
  Yes, but price is definitely a part of the service. This one is easy for me: Disney jacks prices by 80%, people decide not to pay for it.
  - al_borland 3y ago
    Price is part of it, and paying customers should never have a worse experience than those getting something for free. With DRM, activation severs that can be shut down, exclusivity deals, and fragmentation of marketplaces… paying customers often get a worse experience.
    - nicolaslem 3y ago
      I wish Valve used their weight to cut down on the DRM, online activation and micro-transaction bullshit.
      - sensanaty 3y ago

unixhero 3y ago

Victimless activity (crime word omitted)

Zambyte 3y ago
Unauthorized copying
- xyst 3y ago
  You wouldn’t download a car?
  - BLKNSLVR 3y ago
    You wouldn't steal a succulent Chinese meal https://www.redbubble.com/i/t-shirt/You-Wouldn-t-Steal-A-Succulent-Chinese-Meal-text-only-Meme-by-sticker-stacker/84423536.FB110 https://www.redbubble.com/i/t-shirt/You-Wouldn-t-Steal-A-Suc...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

leetrout 3y ago

> Digital video piracy is costing the US economy between $29.2 and $71 billion each year. ... > This number surely affects the US economy in terms of lost movie industry revenue as well as lost jobs and tax revenue. So no facts to back this up that I saw. Some amount of piracy is uncountable because the user never would have bought the media anyway.

Semaphor 3y ago
> So no facts to back this up MAFIAA and friends were never big on facts.
Shaanie 3y ago
I suspect it's most content and not just some. I may prefer to watch a specific movie, like Heat (1995), but if it's not available on the streaming services I currently pay for I'm more likely to watch something else rather than pay 15 bucks (or whatever) for it.
bluefirebrand 3y ago
Yeah, these numbers are always very dishonest. There's no accounting for * People who were never planning to buy, including people who just plain could not afford to buy if they wanted to. * People who bought after pirating * People who pirated something that was not available anywhere to purchase in their region It's basically impossible to account for all of these different reasons, but arguably none of those were really ever going to contribute the money. Besides, people have no moral duty to support the US economy.
- Freak_NL 3y ago
  * People who just hoard media. There are many people who will download anything within a given set of parameters and only ever watch a fraction of it. It's a form of local digital library building.
  - bluefirebrand 3y ago
    Yeah, that's true too. Basically mass data archiving, which is actually a super valuable service to society if we want to have any hope of keeping less popular digital information alive for the future.

Xiol32 3y ago

Is this really surprising? When it was just Netflix charging a few dollars a month for loads of content, it was great. It was easier than safer than pirating, and people turned to it in droves. Now content is spread over dozens of streaming services, with price rises happening annually and cost of living biting hard for the average person. Most of the time, you only want a handful of shows from a given service anyway, and some of those services aren't even available in your country. The only way to combat piracy is to make it harder than just paying for content. We were there at one point, and now the tables are turning again.

ajross 3y ago
> and cost of living biting hard for the average person This is a meme that won't die. This is simply false. Real wages, real per capita GDP, real median income et. al. are all higher now than before covid. There was a 13 month burst of inflation (which correlated almost perfectly with wage growth, FWIW), and it seems like everyone lost their minds.
- polygamous_bat 3y ago
  > Real wages, real per capita GDP, real median income et. al. are all higher now than before covid. You literally said nothing about cost of living here?
  - ajross 3y ago
    I literally did? That's what "real" means: having more real wages means you can buy more stuff. It's already adjusted for price rises. Check out FRED if you don't believe me: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A939RX0Q048SBEA https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A939RX0Q048SBEA https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N You and the upthread commenter are just citing a meme. It is not true. Period.
    - elashri 3y ago

ptrrrrrrppr 3y ago

It's always funny for me how the lost profits they calculate are inflated as hell. Here for example, they state that the US economy lost 29B$ due to piracy. In majority of the cases people who downloaded some of these shows/music would never buy all of these at full price. I personally subscribe to 3-5 streaming services and still if I'm looking for something classic (e.g. 1995 Heat) it always turns out to be either unavailable in my region or only provided on some niche platform I've never heard of. If you're just watching what's hot right now then everything works fine, but any other case you're in trouble and have to dig through the internet just like in the old days of pirate bay.

