... and you are not forced to use those grotesquely and absurdely massive and complex google(blink/geeko) or apple(webkit) based browsers (and their SDKs), in other words, open source drm software which is "obfuscated" via complexity and size: you can use the media player you like, and in my case my shmol media player I wrote (using ffmpeg). This issue is actually critical as it is not really piracy as it narrows down to the right to have interoperabitily with technically reasonable and sensible software.

Gecko isn't google its Mozilla, all you have to do is change the search engine. But the rest is all correct

Hell, even those browsers only get 720p...

I don't really get why Netflix is so sour about password sharing, it's literally part of the subscription pricing, they tell you how many concurrent streams you're allowed to have.

At this point 80% of the reason I still have a Netflix subscription is to share my password with my parents.

Same, rarely watch myself, but they got pissed when I cancelled it.

In the 1990s some homes would have several screens of cable TV, so several people in the same home could watch different things at the same time. Parents with teenage children, for example. Because of the physical cables it only worked in one home - when the kids moved out, they had to pay for their own cable or go without.

Netflix presumably hopes to achieve the same thing: Letting kids share their parents' accounts before they leave home, but not after.

Yes, this very much bothers me. You pay for streaming. How many streams do you want? Well, pay Netflix for that number. However you like to use those streams is up to you.

Kinda crazy that using the number of streams you are paying for is now considered getting netflix for free.

Obviously that's just for one person watching different things on their TV, computer and phone simultaneously. /s

Having not touched this since early days of TPB, is there a decent overview to approaches in 2022 you could point me to? E.g. has torrenting moved to the cloud or are most running vpns? Asking for a friend.

Latest and greatest is "plexshares" just google that. I've been sailing the high seas since 2002 and this is my last stop. No fuss, no worrying about anything. Wife and kids are very happy.

Wow. Thank you very much. Any advise for noobs?

Find one in there that you like in your price range. I pay $20 and have 1080p/4k remuxes. I used to spend at least 10 hours a month managing my own Plex/Emby, the money is well spent to me.

Also, buy an nvidia shield tv pro. It plays everything directly with no transcode, and handles all subtitles effortlessly without triggering a transcode.

I tried roku, amazon cube, apple tv, everything - the shield is the best still despite it's age. It's flawless.

rarbg.to is the popular index site. Bittorrent, the purple client. My smart TVs can access my PC's dedicated media directory - which took a bit of fiddling to get right. The big drawback is a lack of subtitles, unless they are baked in to the rip.

I still have Netflix and Prime Video (because of AMZ Prime). I have thought about dropping Netflix more than a few times after the price hike.

I wouldn't recommend BitTorrent/μTorrent, they're now run by a Chinese cryptocurrency company and have ads.

qBittorrent is an open source alternative that also has my favorite feature, downloading a file in sequential order so as to stream it immediately rather than waiting until it all finishes downloading.

I’d recommend checking your local library for their DVDs. Mine has a pretty good collection.

The search term you're looking for is "seedbox".

All the cool kids discuss seed boxes, etc., at a forum named “lowendtalk”.

It’s not my crowd but it’s interesting…

I have heard this term and briefly looked into it. My takeaway was it’s a vps with prebaked software/config offered by shady looking providers. Is that roughly correct or did I get lost in adwords?

Unlike your standard VPS hosts (DigitalOcean etc.), a good seedbox host will take your inevitable DMCA notices and file them in the shredder.

Basically, you'll find ones with fast storage with big storage for reasonable prices and that are... explicitly sanctioning this use case. And I'd bet the competent ones specifically design their network and client settings for good performance. In professional settings getting good large storage performance is sometimes a struggle or expensive.

I've thought about using them for non-shady data storage and transfer given the price and performance. Nothing sensitive which wasn't encrypted, obviously.

A friend can recommend bytesized hosting if you want minimal hassle. They have installer scripts for all the most popular tools (like the ones in parent) and it's really easy to set up your own netflix-like experience, with Plex as the streaming UI, deluge as the torrent client and Sonarr and Radarr as automated torrent downloaders.

> It's easier just to pirate than keep up with all these streaming services.

It really isn't and it's only cheaper if you don't put much value on your time.

Radarr and Sonarr don't do anything automatically. Setting them up takes more time than they are worth. I tried installing them. Most would describe me as technically savvy, but I just gave up.

example issues. Here's the quick start guide. https://wiki.servarr.com/radarr/quick-start-guide 1. Get stopped immediately at the indexer. No sane defaults there at all. No guidance either.

Plex doesn't do 4k streaming to Apple TV, doesn't do 4k to chromecast.

The movies you pirate frequently have technical problems, usually the sound is off. You are lucky to have subtitles that work(synced correctly).

> It really isn't and it's only cheaper if you don't put much value on your time.

Very true.

In the hours it takes to download and curate these movies and shows I've made more than enough to cover a Netflix, Disney+, Prime and HBO subscriptions for that month or pay for a few VOD titles for that month.

My time is way more fucking valuable than the time required to do this well.

And if I do without content or entertainment even better. Not everything is worth watch every month.

I don't think I agree with this level of negativity around plex, radarr, and sonarr. Using a seedbox provider and all of these things are setup and don't need any additional tinkering. You are right that the indexer is probably the least friendly part, but set it up once and it keeps working for over 6 months at a time.

Not being able to set or see an actual resolution when using Netflix on my TV is so frustrating.

Even without a widget I can definitely see that with Netflix I am getting 720p on a 4k TV, even more frequently when watching childrens shows. I have a 200Mbps internet link, Disney+ plays 4k just fine.

Resolution on its own does not mean much. To me all that matters if it is visually ok.

It is not. It's very clearly not HD and we gigabit internet. Other services do fine. Especially rented HD movies that are streamed. So instead of using my TV for Netflix, I watch on my laptop with a browser plugin to set a proper resolution.

Right but the visual quality depends more on the actual bit rate than on the nominal resolution.

But bitrate doesn't matter if they've selected 720p for you.

As is commonly forgotten, 720p is "HD".

I think I’m missing your point.

What I’ve noticed: a Netflix 1080p is very much worse looking than the 1080p I get off Plex.

Unbounded bitrate on 720p video will always look rather degraded on a 4k screen.

