7 ms·

I call bullshit. Absolute bullshit. If I gave you a credit card that gave you unlimited access to digital content you probably wouldn't be complaining. Certain

I call bullshit. Absolute bullshit. If I gave you a credit card that gave you unlimited access to digital content you probably wouldn't be complaining. Certainly not if you live in the US or much of Europe. If you have a $69 AppleTV then iTunes is a spectacular user experience. Search for almost anything you want and hit play. If it didn't cost $5 to rent a movie it's superior to torrents. This is where someone chimes in with something snarky related to offline viewing (airplane) or not living in the US and having access to less comments. This is true. It's also largely irrelevant. If you think those are the primary reasons users torrent then I'd challenge you to back it up with statistics. For Americans in particular the primary reason to pirate content these days is selfish greed.

xasos 12y ago
Wow, that was harsh. Why is the rationale for Americans pirating 'selfish greed'? People, in general, pirate because it's free and really, really easy. There are many cases where services like Spotify and Netflix have reduced piracy. People are lazy, and if you can make it easier and more seamless than pirating, most people won't mind shelling out a couple of bucks a month for paid service. http://www.slashgear.com/netflix-piracy-rate-goes-down-when-we-arrive-03280546/ http://www.slashgear.com/netflix-piracy-rate-goes-down-when-... http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/04/21/canadian-tech-leaders-oppose-c-51_n_7111150.html http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/04/21/canadian-tech-leader...
- forrestthewoods 12y ago
  Yes, people are very lazy. iTunes is great for lazy people. It's easy to use, extremely high quality, and has the vast, vast majority of pirated content (for Americans). The only thing missing is free. If iTunes were free there would be almost no reason to pirate content. Certainly not in the majority use cases. Therefore the only reason to pirate over iTunes is money. Therefore people are greedy and selfish.
  - yellowapple 12y ago
    Or because your opinion that iTunes is "easy to use" and "extremely high quality" is just that - an opinion - and is not an opinion which is universally shared among all people or even a significant majority of them (myself included). Now, with that said, between Amazon Prime and Netflix I haven't found many reasons to pirate things, but right now that involves jumping back and forth between two different marketplaces because of the fragmented content. This is where Popcorn Time (for example) reportedly shines, and thus might be a compelling reason to at least investigate that particular avenue.
    - forrestthewoods 12y ago
      High quality isn't really an opinion. Their encoding is fantastic. Better than blu-ray re-encodes which were the primary torrent source just a few years ago. They're encoding off raw source so it's exceptionally good. Easy to use is pretty factual in a relative sense. A mere 15 years ago you had to drive out to store to rent a disc and then take it back. Those asshole rental stores made all their money through exorbitant late charges. There are perhaps user interfaces which are easier to use than iTunes. But with an AppleTV almost everything that is pirated can be found, bought, and streaming in under 3 minutes. Here's the process for computer: 1) Start menu 2) Type iTunes 3) Hit enter. 4) Click iTunes Store 5) Click search 6) Type 'Interstellar' 7) Click 'Interstellar' 8) Click rent I don't feel like renting this movie right now because I've already seen it. But from this point forward there's probably a confirm dialogue or two and then it starts streaming. The whole process takes about 15 seconds. On an AppleTV it might take 3 minutes due it being a little slower processor and inputting text being a little slow on the remote. It's literally never been easier in the history of time to legally acquire content. Even if piracy is slightly easier or a slightly better user experience that's not sufficient justification. Just admit you're a selfish twat and would rather pirate content than pay for it. It's fine. You aren't alone. Tons of people pirate content. Maybe even most people. Just call a spade a spade and say you'd rather get it for free than spend a few bucks.
      - darklajid 12y ago
        While your tone is - let's say - 'direct', I don't disagree that people are lazy and maybe selfish if they pirate content. It's not like we're talking 'pirating bread to survive' here. We could just ignore the content if it's inaccessible. Maybe we should? I'm a selfish twat, I guess - at least at times. Reasons for me: - TV shows, undubbed - Movies, undubbed - 'Legacy' stuff that isn't on air anymore/harder to find Now, back to your solution though: - Where's the iTunes Linux client? There seem to be alternatives, but .. would it be the same 'great' experience? - Given that I see no use in an AppleTV: Can I stream stuff from a Raspberry PI? [1] The reason that I cannot consume the legal content that I might be allowed to was the reason for me to cancel my Amazon subscription. Yay, legal content. Oh no, unfortunately the service sucks unless you buy the hardware that works with it. I just wanted to complain about content providers generally considering the German market too stupid to listen to the original - but it seems iTunes gets this right at least. Although people complain now that you purchase/rent a specific language. If I pick a kids series and want to show it to my son I'd go with German. But I might enjoy hearing the english version: Purchase it twice? So - no, iTunes doesn't seem to be that polished solution either. Maybe it's the best solution right now. But it heavily caters to people that go all-in, from what I can tell from the outside. Buy an iPhone, an AppleTV, probably go with a machine that runs OS X so that iTunes itself doesn't look completely out of whack and you're all set up? (I expect that you consider this as just making up excuses. Maybe I am. We're back to square one: I'm lazy on the couch, called it a day, want to relax. The easiest solution wins. And I haven't even tried Popcorn Time. Yet.) 1: I only briefly checked and it seems that doesn't work. At least I've only seen 'AirPlay on a PI and then sit in front of your laptop and stream content from there, maybe' non-solutions
