8 ms·

It takes all of 10 minutes to setup a site/tracker like Demonoid. These sort of actions will continue to drive people toward private trackers. Want to combat p

by maratd 14y ago

It takes all of 10 minutes to setup a site/tracker like Demonoid. These sort of actions will continue to drive people toward private trackers. Want to combat piracy? Fix your damn business models. I don't want to pay per song, per album, per movie, per game, per book, per whatever! I am willing to pay a minor monthly subscription to get access to a library of content. There are companies out there that get that. Most, however, do not.

rayiner 14y ago
I agree the business models need work, but "let me get access to more product at lower prices or else I'll steal it" does't seem like a very defensible position.
- kaonashi 14y ago
  Copyright infringement is not equatable to theft.
  - daenz 14y ago
    Exactly. That's the strawman that has been put in the public's mind: that piracy is theft. Theft is the removal of ownership.
    - elliottcarlson 14y ago
      Though - piracy accounts for (potential) loss of sales - so while not losing ownership, they are losing revenue.
      - daenz 14y ago
        Except losing revenue, potential and real, is not a crime.
        rayiner 14y ago
        But copyright infringement, in certain contexts, is a crime. The "it's not theft" argument is pedantry. There are lots of ways to obtain things for free that aren't technically theft: extortion, blackmail, fraud, etc. Illegal copying is one of those ways.
        drostie 14y ago
        Well, let's be totally clear: "obtaining things for free" is not particularly what's at issue here. What's at issue is something more like "obtaining something which is not yours to obtain." That invokes a tremendous question of what is "yours to obtain" which is not easily settled, and because we have competing intuitions on this point, Hacker News discussions can go wild between camps which take both extremes of the issue. I would guess that it's at least a strong minority view -- if not a majority view -- that record labels have abdicated their moral authority to assert transgressions of this kind. It is not unlike patent trolls, where we feel that if someone fails to capitalize on a potential market and in fact attempts (politically, legally, etc.) to hinder the growth there, that they forfeit their right to be wronged. So I think it's a shame that both sides never seem to get around to Step One, which is to say, "here's what I think the spirit of the law is, here's what I think the purpose of law as a whole is; now, do these conditions efficiently uphold those ideals?" If those questions are answered then it may not be "pedantry" -- perhaps they think that the purpose of the law is to stop theft, and theft-like deprivations of property. There may or may not be a nuanced argument here; and we won't know until people manifest their assumptions rather than burying them under knee-jerk slogans.
        rhizome 14y ago
        No, that it is theft is pedantry. If it's more complicated than that and requires all kinds of caveats in order to equate the two, then use your words and stop taking shortcuts.
        daenz 14y ago
        > The "it's not theft" argument is pedantry. There are lots of ways to obtain things for free that aren't technically theft: extortion, blackmail, fraud, etc. Illegal copying is one of those ways. Disagree. Even in the extortion, blackmail, and fraud cases, you're removing ownership when you obtain the thing. Copying never removes ownership, so it is not in the same class. It is not theft, and it it not pedantry to claim it is not. It's incorrect to state it is something that it is not to make it sound worse than it is.
      - usea 14y ago
        They are (potentially) losing revenue.
        elliottcarlson 14y ago
        Indeed - and really the "potential" keyword is really dependent on if that person would have purchased it outright if they had not been able to pirate it in the first place.
    - tedunangst 14y ago
      I will be sure to quote you the next time there's an article about someone stealing a startup idea or website design.
      - daenz 14y ago
        I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but I hope you do quote me on that...I don't believe you can steal an idea or a design either. In fact, I don't believe that anything that is not both physical and finite can be assigned ownership.
        res0nat0r 14y ago
        You must not make your money writing and selling software.
        rwallace 14y ago
        "Software is a service industry under the persistent delusion that it is a manufacturing industry."
        deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
        daenz 14y ago
        I do write software, professionally and for fun :) I also give some of it away "for free"! Check out my github: https://github.com/amoffat https://github.com/amoffat
        res0nat0r 14y ago
        Looks like you work for Panopta. Why are you guys charging up to $250/month for your product[1]? It should be free shouldn't it? I've decided $250 is too expensive and demand use of that tier for $3/month. I'm in the right aren't I? http://www.panopta.com/pricing/ http://www.panopta.com/pricing/
  - rayiner 14y ago
