4 ms·

It's astonishing how difficult it is for content companies to get this right. Torrent sites have had it down for more than half a decade. I started using privat

It's astonishing how difficult it is for content companies to get this right. Torrent sites have had it down for more than half a decade. I started using private torrent sites to obtain TV shows more than 6 years ago, and even though very little has changed in a substantial way since then (excepting the rise of Project Gazelle), the process is great. You can download any show, any time you want after the show has been released (+15 to 20 minutes), with no restrictions. I find it ridiculous that this is still an issue in 2012.

res0nat0r 14y ago
The torrent sites have it right because you are getting content that should be paid for for free, no wonder why they are popular.
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  What the torrent sites are getting right isn't the price, it's the UX. I actually pay $20/month for a seedbox, but that's worth it to me because the UX with torrents is far superior to Netflix, Hulu, or anything else out there.
  - tsotha 14y ago
    But they have unlimited freedom on the UX because they don't have to worry about protecting their content. It's a much easier environment to work with.
    - trafficlight 14y ago
      As if the networks' current protection schemes are doing them any good...
      - tsotha 14y ago
        Probably not, or at least not much. But you can't blame them for trying to keep Hulu on a short leash.
  - res0nat0r 14y ago
    That or the fact that you can download 200$/month worth of paid tv content for $20?
    - catshirt 14y ago
      seems they are completely aware they can get $200/m of paid tv content entirely free as well. which would actually suggest, despite your sarcasm, that no, it's not the reason.
    - w1ntermute 14y ago
      I don't see how it's worth $200. After all, you can get unlimited TV shows on Netflix for $8/month.
      - catshirt 14y ago
        $200 is arbitrary and i'm not even sure it matters. would $100 or $50 be a different argument? that said, your analogy does not consider: 1. netflix has an insufficient library 2. as you admit, torrents are available essentially the same time they air.
lukifer 14y ago
You don't get paid for the value you produce, you get paid for the value you can withhold. The DRM capabilities of Flash, Silverlight, iOS, etc. are the only reason that Hulu and Netflix stay in business; torrents are fantastic, but in a free-info model, there's nothing to withhold and no way to get paid. Embedded commercials would get immediately edited out, and product placement only goes so far. I don't like the situation either, but without a new business model (or a new economic system), we're stuck with what we have. (Most) video content is insanely expensive to produce, and physical disc sales continue to decline.
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  > The DRM capabilities of Flash, Silverlight, iOS, etc. are the only reason that Hulu and Netflix stay in business; torrents are fantastic, but in a free-info model, there's nothing to withhold and no way to get paid. Embedded commercials would get immediately edited out, and product placement only goes so far. How is this any different from the situation right now with DVDs and Blu-rays? You can copy videos very easily. And what about torrents? If people wanted to download and copy files, they could do that with torrents. But instead, the people who actually bother to pay for the movies and TV shows are punished. And this same argument could be applied to music stores, but Amazon and iTunes operate without DRM, and there are no issues there. A lot of pro-DRM people said the iTunes store would collapse without DRM, but things seem to be working just fine for them. We've been through this exact same argument half a decade ago with music. The only reason it's being repeated is being the old farts in charge of the media companies are too shortsighted to see what will benefit their companies in the long term.
  - lukifer 14y ago
    I didn't mean to imply that DRM-free video stores can't work; I meant that (a) torrents themselves are nigh-impossible to monetize, and (b) suits at Big Content will never feel comfortable with opening up their precious data, even though you and I know that the raw data exists already. Though millions are sometimes spent to market music, that's peanuts compared to the costs of producing movies and television, and that money won't get spent without some confidence that it can be recouped. It's one thing for Louis CK to gamble $0.2M on a DRM-free standup special, and another for Disney to gamble $220M on a DRM-free Avengers. > How is this any different from the situation right now with DVDs and Blu-rays? You can copy videos very easily. Nerds can, but DVD ripping is still much less friendly to regular people compared to MP3 swapping, and requires much more work to play back compared to iPods and CD burning. If the industry ever got behind open standards, eventually many more people would pirate movies instead of just college kids. Borrowing a DVD from a friend would be no different than taking it permanently, resulting in fewer total sales. Don't get me wrong: DRM is a plague. Hell, I'd even support a tax that made all content part of a universal digital library, with funds distributed proportionally to usage. But without somehow creating a new economic system for digital content, every "rational actor" is going to do whatever they can to maintain maximum leverage. The only reason the RIAA caved was that the damage was already done, and they had lost most of their leverage already. (Also, it was something of a ploy to give Amazon an advantage over iTunes, which was enjoying a brief hegemony over paid music downloads; user freedom was a happy side effect.)
camus 14y ago
the issue is easy , torrents are not financing content creation. In the end someone has to pay in order for tv-shows to be produced and producers have rights. You cant just decide to own something if you did not pay for it one way or another , or it is called stealing. And because it is easy to do so doesnt mean it is legal or it is moral. Nothing is free down this world. But torrent sites are making money with the traffic they generate with the content they illegaly distribute. They create revenue by destroying a lot of value.