- 6t6t6 12y ago
  I love music and I used to download music a lot. Since I can use Spotify and listen for as much music as I want for less than 10$ a month, I don't see the need to pirate music. I am still waiting for that to happen with films and series.
  - yellowapple 12y ago
    That would be Netflix. :)
    - forrestthewoods 12y ago
      I would also pay $10/month for all music content ever created. And another $10/month for all TV content ever created. And another $10/month for all movie content ever created. Go ahead and add $10/month for all video game content ever created as well. It turns out this isn't viable business model. Darn.
    - dagw 12y ago
      Except that Netflix has a really bad selection of movies and it's getting worse and worse as they seem to be focusing all their money and energy on producing their own content. I'm hoping someone can come along and do Netflix right now that Netflix has decided to go all HBO on us.
      - mercurial 12y ago
        You seem to imply that Netflix gets to pick ad libitum what movies and shows they offer, while in reality they have to negotiate with the studios. From the point of view of the studios, a legal platform where content can be freely streamed for a modest amount of money, leading further down the road to nobody wanting to pay much money for expensive shows probably does not sound much more thrilling that fewer sales at a higher price point in exchange for more piracy.
    - kuschku 12y ago
      Who have less than 2000 combined TV show episodes and movies in my country (Germany), and only launched here 4 months ago.
- jameshart 12y ago
  "People, in general, pirate because it's free and really, really easy." So's smashing car windows, but most people resist the temptation to do it. It's actually not that easy to pirate stuff. You have to make your way through a minefield of malware and seo spam and figure out what sources are trustworthy. Compared to that just signing up for Netflix seems pretty simple.
- sigzero 12y ago
  Regardless of your motivation it's stealing.
  - ddingus 12y ago
    Actually, it's infringing. And yes, that distinction does matter. When somebody infringes, nothing is lost. The opportunity for a sale still exists, the property is still owned by those who own it, and so forth. For there to be theft, there needs to be some meaningful loss on the part of the person claiming theft. We have the word infringe for this case, because nothing is actually lost. What actually happens is somebody does something they aren't supposed to do, which is a different thing, and not inclusive enough to be theft. Now, citing theft is nice, because it's easy, clear and very negative. People identify with theft easily, and that's potent. Advocacy centered on theft is understandable, but it does as much harm as it does good. Why? Because theft and the direct equating to lost sales does not reflect the realities in play. Where we make law on that basis, we tend to get crappy law that is ineffective. People see stuff like $150K / infringing act and or proposed jail time, and it's laughable compared to something like rape or real theft that carries far lighter penalties, and that actually is theft as opposed to infringement. I submit we really can't make progress on this without also entertaining a rational discussion, and tossing theft in here really isn't rational. It's too coarse and inaccurate. Infringement is wrong. And it's a harder discussion, but a necessary one. Until average people get it, and understand all of it, we will continue to see a big disconnect in both the discussion and law, leaving the door open for more piracy and fewer solutions that can compete with it, etc...
bcherry 12y ago
iTunes is missing real-time release of TV, and timely release of movies. For instance, I have a season pass to Mad Men right now, which airs on sunday nights. I don't get the iTunes release until midnight, so I end up not watching it until Monday (even though I pay for it!). If I used torrents, I could watch it Sunday night with everyone else. Other shows have it far worse! New movies usually enter the iTunes market in a buy-only mode for the first month after release. I'm more than happy to pay $5 to rent a movie, but I'm not spending $20 to buy it. So I wait weeks or more after release of a new movie before I can rent it online. If I used torrents I'd probably be able to watch it for free weeks before release. iTunes has a good catalog (so does Amazon, and others I'm sure), but movies/TV are not the same as music on iTunes and still have farther to go before they're truly competitive with piracy in terms of user experience.
- k-mcgrady 12y ago
  >> "For instance, I have a season pass to Mad Men right now, which airs on sunday nights. I don't get the iTunes release until midnight, so I end up not watching it until Monday (even though I pay for it!)." Shit. We've actually gotten to the point where waiting a few hours for something is considered a good reason to pirate. Just when I thought self-entitlement couldn't get any worse.
  - peatmoss 12y ago
    While I'm inclined to agree, perhaps the grandparent poster looks forward to a lively discussion of the plot at lunch with colleagues. It's not my passion in life, but I could see it being an act of community for some.
e12e 12y ago
I can't comment on why other people copy digital content, but I use eg: youtube-dl to save content from being banned from youtube - most likely due to dmca takedowns. That's for music. I also buy some music via bandcamp. As for streaming services, I was an early Spotify-user -- and the experience was pretty bad: it was a roulette to see how much was left of any given playlist each time I logged on. To be fair, Spotify has gotten better, but they don't have anywhere "all" music I want to listen to. As far as I know Apple don't serve my platform (Linux) in any reasonable way. And at any rate, if you need two or more services for "all you can eat", it's no longer "all you can eat", it's a mess. And you'd need third party apps to creat playlists that cover the content you want. As for tv series and movies, Amazon has some, Netflix has some, HBO has some. Many independent/international movies can't be found in either place. Amazon won't (legally) let you watch all content outside of the US -- so I could pay for Amazon prime, and use a proxy to circumvent the geo-proteciton -- but then I'd still be breaking copyright law. For the hypothetical user (ie: not me) that lives in the US -- is there really a service that provides access to both national tv series, as well as foreign-language content? All that said, I'm sure a lot of people simply enjoy getting stuff for free. But at least for me, the freedom to lend a copy of a good show I watched a couple of years ago to a friend is at least as important as the "no cost" bit. As mentioned, if you give me access to high-quality (encoded) content without DRM, I'm willing to pay for it. If not, you're simply charging for an inferior product.