    Copyright infringement is equivalent to theft in the context of the statement I was making: getting something you would normally have to pay for for free by illegal means. It is, of course, not equivalent to theft in other contexts (e.g. from the perspective of the person whose copyright is infringed).
    - daenz 14y ago
      > getting something you would normally have to pay for for free by illegal means. You have to remove "by illegal means" from your statement, because you're claiming how copyright infringment is theft, and being illegal doesn't make it theft. It's illegal because it's claimed to be theft. So your statement becomes "getting something you would normally have to pay for for free." Is this theft? If you could get something for free that you would normally have to pay for, wouldn't most people do it? What is the compelling reason not to?
      - rayiner 14y ago
        > You have to remove "by illegal means" from your statement, because you're claiming how copyright infringment is theft, and being illegal doesn't make it theft. It's illegal because it's claimed to be theft. You can't drop the "by illegal means" part from my statement, on the grounds that copyright infringement isn't theft, because my statement isn't predicated on it being theft, it's predicated on it being illegal behavior. Which it is, on a basis wholly distinct from theft. "Getting something you would normally have to pay for for free by illegal means" encompasses a wide range of non-theft illegal means: by use of threat (extortion), by use of trick (fraud), etc. The point is that it's not a very defensible position to say "give me more product at lower prices or I will subvert the law to obtain it for free."
        daenz 14y ago
        > You can't drop the "by illegal means" part from my statement, on the grounds that copyright infringement isn't theft, because my statement isn't predicated on it being theft, it's predicated on it being illegal behavior. Which it is, on a basis wholly distinct from theft. But your statement was being used to show how copyright infringement was equivalent to theft. I think I understand what you're saying now though, is it that copyright infringement and theft are equivalent because they both are illegal and they both acquire something? If so, I would still have to disagree by saying that theft has the important distinction of removing original ownership. > "Getting something you would normally have to pay for for free by illegal means" encompasses a wide range of non-theft illegal means: by use of threat (extortion), by use of trick (fraud), etc. It also encompasses a wider range of non-theft legal means: finding deals, being resourceful, doing favors, etc.
- tomjen3 14y ago
  Well call it trustbusting if you want.
rmc 14y ago
Don't forget to add "Sell my content even if I'm not in USA". Seriously, piracy is the only way to get some content outside the USA.
- com2kid 14y ago
  The reverse is also true. There are albums that I just cannot buy in the US. Eventually if I do find someone selling the imported CD I'll go ahead and buy it, but sometimes that never happens. On the plus side, this is happening less and less often, bands I couldn't even find search results for a few years back now have people selling their albums on Amazon marketplace. I've also talked to guys on the other side of this though, who are trying to get material to market in many different countries at once. It isn't easy, often times some stupid "international distribution agreement" is signed in the far off past with some company that about 5 minutes later decided they didn't want to have anything to do with the band thereafter. Or music labels in different countries want different agreements that would degrade the user experience, or would upset distributors in other countries that have already signed on, or one of a million other stupid things. Launching anything internationally isn't easy.
  - rmc 14y ago
    I'm sure launching worldwide if you're selling digital content is easy. Put it on your website and sell it. (Pedantically, it would probably exclude various countries that the US has trade embargos with)
debacle 14y ago
I do want to pay per album, per movie, per game, per book, etc. I just want to pay 1/5th of the current cost. Distribution is now free, so why are we still paying for it?
- wtvanhest 14y ago
  Because, the price isn't determined by cost. Each artist is its own Monopoly, so pricing is determined by what people will pay for access to that monopoly product. There are plenty of artists who are coming up who charge much less.
  - smarsh 14y ago
    Then perhaps piracy is an indicator that the pricing is considered too high, above the threshold at which a potential customer decides to either not buy it or pirate it. The question then is how the ability to pirate affects that "reasonable price" threshold, amongst other hard to quantify effects of piracy.
    - wtvanhest 14y ago
