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Stream PirateBay movies directly from CLI

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181–190 of 223 posts

Re: Stream PirateBay movies directly from CLI

#181
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, I'm not sure that most software developers care much if a student, for example, downloads software and tinkers with it for personal use 'breaking copyright'. In fact many large software companies encourage piracy so that when these kids grow up to work at a company, they'll demand the tools they know already from past piracy. There's a huge difference between making money off a business model which is b…

There is no business usecase for movies and music (with some small exceptions for ads, but nothing like enterprise software). So, by your criteria, they just shouldn't receive copyright protection because their product targets consumers? How does that make any sense?

I say they shouldn't receive copyright protection because consumers dont enjoy equal representation in Congressional copyright hearings, such as those for DMCA or the numerous copyright extensions. We simply cannot afford to pay for congressmen to vote for our interests the way the movie, music, and publishing industries can.

Re: Stream PirateBay movies directly from CLI

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no business usecase for movies and music (with some small exceptions for ads, but nothing like enterprise software). So, by your criteria, they just shouldn't receive copyright protection because their product targets consumers? How does that make any sense?

I say they shouldn't receive copyright protection because consumers dont enjoy equal representation in Congressional copyright hearings, such as those for DMCA or the numerous copyright extensions. We simply cannot afford to pay for congressmen to vote for our interests the way the movie, music, and publishing industries can.

And the compromise you're looking for is... that artists receive nothing? What justifies wholesale piracy of their hard work?

Re: Stream PirateBay movies directly from CLI

#184
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, I'm not sure that most software developers care much if a student, for example, downloads software and tinkers with it for personal use 'breaking copyright'. In fact many large software companies encourage piracy so that when these kids grow up to work at a company, they'll demand the tools they know already from past piracy. There's a huge difference between making money off a business model which is b…

There is no business usecase for movies and music (with some small exceptions for ads, but nothing like enterprise software). So, by your criteria, they just shouldn't receive copyright protection because their product targets consumers? How does that make any sense?

Have you ever listened to the radio, gone to a theater, been to a nightclub or music venue, watched a movie on television? Of course there is a business use case for movies and music. A theater or TV station could pirate movies and show them for profit. A nightclub or DJ service or radio station that plays songs is running a business based on that music.

You asked "how would you feel if someone violated the GPL". My answer is that well the GPL can't be violated for personal use so it's not relevant at ALL to this discussion. Another software license? Most SW devs would say "if it's for personal use, who cares?" If software and music/movies are so fundamentally different w.r.t. piracy as you claim (since nobody can have a business based on music or movies? What?), you should have no trouble understanding why it's absurd to try to compare them in order to convince people piracy is bad.

And I never said we should remove copyright for anyone in particular (though perhaps we should remove it altogether -- piracy has a few minimal negative effects, many positive ones, I'm not convinced the cure isn't worse than the disease).

I'm explaining why your analogy is misguided and rhetorically ineffective.

Re: Stream PirateBay movies directly from CLI

#185

For a news site frequented by software engineers, many of whom receive six figure salaries related to the creation and sale of software, this feels in very bad taste. Movie staff and music artists deserve to have their copyright respected. If you don't like it, just don't watch/listen. It's plainly simple.

If I was still writing desktop software, I would have no problem with my software being pirated. I'd make it difficult enough for it not be worth the effort for anyone who can afford it, but I know that there's plenty of others who might not be able to afford my software, who are willing to spend the time instead cracking the software. Some kid out there might be building a future career on cracked versions of my sof…

Although it's nice to hear that you would be ok with the reciprocal in this case, you can't make that decision for everyone. Personally, if I sold consumer desktop software, I'd be disappointed in people who chose to pirate.

Buying movies and music electronically now is far easier than it has ever been. I don't think that's really a valid excuse, but even still, you'd be blaming the industry for a crime you're committing against it. How is that just?