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  Amazon won't (legally) let you watch all content outside of the US Because in many cases they have only purchased US rights. Someone else may already have the distribution rights in other countries. As I have explained before, films are often financed by using pre-sales agreements with foreign distributors as collateral for a production loan. For example, If I am developing a film I might go a film market and say 'hey, I am making a film about X with a budget of Y, and I have an agreement from film star Z to participate.' Suppose film star Z is very popular in South East Asia; so distributors from China, Japan, South Korea, and a few other countries all say 'oh, film star Z! We would pay $10 million each to have the rights to that movie.' So then I'd get them to sign an agreement to that effect and open up bank accounts in those countries. Then I would take those letters to a US bank and say 'look I have $30 million in presales commitments, so give me money.' In other words the foreign distributors are entering into a binding contract to purchase the film at a certain price by a certain date if it meets certain agreed-upon requirements about delivery format, quality, and content. Those contracts are good enough to borrow money against, and that (in a nutshell) is how many films get made. Amazon is usually buying a limited set of rights because they buy already-copleted films for the most part. They're not in the film-financing business in a big way so far, so they're not in a position to bid on worldwide rights in the first place. As mentioned, if you give me access to high-quality (encoded) content without DRM, I'm willing to pay for it. If not, you're simply charging for an inferior product. Oh, DRM. What about all the people that will take advantage of the absence of DRM to just copy it about freely and untraceably? Fine, so you're not one of them, that's nice, but it doesn't solve my problem as a film producer. I'm not sure the value of (sales lost to anti-DRM purists) exceeds the value of (sales lost to rampant casual copying).
EGreg 12y ago
Try finding Star Wars on iTunes. Or many other movies or series. And what if you don't live in the USA? Then it's just Too Bad (TM) right? I really do not mind paying $3.99 to rent a movie. Many times I find myself simply unable to find it! And don't get me started on the latest HDCP racket. I have a 1080p projector but there is NO WAY anymore for me to play HD movies that I PAID FOR using it, because it doesn't support DHCP in the latest way. So I am simply prevented from watching movies in HD on my home theater system. How do I get around it? I bought a chinese made splitter that doesn't support HDCP protection, and that seems to work. Wow I'm such a bad boy, wanting to use the hardware I bought to watch the movies I rented! With Popcorn time there is no issue.
- jedunnigan 12y ago
  If you ever have quality issues with the splitter, check out this product, works like a charm (but a bit pricey): http://www.hdfury.com/ http://www.hdfury.com/
c_c_c 12y ago
the primary reason to pirate content these days is selfish greed You're right. But the consumers aren't the greedy party.
manigandham 12y ago
Agreed. Free is the best feature of piracy. Once the paid options get to parity on quality and UX soon, it'll make it completely obvious that the only reason to still pirate is because its free. EDIT: Bring on the downvotes. It's ok, we all want free stuff.
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  >it'll make it completely obvious that the only reason to still pirate is because its free. // I've been watching a show recently on UK terrestrial TV (via a watch again, don't have live TV). The adverts are mind-numbing. Seriously, I have to leave the room now. Every damn one has animated/puppet talking animals in, none of them sell the benefits of any sort of product they're just attempts to manipulate. Dammit, if the point of those adverts is to make people willing to pay for media without any ads they're sure doing it right ... thing is when are they going to start making that media. Even films that you pay £10+ to see are laden with adverts. It seems impossible to buy audio-visual media with a good UX: which company is advertising a pay service on the basis of "no additional adverts, just the content you paid for"??
  - manigandham 12y ago
    What films do you watch that have ads in them? I'm not sure I've ever come across that, in any region. TV: If you didnt pay for it, they are including the adverts to pay for the production. Just because you don't want to see those adverts doesn't mean it's "right" to go pirate the content. It's more a form of protest than anything.
    - pbhjpbhj 12y ago
      I don't go to the cinema often but there is always 15-25 mins of adverts from the posted start time for the film and usually the film includes product placements. You take your kids to the cinema, pay for the tickets, buy the ludicrously priced popcorn .. I've actually no problem with this provided they post a start time for the movie so I can come after the ads. The point for the TV shows is that you can't pay to watch them without ads. Ads that tell you about a product, fair enough; every other advert is just an attempt to trick you in to buying something. >Just because you don't want to see those adverts doesn't mean it's "right" to go pirate the content. // It doesn't mean it's wrong either. There are good arguments for why it's wrong, but that doesn't really feature; if we start from a point of agreeing that most advertising is psychological manipulation that has no place in a well-formed society, then we add that engagement with popular culture is a [low grade] human need ...
