12 ms·

>due to the arms race that large corporate machines will win Much like how the entirety of Hollywood, book publishers, academic publishers, and game developers

>due to the arms race that large corporate machines will win Much like how the entirety of Hollywood, book publishers, academic publishers, and game developers have won against piracy despite being some of the largest corps on earth and dedicating untold billions to the issue over the past 30 years?

SecretDreams 5mo ago
Yes. Winning against piracy doesn't mean you completely eliminate piracy. It means you scare enough people into not doing it and make it a bit harder to do for others. Losing to piracy would see companies like Netflix and Spotify not thriving.
- fc417fc802 5mo ago
  > It means you scare enough people into not doing it and make it a bit harder to do for others. By which definition they utterly failed. > Losing to piracy would see companies like Netflix and Spotify not thriving. Not at all. Netflix and Spotify do well because they are a good value proposition for the average customer. Piracy is free at point of "purchase" but is (and always has been) expensive in terms of various sorts of overhead.
  - black_knight 5mo ago
    As long as enough people keep the pirate bays open, it will be there as an alternative when the services start their inevitable enshittification. I for one do not enjoy the “Which service has the classic film I wanted to watch this week?” Nor having to switch services every time I want to see a new TV series. We need (and have!) similar “free” alternatives to the watermarked generative services. Just like I hate the yellow dots on my printed images, I am not happy to have my creative assets (I do nothing nefarious) stained with SynthID.
- AnthonyMouse 5mo ago
  > Winning against piracy doesn't mean you completely eliminate piracy. But this is moving the goalposts. You can win against piracy either by making piracy less attractive or by making the paid offering more attractive. The first has utterly failed, piracy remains easy as a rule, and to the extent that they've succeeded it's not only disproportionately by doing the second thing, the DRM itself is a net negative because it has such a small effect on the ease of piracy while making the paid offering worse.
blanched 5mo ago
They won the long game. Everything is rented and DRM now. Very little of what most people buy digitally is truly owned.
- duzer65657 5mo ago
  they didn't win by attacking piracy head-on though, they made capitulation easy & nice enough for us to happily go along.
  - befictious 5mo ago
    all's fair in love and war
  - rob74 5mo ago
    They did a bit of everything: attacking head-on, lobbying, providing alternatives. And eventually, it worked.
    - secretsatan 5mo ago
      Think people are getting annoyed again at having to pay even more than we did for cable to get all the streaming packages.
  - rcxdude 5mo ago
    And now that they're trying to push up the margins and the streaming ecosystem is fragmenting making everything into a series of bundles again, piracy is on the rise again.
- digitaltrees 5mo ago
  They didn’t win because of DRM. They won because of the regulations that grant a monopoly for a specific term in the form of a copyright. Society has recognized that incentivizing creative acts requires a temporary grant of monopoly to ensure the necessary scarcity to make money and recover the costs of creation. The real problem is Disney keeps expanding that time period so things never enter the public domain
UqWBcuFx6NV4r 5mo ago
What? Some nerds on private trackers and kids on 123movies or whatever is not piracy winning by any material stretch.
PostOnce 5mo ago
They have a finite # of employees, a finite budget, and a finite amount of time. Hobbyists do not. ROI is not a factor.
- pixl97 5mo ago
  As yes, the hobbyist built nuclear weapons program..... Legalize recreational plutonium.
  - tempest_ 5mo ago
    To be fair the state works pretty hard to crush "hobbyist" nuclear weapons programs so you don't really know how far it could get.
    - fc417fc802 5mo ago
      By the time you're building (or buying) the necessary highly esoteric and expensive ultracentrifuge setup I think you would be well outside the realm of "hobbyist" unless someone insists on the most unreasonably pedantic definition for the term. Unless we're only considering final assembly. Just gotta get that weapons grade fissile material supplier lined up. That might or might not qualify as rich hobbyist territory depending on how high a price tag is permissible.
      - tempest_ 5mo ago
        You don't have to use the ultracentrifuge, though I don't suppose the power plant you would need for a diffusion plant would be much more attainable.
        cyberax 5mo ago
        In theory, there's also direct laser-based isotope separation. It's a technology that is being actively suppressed, and that's one case where I very much in favor of that.
      - 5mo ago
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array_key_first 4mo ago
They did win for a while because they stamped out 99% of piracy. In the early days of streaming it was legitimately difficult to argue for piracy. Streaming was just too convenient and too cheap. But, they are greedy above all else. And so, we are once again seeing a resurgence of piracy. Large corporations seem to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

