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The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

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Re: The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

#421

Post by scoggs »

jimmies wrote: post #62

I can't read the article because the website is down. But I have something to say about torrenting movies. Late last year, my old parents who don't speak English came to visit me for a couple of months in the US. I'm just a graduate student with a limited budget, and my mom is car sick so we couldn't go out every night. I didn't want them to waste time on Facebook after dinner until we went to bed, so I had to think…

Technology is really beautiful for reasons precisely like this and I'm really happy that there are real life cases and stories such as yours to underline and define the most positive side. It'll never be talked about nor trotted out in defense of allowing things like this to happen but I'd be willing to bet there are many more stories like yours than the demonized stories you'll hear lawyers tell to explain the "seedy underbelly" and "plight on humanity" that pirating and torrenting cause.

Re: The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

#422

Post by amaterasu »

cat199 wrote: post #404
FabHK wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a side effect, btw, you can't watch Netflix if you habitually use a VPN (as they block proxies).

> if you habitually use a VPN depends on the VPN... if you mean 'commercial vpn service', then probably yes. if you mean 'routing it through some other machine you own', 'your access to ' then probably no.. vpn != commercial vpn service

I was running my own Netflix VPN service (admittedly on a low cost VPS), and was blocked within a day when Netflix introduced their new policy.

Re: The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

#423

Post by realusername »

phil248 wrote: post #205
jimmies wrote: post #62

I can't read the article because the website is down. But I have something to say about torrenting movies. Late last year, my old parents who don't speak English came to visit me for a couple of months in the US. I'm just a graduate student with a limited budget, and my mom is car sick so we couldn't go out every night. I didn't want them to waste time on Facebook after dinner until we went to bed, so I had to think…

Torrenting for me has always been about convenience, not money. I recently wanted to watch a new show called A.P. Bio. It's free on NBC's website. But after struggling through one episode with lags and ads with no volume control, I gave up and just torrented the show. Until they master such exotic technologies as "streaming video" and "volume control" they're going to keep driving people to torrenting. Netflix figure…

On my case it's the same, I torrent shows I can watch for free on Amazon Prime because for some reason their DRM never plays properly.

Re: The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

#424

Post by NamTaf »

taneq wrote: post #392
brooot wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how Steam basically single handily defeated video game pirating. Newell himself is on record saying that piracy is an issue of not making something accessible enough, and he was obviously right. People will pay for convenience. We are no longer in the age of, "I want to watch/listen/play something, lets drive to the store". If the platform they use sucks, it will have the same problem. Last pirating site I wa…

Convenience, sure, but don't forget that games on Steam are often deeply discounted compared with off-the-shelf prices. PC games (at least in Australia) are often $60 - $90 on the shelves. Many of these games can be had on Steam for $20 or less, and sometimes for only a few dollars in a bundle or on sale.

Not so much at release. Big titles at release will match, more or less, their store counterparts in cost. The discrepency only appears after some time, when Steam pushes for discounts to older titles to maintain sales whereas the store simply just keeps the price at more or less the same level until it's dumped into a bargain bin.

This is part of why the grey market for keys has surged here - when Steam and the stores are both about the same amount for a new release, the only cheaper avenue is to exploit the real vs perceived forex difference, and (moreso) the fact that grey market key stores don't price in our consumer protection laws (and in turn, the buyer doesn't get any of those protections).

Re: The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

#425

Post by kqr »

adrusi wrote: post #243
phil248 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Torrenting for me has always been about convenience, not money. I recently wanted to watch a new show called A.P. Bio. It's free on NBC's website. But after struggling through one episode with lags and ads with no volume control, I gave up and just torrented the show. Until they master such exotic technologies as "streaming video" and "volume control" they're going to keep driving people to torrenting. Netflix figure…

I have a wireless audio configuration which introduces 200ms latency. This is usually unnoticeable because I watch almost all my video through mpv, which lets me set a 200ms delay on the video to compensate. I can't play Netflix titles through mpv, and as far as I've been able to tell, the Netflix player doesn't have an AV sync setting. My setup is idiosyncratic, and I wouldn't expect Netflix to build in every featur…

> My setup is idiosyncratic

No, it makes sense. You want to play videos in a video player. Until those services let you choose your video player, i will remain sceptic.

Re: The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

#426

Post by JimmyAustin »

MarkMc wrote: post #363
AlexandrB wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't that more socially useful than giving everyone the right to watch Snow White on YouTube for free? Why stop there. Wouldn't it be ever more socially useful to hire vandals to break windows and graffiti houses so the government can collect the taxes on the repairs. See also: war. Just because something generates economic activity, doesn't mean it's a net benefit to society.

OK let me drop 'socially useful' from the question: Is it better to (a) allow anyone to watch Snow White on YouTube for free; or (b) fund cancer research with a tax on Disney's sales of Snow White? With vandalism the costs clearly outweigh the benefits. With copyright extension it seems to me the benefits outweigh the costs.

The alternative of course is that someone could use the Snow White IP to create new media, in the same way that Sherlock Holmes has generated numerous films. Guy Ritchie's two Holmes movies have netted over $1B USD at the box office. That wouldn't have happened if the Doyle estate still held the copyright.

Not to mention the fact that the Snow White character itself was pulled from the public domain.

Re: The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

#427

Post by aetimmes »

XorNot wrote: post #312
wpietri wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just make your content available, easy to obtain and people will pay for it. It's that simple. No, that's just easy from a consumer perspective. But it's not simple at all from the business perspective. Making movies and TV is expensive and complicated. Getting them to break even means a lot of careful work to maximize revenue and profit from a variety of revenue streams. It means dealing with a lot of players that…

Except people would happily accept variable pricing for content provided it was centralised. Steam gets this so right - games change price all the time, go on sale etc. It's the same phenomenon you see with landlords - rental properties go unoccupied for huge periods of time because they believe they'll get a better deal just in the future - with media we've let absurd copyright durations do the same damn thing, and…

Valve have absolutely nailed the consumer-centric business model. Gabe Newell was the first person I heard the concept of "piracy is a service problem" from and they've turned it into their core competency.

However, centralization of the marketplace, even from a publisher standpoint, isn't a Good Thing. Steam's degree of control over the game publishing platform market is pretty pathological from the view of developers.

A better solution from the content creators' standpoint is a marketplace with competitors. In gaming, this doesn't really exist (maybe GoG/Humble?) but in streaming media delivery, it does (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video).

Re: The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

#429

Post by petre »

khedoros1 wrote: post #376
petre wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walt Disney was an actual person and one of the founders of what became The Walt Disney Company.

Yes? Companies are made up of people and have founders who are "actual people". He also acted as an artist in various positions within his company (producer, actor, director, writer, animator). On the whole, his copyrights were owned by the company, though. He died in 1966, and that has no bearing on when copyrights owned by the Walt Disney Company will expire. Who, specifically, is that 1928 copyright still encourag…

My point was that copyright is not going away after the holder dies if the IP is transferred to a company.

Re: The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

#430

Post by adrusi »

cat199 wrote: post #405
adrusi wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a wireless audio configuration which introduces 200ms latency. This is usually unnoticeable because I watch almost all my video through mpv, which lets me set a 200ms delay on the video to compensate. I can't play Netflix titles through mpv, and as far as I've been able to tell, the Netflix player doesn't have an AV sync setting. My setup is idiosyncratic, and I wouldn't expect Netflix to build in every featur…

should have bought a digital monster cable instead.. would have had just as much utility and impressive shinyness without the latency..

I think you might be joking. In case you're not, get back to me when they release a wireless digital monster cable.
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