CoastalCoder 3y ago
I'm very naive about economics, but couldn't we go further and say that the money would just be spent somewhere else in that same economy?
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  It is spent somewhere else by those pirating, because almost everyone lived paycheck to paycheck anyway.
- xyst 3y ago
  Like concerts or merch where the artist or creator gets much more money than through parasitic music labels and film studios? I agree here. Person finds pirated music by X artist. Decides they really love the artist and in turn buys concert experience or merch.
libertine 3y ago
> It's always funny for me how the lost profits they calculate are inflated as hell. It's also funny they don't account for the free distribution, reach, branding, and market penetration that Piracy gives them. We've had the release of the GTA VI trailer a few days ago and it reminded me of how me and my friends became truly fans of the series with GTA Vice City. We were kids and couldn't afford it so we had to play it in some other way - plus with the modding scene bringing Multi Theft Auto (MTA) we could play GTA Vice City online with friends. If it wasn't for that there are plenty of people who wouldn't have helped make the franchise into what it became. They got fans for free, who wouldn't be able to play the game either way, thanks to mass distribution. Those folks ended up becoming paying customers into the franchise later down the line.

kotaKat 3y ago

> But before you ditch the streaming services for an illegal torrent, take a look at the alarming piracy statistics we’ve compiled. They’ll show you that piracy is making a comeback, but they’ll also warn you against falling into this bad habit. Gross. What is this, a spokesperson for the MPAA?

mkl95 3y ago

Looks like all those interest rate hikes are working after all. Just not in a way that pleases everyone.

AlexandrB 3y ago

> Internet piracy isn’t ethically justifiable, but it is convenient. I don't know. After the recent Sony debacle[1], I wouldn't blame anyone who goes out and downloads the content that was removed from their libraries. You already paid for it, after all. [1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/12/playstation-is-erasing-1318-seasons-of-discovery-shows-from-customer-libraries/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/12/playstation-is-erasi...

figmert 3y ago

> Internet piracy isn’t ethically justifiable Is it not? What about when a company like Sony pulls millions of purchased digital content without a refund? What about when discovery pulls a whole lot of content so they can write it off? What about when companies push for digital only releases without a way to physically own the content? No, piracy isn't just ethical, it is the only way one can ensure they actually own what they buy.

zxt_tzx 3y ago
To spell out what I think you're saying, the way to be ethical and have ownership is to pay for the content and then download a version of it so that you both supported the creator and have a copy of what you paid for.
- TremendousJudge 3y ago
  But then you're a criminal anyway?
BLKNSLVR 3y ago
cough Hollywood accounting cough
flkenosad 3y ago
Not to mention archiving. I trust anon pirates to keep content unaltered and available more than any single centralized organization.
- HideousKojima 3y ago
  Like how the only way to watch the Michael Jackson episode of the Simpsons is to either buy secondhand copies of the DVDs, or pirate.
  - BLKNSLVR 3y ago
    Let's not mention the original cuts of Star Wars. Pirates are (involuntary) archivists.

e12e 3y ago

It seems they forgot to list the most popular sites for pirater material... /s

sbarre 3y ago

This is always the stat that I take exception to: > More than 70,000 jobs per year in the US alone are lost because of the lost revenues that came from music piracy. > (RIAA) > Music industry piracy statistics highlight the costs of music piracy and the immense consequences on the American economy. Music theft costs American workers significant losses in jobs and earnings as well as costing the US government substantial lost tax revenues. I get all the rest, and I'm at a point in my life where I pay for my media, and I don't believe in any philosophical or moral justification for piracy (nor do I condemn it - to each their own but don't be a hypocrite about what you're doing). But these kinds of reports always lose me when they tack on these huge numbers of job and revenue losses. The majority of people who pirate wouldn't spend the money if they couldn't pirate. So these are totally fake numbers.

twothamendment 3y ago
In with ya. When reading that pirated music costs 70,000 jobs I just laugh. I don't think there would be more jobs (maybe a few), but that the people at the top would have a bigger salary or bonus.
- BLKNSLVR 3y ago
  70,000 more musicians who could be earning $0.10 per month from their streams played on Spotify.
Miraltar 3y ago
Not to mention they don't throw the unspent money into a thrash can, it's just spent elsewhere...