I do not have dedicated TV. Just computers with big 4K monitors. I gave up on TV and replaced it with the computer some 17 years ago I think

We just have less streaming services and rent or buy the content we want to watch.

Internet provider may be throttling you on purpose. Do they sell TV as well?

You can on most TV sets and STBs. UI is a bit hidden, but you can.

All this. Plus, if you live in a country that's not the US, half the streaming services aren't available, and on the ones that are, half the content is missing because it's 2022 and geographic region licensing is still a thing.

Since the rise of streaming services it have been surprisingly hard to get older and less popular content as less people are seeding. Also seems there are stringent laws present for content sharing than it was 10 years ago. I doubt that content piracy will come back in the way it was so that an ordinary citizen could say "It's easier just to pirate".

Not really. Streaming services like NetFlix are much easier. With Apple TV there is a universial search between all of the various services.

Running a large media server can actually be pretty costly on power bills these days.

> Running a large media server can actually be pretty costly on power bills these days.

Only if using server hardware, and that isn’t a good way to do it. A recent generation igpu and a low power computer is the way to go. You’ll get 10+ streams out an Intel Nuc, or similar sff pc. The expensive bit is the storage array.

Running your Apple laptop is pretty costly? It's much less than streaming costs

But technically that's stealing. I still feel a pang of guilt if I do it so I just use the free streaming services.

Theft, in plain english, is defined as the dishonest appropriation of property belonging to another with the intention to permanently deprive. Stealing is the act of theft.

technically it's "copyright infringement", not "stealing"

it's very much stealing from the residual based income of the workforce required to make your entertainment.

As mention in a comment above, it is not the consumer's responsibility to provide income to employees of a company providing goods or services. Please stop with this fallacy.

Company's providing goods and services in a capitalistic society are entirely dependent on consumers providing the income for their workforce.

How else do you really think this whole thing works. You get to keep your money, but still get all the goods and services provided. That's just silly.

You're conflating consumer responsibility with consumer spending. It's the company's job to provide wages - the company dictates and designs the means to acquire money to provide wages. If the company provides a widget that consumers don't want, is it the consumer's fault the company cannot pay the wages of the employees? That's just silly.

I'm saying "taking a service that you did not pay to receive" is stealing.

Technically stealing is depriving someone from his property which is not the case here. Also one should make a distinction between services. In the case of audiovisual content It can be consumed without changing anything in the life of the producer. I do not say that it’s a good thing but qualifying it of stealing does not seem right.

No country in the world legally classifies copyright infringement as stealing.

You can call it stealing metaphorically all you want, but it's not technically that (as candlemas claimed).

>You get the benefit of high quality (true 4k, not stream compressed "4k")

Where do you think pirates get their source content from? Sure if it's a movie with a blu-ray release there's a 4k high bitrate source, but if it's a netflix original the "stream compressed 4k" is the only version available.

Yes but a physical file does not buffer once fully downloaded, and I can upscale via mpv filters or madVR if needed.

Maybe, but I'd pay for better content and UX. Many movies above that royalty threshold just aren't available. Also Netflix must die because they canceled Cowboy Bebop.

About time anyway. Always next version of the business they put out of business. That's the way it works, especially with the deflation threat of technology. If you're a tech business and you can't maintain a margin so you have to raise rates, then something is up, broke, stockholder greed, personal greed, etc.

Disney, Paramount, CNN would eventually be held hostage to their platform by a Spotify or Steam ... The Music business and artists have been destroyed by Spotify

Plex is nice! I run a Server for Family and Friends, it works great, but I’m an IT GUY and it’s a Hobby.

For the most people it’s too much struggle to run this, especially when plex has the default settings of „transcode everything to 2mbit if the server is not at home“.

I have multiple subscriptions, but most players suck (I look at you Amazon Prime). Plex is a way better experience.

Oh I use a Nvidia Shield as Client. It’s awesome!

Maybe it's because I haven't done it in earnest since the days of Limewire but pirating sounds like such a fucking hassle these days. So I just don't do it not out of a strong sense of morality but because I'm lazy.

I'd rather do without.

This is exactly what I use. Throw all this on a good quality seed box and you have your own machine on the cloud.

Sure. It's also stealing. And doesn't provide any money for future shows that you might enjoy. Don't get me wrong, I've done it for some things that I wanted to watch, but wasn't willing to pay for. But let's not pretend that everyone torrenting is a reasonable solution.

There were a few years were I literally stopped all torrenting. Netflix and Amazon had everything I wanted. Sure, there were a few things that didn't exist, but I was too lazy to go after that minor amount of content. I was fully legal and paying for everything. I was fine with it.

Then, the great splintering happened. I currently pay for 5 services, but that doesn't cover even 1/2 of what I want to watch.

All the content owners said to themselves "we can be Netflix or Amazon Prime, too" and they pulled their content into their own services.

But the biggest problem: the user experience absolutely sucks now. It's so hard to find stuff and remember where things are, there's no universal search. I have to use justwatch.com on my phone when I want to sit down to watch something new, which might mean a trip to the computer to download it if one of the many services I already pay for don't have it.

In my case, it's where they wrapped up the long-tail movies. Want to watch Airplane!....$3 rental. Spaceballs? $3 rental Cannonball Run? $3

I am not going to pay to rent stuff I used to be able to encounter for free by surfing channels...well, on top of my dish/cable bill

Maybe I’m crazy but $3 to have a HD movie instant play without ads on any device I want seems like an insane deal to me.

Back in the 90s you would have had to pay $3-5 per movie at Blockbuster. Drive to the store, hope the movie you want was in stock, drive home, watch movie, remember to rewind the movie when it's done, drive back to the store to return it before the due date.

Now, for less money, I don't even have to get off the couch. What a world!

It's really about the repeat plays. The game service Steam is successful because you "own" something after spending, without paying a recurring fee.

Movies are different than games (and music) however. While I have rewatched movies--multiple times in a (relatively small) number of cases, movies are mostly one and done for me--and I imagine most adults.

That said, I don't know why the 48 hour limit on rentals got normalized. I've fallen asleep, gotten distracted, etc. while watching a movie and I don't like now being forced to watch it soon.

It was normalized back when the first video rental stores opened decades ago. It remains today because there needs to be some way to differentiate between a rental and a purchase, otherwise everything would become a purchase at a significantly higher price point.