      Then perhaps piracy is an indicator that the pricing is considered too high, above the threshold at which a potential customer decides to either not buy it or pirate it. For some customers it is absolutely too high so they resort to piracy. For others, it is the correct price or even too low. In a perfect world, the seller could use your income to determine price (or some other even better metric for what you are willing to pay) and charge everyone differnet amounts. Very wealthy people would pay huge amounts, impoverished people would pay very low amounts, maybe even nothing. The question then is how the ability to pirate affects that "reasonable price" threshold, amongst other hard to quantify effects of piracy. I imagine it pushes the price down slightly, but who knows if the record companies are acting rationally (pricewise) or could even predict the correct price they should charge to max profit. (I imagine they have some very smart people modeling pricing, but models can only get you so close).
- cageface 14y ago
nikcub 14y ago
It might take only 10 minutes to setup a site, but the database of torrents and magnet links at demonoid was one of the best on the web. I hope somebody has a backup ..
tedunangst 14y ago
wait, wait, wait. We want a subscription model now? I thought we were tired of renting things and wanted to own them. Somebody please make up their mind and tell me what to think.
- freehunter 14y ago
  Why not have the best of both worlds? All you can eat music downloads for a low monthly cost, but DRM free. It doesn't exist in a necessarily easy to consume product right now, but it does exist. I could imagine using something like the Zune Pass plus Tunebite giving you this exploiting the "analog hole". Tunebite plays the music files from a virtual audio output and records it in a virtual audio input. Similar to taping songs off the radio, or playing a CD and recording it to tape. The file would go from a protected WMA to an unprotected MP3 (or ogg, or flac, etc), and all you're doing is playing your legal copy of the song. That way you can burn it to a CD to listen to in your car or put it on your iPod Nano to take to the gym with you, and the file can't be revoked just because Microsoft changed the license. These are completely legitimate use cases. I'm sure such a hypothetical situation would work with Rhapsody or other music subscription services. Various services may embed a code in the file to tie it back to you if it winds up on a sharing site. I don't know if this method would remove that, so I would suggest keeping these files purely for your own benefit.
  - tedunangst 14y ago
    What happens when you stop paying the monthly fee? I suspect the people offering this service will want some assurance their customer base will not disappear after downloading every song ever made in the first month.
    - freehunter 14y ago
      By default, if you stop paying you lose all your songs. In my hypothetical situation, you would keep them. Zune Pass does give you 10 downloads each months DRM free that you can keep forever, so I guess you could claim it's moral if you don't run more than that amount through Tunebite overall. I was just throwing it out there as a hypothetical situation where someone could have a subscription service and also be able to use their songs as they want to use them. I subscribe to the Zune Pass and I know I have this capability, but I've never actually felt the need to exercise that power.
tsahyt 14y ago
That sort of business model is not for everyone though. I'm perfectly fine with paying per album as long as the album is actually mine after purchase without any limitations on what to do with it. Period. I'd even rather have that than a "flatrate". What I'll be "finest" with though is paying the artist directly, even at the same rate. I have no interest whatsoever in sponsoring the music industry, as in corporations. I want the artist to receive my money, not some manager, business executive or whatever, because the product I'm interested in is the music itself, not it's promotion. Morally speaking I'd rather pirate and then paypal some money to the artist to support the good work.
- thronemonkey 14y ago
  I agree completely, so I try to buy music on bandcamp as much as possible. I basically see it as a donation to the artist and to a service (bandcamp) which I think does a good thing.
rektide 14y ago
> It takes all of 10 minutes to setup a site/tracker like Demonoid. "10 minutes" to set up the site and half a decade of fostering, seeding trust and a community of people who laboriously upload and seed content, and then five years of fighting ISPs, world politics and DDoS attacks to stay running.
kevhsu 14y ago
Perfectly willing to pay per song, per album, per movie, per game, etc. What matters is the method and timeliness of delivery. If I can pay for this new episode of HIMYM and start streaming it within 3 minutes on my phone, tablet, etc. I'm perfectly happy. Plenty of people would be willing to pay $10-20 per episode of Game of Thrones to be able to watch it legitimately without Cable+HBO at the same time as cable subscribers. $10-20 seems like a lot, but the series is extremely popular, and the 100-200 per season of GoT still costs the end user less money than cable contract + HBO. Also probably leads to more money in HBO's pockets I'd imagine. I would pay NBC $60 for a pass to have legitimate access to their Olympic streams and coverage, but instead they require cable login information that I don't have access to because cable and internet are included in my lease.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