Finster 3y ago

https://slate.com/technology/2011/07/netflix-streaming-is-killing-piracy.html https://slate.com/technology/2011/07/netflix-streaming-is-ki... > It’s convenient, it’s not that expensive, and the selection is just good enough. Welp, netflix (and others) are 3 for 3 on eroding those advantages.

savgore 3y ago

Always struck by the economics these sort of orgs must be fabricating to assume that: "Digital video piracy is costing the US economy between $29.2 and $71 billion each year." (What an absolutely huge margin) and "Annual global revenue losses from digital piracy are between $40 and $97.1 billion in the movie industry." As if all these people who consume this pirate content would be purchasing it if the free alternative wasn't available to them. It's a very out of touch assumption to be making I think.

stonecharioteer 3y ago

I started building a 48TB NAS this year after giving up on consumer-grade external hard drives. I am fed up of wanting to watch something and needing to figure out which platform to watch it in. I'm even more fed up when stuff is region locked. What makes things worse are device limits. I have nearly a dozen devices at home and would like to watch on whatever device I'm currently using. Just because you're concerned about people sharing passwords, you should not limit me to using your app on one or two devices. It's a broken system. Streaming is... Horrible. The experience of having to wait a year for a season of a show when US has it on day one is horrible. And stuff which is in copyright limbo? Being unable to watch older cartoons because it's politically incorrect or because it's inappropriate for today's audiences is downright demeaning. I'd like to laugh at a Tom and Jerry bit without worrying about 2023's current comedy palette. Spotify also ruined my music tastes by randomly polluting my playlists with stuff it thinks I should listen to because other people around me do. I do not. I'd rather listen to offline music that I've downloaded and made into manual playlists. I used to scrobble my music so I'd get recommendations. Right now, I just want to listen to a small subset of music I loved 10 years ago. Nothing new excites me. Piracy isn't just about free stuff. It's about being able to use something freely. I'm still paying for these platforms, but I don't stream anything off them anymore. My parents use my accounts instead. I'm going to use Plex with my NAS so I can stream anything I want into my devices.

Levitz 3y ago

It's inherently dishonest to go on and about how piracy hurts industries without taking a moment to point the enormous benefit it gave them. There is absolutely, completely no way in hell the music and video industries would have their current sizes and audiences without piracy. Netflix and Spotify wouldn't have been made if it wasn't for piracy to begin with. What kind of insane madman would ever license material to these companies in a world with no piracy whatsoever? What kind of audience is there in the first place? I don't, for a single one goddamned second, believe that the vast majority of musicians and film makers haven't resorted to pirated material, the cost to actually have a decent collection otherwise is preposterous, the cultural benefit of piracy is ginormous, it can hardly be put into words.

elashri 3y ago

I really find it very misleading to report the piracy in terms of lost money. Because this always assumes that if no piracy exists, then 100% of people who did it will pay for the material otherwise. The argument goes along, this really hurts the economy by this amount. Which reminds me of the argument 'but think of the children' when talking about online privacy.

isubasinghe 3y ago

This is silly, it assumes people will purchase instead. I pirate stuff because I am bored and just want to watch something, my order of priorities are: Pirate, not watch, purchase.

DeathArrow 3y ago

So the answer is more DRM, more surveillance? What about making stuff cheaper so people have less incentive to download said stuff?

vb-8448 3y ago

Illegal streaming turning back is a sign that nowadays there are too many legal streaming services, and they cost too much. In Europe, you can spend several hundreds/month € and still non be able to view everything legally.

cheese_van 3y ago

"As of 31 December 2023, due to our content licensing arrangements with content providers, you will no longer be able to watch any of your previously purchased Discovery content and the content will be removed from your video library." When consumers are dissuaded from purchasing content, when a purchase is not a purchase, arguments against piracy are almost insulting.