Maybe the limit could be 72 or 96 hours instead. Or you could rent it with no time limit but maybe can't ever rewind then you can make it last as long as you need but when it's done, it's done.

Also: Airplane! and Airplane 2 DVD: $6. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XGD93BP Spaceballs $7, less if you're ok with used: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004TJ1H32 Cannonball run, $10, though less if used and there are some $10 "Cannonball Run + another movie" sets on Amazon as well.

While I tend to agree that piracy and/or ripping isn't something everyone can do, I've filled out my Plex collection legally lately with DVD acquisitions at bargain-bin prices. Used doesn't matter if you only have to be able to read the disc once to rip it, and I'm yet to get something used off Amazon that couldn't be read once. (I haven't even had to clean it or anything, it's all just worked.)

So, my Plex install in terms of raw content isn't up to Netflix's size. However, I rather suspect there are some people reading this who have more hours of video on their Plex than Netflix even has available. And while mine isn't that large, it is much better tuned for me and my family's interests at this point. And I don't have to worry about getting halfway through a series, only for some licensor to notice it has become popular enough to pull it and run it on their own service. Netflix has the problem now that anything that becomes popular on their service will get yanked. I do not know how they overcome that. They hoped to do it with enough original content, but to my eye, that has failed, and there is now no longer enough time to fix that. While I understand the complaints that they treated it too much like "content", to be honest, I've never thought this would work out, from the moment they announced it. A single company just can't produce a sufficiently diverse set of "content" to be the everything-to-everybody they would have needed to be to justify a Netflix valuation.

Do you also make backups of HD movies using this process, by any chance? Like you, I have no issue purchasing something. But I don’t like “purchasing” something stored in a walled garden online-only service that can be taken away.

I am fine with renting and paying. But the arbitrarily stupid rule “you have 48 hours to finish once you started” is what stops me from “renting” any lure.

How often are you renting a 2 hour movie without having a 2+ hour window of free time to watch it?

More often than you think. Usually we watch movies in the evenings and one of us ends up falling asleep after a long day.

Amazon and Youtube (and maybe other streaming services) also offer some of the movies for free with advertising. So the model hasn’t changed much from going to rent a movie at the store for a few bucks or watching it on cable tv, except you’re not paying for cable now.

Does “encounter for free” also include instant access? I seem to recall that movies like Spaceballs would be shown for free, but probably next week.

The $3 is for fast-forwarding Mr Video to next week.

And the cost of ads? Seems like a deal to me.

>> the user experience absolutely sucks now

Understandable, I just cut back on all the TV engorging and rotate the streaming services every quarter. IMO it's a net win. Save money on the streaming services and life is better for having not watched so much television. Not going to the grave wishing I binged Season 2 of some random show one more time.

Why don't you just not partake in the content? You really don't need to spend all that time watching shows. If you don't like the terms under which it is offered, just find something else to do.

Who cares. What difference does it make to you if he pirates it or doesn't watch it?

I have a TCL TV (with Roku) and searching for a show using the voice remote generally gets me the result and also which app is streaming it. I use it all the time these days.

JustWatch is good for this, but it mostly reveals how sparse most of their catalogs are. It confirmed for me, at long last, that the reason I couldn't find anything to watch is because there wasn't anything to watch. Paramount+ at least has all the Star Treks after pulling it from every other service, but it seems like all they have other than that is 30 seasons of 5 cop shows.

Google search does a pretty decent job of surfacing where something is streaming

Most results would just be buried somewhere in the middle of a four page article filled with ads and popups about cookies and newsletters and the like.

I'm not sure where you're located but for me, I prominently get a panel with the streaming options. Something like this https://searchengineland.com/google-search-tests-new-interfa...

> And doesn't provide any money for future shows that you might enjoy.

Which means that dinosaur-industry would finally have to arrive in the 21st century. People are very much willing to pay for things they enjoy - see Twitch Subscribers and Patreons for examples. Paying for shitty catalogues where the parts that you actually enjoy are distributed across multiple services just isn't cutting it.

Good riddance to all those copyright-attorneys and other parasites leeching off of the entertainment industry.

I don't disagree. However, you can buy/rent movies and shows on an individual basis from amazon/google/apple now. The prices are just higher. There seems to be some benefit to bundling shows together into a service. You can also just jump around from service to service, which is what I do.

I don't "rent" anything online because the price is insane.

Let's talk $1 to watch something once. That's reasonable and a price I'd pay. $4-5 to watch something in my own home is not.

Ahh, but “buying” streamed content is a fool’s purchase. If the streamer loses the rights to film you “purchased”, you lose your purchase. This happened a few years ago with Disney content on Amazon.

Better to buy a physical media.

I don’t want to assume anything about your financial situation but I just don’t believe most people would find 2 hours of entertainment for $4 unreasonable. Like that’s just silly cheap.

We live in a world where 90% of the entire catalog of movies ever filmed are available to be instantly delivered to your home in 1080p for less than the cost of a Big Mac. In the 90s it cost about the same not even taking into account inflation or gas to drive to blockbuster and rent a VHS. We are living in the future!

> We live in a world where 90% of the entire catalog of movies ever filmed are available to be instantly delivered to your home in 1080p for less than the cost of a Big Mac

Yet whenever I want to watch something, I have to look up which service it's on, see if it's available in my country, sign up for a subscription, possibly download an app.... Or, go to the high seas and be watching it in 4k resolution within 2 minutes.

Sorry, but no. That’s what I find difficult to understand - let’s say I want to watch a movie and ready to pay 5$ for it - why would I watch it in Hd or even 1080p if I have 4k TV? I understand that Google has only HD option for me, but why would I want it if I pay? In my mind if I pay - I should get every technical option possible to watch it, otherwise raw files are just few clicks away and I already paid for my broadband.

As simple as that.

The problem, for me at least, appears where some legal rights damage technological usage.

How many times my Netflix downloads will “expire”? Is this milk or something? Why do they need to expire? Sorry, but I refuse to understand…

Those are just excuses to justify your piracy. If you have a decent 4k TV and are sitting more than 5 feet away from it, the 1080p stream will upscale to "retina" quality and you won't be able to tell the difference.

That might seem silly cheap, but compare it to going to the cinema. The dining has a huge site to pay for, projection equipment and staff, cleaning and a million other things.