by maratd 14y ago

rayiner 14y ago

I agree the business models need work, but "let me get access to more product at lower prices or else I'll steal it" does't seem like a very defensible position.

kaonashi 14y ago
Copyright infringement is not equatable to theft.
- daenz 14y ago
  Exactly. That's the strawman that has been put in the public's mind: that piracy is theft. Theft is the removal of ownership.
  - elliottcarlson 14y ago
    Though - piracy accounts for (potential) loss of sales - so while not losing ownership, they are losing revenue.
    - daenz 14y ago
      Except losing revenue, potential and real, is not a crime.
      - rayiner 14y ago
        But copyright infringement, in certain contexts, is a crime. The "it's not theft" argument is pedantry. There are lots of ways to obtain things for free that aren't technically theft: extortion, blackmail, fraud, etc. Illegal copying is one of those ways.
        drostie 14y ago
        Well, let's be totally clear: "obtaining things for free" is not particularly what's at issue here. What's at issue is something more like "obtaining something which is not yours to obtain." That invokes a tremendous question of what is "yours to obtain" which is not easily settled, and because we have competing intuitions on this point, Hacker News discussions can go wild between camps which take both extremes of the issue. I would guess that it's at least a strong minority view -- if not a majority view -- that record labels have abdicated their moral authority to assert transgressions of this kind. It is not unlike patent trolls, where we feel that if someone fails to capitalize on a potential market and in fact attempts (politically, legally, etc.) to hinder the growth there, that they forfeit their right to be wronged. So I think it's a shame that both sides never seem to get around to Step One, which is to say, "here's what I think the spirit of the law is, here's what I think the purpose of law as a whole is; now, do these conditions efficiently uphold those ideals?" If those questions are answered then it may not be "pedantry" -- perhaps they think that the purpose of the law is to stop theft, and theft-like deprivations of property. There may or may not be a nuanced argument here; and we won't know until people manifest their assumptions rather than burying them under knee-jerk slogans.
        rhizome 14y ago
        No, that it is theft is pedantry. If it's more complicated than that and requires all kinds of caveats in order to equate the two, then use your words and stop taking shortcuts.
        daenz 14y ago
        > The "it's not theft" argument is pedantry. There are lots of ways to obtain things for free that aren't technically theft: extortion, blackmail, fraud, etc. Illegal copying is one of those ways. Disagree. Even in the extortion, blackmail, and fraud cases, you're removing ownership when you obtain the thing. Copying never removes ownership, so it is not in the same class. It is not theft, and it it not pedantry to claim it is not. It's incorrect to state it is something that it is not to make it sound worse than it is.
    - usea 14y ago
      They are (potentially) losing revenue.
      - elliottcarlson 14y ago
        Indeed - and really the "potential" keyword is really dependent on if that person would have purchased it outright if they had not been able to pirate it in the first place.
  - tedunangst 14y ago
    I will be sure to quote you the next time there's an article about someone stealing a startup idea or website design.
    - daenz 14y ago
      I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but I hope you do quote me on that...I don't believe you can steal an idea or a design either. In fact, I don't believe that anything that is not both physical and finite can be assigned ownership.
      - res0nat0r 14y ago
        You must not make your money writing and selling software.
        rwallace 14y ago
        "Software is a service industry under the persistent delusion that it is a manufacturing industry."
        deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
        daenz 14y ago
        I do write software, professionally and for fun :) I also give some of it away "for free"! Check out my github: https://github.com/amoffat https://github.com/amoffat
        res0nat0r 14y ago
        Looks like you work for Panopta. Why are you guys charging up to $250/month for your product[1]? It should be free shouldn't it? I've decided $250 is too expensive and demand use of that tier for $3/month. I'm in the right aren't I? http://www.panopta.com/pricing/ http://www.panopta.com/pricing/
- rayiner 14y ago
  Copyright infringement is equivalent to theft in the context of the statement I was making: getting something you would normally have to pay for for free by illegal means. It is, of course, not equivalent to theft in other contexts (e.g. from the perspective of the person whose copyright is infringed).
  - daenz 14y ago
    > getting something you would normally have to pay for for free by illegal means. You have to remove "by illegal means" from your statement, because you're claiming how copyright infringment is theft, and being illegal doesn't make it theft. It's illegal because it's claimed to be theft. So your statement becomes "getting something you would normally have to pay for for free." Is this theft? If you could get something for free that you would normally have to pay for, wouldn't most people do it? What is the compelling reason not to?
    - rayiner 14y ago
      > You have to remove "by illegal means" from your statement, because you're claiming how copyright infringment is theft, and being illegal doesn't make it theft. It's illegal because it's claimed to be theft. You can't drop the "by illegal means" part from my statement, on the grounds that copyright infringement isn't theft, because my statement isn't predicated on it being theft, it's predicated on it being illegal behavior. Which it is, on a basis wholly distinct from theft. "Getting something you would normally have to pay for for free by illegal means" encompasses a wide range of non-theft illegal means: by use of threat (extortion), by use of trick (fraud), etc. The point is that it's not a very defensible position to say "give me more product at lower prices or I will subvert the law to obtain it for free."
      - daenz 14y ago
        > You can't drop the "by illegal means" part from my statement, on the grounds that copyright infringement isn't theft, because my statement isn't predicated on it being theft, it's predicated on it being illegal behavior. Which it is, on a basis wholly distinct from theft. But your statement was being used to show how copyright infringement was equivalent to theft. I think I understand what you're saying now though, is it that copyright infringement and theft are equivalent because they both are illegal and they both acquire something? If so, I would still have to disagree by saying that theft has the important distinction of removing original ownership. > "Getting something you would normally have to pay for for free by illegal means" encompasses a wide range of non-theft illegal means: by use of threat (extortion), by use of trick (fraud), etc. It also encompasses a wider range of non-theft legal means: finding deals, being resourceful, doing favors, etc.
tomjen3 14y ago
Well call it trustbusting if you want.