pierat 3y ago

> Internet piracy isn’t ethically justifiable.... It ABSOLUTELY is ethically justifiable. https://xkcd.com/488/ https://xkcd.com/488/ And these companies aren't happy will selling us media one time. They demand that we buy it in VHS... Then DVD... Then HDDVD, oh nope BLURay. Then 'streaming'. And our rights go down and down each iteration. I also have stacks of movies in various formats. Again, even format shifting something like a Macrovision'ed VHS or ripping a DVD is a crime. So buying legit and format shifting is a crime? Cool, I'll just download and be a pirate. It's laughable that they even try to play the 'ethics' card. Like, how else would Weird Al get his $12 sandwich for the millions of plays? https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/weird-al-yankovic-spotify-wrapped-video-criticism-1234905887/ https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/weird-al-yanko...

that_guy_iain 3y ago

> Internet piracy isn’t ethically justifiable, but it is convenient. I don't know. I used to pirate heavily and always said once I could afford to buy stuff I would buy stuff. Then I could afford to buy stuff so I bought stuff, I used Netflix, Amazon Prime, Spotify, etc. Then I started to lose things I bought. Until they make digital purchases an actual purchase then I choose to boycott them and pirate instead. Boycotting them and not enjoying things because of this would be cutting my face off to spite my face and hurt me more than the company with the unethical business model. But if I pirate it, it only hurts them.

timbit42 3y ago
This is what Charlie Brown feels like when trying to kick Lucy Van Pelt's football.

Semaphor 3y ago

Recently wanted to rewatch Continuum. Amazon Prime in Germany has S2-4 as stream, sells S1-4. But everything only in German, and no subs. Apple sells something? Maybe only S1? I don’t understand how I can see it without an iTunes account or maybe iTunes installed? Good job having a worse UX than either Google or Amazon, though, that takes work. Google has only S1, and again only in German. Sure is convenient to be able to get what I want at all, because apparently no one else sells or rents it. Sure, I could buy the DVDs (probably for a fraction of the price of buying it at Amazon), go through the hassle of ripping everything, fix the subtitles etc. like I did for ReGenesis, but that’s hours of work, so yeah, you bet I go with the convenient version, and I find it perfectly ethically justifiable.

glanzwulf 3y ago
Same boat here, also Germany. Wanted to watch the Bourdain show "No Reservations" and it's practically impossible. There are only 3 ways: 1. Import the DVDs from the US, but pay a high cost for the DVDs, the high cost of shipping, the taxes and customs and eventually, once it arrives, watch it. 2. Be a criminal, get a VPN, fake address and data, prepaid US credit card and subscribe to discovery in the US and watch it. 3. Be a criminal and pirate it easily. Is piracy really the problem?

animuchan 3y ago

> 70,000 jobs a year are lost in the United States due to music piracy. In other words, if not for the piracy, a significant part of the workforce would be music producers by now. Napster saved us all from a weirdly dystopian future.

mdtrooper 3y ago

Well, the history of telephony started with a big public companies in each country and therefore the private companies started but if you have a friend with the number phone in company-foo and you have the number phone in company-bar. You can phone your friend and company-foo and company-bar do the economic accounts ( I don't know maybe it is a big data). But the streaming platforms (netflix, disney...) are separate islands. I think that the all content (films, tv series...) should in all platforms and if the user want to see a "disney film" in his netflix app, the netflix company do the economic balance/account with disney. And the streaming platform war will be for good content for to avoid your user want to see other content from other platforms...because you as streaming company must paid to this content from other platform.

Solim 3y ago

It would be even more popular if the new generations were more tech savvy. Kids growing up with iphones do not have computers and a huge percentage that do, doesn't know how to use torrents, vpn, proxys etc.

BLKNSLVR 3y ago
My daughter at age eight or nine, all on her lonesome, worked out where she could stream episodes of Miraculous Ladybug online. Which then evolved to Brooklyn 99 as she got a bit older. No subs, no sign up, I had no idea for a long time. She had no concept of what was legal, illegal or copyright, she just went a found what she wanted to watch. She'll be alright I reckon.

libertine 3y ago

It will continue to thrive if companies insist on packaging content into several streaming services and wrapping them under subscriptions, region locks, and platforms, and then proceed to ask for more money and limit its usability. This is more of a symptom than anything else. In the 00's was mostly due to distribution, now it's mostly fragmentation and subscription layers.

flerchin 3y ago

I would like to see a chart of the data, but this is just lies and misdirection. FWIW, I pirate _nothing_.

tamarlikesdata 3y ago

It's a loud wake-up call to the media industry. The high piracy rates reflect a public rebellion against restrictive access and high costs of content. This situation is less about breaking the law and more about demanding a fairer, more accessible media landscape. It's high time for a major overhaul of how we view copyright and content distribution in the digital age.