So if I watch it at home and remove all those costs from the cinema, surely $1 is going to be closer to what the film studio would have got if I went to the cinema?

It's cheap in terms of absolute dollar value, yes. But it's also an EXCEPTIONALLY shallow form of entertainment that I can easily approximate for free by just streaming some different movie off Netflix.

I'd much rather go to the movie theater and pay the even higher price for admission, because that's an actual experience. You can't replicate "going to the movies" at your house very well.

I wonder if this is different based on number of people in the household. On amazon, I think it’s usually $3 (fucking $2.99 penny tricks), which amounts to $1.50 each for the two of us watching. In a family of four, it’s sub-dollar each. Which as a percent of the dinner you’re probably eating while you watch is very little. But renting for yourself alone feels at least twice as expensive!

Piracy is a protest. 95% of those shows are worthless fillers that would have never been watched by the viewers if the full selection was available. Most of those future "originals" shouldn't be happening in the first place.

The reason music streaming defeated piracy is because a single subscription gives access to most of the music in the world, including from other countries and languages as long as you can type the search query (Indian, Japanese, Turkish, Russian etc.)

The reason video piracy is resurging is that every streaming service provides 2-3 good shows and hundreds of fillers, and to have a real selection of what is currently good one would have to pay $200-300 per month for dozens of apps. On top of that, pulling the show from one app and reappearing it on another loses watch history, which is no way in the interest of the customer. Sell what the users really want to buy, and they will pay.

> And doesn't provide any money for future shows that you might enjoy.

The last movie I pirated was directed by a man who died almost 30 years ago. Do you suppose if I subscribed to Netflix (which doesn't even have any of his movies at all as far I can tell), they'd hire a necromancer to get a few more movies out of his corpse?

> hire a necromancer to get a few more movies out of his corpse?

We don't hire necromancers anymore, they’ve been replaced by training models on a corpus anchored by the creator’s existing work.

You're probably right, and honestly the thought of this happening just makes me feel sad. That premise is just like the character Dixie Flatline in Neuromancer. Simply tragic.

It's not stealing, it's copyright infringement, and it's an act of protest. I paid for Netflix for years when the streaming catalog was good, but now the streaming video market feels like an anti-consumer predatory cash grab.

It's stealing, specifically from myself and others in my industry that you haven't heard of that. Making movies would be impossible to be without your

- Lesser Known actors - Assistant Directors - Stunt Coordinators - 2nd Unit Directors - Stunt Performers

and I'm sure there are others. Residuals factor into our income, allow us to qualify for health insurance, empower our unions, and provide a stable income to continue working in an unstable career.

All so we can make better entertainment for you! When you pirate, you're stealing money from us.

But... you don't own the copyright to the movie. The studio does. You were paid a wage for a job.

You can accuse the pirates of limiting your potential for future earnings, but that is not the same as stealing from you.

my contract is directly related to the post box office profits of the movie.

Fair enough, but still, depriving you of potential earnings is not the same as stealing.

If I can't buy something for a price that's worth it to me, I will just watch something else. It doesn't mean I'm going to pay more for it.

You get the same amount of money either way.

If you choose not to pay for their movie and watch something else, you are correct that you didn't steal from them. You did steal from someone else just like them though. If you pirate their movie, then yes you did in fact steal income from them. The act of choosing to pirate that particular movie changes it from a matter of potential income to a loss of actual income.

Right, so that isn't stealing. It is in fact what I advocate strongly. If more people did that, more content they would enjoy would be provided at a reasonable cost.

But extracting the value of watching something without paying the fee for that service...that's stealing.

Not to argue either way about piracy, but it sounds like you might want to work on getting a better contract.

ha. You are not wrong. The winds are shifting and I'm optimistic that i will be able to individually garner a better contract over time even if my union fails to help with it.

Well when you spend your money you are literally stealing it out of the hands of my and my friends in banking.

In this example, the banking provides the service of a safe place to keep my money until I spend it. That's what I pay for, in the form account fees and the banks ability to leverage my saved money for their financial gain.

100% the opposite. Bankers make their money from the flows of cash streams. Putting my cash under a mattress or setting it on fire steals it out of the hands of your banking friends.

This may be a regional difference, but we make most of our money on fees. Cashflow isn't actually worth that much in the current economy.

Not that it matters though, I was trying to make use of the "common knowledge" that banks make money from your deposits, and that therefore you spending your money instead of depositing it in a negative return account is costing us potential revenue. I know that's not how banks make money, but it's the culturally accepted explanation for how banks make money.

How much of your money has been taken from you? Not hypothetical money you think you might have been entitled to, but money that was actually yours. How much was taken from you?

around anywhere from 2 - 25 cents per viewing per consumer. Over the course of my career that can break down to easily 7 figures if I was to work on say the original Star Wars.

Not hypothetical money you think you might have been entitled to. The truth is, not a single cent was stolen from you.

did you extract the value of the entertainment without providing the fee? That's stealing money from me.

If you weren't gonna watch it, don't watch. The argument being made is you in fact, do want to watch it, you just don't wanna pay for it. That's stealing.

If it's any consolation to you, I've almost certainly never seen a movie with you in it.

Did you steal any content that was behind a paywall? If you did, you have taken money out of my industry and made it more difficult for it to be a viable career path in the future.

Your industry pretty much stopped making movies I care about, so I don't care if your industry curls up in a ball and dies.

If I didn't pirate it, I wouldn't watch it, so you're not losing anything in my case. Additionally, if your work is actual art rather than mediocre filler content I probably bought your merch, which I definitely wouldn't do if I was getting raped by a streaming service, so if anything odds are you're coming out ahead. Beyond that, if I'm pirating, people start conversations about TV shows I don't feel compelled to hijack them by talking about how all streaming platforms are bullshit, which I totally would do if I wasn't pirating.

It’s a pretty self serving protest. Just don’t watch it. You make your point without abandoning the moral high ground.

Then vote with your wallet and don't watch the content. You don't get to steal it just because you disagree with their distribution methods.

Some people like to get paid for their work and a subscription entitles you to nothing but what the service wishes to provide.

The purpose is to be a signal to the distributor: "fix your payment model or we're not paying". I pirated for a long time. When Netflix became a thing, I stopped pirating (since it was easier). Now I pirate again. If a new company came along with a good model, or the industry as a whole decided this streaming debacle is stupid, I would definitely stop pirating and give my money to someone. Until then, why would I pay money for a worse service than what I can get for free?