tmpacc94853 12y ago
American Pirate Here. I pirate things for many reasons I suppose. When it comes to video games I actually prefer to buy games on steam rather than pirate them. But if the game is not available on steam (like some of EA's big games that they only release on origin for pc) then I will instead pirate them. If origin had the quality that steam did then I wouldn't mind installing it, but that is not the case. I also pirate game of thrones, which for a long time could only be viewed legally with an HBO subscription. I think it is silly to have to subscribe to something and pay a yearly fee just to watch 10 episodes of a single show once a year. If HBO wasn't so greedy then I would have gladly paid them; but as a service that I feel is overpriced and offers poor quality in return, I refuse to pay them a cent. >This is where someone chimes in with something snarky related to offline viewing (airplane) or not living in the US and having access to less comments. This is true. It's also largely irrelevant. If you think those are the primary reasons users torrent then I'd challenge you to back it up with statistics. I don't think it is fair to leave it to the other side to come up with statistics. However, I think torrentfreak has done an excellent job reporting on piracy over the years. Here are some stats you may find interesting: [1] https://torrentfreak.com/file-sharers-buy-30-more-music-than-non-p2p-peers-121015/ https://torrentfreak.com/file-sharers-buy-30-more-music-than... [2] https://torrentfreak.com/find-out-whos-using-the-pirate-bay-and-why-130829/ https://torrentfreak.com/find-out-whos-using-the-pirate-bay-...
- meric 12y ago
  Now you can get an HBO Now subscription, there's a 30 day trial to watch game of thrones. You can join and watch it now, or wait for the entire series is out, then sign up for the trial and watch it all for free, legally.
ripter 12y ago
I own an AppleTV with iTunes. It sucks. AppleTV has the worst interface of any of my streaming devices. As an American, I try NOT to pirate. I'll try Netflix, HBOGo, Comedy Central, and cable tv. If i can't find it on any of those, then I'll consider going through the hassle of pirating it.
andrewfelix 12y ago
I think you could have made your point without the diatribe and profanity.
MichaelGG 12y ago
My parents have an AppleTV. Besides the crappy UI and dumb remote, it often (~1 in 20, sometimes more) refuses to play because it can't setup HDCP with their Toshiba TV. Then there's the issues of subtitles. Good luck finding them for any particular language you want.
furyg3 12y ago
Selfish greed is also the reason why people buy movies instead of donating their money to charity or using that time to plant a tree. People want stuff, and they want it to be a) good and b) cheap. And you're totally dismissing the first category. You exclude a whole lot of use cases to make your point. It's a disaster for Europeans to do many of the same things. Netflix and Apple have different libraries depending on where you are. Many people don't have credit cards and these services often don't link up with foreign banks. I'm in the train every day and there are always many people within eyesight watching movies (I don't know how they get their content, but it's not Netflix). A lot of people in Holland pay for Spotify. A lot pay for Netflix. A WHOLE lot pay for cable television. And yet many of these people still use Popcorn Time or torrent. Why? Clearly they're willing to pay for stuff. Netflix is cheap but cable television is not... so they're even will to pay quite a lot for content! It's sad that content providers have to compete with free, but the genie's out of the bottle. And it's partially the fault of the content provider's not being able to compete on other areas (quality, convenience).
- forrestthewoods 12y ago
  I ignore Europe as a preventative conversation tactic. It's really hard to talk about things on the internet. For any debate there are a ton of edge cases. It's easy for discussions to go off the rails focusing on them. Content not available. Average income of Country X significantly less than Country Y. Bandwidth caps. Unstable connection. Etc etc. So for discussion sake I throw it out. Not permanently, just for a moment. It lets me focus on the good ol United States. Where people are relatively rich and the vast majority of content is available. Basically it's a best case scenario. If in the absolute base case people still heavily pirate content then the edge cases don't matter. Once that best case scenario is resolved then you can start fleshing out and covering all the international edge cases.
lmm 12y ago
Sample size 1, but: I don't pirate music, I don't pirate ebooks, I do pirate videos. It's not like I can't find music/ebooks (and indeed I do pirate books that aren't available for Kindle), it's simply that the paid UX is great: I can find anything I want on Amazon, pay for it easily, have it easily on my (non-Apple) computer and phone, and play/read offline.
Kesty 12y ago
There has been more than one study showing that people who pirates content are ususally the group that spend most on content. This is for the simple reason that people that pirates stuff are the one that are interested enough for the content. So study show that people that use piracy are also the same people that buy the legal content. Why ? For many reasons, it might be easier to pirate than getting it in legal ways, it might not be available legally yet, or it might, obviosuly, cost more than they are willing to spend. There are people that only pirate stuff and don't pay for anything, sure there are, but most pirates are just interested people that for one reason or the other can't get the same thing legally (money is only one of the reasons). And that also is one of my biggest problem with the argument against piracy. They treat each pirated copy of something like a missed sale, and that's just stupid. If my budget for movies is 100$, i'll spend that 100$. After that, if I want more content, my option are pirate the other stuff or simply not consuming it. Not increasing my budget. I don't have one research to show you, because there has been more than one, so I'll leave you this link: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=pirates+spend+more http://lmgtfy.com/?q=pirates+spend+more

