5 ms·

I suppose what's interesting about this to me is that the pirates are presumably paying for VPN service? Which means that I guess we've figured out the thresho

by bmelton 15y ago

I suppose what's interesting about this to me is that the pirates are presumably paying for VPN service? Which means that I guess we've figured out the threshold where they are and aren't willing to pay for things -- to keep out of jail. I should launch a Piracy as a Service app. Each month, you send me $100, and I will send you back copies of hot movies of varying quality, but all perfectly legal. You stay out of jail, I stay out of jail, and the pirates can rest assured that they never had to actually pay for the media they're consuming.

lucian1900 15y ago
"Pirates" usually aren't unwilling to pay, but unwilling to pay for an inferior product.
- roel_v 15y ago
  Well they still watch/use/listen to the "inferior" product, so if it's worth watching/using/listening to, why is it not worth paying for? Or should people be able to set their own prices on what they get?
  - pessimizer 15y ago
    The inferior part is the file format (DRM ridden and weird) and the convenience, not (usually) the sounds and the sights.
  - tjoff 15y ago
    No, pirates constantly get a superior product to anything you can buy. That's because the DRM is stripped, the DRM often have many compatibility/integrity/security issues etc. that pirates never have to worry about. They are not forced to watch through FBI warnings before watching a movie. The experience of downloading something is vastly superior to buying it in most cases, and that's assuming you can buy it at all (pirates don't have to wait/hope for a TV series to be released outside of US, for instance).
  - nitrogen 15y ago
    To add to the points made by previous responses, you can see for yourself the benefit of unencumbered files by ripping your own legally obtained Blu-ray movies. Once you have a DRM-free file on your hard drive, everything is better: there are no forced trailers, the movie loads nearly instantly (the standalone Blu-ray player I've used took about 5 minutes to load a disc), and seeking is practically instantaneous. You can even watch your legally obtained full-quality movies on non-HDCP-capable projectors and monitors.
    - PaperclipTaken 15y ago
      For me, being able to avoid TV ads, forced movie ads, and ads on services like Pandora are some of the greatest advantages to piracy. Furthermore, you know things like Bitrate before you download. On Netflix, you don't know how a movie has been compressed. Even 1080p movies can have noticeable quality differences depending on the method of compression. Using a private tracker, you can see the exact program and settings used before downloading.
  - icebraining 15y ago
    They do pay for them: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/apr/21/study-finds-pirates-buy-more-music http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/apr/21/study-finds-pira... Don't buy into the RIAA/MPAA lies. Piracy is not just about getting stuff for free.
nuttendorfer 15y ago
Better get started soon, these guys: http://put.io/ http://put.io/ have been at it for years.
moron 15y ago
If you want to pay to improve your piracy experience, Usenet is the way to go. For about $20 a month you can get unlimited downloads of whatever, as fast as your home connection can handle, non-peer-to-peer. It's not as general a solution as VPN, but it's kind of amazing to me that Usenet doesn't get more attention, at least if VPNs are now starting to.
- tomjen3 15y ago
  Megashares is half that. Just saying. And excellent file search engines exist for all those sites (www.filestube.com).
- rblatz 15y ago
  I know Astraweb and others charge less. I agree, it's significantly cheaper and easier to use Usenet. Plus I believe it to be more legal, since you aren't actually sharing copywrited material. Just downloading it, and I don't believe anyone has been sued for just downloading.
- jaredsohn 15y ago
  > it's kind of amazing to me that Usenet doesn't get more attention Perhaps because the saying "the first rule of Usenet is that you don't talk about Usenet" has helped prevent it from going viral.
  - glanch 15y ago
    To be fair, his name is moron.
antidoh 15y ago
Actually I was thinking that should be the content industry's next business model. People subscribe to torrent/content services. The services buy licenses for content. People download content. It's almost the same thing as radio, the difference being that you have a copy.
- wmf 15y ago
  If the service is affordable, it won't have what you want. If it has what people want it will cost $100/month. This is basically the Netflix dilemma.
- solnyshok 15y ago
  how about having "donate" buttons on torrent sites that would allow you to donate either to studio, or actor, or producer. That money would go to a offshore account where they would wait to be claimed by the cast or copyright holder. And the only condition for transferring money from this account would be to sign a carefully worded document that would mean that copyright holder agrees to such distribution model?
  - creamyhorror 15y ago
    I've been wanting a service like this for anime for years. Instead of paying ridiculous import prices for DVDs without English subtitles, let overseas fansub watchers pay what they want, directly to the studio, anonymously. Admittedly this might discourage some buyers who previously imported DVDs from Japan, but I'd bet there'd be an overall net increase in revenue for the studios. Too bad it won't happen anytime soon.
w1ntermute 15y ago
> Each month, you send me $100, and I will send you back copies of hot movies of varying quality, but all perfectly legal Your snide comment is way off the mark. By your tone I'm assuming you're staunchly anti-piracy and don't pirate stuff, so you don't have experience with the actual quality of pirated media. As a long-time pirate (10+ years), I can unequivocally tell you that pirated media is lightyears ahead of anything available legally. By using just 1 (one) torrent site, I can gain access to pretty much every single movie, music album, video game (console or PC), piece of software (all platforms), and book. The downloads almost always max out my connection. As for quality - it's better than if you buy the media. Netflix and iTunes are just now bringing out 1080p content, and it's almost definitely going to be compressed in a lossy way. I can torrent the original Bluray disc image (~50 GB) if I want to, or get a high quality X264 compressed version to save space/bandwidth. You're not forced to go with the one thing that's offered to you. Both options have been available ever since Bluray (and HDDVD) first came out. I've been watching 1080p content for years without ever buying a Blu-ray drive or any other special hardware. And the best part of all - both the downloading process and the files I get are in standard & open formats that I can run & view on my Linux PC. What's available for download is browsed via a normal web browser, the BitTorrent protocol is open and has been implemented on Linux many times over, and I've never had any issues playing back content once it's been downloaded - the formats are open and are supported by a variety of open source media players. Let me know when I can run iTunes or Netflix on Linux. I doubt it'll ever happen. Oh, and VPN services don't cost $100 a month. You can get them for less than $20/month. When I was sharing a seedbox with a friend, it was $10/month for unlimited data transfer and 250 GB of storage space.
- MichaelGG 15y ago
  Not to mention you can enhance all sorts of playback stuff. Simple one: Subtitles. Netflix took forever to add subtitles, and even now the coverage is spotty, and languages are very limited. And if sync is off, tough luck. Also, if there's any problem with playback, you can fix it. A few things I use often: Brightness control, dynamic range compression (nighttime mode), subwoofer support (2 channel audio on Windows just goes out L and R; ffdshow lets me easily split low freqs to the sub).
- 15y ago
icebraining 15y ago
Pirates pay for media as well: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/apr/21/study-finds-pirates-buy-more-music http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/apr/21/study-finds-pira...