Wouldn't the appropriate choice be to not pay for the service AND not pirate? That seems like the best way to send the message. Pirating gives the impression that you want to view their content but not pay for it. So they should invest in locking down their content, not improve their experience.

That sends the wrong message.

If you're interested in the content, but dislike the delivery mechanism, ignoring the content entirely sends the signal: "I am not interested in the content you're producing". The companies will attempt to address that signal by changing the content, to try and find content that attracts larger audiences.

Piracy sends a different signal: "I am interested in the content, but not the price or the delivery mechanism". The companies will attempt to address that signal differently. Maybe they lower the price. Maybe the ease the friction on the delivery mechanism. Maybe the increase the friction on the delivery mechanism (by adding DRM). But the signal from piracy sends a more clear message to the content companies that ignoring the content.

Then they would replace the content but not the system. If you like the content pirate it. They may add more drm like music companies or they may reduce prices or they may make streaming easier.

Ignoring it sends a different message.

Yes, I'm interested in their content. I'm not interested in their byzantine ways of inventing 20 million new streaming services that I need to subscribe to in order to watch one single show I want.

> So they should invest in locking down their content, not improve their experience.

Good luck with that.

purchase the shows you want to watch individually.

How do I do that? For instance imagine I would like to watch Book of Boba Fett (just an example, I saw it mentioned somewhere today). I don't think that Disney allows to purchase it individually, but I can only guess, because in the sticks where I live (EU country), Disney+ isn't even available.

That reminds me, what do you think about geoblocking these services? If one has a choice: buy the content, buy VPN and break the copyright by watching it in unsupported country or just break the copyright by pirating it outright, what should one do?

Boba fett is not provided individually. The cost value of producing that show is driving people to a subscription system. If you don't want to do that, don't sign up for it.

If you want to watch that show but you don't want to pay for subscription, let DIsney know. If the market demanded it by way of retracting their subscription dollars, they would notice.

But if you steal it because that's just how you want to do things, you're a thief.

It was your suggestion to purchase individual shows.

>If the market demanded it by way of retracting their subscription dollars, they would notice.

One could say that pirating is the act of retracting the subscription dollars, but I digress. I can't retract my subscription dollars, because they won't even offer me the subscription (which I mentioned in my comment).

Could you as an knowledgeable insider actually answer the part of my previous comment you conveniently skipped, that part about what is person supposed to do if the Disney doesn't even offer the service in their country? And don't say "let Disney know", something actionable please.

>But if you steal it because that's just how you want to do things, you're a thief.

1) it's not theft, it's digital "piracy"

2) And I didn't say I pirate their stuff, the show was just an example. But I still feel discriminated on account of country I am from by them refusing to sell me their subscription service. And everyone knows that racism is worse than stealing.

What is a "good model" to you?

Effort of buying legally < effort of downloading illegally

Netflix did it (once upon a time. no, not the movie). I don't really care for reasons why this is hard for the industry or really anything else. As long as it doesn't economically make sense for me to give money to someone (doesn't reduce my own effort/time expenditure or provide something I can't have otherwise), I will not give money to someone. Morals be damned.

You can rent on many of the streaming services for like $3, which blows a hole in the “it’s just effort” argument.

You still have to find which service it's available on, enter payment information, download an app... And even then if you're not in the USA the selection is distributed across more apps, and lots of content isn't available easily even if you want to pay.

That's Amazon AFAIK, I don't know of any others. It's a step in the right direction but the price is still too high (it's usually $4-$5 in my experience). I only get to watch it once, not keep it, and I pay you double what I used to pay Blockbuster? No thanks.

Blockbuster new releases were $3 in 1990 dollars ($6.60 today). This was in a mid-sized town in the midwest, not Manhattan or LA. Blockbuster was also far less convenient.

Fair, I forgot about inflation.

acquiring currency requires effort. Considerable effort, for some. One can click on a torrent link way faster than they can earn $3

Plus, this rental will not be available in all locales, for every video, etc

When I open IMDB database a drop down with links appears. If publisher decided not to provide movie for purchase - these are links to torrent files to download movie in HD, FHD and 4k with preselected language and subtitles settings. If publisher decided to provide movie for purchase - links to buy it with comparable price to a movie ticket. But you buy Movie not an HD+English+SpanishSubs file version and you don’t have access to 4k video. You can also buy subscription to IMDB which will include 100-200 hours worth of content per month. You don’t buy movies this way. You stream them and they don’t belong to you once your subscription ends. Publishers get their money based on minutes of content watched by users.

It won’t work?

It’s been a while but my practice used to be:

pay full price for the online offering (conducting the transaction in a browser) and then just download the content from BitTorrent.

I would happily defend that practice in front of a jury of my peers.

You'd probably lose.

The thing they get you on with BitTorrent isn't the download part, it's the seeding part, where you're distributing the copyrighted content to other downloaders.

You could turn off seeding, but that'll get you banned from a lot of torrent sites, and it's not a technical distinction I'd want to have to explain in court to lay people.

Again - it has been a while - but I did, indeed, use leech mode on the client … so no seeding.

If there is anyone I wouldn’t feel bad stealing from, the US entertainment industry would not be far behind.

Remember that whole Cuties debacle where Netflix sexed up a French coming-of-age about children ?

There are many lifetimes of content out there already. What if I'm fine with there being no money for future shows?

I really fail to see how a world without high-budget Marvel films will be so bad. I'd be fine watching old movies and art-house productions for the rest of my life.

If I pay for Netflix, which offers Friends in some countries but not my own, and I want to watch Friends, am I stealing it by torrenting it? Who has less property now than before I torrented the show?

> Sure. It's also stealing

How about “owning” a movie but not being able to resell it or loan it to friends. What’s that?

Please don’t use physical item terms for digital items.

Stealing something from you implied you don’t have to have it after I take it.

It’s illegal and unethical, we agree on that. But it’s not stealing.

It’s been more than a decade since I had the opportunity to plug this educative video in an internet conversation: https://youtu.be/IeTybKL1pM4

Call it digital trespassing then. Semantics.

It's stealing. You're stealing from the residual base of workers who require residuals to continue this career.