xasos 12y ago

Wow, that was harsh. Why is the rationale for Americans pirating 'selfish greed'? People, in general, pirate because it's free and really, really easy. There are many cases where services like Spotify and Netflix have reduced piracy. People are lazy, and if you can make it easier and more seamless than pirating, most people won't mind shelling out a couple of bucks a month for paid service. http://www.slashgear.com/netflix-piracy-rate-goes-down-when-we-arrive-03280546/ http://www.slashgear.com/netflix-piracy-rate-goes-down-when-... http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/04/21/canadian-tech-leaders-oppose-c-51_n_7111150.html http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/04/21/canadian-tech-leader...

forrestthewoods 12y ago
Yes, people are very lazy. iTunes is great for lazy people. It's easy to use, extremely high quality, and has the vast, vast majority of pirated content (for Americans). The only thing missing is free. If iTunes were free there would be almost no reason to pirate content. Certainly not in the majority use cases. Therefore the only reason to pirate over iTunes is money. Therefore people are greedy and selfish.
- yellowapple 12y ago
  Or because your opinion that iTunes is "easy to use" and "extremely high quality" is just that - an opinion - and is not an opinion which is universally shared among all people or even a significant majority of them (myself included). Now, with that said, between Amazon Prime and Netflix I haven't found many reasons to pirate things, but right now that involves jumping back and forth between two different marketplaces because of the fragmented content. This is where Popcorn Time (for example) reportedly shines, and thus might be a compelling reason to at least investigate that particular avenue.
  - forrestthewoods 12y ago
    High quality isn't really an opinion. Their encoding is fantastic. Better than blu-ray re-encodes which were the primary torrent source just a few years ago. They're encoding off raw source so it's exceptionally good. Easy to use is pretty factual in a relative sense. A mere 15 years ago you had to drive out to store to rent a disc and then take it back. Those asshole rental stores made all their money through exorbitant late charges. There are perhaps user interfaces which are easier to use than iTunes. But with an AppleTV almost everything that is pirated can be found, bought, and streaming in under 3 minutes. Here's the process for computer: 1) Start menu 2) Type iTunes 3) Hit enter. 4) Click iTunes Store 5) Click search 6) Type 'Interstellar' 7) Click 'Interstellar' 8) Click rent I don't feel like renting this movie right now because I've already seen it. But from this point forward there's probably a confirm dialogue or two and then it starts streaming. The whole process takes about 15 seconds. On an AppleTV it might take 3 minutes due it being a little slower processor and inputting text being a little slow on the remote. It's literally never been easier in the history of time to legally acquire content. Even if piracy is slightly easier or a slightly better user experience that's not sufficient justification. Just admit you're a selfish twat and would rather pirate content than pay for it. It's fine. You aren't alone. Tons of people pirate content. Maybe even most people. Just call a spade a spade and say you'd rather get it for free than spend a few bucks.
    - darklajid 12y ago
      While your tone is - let's say - 'direct', I don't disagree that people are lazy and maybe selfish if they pirate content. It's not like we're talking 'pirating bread to survive' here. We could just ignore the content if it's inaccessible. Maybe we should? I'm a selfish twat, I guess - at least at times. Reasons for me: - TV shows, undubbed - Movies, undubbed - 'Legacy' stuff that isn't on air anymore/harder to find Now, back to your solution though: - Where's the iTunes Linux client? There seem to be alternatives, but .. would it be the same 'great' experience? - Given that I see no use in an AppleTV: Can I stream stuff from a Raspberry PI? [1] The reason that I cannot consume the legal content that I might be allowed to was the reason for me to cancel my Amazon subscription. Yay, legal content. Oh no, unfortunately the service sucks unless you buy the hardware that works with it. I just wanted to complain about content providers generally considering the German market too stupid to listen to the original - but it seems iTunes gets this right at least. Although people complain now that you purchase/rent a specific language. If I pick a kids series and want to show it to my son I'd go with German. But I might enjoy hearing the english version: Purchase it twice? So - no, iTunes doesn't seem to be that polished solution either. Maybe it's the best solution right now. But it heavily caters to people that go all-in, from what I can tell from the outside. Buy an iPhone, an AppleTV, probably go with a machine that runs OS X so that iTunes itself doesn't look completely out of whack and you're all set up? (I expect that you consider this as just making up excuses. Maybe I am. We're back to square one: I'm lazy on the couch, called it a day, want to relax. The easiest solution wins. And I haven't even tried Popcorn Time. Yet.) 1: I only briefly checked and it seems that doesn't work. At least I've only seen 'AirPlay on a PI and then sit in front of your laptop and stream content from there, maybe' non-solutions
6t6t6 12y ago
I love music and I used to download music a lot. Since I can use Spotify and listen for as much music as I want for less than 10$ a month, I don't see the need to pirate music. I am still waiting for that to happen with films and series.
- yellowapple 12y ago
  That would be Netflix. :)
  - forrestthewoods 12y ago
    I would also pay $10/month for all music content ever created. And another $10/month for all TV content ever created. And another $10/month for all movie content ever created. Go ahead and add $10/month for all video game content ever created as well. It turns out this isn't viable business model. Darn.
  - dagw 12y ago
    Except that Netflix has a really bad selection of movies and it's getting worse and worse as they seem to be focusing all their money and energy on producing their own content. I'm hoping someone can come along and do Netflix right now that Netflix has decided to go all HBO on us.
    - mercurial 12y ago
      You seem to imply that Netflix gets to pick ad libitum what movies and shows they offer, while in reality they have to negotiate with the studios. From the point of view of the studios, a legal platform where content can be freely streamed for a modest amount of money, leading further down the road to nobody wanting to pay much money for expensive shows probably does not sound much more thrilling that fewer sales at a higher price point in exchange for more piracy.
  - kuschku 12y ago
    Who have less than 2000 combined TV show episodes and movies in my country (Germany), and only launched here 4 months ago.
jameshart 12y ago
"People, in general, pirate because it's free and really, really easy." So's smashing car windows, but most people resist the temptation to do it. It's actually not that easy to pirate stuff. You have to make your way through a minefield of malware and seo spam and figure out what sources are trustworthy. Compared to that just signing up for Netflix seems pretty simple.
sigzero 12y ago
Regardless of your motivation it's stealing.
- ddingus 12y ago
  Actually, it's infringing. And yes, that distinction does matter. When somebody infringes, nothing is lost. The opportunity for a sale still exists, the property is still owned by those who own it, and so forth. For there to be theft, there needs to be some meaningful loss on the part of the person claiming theft. We have the word infringe for this case, because nothing is actually lost. What actually happens is somebody does something they aren't supposed to do, which is a different thing, and not inclusive enough to be theft. Now, citing theft is nice, because it's easy, clear and very negative. People identify with theft easily, and that's potent. Advocacy centered on theft is understandable, but it does as much harm as it does good. Why? Because theft and the direct equating to lost sales does not reflect the realities in play. Where we make law on that basis, we tend to get crappy law that is ineffective. People see stuff like $150K / infringing act and or proposed jail time, and it's laughable compared to something like rape or real theft that carries far lighter penalties, and that actually is theft as opposed to infringement. I submit we really can't make progress on this without also entertaining a rational discussion, and tossing theft in here really isn't rational. It's too coarse and inaccurate. Infringement is wrong. And it's a harder discussion, but a necessary one. Until average people get it, and understand all of it, we will continue to see a big disconnect in both the discussion and law, leaving the door open for more piracy and fewer solutions that can compete with it, etc...