Re: Stream PirateBay movies directly from CLI

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes, we've paid for a movie or TV show and the delivery mechanism is shit. I have absolutely watched content off TPB that I have paid for multiple copies of.

That's a rationalization. You're also supporting others violating copyright when you do this. It's wrong and I think you know that.

Nonsense. If that were true, why am I not also torrenting ebooks, music and video games? Those are all things that I used to torrent, but stopped torrenting when the official delivery mechanisms got good enough for my use cases.

Re: Stream PirateBay movies directly from CLI

#187
post #85

Hundreds of thousands of ordinary people worldwide have had their lives destroyed by this. For enjoying art. The War on the fans is immoral, hateful and wasteful. Those who enact it have stolen more from artists than anyone.

"For enjoying art?" Enjoying art is not why they've been fined, pirating it is. There's a meaningful distinction there. You're not entitled to anyone's work, and it's not a necessary part of being a functional and happy human being.

Shared culture is what society is.

My argument is there is no need for any of this - it is a legal error.

Simply legislate a compulsory license, media and device taxes already exist. Distribution agencies - already in place for radio and libraries.

The correct test for disruptive technology is substantial non-infringing use.

This war on fans is as unnecessary and ineffective as the drug war - calling it "bucaneering" doesn't make sharing immoral or dumb law effective.

Criminalising what everyone is doing and feels is natural and right is a fail - this is a vice law.

Sharing isn't evil.

Sharing the things you love, knowledge, song, jokes, tales is as old as time and what makes us human.

Re: Stream PirateBay movies directly from CLI

#188
post #65
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont see how this could be problematic. There is nothing illegal done here.

Reading these comments sounds like people think we're in China. Next we're going to be arresting people who make knives, because you know, people can use them for illegal activities.

Let's be honest: what percentage of people use this type of video streaming to watch content they have rights to watch and what percentage are using it watch content they don't have rights to watch?

My best guess is that a larger portion of people used Popcorn Time to watch copyrighted materials than people used their knives to injure or kill someone.

I agree that the tools isn't illegal but I think it's fair to be honest about it's most likely purpose.

Re: Stream PirateBay movies directly from CLI

#189
post #43
post #9

I'm deeply concerned about popularizing torrent streaming. A few leechers breaking "rarest-first" might not cause much harm. But if most leechers become streamers, torrents will lose their efficiency in distributing less-popular content. Transmission implemented a "streaming" feature once, that didn't actually stream. It just stopped fetching pieces "with the same rarity" randomly. They still got too much heat for ad…

Former LimeWire engineer here. I implemented randomized chunk selection for swarmed downloads in LimeWire. I think the proper swarmed streaming solution is to make the percentage chance of requesting the rarest chunk be a smooth function of the number of replicas of the rarest chunk. If the rarest chunk has only one source, the probability should be 1.0. If there are multiple chunks that are all the most rare, you pr…

> Former LimeWire engineer here

Wow that's an entity I haven't heard in a long time. It would be super interesting to hear more about the engineering behind the software, do you have any blogposts anywhere?

Re: Stream PirateBay movies directly from CLI

#190

For a news site frequented by software engineers, many of whom receive six figure salaries related to the creation and sale of software, this feels in very bad taste. Movie staff and music artists deserve to have their copyright respected. If you don't like it, just don't watch/listen. It's plainly simple.

If I was still writing desktop software, I would have no problem with my software being pirated. I'd make it difficult enough for it not be worth the effort for anyone who can afford it, but I know that there's plenty of others who might not be able to afford my software, who are willing to spend the time instead cracking the software. Some kid out there might be building a future career on cracked versions of my sof…

>They made it difficult to buy their products and a lot easier to pirate. And now they're the ones paying for it.

Historically, yes, but this has changed, hasn't it?

You can typically purchase or rent a major movie through a variety of streaming-capable channels and mediums. I just rented Room on Google play and streamed to my TV over the weekend. If I bought it, I could download it to my devices for offline viewing.

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