I'm okay with that. The business is unfair to those in it, particularly at the lower end, and also unfair to its consumers. It is not the job of consumers to fix or perpetuate that system.

No, it's the union job to do that for sure.

I'm only here to pop the balloon on the consumer's perception that "it's not theft." there's a face and a name that goes along with that theft. Thousands of them.

It's not theft, it's piracy.

Torrent client in one hand, blunderbuss in the other, I just hope the Royal Navy doesn't hang me.

That's definitely good; there are hidden immoralities in every transaction and it is in the interest of all of us to be more aware of them.

Is it my responsibility to help these people continue their careers? I have worked on tools that help businesses fill out legal forms without the need of a lawyer. By the same logic, am I “stealing” from the lawyers who need this friction to continue their careers? The reality of technological progress is that some economic activities become unsustainable and some workers will be forced out of their careers.

It is THE solution because its the only thing that will force them to change their model.

See music streaming, the origin of video streaming, origin of steam etc

i prefer not to pay for my own exploitation and being psychologically mindfucked by propaganda. i don't want to give money to Hollywood millionaires and the expensive product advertisements that classify as movies today

You're stealing income, specifically from me and all of my coworkers. Perhaps you think that you're only stealing from Producers and A list actors, but there are entire departments that receive residuals on a production.

- On screen performers, stunt performers like myself and actors who grind out a comfortable living. Those residuals also go to qualifying for health insurance through earnings. You are directly stealing from my ability to provide health insurance to my family.

- Assistant Directors, who are saints dealing with every logistical problem imaginable. The best of them only work 1-2 movies a year because the workload causes severe burnout.

- The Union themselves! The more money that flows through the union, the more powerful they are. The more safer movie sets become and the better life is provided for the workforce that makes your entertainment.

- Yourself! You are reducing the value of producing quality TV and Movies by stealing them. Every time one a show is pirated, there is less incentive to spend more money on an entertainment spectacle.

Go check out my imdb and see how many of my credits you've watched https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1968249/

For every show imagine that it's a nickel you stole from my income. WOuldn't be surprised if you took a buck or two out of mine. Now multiply that by all the on screen performers and ADs and others I mentioned. Now multiply that all the people who steal like you.

You're directly responsible for sucking the quality of life away from people who make your entertainment and reducing the desire to make things you enjoy. You're going to end up with shows that are AI generated CGI sponsored by Mt. Dew and Chevy trucks.

Stop stealing our shit.

Uh huh, I'll stop stealing from you when you stop stealing from me.

Advertizements everywhere stealing my attention, public space, and landscape beauty. Stealth taxes on empty hard drives and other storage media. Hardware-destroying rootkits and other malware (lost a DVD drive to DRM, will you reimburse me?). Draconian control mechanisms and lobbying stealing my control of the devices I own. Mountains upon mountains of disposable plastic promotional crap stealing my planet and ecosystem.

I'm not stealing from you. I'm extracting some small reparation for the many toxic behaviors your industry engages in. When you start offering an honest product I'll start honest buying. And I do - I pay more combined to good people producing good content via Patreon than a monthly Netflix subscription.

This is a joke right? Kind of like rioters looting local businesses and then saying “society stole from us first”?

Never rioted nor looted nor seen either, so can't comment. Joke, it is not.

You, personally, are stealing from my income. All those issues you raise are valid and important issues to address. Stealing because those things make you angry makes you part of the problem.

I don't personally pirate much, but I take umbrage at you characterizing it in this way. You seem to think that the issues of accessing media without subjecting yourself to user-hostile behaviors are wholly orthogonal to the issue of accessing media without paying for it. They aren't.

Imagine a hypothetical universe where, in order to watch one of your movies, people had to a) pay you $1 and also b) let you punch them in the nose. Then, when people sensibly start pirating your content instead because they don't want to get punched, you loudly proclaim that they are stealing the $1 you are owed.

That's what's happening here. People want to watch your content, and are willing to pay for it. But they don't want to pay for it AND get punched in the nose. They pirate because your distributors, and by extension you yourself, have made it impossible to watch your content (and pay you!) in any other way.

I get that your natural rejoinder will be "if the content is not worth being punched in the nose, just don't watch it!" Which is fair. Debatable, but fair. Just don't come here pretending that all you have asked for is the reasonable sum of $1 when you are actually demanding that your customers subject themselves to the indignity of your fist.

The world is full of problems. We are looking at actual massive potentially civilization or species ending issues in the large and dealing with trying to make a living, manage illness, deal with death, parenting in the small.

If you live in a big city you probably walk by people in the street slowly dying from a drawn out form of suicide because you can't possible change all their lives on your way to the grocery store or coffee shop and people at large are choosing to do the same with your income stream. They opt to deal with problems more important and more personal than fixing the way in which culture is monetized so as to funnel slightly more money to rich folks who could do more for society as soylent green in hopes that a few extra bucks will stick to the hands of useful folks like yourself.

For myself I'm not angry nor do I have any intention of fixing the problem because nobody with any decision making power gives two shits what my opinion on anything is. I have monetarily in life about nothing and indeed will have nothing tomorrow and the next day. You feel like people are violating the social contract by not paying for multimedia. Part of your problem is that you even believe that we are part of the same society or share the same ethics.

We really aren't. I am not the benefactor of the current situation nor do I have any meaningful power to negotiate new ground rules or even enforce existing ones so rejection makes worlds more sense.

You say stop downloading and I hear enjoy poverty but with fewer books, music, movies, games. I wont actually be supporting the folks you mentioned to any greater degree but you will find such more ethically palatable. HALF of America is sharing 12% of the income. We don't have anything but you can stick a $200 PC and plug it into a $20 monitor and courtesy of a $10 internet essentials package download as many books music movies shows as you can possibly consume.

I don't feel like making my shitty life shittier in order for you to feel better. Artificial scarcity is a dumb way to run a society and its not my fault the people with all the money in this society have chosen it.

Film is competing against loads of free content and the industry is thrashing to avoid accepting the obvious fate: it is no longer economically rational to produce films with budgets in the hundreds of millions.

Jobs will be lost, just like happened with farriers and switchboard operators. Your income will disappear regardless: the demand for stunts is elastic and the supply is increasingly competitive. Blaming pirates is being unable to see the forest for the trees.