bcherry 12y ago

iTunes is missing real-time release of TV, and timely release of movies. For instance, I have a season pass to Mad Men right now, which airs on sunday nights. I don't get the iTunes release until midnight, so I end up not watching it until Monday (even though I pay for it!). If I used torrents, I could watch it Sunday night with everyone else. Other shows have it far worse! New movies usually enter the iTunes market in a buy-only mode for the first month after release. I'm more than happy to pay $5 to rent a movie, but I'm not spending $20 to buy it. So I wait weeks or more after release of a new movie before I can rent it online. If I used torrents I'd probably be able to watch it for free weeks before release. iTunes has a good catalog (so does Amazon, and others I'm sure), but movies/TV are not the same as music on iTunes and still have farther to go before they're truly competitive with piracy in terms of user experience.

k-mcgrady 12y ago
>> "For instance, I have a season pass to Mad Men right now, which airs on sunday nights. I don't get the iTunes release until midnight, so I end up not watching it until Monday (even though I pay for it!)." Shit. We've actually gotten to the point where waiting a few hours for something is considered a good reason to pirate. Just when I thought self-entitlement couldn't get any worse.
- peatmoss 12y ago
  While I'm inclined to agree, perhaps the grandparent poster looks forward to a lively discussion of the plot at lunch with colleagues. It's not my passion in life, but I could see it being an act of community for some.

e12e 12y ago

I can't comment on why other people copy digital content, but I use eg: youtube-dl to save content from being banned from youtube - most likely due to dmca takedowns. That's for music. I also buy some music via bandcamp. As for streaming services, I was an early Spotify-user -- and the experience was pretty bad: it was a roulette to see how much was left of any given playlist each time I logged on. To be fair, Spotify has gotten better, but they don't have anywhere "all" music I want to listen to. As far as I know Apple don't serve my platform (Linux) in any reasonable way. And at any rate, if you need two or more services for "all you can eat", it's no longer "all you can eat", it's a mess. And you'd need third party apps to creat playlists that cover the content you want. As for tv series and movies, Amazon has some, Netflix has some, HBO has some. Many independent/international movies can't be found in either place. Amazon won't (legally) let you watch all content outside of the US -- so I could pay for Amazon prime, and use a proxy to circumvent the geo-proteciton -- but then I'd still be breaking copyright law. For the hypothetical user (ie: not me) that lives in the US -- is there really a service that provides access to both national tv series, as well as foreign-language content? All that said, I'm sure a lot of people simply enjoy getting stuff for free. But at least for me, the freedom to lend a copy of a good show I watched a couple of years ago to a friend is at least as important as the "no cost" bit. As mentioned, if you give me access to high-quality (encoded) content without DRM, I'm willing to pay for it. If not, you're simply charging for an inferior product.