Loughla 3y ago
We have come back around to the reason that Netflix was so popular when it started. Too many walled gardens and exclusive content locked behind too high of a price. We had cable, people hated it so they "cut the cable" and media companies just changed where that cable was plugged into homes. Now instead of cable/satellite services, it's just streaming. But the outcome is the same. It's a mess. And as always, instead of looking for effective solutions, media is trying to guilt people into paying for their services. Is it time for Netflix 2.0? If so, what does that look like now that every company is trying to sustain their own streaming service? Is it a small box that you attach to your TV that brings all of these disparate services together in one easy to use location? Are we just seeing the long game of trying to get people to sign back up for cable and satellite?
- baggachipz 3y ago
  > Now instead of cable/satellite services, it's just streaming. But the outcome is the same. It's even worse. Instead of having everything in one place, we have to guess which streaming app has what we want, navigate to it, and use its proprietary interface to find the content. A major leap backwards in user experience.

GaggiX 3y ago

Well, hopefully it will lead more companies to a revenue model that is more compatible with the lack of scarcity that the digital world has.

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago

> Digital video piracy is costing the US economy between $29.2 and $71 billion each year. Oh please. Just because something is pirated doesn't mean that it's a lost sale.

sonicanatidae 3y ago

Maybe.. just maybe, if media companies stopped treating customers like garbage...wait....nevermind...that'll never happen. Piracy it is!

cik 3y ago

Let's see. I live in the middle east, subscribing to Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime. I was in the middle of watching something and it was removed from Netflix. No problem - I'll simply open up CBS Streaming Whatever, only to be hit by a geofence. Which form of thievery is the right one for me now. Do I use a VPN to connect to servers in another country, thereby continuing to watch my show on Netflix? Do I VPN to the service (in this case CBS) to watch it in the US, just because? As a paying customer, I frankly don't care. I open up qbittorrent, and I download the show. Why - because I can no longer pay for it in my country. Many of us simply want to watch things. Whenever a company makes that difficult, we pirate. Once you open the door to an alternative, easy to use distribution mechanism, frankly it's hard to close.

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g-b-r 3y ago

Is this the beginning of a new piracy scare? To push for further drm?

casperb 3y ago

I don’t like the frame of “it costs the economy X billion”. Without piracy people would not have bought it. It is not a cost. Maybe “street value” would be a better term? If it was payed for, it would have the value of X billion. But it costs nothing.

ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago

I have a friend that pirates everything. He's constantly telling me about movies and shows that just came out; usually seeing them before anyone else. For me, even if it elicits scorn, I like to pay for my media. As a youngster, I pirated. Nowadays, after knowing many artists and people involved in the creative end of things, I can't really justify that posture, anymore. A big problem, is that all the streamers are breaking the landscape into hundreds of different parts. It's pure profit-seeking, and I can't actually argue against the business sense. But it makes being a consumer, a nightmare. Book DRM is similar. I like to use the same reader for all my books, but was forced to crack many of them, just so I could read all my books on the same app. I also brought pirated books, because they didn't sell the ones I wanted, in the US. I would have been thrilled to pay, but they didn't want my money. Bundles tend to become corrupted. Cable bundles are pretty much worthless, to me. They all force you to have sports, and sports are what makes the bundles expensive. I couldn't care any less, about sports. I guess I'm in a minority. I would love to see the ability to "build your own bundle," including temporary subscriptions to services that carry just one show I want to see (I remember subscribing to YouTube Premium, just for one show. I found it to be an awful app, and quickly unsubbed, once I'd watched the show). Maybe even the ability to select individual shows, from different publishers, and watch them all on the same app. AppleTV is getting closer to that, but still has a loooong way to go. The tech is definitely already here. The issue is with the distributors.

thewaywego 3y ago

>Internet piracy isn’t ethically justifiable it's quite easy once you realize buying isn't owning >Digital video piracy is costing the US economy between $29.2 and $71 billion each year. these numbers are so laughably vague and only exist to justify the existence of the content mafia.

akaij 3y ago

If a friend of mine had written this article as a joke, I'd laugh my ass off because it's that funny.

joshstrange 3y ago

Piracy has a better UI/UX than legal streaming. Once that scale tipped it's not coming back without major changes. With piracy you can watch all your shows, no matter the network/streaming-service, on one "service", one app/ui, no ads, no tracking. You literally cannot pay for that level if you wanted to. That's absurd. If there was a legal way to do what I listed above that cost $200/mo I'd probably pay it. But you know they'd start to screw it up in record time adding in ads and the like.