If the entire world of piracy tripled tomorrow, it still wouldn’t have the tiniest shred of impact on your income compared to the decisions of rapidly consolidating tech/studio execs who are tanking your industry and fighting your unions to chase pennies.

A lot of us would gladly pay the cast and crew directly to own a copy of your output that we could access on our own terms, but that isn’t a reality for most trade under capitalism. There’s a reason Googlers on HN aren’t trying to guilt trip everyone for personally stealing their income by using ad blockers. Maybe this is particularly to the entertainment industry, but most of us would shrug our shoulders at the equivalent of petty shoplifting from our employers.

I, and nobody I know, has pirated games or music since Steam blew up about 12-15 years ago and Spotify/RDIO and similar blew up about 10 years ago.

There was about a decade when Netflix went full in on online streaming and was offering a fantastic service for a reasonable price with a far superior experience to piracy. That is no longer the case, and the unbundling to now a dozen+ of subscriptions is driving pretty much all my techie friends back to movie/tv piracy. I personally don't really watch much TV and might watch one or two movies a year, so I'll just not watch anything. I've already cancelled my Netflix subscription about a year ago, and I prefer playing video games and reading books anyway.

Until your industry can offer a product experience that is superior to piracy, people are going to pirate. The games and music industries have largely solved this problem. When will yours?

Sure you're talking about economical motivators, which I hope and fight for our Union to adjust to.

Until then tho..a person who steals from a moral high ground is still a thief stealing from my income.

No, it's not economic at all. You've repeatedly failed to grasp this in this entire comments section. It's about convenience. It is actually more convenient to pirate the handful of movies or TV shows people want to watch than to maintain a dozen subscriptions or activate just the one for the handful of shows or movies they want to watch at any given time.

Steam and Spotify have made it incredibly simple to just get what you want without having to juggle or manage any kind of bullshit.

Steam charges by the game and often times you can find whatever you want on iTunes or Amazon video if you're willing to "buy" the movie/tv season. Why do you limit yourself to content that comes to you from a subscription? I'm guessing because it's kind of expensive to buy a season of tv.

I don't, actually. I pay for a number of things that I feel deliver value. I've bought movies and TV off of amazon video/youtube. I pay for some podcasts. I buy audiobooks off of Audible and eBooks from kindle (despite these being even more expensive and more convenient to pirate than movies/TV). I've commissioned some graphic design stuff for personal use. Though I'm personally not into sports, a friend of mine is super into the NFL and buys their online package (though he still has to pirate certain local games because...not enough people showed up to the stadium that day???).

As I've said in the thread, for me the alternative to movies/TV isn't piracy, it's playing games or reading books, which I do pay for because the experiences of finding what I want, buying it, and consuming it is a superior experience to piracy. If that ever changes across the entire media landscape and games/books go the way of movies/TV that may change.

ah, sidenote! I watch NFL too. Generally local games are blacked out so you need to watch them on the local broadcast via antenna or a cable. I do find this annoying but I have an antenna pretty much for that reason.

It is very convenient to steal. You fail to grasp that still constitutes theft.

The only thing I pirate is movies / tv shows ... and it's extremely simple: because it's not humanly possible to purchase them digitally.

Games: yes. Music: yes. Books: yes. Magazines: yes. What happened to tv and film? Where are you all?

Let's say I want to purchase The Fifth Element and throw it on my plex server so I can watch it on vacation out of the country? How can I do that? The answer is simple: you cannot. So I pirate it. And enjoy watching it. If the industry WOULD provide me with some way to purchase The Fifth Element, get a high quality mkv or mp4 or whatever download of it, I would do it in an instant.

Your obtuseness and just general attitude in this thread really actually makes me want to start pirating again.

Boutta go "steal" from you just to do it.

Is it really stealing if they wouldn’t have ever paid for it in the first place?

If it’s not easy to find and use on a subscription service that I already have, I’m just not gonna try to search for it or pay for it. What difference would it make if I pirated it and watched it anyways?

(FWIW I personally don’t pirate anything, I just really don’t see the merit to the “stealing” argument)

Yes, it is. But even though you didn't manage to communicate your point correctly, it still stands: the only reason streaming replaced piracy was because people could afford it and it was easier to use.

Even the ease of use has declined, and the affordability is down the toilet. And as usual, we have people at the top reaping record profits and making victims of their greed blame each other at the same time.

EDIT: Fixed a grammar error.

Yes it is really stealing.

You want something. You don't want to pay for it. You take it without paying.

That's stealing.

If you really truly didn't want to watch it, you wouldn't steal it.

It's not stealing, it's copyright infringement. If someone steals my car I no longer have my car. If someone copies my car my car loses values because there is now one extra copy of my car floating around.

If intellectual property is indeed property, it can be stolen. Considering (in the US, at least), intellectual property is codified within the Constitution, it's pretty hard to say it isn't real.

Edit: to be clear, I agree it's not 'theft', but am pushing back on the way this distinction is sometimes used to insinuate that it is victimless (not saying the poster above is claiming that, just that it's worth pointing out)

Often when you have to qualify something (intellectual property instead of just property), it's because it's used as a metaphor instead of a subcategory. Intellectual property is a form of property as much as political science is a form of science.

You can metaphorically say it's theft, but it doesn't manifest as theft of actual property.

For example: many people (myself included) have downloaded the $1.000.000 torrent (a list of files whose value amounts to a million dollars). I found nothing of use in it so I just deleted it. Did I cause a million dollars in damages? Was the damage restored when I deleted it?

If you consider the same for actual property there's no question about it. Stealing a Bugatti does cause millions to be lost, and destroying it makes it irrecoverable.

entertainment is a service industry. Extracting the service value without providing the requested fee is stealing.

You've posted 67 (!) comments in this thread, mostly making the same point over and over in angry ways.

I get that you have legit reasons for feeling strongly about this topic, but this is way over the top, so please don't do it on HN. We want curious conversation here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> You want something. You don't want to pay for it. You take it without paying.

This is an age old argument... I'm not taking anything. I'm merely looking at something. The same way that I'm not "stealing from Leonardo" when I look at statue of David. I understand that the makers of the movie had some hopes of monetizing my looking but alas, they failed. Based on pure logic alone, it's clear that piracy is not theft, it's something else.

You don't take it, you make a new, identical copy of it, leaving any previously existing copy intact.