anigbrowl 12y ago
Amazon won't (legally) let you watch all content outside of the US Because in many cases they have only purchased US rights. Someone else may already have the distribution rights in other countries. As I have explained before, films are often financed by using pre-sales agreements with foreign distributors as collateral for a production loan. For example, If I am developing a film I might go a film market and say 'hey, I am making a film about X with a budget of Y, and I have an agreement from film star Z to participate.' Suppose film star Z is very popular in South East Asia; so distributors from China, Japan, South Korea, and a few other countries all say 'oh, film star Z! We would pay $10 million each to have the rights to that movie.' So then I'd get them to sign an agreement to that effect and open up bank accounts in those countries. Then I would take those letters to a US bank and say 'look I have $30 million in presales commitments, so give me money.' In other words the foreign distributors are entering into a binding contract to purchase the film at a certain price by a certain date if it meets certain agreed-upon requirements about delivery format, quality, and content. Those contracts are good enough to borrow money against, and that (in a nutshell) is how many films get made. Amazon is usually buying a limited set of rights because they buy already-copleted films for the most part. They're not in the film-financing business in a big way so far, so they're not in a position to bid on worldwide rights in the first place. As mentioned, if you give me access to high-quality (encoded) content without DRM, I'm willing to pay for it. If not, you're simply charging for an inferior product. Oh, DRM. What about all the people that will take advantage of the absence of DRM to just copy it about freely and untraceably? Fine, so you're not one of them, that's nice, but it doesn't solve my problem as a film producer. I'm not sure the value of (sales lost to anti-DRM purists) exceeds the value of (sales lost to rampant casual copying).

EGreg 12y ago

Try finding Star Wars on iTunes. Or many other movies or series. And what if you don't live in the USA? Then it's just Too Bad (TM) right? I really do not mind paying $3.99 to rent a movie. Many times I find myself simply unable to find it! And don't get me started on the latest HDCP racket. I have a 1080p projector but there is NO WAY anymore for me to play HD movies that I PAID FOR using it, because it doesn't support DHCP in the latest way. So I am simply prevented from watching movies in HD on my home theater system. How do I get around it? I bought a chinese made splitter that doesn't support HDCP protection, and that seems to work. Wow I'm such a bad boy, wanting to use the hardware I bought to watch the movies I rented! With Popcorn time there is no issue.

jedunnigan 12y ago
If you ever have quality issues with the splitter, check out this product, works like a charm (but a bit pricey): http://www.hdfury.com/ http://www.hdfury.com/

c_c_c 12y ago

the primary reason to pirate content these days is selfish greed You're right. But the consumers aren't the greedy party.

manigandham 12y ago

Agreed. Free is the best feature of piracy. Once the paid options get to parity on quality and UX soon, it'll make it completely obvious that the only reason to still pirate is because its free. EDIT: Bring on the downvotes. It's ok, we all want free stuff.

pbhjpbhj 12y ago
>it'll make it completely obvious that the only reason to still pirate is because its free. // I've been watching a show recently on UK terrestrial TV (via a watch again, don't have live TV). The adverts are mind-numbing. Seriously, I have to leave the room now. Every damn one has animated/puppet talking animals in, none of them sell the benefits of any sort of product they're just attempts to manipulate. Dammit, if the point of those adverts is to make people willing to pay for media without any ads they're sure doing it right ... thing is when are they going to start making that media. Even films that you pay £10+ to see are laden with adverts. It seems impossible to buy audio-visual media with a good UX: which company is advertising a pay service on the basis of "no additional adverts, just the content you paid for"??
- manigandham 12y ago
  What films do you watch that have ads in them? I'm not sure I've ever come across that, in any region. TV: If you didnt pay for it, they are including the adverts to pay for the production. Just because you don't want to see those adverts doesn't mean it's "right" to go pirate the content. It's more a form of protest than anything.
  - pbhjpbhj 12y ago
    I don't go to the cinema often but there is always 15-25 mins of adverts from the posted start time for the film and usually the film includes product placements. You take your kids to the cinema, pay for the tickets, buy the ludicrously priced popcorn .. I've actually no problem with this provided they post a start time for the movie so I can come after the ads. The point for the TV shows is that you can't pay to watch them without ads. Ads that tell you about a product, fair enough; every other advert is just an attempt to trick you in to buying something. >Just because you don't want to see those adverts doesn't mean it's "right" to go pirate the content. // It doesn't mean it's wrong either. There are good arguments for why it's wrong, but that doesn't really feature; if we start from a point of agreeing that most advertising is psychological manipulation that has no place in a well-formed society, then we add that engagement with popular culture is a [low grade] human need ...