by bmelton 15y ago

lucian1900 15y ago

"Pirates" usually aren't unwilling to pay, but unwilling to pay for an inferior product.

roel_v 15y ago
Well they still watch/use/listen to the "inferior" product, so if it's worth watching/using/listening to, why is it not worth paying for? Or should people be able to set their own prices on what they get?
- pessimizer 15y ago
  The inferior part is the file format (DRM ridden and weird) and the convenience, not (usually) the sounds and the sights.
- tjoff 15y ago
  No, pirates constantly get a superior product to anything you can buy. That's because the DRM is stripped, the DRM often have many compatibility/integrity/security issues etc. that pirates never have to worry about. They are not forced to watch through FBI warnings before watching a movie. The experience of downloading something is vastly superior to buying it in most cases, and that's assuming you can buy it at all (pirates don't have to wait/hope for a TV series to be released outside of US, for instance).
- nitrogen 15y ago
  To add to the points made by previous responses, you can see for yourself the benefit of unencumbered files by ripping your own legally obtained Blu-ray movies. Once you have a DRM-free file on your hard drive, everything is better: there are no forced trailers, the movie loads nearly instantly (the standalone Blu-ray player I've used took about 5 minutes to load a disc), and seeking is practically instantaneous. You can even watch your legally obtained full-quality movies on non-HDCP-capable projectors and monitors.
  - PaperclipTaken 15y ago
    For me, being able to avoid TV ads, forced movie ads, and ads on services like Pandora are some of the greatest advantages to piracy. Furthermore, you know things like Bitrate before you download. On Netflix, you don't know how a movie has been compressed. Even 1080p movies can have noticeable quality differences depending on the method of compression. Using a private tracker, you can see the exact program and settings used before downloading.
- icebraining 15y ago
  They do pay for them: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/apr/21/study-finds-pirates-buy-more-music http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/apr/21/study-finds-pira... Don't buy into the RIAA/MPAA lies. Piracy is not just about getting stuff for free.