res0nat0r 14y ago

The torrent sites have it right because you are getting content that should be paid for for free, no wonder why they are popular.

w1ntermute 14y ago
What the torrent sites are getting right isn't the price, it's the UX. I actually pay $20/month for a seedbox, but that's worth it to me because the UX with torrents is far superior to Netflix, Hulu, or anything else out there.
- tsotha 14y ago
  But they have unlimited freedom on the UX because they don't have to worry about protecting their content. It's a much easier environment to work with.
  - trafficlight 14y ago
    As if the networks' current protection schemes are doing them any good...
    - tsotha 14y ago
      Probably not, or at least not much. But you can't blame them for trying to keep Hulu on a short leash.
- res0nat0r 14y ago
  That or the fact that you can download 200$/month worth of paid tv content for $20?
  - catshirt 14y ago
    seems they are completely aware they can get $200/m of paid tv content entirely free as well. which would actually suggest, despite your sarcasm, that no, it's not the reason.
  - w1ntermute 14y ago
    I don't see how it's worth $200. After all, you can get unlimited TV shows on Netflix for $8/month.
    - catshirt 14y ago
      $200 is arbitrary and i'm not even sure it matters. would $100 or $50 be a different argument? that said, your analogy does not consider: 1. netflix has an insufficient library 2. as you admit, torrents are available essentially the same time they air.

lukifer 14y ago

You don't get paid for the value you produce, you get paid for the value you can withhold. The DRM capabilities of Flash, Silverlight, iOS, etc. are the only reason that Hulu and Netflix stay in business; torrents are fantastic, but in a free-info model, there's nothing to withhold and no way to get paid. Embedded commercials would get immediately edited out, and product placement only goes so far. I don't like the situation either, but without a new business model (or a new economic system), we're stuck with what we have. (Most) video content is insanely expensive to produce, and physical disc sales continue to decline.

w1ntermute 14y ago
> The DRM capabilities of Flash, Silverlight, iOS, etc. are the only reason that Hulu and Netflix stay in business; torrents are fantastic, but in a free-info model, there's nothing to withhold and no way to get paid. Embedded commercials would get immediately edited out, and product placement only goes so far. How is this any different from the situation right now with DVDs and Blu-rays? You can copy videos very easily. And what about torrents? If people wanted to download and copy files, they could do that with torrents. But instead, the people who actually bother to pay for the movies and TV shows are punished. And this same argument could be applied to music stores, but Amazon and iTunes operate without DRM, and there are no issues there. A lot of pro-DRM people said the iTunes store would collapse without DRM, but things seem to be working just fine for them. We've been through this exact same argument half a decade ago with music. The only reason it's being repeated is being the old farts in charge of the media companies are too shortsighted to see what will benefit their companies in the long term.
- lukifer 14y ago
  I didn't mean to imply that DRM-free video stores can't work; I meant that (a) torrents themselves are nigh-impossible to monetize, and (b) suits at Big Content will never feel comfortable with opening up their precious data, even though you and I know that the raw data exists already. Though millions are sometimes spent to market music, that's peanuts compared to the costs of producing movies and television, and that money won't get spent without some confidence that it can be recouped. It's one thing for Louis CK to gamble $0.2M on a DRM-free standup special, and another for Disney to gamble $220M on a DRM-free Avengers. > How is this any different from the situation right now with DVDs and Blu-rays? You can copy videos very easily. Nerds can, but DVD ripping is still much less friendly to regular people compared to MP3 swapping, and requires much more work to play back compared to iPods and CD burning. If the industry ever got behind open standards, eventually many more people would pirate movies instead of just college kids. Borrowing a DVD from a friend would be no different than taking it permanently, resulting in fewer total sales. Don't get me wrong: DRM is a plague. Hell, I'd even support a tax that made all content part of a universal digital library, with funds distributed proportionally to usage. But without somehow creating a new economic system for digital content, every "rational actor" is going to do whatever they can to maintain maximum leverage. The only reason the RIAA caved was that the damage was already done, and they had lost most of their leverage already. (Also, it was something of a ploy to give Amazon an advantage over iTunes, which was enjoying a brief hegemony over paid music downloads; user freedom was a happy side effect.)

camus 14y ago

the issue is easy , torrents are not financing content creation. In the end someone has to pay in order for tv-shows to be produced and producers have rights. You cant just decide to own something if you did not pay for it one way or another , or it is called stealing. And because it is easy to do so doesnt mean it is legal or it is moral. Nothing is free down this world. But torrent sites are making money with the traffic they generate with the content they illegaly distribute. They create revenue by destroying a lot of value.