tmpacc94853 12y ago

American Pirate Here. I pirate things for many reasons I suppose. When it comes to video games I actually prefer to buy games on steam rather than pirate them. But if the game is not available on steam (like some of EA's big games that they only release on origin for pc) then I will instead pirate them. If origin had the quality that steam did then I wouldn't mind installing it, but that is not the case. I also pirate game of thrones, which for a long time could only be viewed legally with an HBO subscription. I think it is silly to have to subscribe to something and pay a yearly fee just to watch 10 episodes of a single show once a year. If HBO wasn't so greedy then I would have gladly paid them; but as a service that I feel is overpriced and offers poor quality in return, I refuse to pay them a cent. >This is where someone chimes in with something snarky related to offline viewing (airplane) or not living in the US and having access to less comments. This is true. It's also largely irrelevant. If you think those are the primary reasons users torrent then I'd challenge you to back it up with statistics. I don't think it is fair to leave it to the other side to come up with statistics. However, I think torrentfreak has done an excellent job reporting on piracy over the years. Here are some stats you may find interesting: [1] https://torrentfreak.com/file-sharers-buy-30-more-music-than-non-p2p-peers-121015/ https://torrentfreak.com/file-sharers-buy-30-more-music-than... [2] https://torrentfreak.com/find-out-whos-using-the-pirate-bay-and-why-130829/ https://torrentfreak.com/find-out-whos-using-the-pirate-bay-...

meric 12y ago
Now you can get an HBO Now subscription, there's a 30 day trial to watch game of thrones. You can join and watch it now, or wait for the entire series is out, then sign up for the trial and watch it all for free, legally.

ripter 12y ago

I own an AppleTV with iTunes. It sucks. AppleTV has the worst interface of any of my streaming devices. As an American, I try NOT to pirate. I'll try Netflix, HBOGo, Comedy Central, and cable tv. If i can't find it on any of those, then I'll consider going through the hassle of pirating it.

andrewfelix 12y ago

I think you could have made your point without the diatribe and profanity.

MichaelGG 12y ago

My parents have an AppleTV. Besides the crappy UI and dumb remote, it often (~1 in 20, sometimes more) refuses to play because it can't setup HDCP with their Toshiba TV. Then there's the issues of subtitles. Good luck finding them for any particular language you want.

furyg3 12y ago

Selfish greed is also the reason why people buy movies instead of donating their money to charity or using that time to plant a tree. People want stuff, and they want it to be a) good and b) cheap. And you're totally dismissing the first category. You exclude a whole lot of use cases to make your point. It's a disaster for Europeans to do many of the same things. Netflix and Apple have different libraries depending on where you are. Many people don't have credit cards and these services often don't link up with foreign banks. I'm in the train every day and there are always many people within eyesight watching movies (I don't know how they get their content, but it's not Netflix). A lot of people in Holland pay for Spotify. A lot pay for Netflix. A WHOLE lot pay for cable television. And yet many of these people still use Popcorn Time or torrent. Why? Clearly they're willing to pay for stuff. Netflix is cheap but cable television is not... so they're even will to pay quite a lot for content! It's sad that content providers have to compete with free, but the genie's out of the bottle. And it's partially the fault of the content provider's not being able to compete on other areas (quality, convenience).

forrestthewoods 12y ago
I ignore Europe as a preventative conversation tactic. It's really hard to talk about things on the internet. For any debate there are a ton of edge cases. It's easy for discussions to go off the rails focusing on them. Content not available. Average income of Country X significantly less than Country Y. Bandwidth caps. Unstable connection. Etc etc. So for discussion sake I throw it out. Not permanently, just for a moment. It lets me focus on the good ol United States. Where people are relatively rich and the vast majority of content is available. Basically it's a best case scenario. If in the absolute base case people still heavily pirate content then the edge cases don't matter. Once that best case scenario is resolved then you can start fleshing out and covering all the international edge cases.

lmm 12y ago

Sample size 1, but: I don't pirate music, I don't pirate ebooks, I do pirate videos. It's not like I can't find music/ebooks (and indeed I do pirate books that aren't available for Kindle), it's simply that the paid UX is great: I can find anything I want on Amazon, pay for it easily, have it easily on my (non-Apple) computer and phone, and play/read offline.

Kesty 12y ago

There has been more than one study showing that people who pirates content are ususally the group that spend most on content. This is for the simple reason that people that pirates stuff are the one that are interested enough for the content. So study show that people that use piracy are also the same people that buy the legal content. Why ? For many reasons, it might be easier to pirate than getting it in legal ways, it might not be available legally yet, or it might, obviosuly, cost more than they are willing to spend. There are people that only pirate stuff and don't pay for anything, sure there are, but most pirates are just interested people that for one reason or the other can't get the same thing legally (money is only one of the reasons). And that also is one of my biggest problem with the argument against piracy. They treat each pirated copy of something like a missed sale, and that's just stupid. If my budget for movies is 100$, i'll spend that 100$. After that, if I want more content, my option are pirate the other stuff or simply not consuming it. Not increasing my budget. I don't have one research to show you, because there has been more than one, so I'll leave you this link: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=pirates+spend+more http://lmgtfy.com/?q=pirates+spend+more