DeathArrow 3y ago

>"Digital video piracy is costing the US economy between $29.2 and $71 billion each year." That is assuming that people would pay if forced to stop downloading. But what if people just quit watching the said content instead? Then should we make some laws to force people to buy content to save US economy between $29.2 and $71 billion each year? Isn't there a kind of a difference between stealing a car and downloading a movie? Anyway, legally obtained or illegally, it would be nice for people to binge watch content less. Get out with friends, get some fresh air, do something nice.

solatic 3y ago

The winning formula is really simple: offer an unlimited catalog (emphasis on unlimited - including all studios and publishers) and bill monthly subscription by the hour: watch up to 24 hours a month commercial-free post-billed for $29, with additional ten hour blocks for $10. Why 24 hours? Because most TV seasons are ~12 episodes each now and there's 22 working days per month to allow for an hour of TV before bed. I would wager that most people would agree that ~$1/hour for entertainment is a fair price. The pricing model makes it easy to track how to compensate for a show's performance and scales with additional viewing. Unused time can be used to help recoup costs of unpopular productions, in the same way that cable bundling forces you to pay for shows you don't watch. Let people define caps per user on their account, both to protect against a surprise bill at the end of the month and as a parental control to ensure children don't watch too much TV. It's not that hard! The industry just needs to get its shit together and set standards for opening up distribution.

supernikita 3y ago

Streaming as copyright violation ???? I have not followed up on recent legal developments, but as far as I remember: streaming is no COPYright violation since you do not create a copy.

JakeStone 3y ago

No verifiable sources cited, just large amounts of scary percentages. If everybody is pirating, then everything will go away. We've heard this since cassette tapes, video tapes, decss, torrents, and we'll continue hearing it with new tech. I say to the streaming companies and the content creators, stop bluffing. Shut it down since pirates are apparently chatting you billions. Cash in your options, go to your private island retreat and never darken our door again. I have physical books, and walks are usually nice.

msp26 3y ago

What is the current state of private trackers in 2023? Is it worth bothering with?

tjpnz 3y ago

I agree with the arguments on fragmentation being an issue but I do wonder to what degree it's the content being produced. There's a reason why the recent South Park resonated with so many, and if you think it's because of bigotry you're not really getting it. People will hesitate when asked to pay money for a product they feel isn't genuine, regardless of how they view the world.

ponderings 3y ago

If people would pay for these the economy would grow by 1-2 Trillion! Sadly "4 in 10 US adults say they have no disposable income" and there are about half a million films. Say 1000 are worth watching depending on interests. Works out to about 0 per movie. They could also not watch any. A sensible goal if you ask me, unrealistic of course but we can afford to be ambitious with other peoples money. They also wanted to read books, listen to music, read scientific publications.. preposterous! Who do these people think they are?

glimshe 3y ago

How about illegal removal of legally purchased content like the Discovery removal from Sony?

DyslexicAtheist 3y ago

wonder if this coincides with the Netflix promise to be the single platform to get all content failing. I'm on Netflix & Prime yet I still don't find the things I want to watch.

mkl95 3y ago
I also got Netflix and Prime. Recently, I wanted to rewatch House M.D. on Prime, but it's not available in my country anymore. I'm forced to use a VPN to enjoy content I am already paying for.

xet7 3y ago

The Dutch firm Ecory was commissioned to research the impact of piracy for several months, eventually submitting a 304-page report to the EU in May 2015. The report concluded that: “In general, the results do not show robust statistical evidence of displacement of sales by online copyright infringements. That does not necessarily mean that piracy has no effect but only that the statistical analysis does not prove with sufficient reliability that there is an effect.” 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-... https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2017/09/displacement_study.pdf https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2017/09/displacement_s... https://web.archive.org/web/20231206082938/https://gizmodo.com/the-eu-suppressed-a-300-page-study-that-found-piracy-do-1818629537 https://web.archive.org/web/20231206082938/https://gizmodo.c... https://web.archive.org/web/20231204151912/https://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2017/09/displacement_study.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20231204151912/https://cdn.netzp... If piracy is a problem, solution is to make it possible to buy that content online. Not everything is yet possible to buy.