rmc 14y ago

Don't forget to add "Sell my content even if I'm not in USA". Seriously, piracy is the only way to get some content outside the USA.

com2kid 14y ago
The reverse is also true. There are albums that I just cannot buy in the US. Eventually if I do find someone selling the imported CD I'll go ahead and buy it, but sometimes that never happens. On the plus side, this is happening less and less often, bands I couldn't even find search results for a few years back now have people selling their albums on Amazon marketplace. I've also talked to guys on the other side of this though, who are trying to get material to market in many different countries at once. It isn't easy, often times some stupid "international distribution agreement" is signed in the far off past with some company that about 5 minutes later decided they didn't want to have anything to do with the band thereafter. Or music labels in different countries want different agreements that would degrade the user experience, or would upset distributors in other countries that have already signed on, or one of a million other stupid things. Launching anything internationally isn't easy.
- rmc 14y ago
  I'm sure launching worldwide if you're selling digital content is easy. Put it on your website and sell it. (Pedantically, it would probably exclude various countries that the US has trade embargos with)

debacle 14y ago

I do want to pay per album, per movie, per game, per book, etc. I just want to pay 1/5th of the current cost. Distribution is now free, so why are we still paying for it?

wtvanhest 14y ago
Because, the price isn't determined by cost. Each artist is its own Monopoly, so pricing is determined by what people will pay for access to that monopoly product. There are plenty of artists who are coming up who charge much less.
- smarsh 14y ago
  Then perhaps piracy is an indicator that the pricing is considered too high, above the threshold at which a potential customer decides to either not buy it or pirate it. The question then is how the ability to pirate affects that "reasonable price" threshold, amongst other hard to quantify effects of piracy.
  - wtvanhest 14y ago
    Then perhaps piracy is an indicator that the pricing is considered too high, above the threshold at which a potential customer decides to either not buy it or pirate it. For some customers it is absolutely too high so they resort to piracy. For others, it is the correct price or even too low. In a perfect world, the seller could use your income to determine price (or some other even better metric for what you are willing to pay) and charge everyone differnet amounts. Very wealthy people would pay huge amounts, impoverished people would pay very low amounts, maybe even nothing. The question then is how the ability to pirate affects that "reasonable price" threshold, amongst other hard to quantify effects of piracy. I imagine it pushes the price down slightly, but who knows if the record companies are acting rationally (pricewise) or could even predict the correct price they should charge to max profit. (I imagine they have some very smart people modeling pricing, but models can only get you so close).
cageface 14y ago

nikcub 14y ago

It might take only 10 minutes to setup a site, but the database of torrents and magnet links at demonoid was one of the best on the web. I hope somebody has a backup ..