nuttendorfer 15y ago

Better get started soon, these guys: http://put.io/ http://put.io/ have been at it for years.

moron 15y ago

If you want to pay to improve your piracy experience, Usenet is the way to go. For about $20 a month you can get unlimited downloads of whatever, as fast as your home connection can handle, non-peer-to-peer. It's not as general a solution as VPN, but it's kind of amazing to me that Usenet doesn't get more attention, at least if VPNs are now starting to.

tomjen3 15y ago
Megashares is half that. Just saying. And excellent file search engines exist for all those sites (www.filestube.com).
rblatz 15y ago
I know Astraweb and others charge less. I agree, it's significantly cheaper and easier to use Usenet. Plus I believe it to be more legal, since you aren't actually sharing copywrited material. Just downloading it, and I don't believe anyone has been sued for just downloading.
jaredsohn 15y ago
> it's kind of amazing to me that Usenet doesn't get more attention Perhaps because the saying "the first rule of Usenet is that you don't talk about Usenet" has helped prevent it from going viral.
- glanch 15y ago
  To be fair, his name is moron.

antidoh 15y ago

Actually I was thinking that should be the content industry's next business model. People subscribe to torrent/content services. The services buy licenses for content. People download content. It's almost the same thing as radio, the difference being that you have a copy.

wmf 15y ago
If the service is affordable, it won't have what you want. If it has what people want it will cost $100/month. This is basically the Netflix dilemma.
solnyshok 15y ago
how about having "donate" buttons on torrent sites that would allow you to donate either to studio, or actor, or producer. That money would go to a offshore account where they would wait to be claimed by the cast or copyright holder. And the only condition for transferring money from this account would be to sign a carefully worded document that would mean that copyright holder agrees to such distribution model?
- creamyhorror 15y ago
  I've been wanting a service like this for anime for years. Instead of paying ridiculous import prices for DVDs without English subtitles, let overseas fansub watchers pay what they want, directly to the studio, anonymously. Admittedly this might discourage some buyers who previously imported DVDs from Japan, but I'd bet there'd be an overall net increase in revenue for the studios. Too bad it won't happen anytime soon.

w1ntermute 15y ago

> Each month, you send me $100, and I will send you back copies of hot movies of varying quality, but all perfectly legal Your snide comment is way off the mark. By your tone I'm assuming you're staunchly anti-piracy and don't pirate stuff, so you don't have experience with the actual quality of pirated media. As a long-time pirate (10+ years), I can unequivocally tell you that pirated media is lightyears ahead of anything available legally. By using just 1 (one) torrent site, I can gain access to pretty much every single movie, music album, video game (console or PC), piece of software (all platforms), and book. The downloads almost always max out my connection. As for quality - it's better than if you buy the media. Netflix and iTunes are just now bringing out 1080p content, and it's almost definitely going to be compressed in a lossy way. I can torrent the original Bluray disc image (~50 GB) if I want to, or get a high quality X264 compressed version to save space/bandwidth. You're not forced to go with the one thing that's offered to you. Both options have been available ever since Bluray (and HDDVD) first came out. I've been watching 1080p content for years without ever buying a Blu-ray drive or any other special hardware. And the best part of all - both the downloading process and the files I get are in standard & open formats that I can run & view on my Linux PC. What's available for download is browsed via a normal web browser, the BitTorrent protocol is open and has been implemented on Linux many times over, and I've never had any issues playing back content once it's been downloaded - the formats are open and are supported by a variety of open source media players. Let me know when I can run iTunes or Netflix on Linux. I doubt it'll ever happen. Oh, and VPN services don't cost $100 a month. You can get them for less than $20/month. When I was sharing a seedbox with a friend, it was $10/month for unlimited data transfer and 250 GB of storage space.

MichaelGG 15y ago
Not to mention you can enhance all sorts of playback stuff. Simple one: Subtitles. Netflix took forever to add subtitles, and even now the coverage is spotty, and languages are very limited. And if sync is off, tough luck. Also, if there's any problem with playback, you can fix it. A few things I use often: Brightness control, dynamic range compression (nighttime mode), subwoofer support (2 channel audio on Windows just goes out L and R; ffdshow lets me easily split low freqs to the sub).
15y ago

icebraining 15y ago

Pirates pay for media as well: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/apr/21/study-finds-pirates-buy-more-music http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/apr/21/study-finds-pira...