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erkt 3y ago

> Internet piracy isn’t ethically justifiable, Let's try. In the context of the ongoing debate on media piracy, recent actions by major streaming companies have brought to light a critical ethical dilemma. These corporations, wielding considerable monopolistic power, have increasingly adopted practices that can be seen as coercive and unethical, compelling consumers to reconsider the moral justification of piracy. 1. Price Hikes Amidst Monopolistic Control: Major streaming services like Disney+, Hulu, and Netflix have recently raised their subscription prices significantly. This increase, occurring within a relatively short span, demonstrates a trend of exploiting consumer dependency on these platforms. The illusion of fair pricing is often shattered by the fact that cheaper tiers lack standard features, pushing consumers towards more expensive options. 2. Dilution of Ownership Rights: The Sony PlayStation incident, where over 1,300 purchased TV shows were removed from user libraries without refunds, starkly highlights the erosion of digital ownership rights. This action represents a flagrant disregard for consumer investment and trust, characterizing a monopolistic overreach that undermines the very principles of fair trade and respect for consumer rights. 3. Ad-Inundated Streaming Experiences: The proliferation of ad-supported streaming models, even on platforms that previously promised ad-free experiences, adds another layer of coercion. This shift towards ad-laden content not only disrupts the viewing experience but also subtly coerces consumers into higher-priced, ad-free tiers. 4. Preservation of Cultural Artifacts: Piracy, in this context, emerges as a necessary counter to these unethical practices. It serves as a tool for preserving media in its original form, unaltered by corporate censorship or modern-day ethical reinterpretation. This aspect of piracy is crucial for maintaining the integrity of historical and cultural works. 5. Economic and Technical Exploitation: The technical details, such as limited bit depth and lack of HD in cheaper streaming options, are often obscured from the average consumer. This tactic of exploiting consumer ignorance for profit further emphasizes the unethical nature of these corporate strategies. In the face of such corporate tyranny, piracy becomes a form of ethical defiance. It is a stand against the exploitation and manipulation of consumer rights and choices. While the legal implications of piracy cannot be ignored, the moral compulsion to resist monopolistic coercion and preserve the integrity of media content presents a compelling counter-argument. The issue of piracy transcends mere legal boundaries and delves into the realm of ethical resistance. It's a call for fairer practices, transparency, and respect for consumer rights in the face of corporate monopolies that prioritize profit over ethical considerations.

dubeye 3y ago

I’m one of the stats. Each time I did try to legitimately download the material but it was too much hassle.

pier25 3y ago

It's not surprising at all. To begin with, most streaming services don't have sufficient content to justify its existence. We've been paying for Netflix non-stop probably since 2015 but the rest are a joke. Outside of Netflix, in the last 5 years at home we've enjoyed maybe 5 shows/movies per year in all the other services combined. Then they all do crap like not streaming 4K HDR movies when the movie is available in that format. All new movies for close to a decade have been released in that format since day one. But even outside of streaming subscriptions they fuck with enthusiasts that want to pay for movies. Stuff like iTunes not allowing you to watch the content you've paid for when moving to another country. Physical media is also not free of guilt. I have probably over a hundred 4K Blurays and I stopped buying those because Amazon US won't ship them to my country anymore. Local Amazon sells the same discs sometimes at 2x the price. Also plenty of manufacturers have stopped producing 4K HDR players. It's extremely frustrating.

thiht 3y ago

What a judgmental piece of garbage of a writing. I pay a tax on all my hard drives for piracy. I try paying for official services when it’s doable (I haven’t pirated a song or a video game in years!). But the movie/tv industry do everything they can to make themselves inconvenient and frustrating. Screw ethics.

stefantalpalaru 3y ago

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Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago

It would be interesting to check if piracy is back for pc gaming or just tv (haven't read the article yet) to verify what Gabe says (pretty sure it will)