SecretDreams 5mo ago

Yes. Winning against piracy doesn't mean you completely eliminate piracy. It means you scare enough people into not doing it and make it a bit harder to do for others. Losing to piracy would see companies like Netflix and Spotify not thriving.

fc417fc802 5mo ago
> It means you scare enough people into not doing it and make it a bit harder to do for others. By which definition they utterly failed. > Losing to piracy would see companies like Netflix and Spotify not thriving. Not at all. Netflix and Spotify do well because they are a good value proposition for the average customer. Piracy is free at point of "purchase" but is (and always has been) expensive in terms of various sorts of overhead.
- black_knight 5mo ago
  As long as enough people keep the pirate bays open, it will be there as an alternative when the services start their inevitable enshittification. I for one do not enjoy the “Which service has the classic film I wanted to watch this week?” Nor having to switch services every time I want to see a new TV series. We need (and have!) similar “free” alternatives to the watermarked generative services. Just like I hate the yellow dots on my printed images, I am not happy to have my creative assets (I do nothing nefarious) stained with SynthID.
AnthonyMouse 5mo ago
> Winning against piracy doesn't mean you completely eliminate piracy. But this is moving the goalposts. You can win against piracy either by making piracy less attractive or by making the paid offering more attractive. The first has utterly failed, piracy remains easy as a rule, and to the extent that they've succeeded it's not only disproportionately by doing the second thing, the DRM itself is a net negative because it has such a small effect on the ease of piracy while making the paid offering worse.

blanched 5mo ago

They won the long game. Everything is rented and DRM now. Very little of what most people buy digitally is truly owned.

duzer65657 5mo ago
they didn't win by attacking piracy head-on though, they made capitulation easy & nice enough for us to happily go along.
- befictious 5mo ago
  all's fair in love and war
- rob74 5mo ago
  They did a bit of everything: attacking head-on, lobbying, providing alternatives. And eventually, it worked.
  - secretsatan 5mo ago
    Think people are getting annoyed again at having to pay even more than we did for cable to get all the streaming packages.
- rcxdude 5mo ago
  And now that they're trying to push up the margins and the streaming ecosystem is fragmenting making everything into a series of bundles again, piracy is on the rise again.
digitaltrees 5mo ago
They didn’t win because of DRM. They won because of the regulations that grant a monopoly for a specific term in the form of a copyright. Society has recognized that incentivizing creative acts requires a temporary grant of monopoly to ensure the necessary scarcity to make money and recover the costs of creation. The real problem is Disney keeps expanding that time period so things never enter the public domain

UqWBcuFx6NV4r 5mo ago

What? Some nerds on private trackers and kids on 123movies or whatever is not piracy winning by any material stretch.

PostOnce 5mo ago

They have a finite # of employees, a finite budget, and a finite amount of time. Hobbyists do not. ROI is not a factor.

pixl97 5mo ago
As yes, the hobbyist built nuclear weapons program..... Legalize recreational plutonium.
- tempest_ 5mo ago
  To be fair the state works pretty hard to crush "hobbyist" nuclear weapons programs so you don't really know how far it could get.
  - fc417fc802 5mo ago
    By the time you're building (or buying) the necessary highly esoteric and expensive ultracentrifuge setup I think you would be well outside the realm of "hobbyist" unless someone insists on the most unreasonably pedantic definition for the term. Unless we're only considering final assembly. Just gotta get that weapons grade fissile material supplier lined up. That might or might not qualify as rich hobbyist territory depending on how high a price tag is permissible.
    - tempest_ 5mo ago
      You don't have to use the ultracentrifuge, though I don't suppose the power plant you would need for a diffusion plant would be much more attainable.
      - cyberax 5mo ago
        In theory, there's also direct laser-based isotope separation. It's a technology that is being actively suppressed, and that's one case where I very much in favor of that.
    - 5mo ago

deleted 5mo ago

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deleted 5mo ago

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array_key_first 4mo ago

They did win for a while because they stamped out 99% of piracy. In the early days of streaming it was legitimately difficult to argue for piracy. Streaming was just too convenient and too cheap. But, they are greedy above all else. And so, we are once again seeing a resurgence of piracy. Large corporations seem to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.