tedunangst 14y ago

wait, wait, wait. We want a subscription model now? I thought we were tired of renting things and wanted to own them. Somebody please make up their mind and tell me what to think.

freehunter 14y ago
Why not have the best of both worlds? All you can eat music downloads for a low monthly cost, but DRM free. It doesn't exist in a necessarily easy to consume product right now, but it does exist. I could imagine using something like the Zune Pass plus Tunebite giving you this exploiting the "analog hole". Tunebite plays the music files from a virtual audio output and records it in a virtual audio input. Similar to taping songs off the radio, or playing a CD and recording it to tape. The file would go from a protected WMA to an unprotected MP3 (or ogg, or flac, etc), and all you're doing is playing your legal copy of the song. That way you can burn it to a CD to listen to in your car or put it on your iPod Nano to take to the gym with you, and the file can't be revoked just because Microsoft changed the license. These are completely legitimate use cases. I'm sure such a hypothetical situation would work with Rhapsody or other music subscription services. Various services may embed a code in the file to tie it back to you if it winds up on a sharing site. I don't know if this method would remove that, so I would suggest keeping these files purely for your own benefit.
- tedunangst 14y ago
  What happens when you stop paying the monthly fee? I suspect the people offering this service will want some assurance their customer base will not disappear after downloading every song ever made in the first month.
  - freehunter 14y ago
    By default, if you stop paying you lose all your songs. In my hypothetical situation, you would keep them. Zune Pass does give you 10 downloads each months DRM free that you can keep forever, so I guess you could claim it's moral if you don't run more than that amount through Tunebite overall. I was just throwing it out there as a hypothetical situation where someone could have a subscription service and also be able to use their songs as they want to use them. I subscribe to the Zune Pass and I know I have this capability, but I've never actually felt the need to exercise that power.

tsahyt 14y ago

That sort of business model is not for everyone though. I'm perfectly fine with paying per album as long as the album is actually mine after purchase without any limitations on what to do with it. Period. I'd even rather have that than a "flatrate". What I'll be "finest" with though is paying the artist directly, even at the same rate. I have no interest whatsoever in sponsoring the music industry, as in corporations. I want the artist to receive my money, not some manager, business executive or whatever, because the product I'm interested in is the music itself, not it's promotion. Morally speaking I'd rather pirate and then paypal some money to the artist to support the good work.

thronemonkey 14y ago
I agree completely, so I try to buy music on bandcamp as much as possible. I basically see it as a donation to the artist and to a service (bandcamp) which I think does a good thing.

rektide 14y ago

> It takes all of 10 minutes to setup a site/tracker like Demonoid. "10 minutes" to set up the site and half a decade of fostering, seeding trust and a community of people who laboriously upload and seed content, and then five years of fighting ISPs, world politics and DDoS attacks to stay running.

kevhsu 14y ago

Perfectly willing to pay per song, per album, per movie, per game, etc. What matters is the method and timeliness of delivery. If I can pay for this new episode of HIMYM and start streaming it within 3 minutes on my phone, tablet, etc. I'm perfectly happy. Plenty of people would be willing to pay $10-20 per episode of Game of Thrones to be able to watch it legitimately without Cable+HBO at the same time as cable subscribers. $10-20 seems like a lot, but the series is extremely popular, and the 100-200 per season of GoT still costs the end user less money than cable contract + HBO. Also probably leads to more money in HBO's pockets I'd imagine. I would pay NBC $60 for a pass to have legitimate access to their Olympic streams and coverage, but instead they require cable login information that I don't have access to because cable and internet are included in my lease.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]