So if I make a new, identical copy of a GPL'ed codebase - should I feel free to use it for whatever purpose I want and ignore the GPL?

I will happily take your money and provide you with a new, identical copy of it if that's the deal you want to make.

That doesn't make any sense as an allegory.

Nobody is TAKING anything. Everything is at the place where it belongs.

Also if you'd be able to make identical copies of money, of course people would accept it.

Literally the NFT argument

An NFT is a certificate of authenticity. Copies of the associated item don't have a valid certificate. Getting satisfaction from a copy is orthogonal to the value associated with the authenticated original.

I'll go into your mailbox and take your paycheck. I'll provide you with a new identical copy of it. I'll leave the previous existing copy intact, but in my possession.

Which one of us gets to deposit the money?

You're copying the check but stealing the money. The money and the check are not the same thing.

If I copy your car key and use it to steal your car. I've copied the key but stolen your car.

You're copying the entertainment value provided and stealing the income that is related to that value.

Theft is when you take something from someone. As in, what you have materially gained, they have materially lost. Copyright infringement is not theft, and must be treated differently, because what you gain, nobody has lost; the supply is infinite.

If you accuse someone of stealing the income, but they haven't gotten any money out of it, how does that make sense? What you're describing is a missed opportunity for a sale; had someone 'stolen' nothing and simply passed the product by, you would still not have made that sale and nothing would have changed.

What about borrowing from public libraries? Buying a used legitimate disc at a garage sale? Are people who do this in the wrong?

Finally! I agree with this. I think that physically purchased goods should be free from any sort of "DRM." and is not stealing.

The difference is one party at a time, i.e. household, library patron, etc, can enjoy the entertainment service.

When you pirate it, The original owner of the dvd retains the service value as well as providing the service to others without any value being transferred to the workforce/IP holders.

That's the difference and I personally am all in for a mythical solution that but still allows complete freedom of ownership while also stopping people from digitally reproducing assets and dispensing them exponentially.

I don't believe it will ever happen tho :/

But you agree, that there is a difference between copying information and taking physical objects away?

I seriously don't understand why this point keeps getting repeated. It is just semantics!

Yes, we all know copying a digital show isn't the same exact thing as stealing your car. However, you are still taking something of value! Let's say you snuck into my band's concert venue and didn't buy a ticket. Yeah you didn't physically take anything from me, but you are having access to something you shouldn't without paying.

No, I am not taking anything of value. You still have all the things of value you had before. The difference between a rivalrous good and a non-rivalrous good is not semantics.

The mental gymnastics to justify piracy as anything other than theft is always interesting to watch.

So is the substitution of moral smugness for complex thought.

Call it stealing it or not, non rivalrous or whatever, the point is that the movie owners have intellectual property rights to their movies and can decide how it is distributed.

If you think that's a dumb deal then you don't have to take it. Pirating it is simply wrong.

piracy is receiving the service value of entertainment without providing the requested fee.

Another word for it is stealing.

For receiving the service value of entertainment of reading this comment, I request a fee of $1,000.

Is my request reasonable? Do you feel inclined to pay me? Do I incur $1000 of damages if you choose not to?

Theft is not defined by the receiving, it is defined by the taking. The moral ill is not you being enriched, it is the person who had it rightfully, being deprived of it.

"Let's say you snuck into my band's concert venue and didn't buy a ticket. Yeah you didn't physically take anything from me, but you are having access to something you shouldn't without paying."

And this is again a physical situation, where one more person takes up limited space, reducing something.

Copying does not reduce anything.

It also does not contribute anything, true, so I am not saying it is always ethical to do so.

But when a poor person in bangladesh or bolivia living under very different economic realities, where 10$ means a LOT and who could never afford to pay for western realities anyway, streams some hollywood movie from a warez site - than I see zero damage. And guess what, they all do. So do poor teenagers and students in the west and they usually start paying, once they can afford it.

Judging them all as "thefts" from a position of being born into wealth, is maybe not very ethical either. So to repeat it again, stealing implies taking something away. Which is not the case here.

> Is it really stealing if they wouldn’t have ever paid for it in the first place?

Since when does it matter if I would've paid for it? If someone steals a Mercedes from a dealer is it not stealing if they wouldn't have bought it anyways?

That's stealing because it deprives someone else of their property. The dealer cannot sell the car once you've stolen it.

"Intellectual property" doesn't really work like that.

Just out of curiosity, do they get deprived of the income when I download the content, or when I watch it?

Do they lose more income if I watch the content with friends?

In the early days of photography, people believed that if your photo was taken, it was stealing your soul [1].

I can understand the idea of piracy being wage theft in the same way I can understand the idea of photography being soul theft, but I think both are rather silly ideas.

https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/8382

What if 6 people watch it for one purchase? Does it become theft then?

How about a college dorm hosting a movie night? Maybe theft?

What if a million people watch it for one purchase? I know you think that's theft, but I'm not sure where you'd draw the line.

I think the reality is that 90% of the population won't pirate because it's too much effort and legally ambiguous. If your content becomes popular through piracy, you will absolutely reap the rewards of good content creation.

If a billion people pirated your content because it was that good, you'd have absolutely no problem monetizing. You'd be a household name. When Disney loses their copyright on the Mouse, they're still going to be a huge company capable of monetizing all things Mickey.

If we get back to a state where everyone is pirating because the content services suck, then you need to petition your content distributors to lower friction and provide an experience worth paying for, but we're nowhere near that.

Gabe does it with Steam. I used to almost exclusively pirate games, and now I almost exclusively buy them, because Steam has value adds (achievements, friends, online play, tournaments, workshop content, etc).

Also, you have to understand that many people who have large collections of pirate content see themselves more as archivists than viewers. I'd guess most pirated content never even gets consumed, just downloaded for a "later" that never comes.

You assume people are going to pay for it. If you provide a good service, they will, as shown by Steam and Spotify and, at least initially, Netflix.

If you don't, they won't, as shown by the proliferation of shitty streaming services and the gutting of content on Netflix.

It's got to suck to feel that people are stealing from you because you have no control over the content distribution mechanisms in the industry you work in, but I think you're largely engaging in fallacious argumentation here. It's pretty much the 90's version of piracy rhetoric. One pirated watch != one watch worth of income lost.