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The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

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

#531

Post by MarkMc »

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #525
MarkMc wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The time limit on copyright seems to be just an inefficient form of taxation. If Disney keeps copyright of Snow White the government can tax Disney's extra profit to pay for cancer research. Isn't that more socially useful than giving everyone the right to watch Snow White on YouTube for free?

> pay for cancer research This is an appeal to emotion. It's not very honest to cherry pick a nice sounding example. How about taxes spent for wars and so on? > Isn't that more socially useful than giving everyone the right to watch Snow White on YouTube for free? The money that people saved by not paying disney do not disappear. They will be spent, perhaps on cancer research, or something else.

> This is an appeal to emotion. It's not very honest to cherry pick a nice sounding example. How about taxes spent for wars and so on?

In some countries petrol tax must be spent on building and maintaining roads. Similarly, can't we have an 'expired IP tax' which must be spent on cancer research?

> The money that people saved by not paying disney do not disappear. They will be spent, perhaps on cancer research, or something else.

Some people might decide to work less because they no longer need to pay for the movie. Hasn't the money 'disappeared' in this case?

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

#532

Post by sosborn »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #485
sosborn wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Financially they lost. They can’t sell advertising based on the number of people who pirate the show. Yeah, the advertisers made out (assuming you didn’t skip the ads) but the content producer did not.

This was their choice. They could have simply made it available for streaming during or after the show was broadcast, adverts and all. It isn't like most folks I know sit there and watch adverts on "regular" channels anyway. They can offer an ad-free service for a charge. When they don't offer such things on a fairly broad (global) scale, I don't see how they can be surprised when folks watch it illegally. And I seri…

I don’t really disagree with you, but my point was that the original assertion that they made out because the OP pirated the content is false.

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

#533

Post by xster »

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.

And you can also get redeem codes from secondary markets so there's always a way to get a deal.

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

#534

Post by explainplease »

MarkMc wrote: post #531
eeZah7Ux wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pay for cancer research This is an appeal to emotion. It's not very honest to cherry pick a nice sounding example. How about taxes spent for wars and so on? > Isn't that more socially useful than giving everyone the right to watch Snow White on YouTube for free? The money that people saved by not paying disney do not disappear. They will be spent, perhaps on cancer research, or something else.

> This is an appeal to emotion. It's not very honest to cherry pick a nice sounding example. How about taxes spent for wars and so on? In some countries petrol tax must be spent on building and maintaining roads. Similarly, can't we have an 'expired IP tax' which must be spent on cancer research? > The money that people saved by not paying disney do not disappear. They will be spent, perhaps on cancer research, or so…

> In some countries petrol tax must be spent on building and maintaining roads. Similarly, can't we have an 'expired IP tax' which must be spent on cancer research?

Are you trolling?

You're comparing a petrol tax used to maintain roads, to an "expired intellectual 'property'" tax which hypothetically would be used to fund a completely unrelated activity, one which cannot be argued with, because how could you be against cancer research, you heartless bastard? What about the children with leukemia? You monster!

I will therefore raise you a "let's put a cancer research tax on EVERYTHING! No disposable income until cancer is cured! You have to be in favor of it, or you are a cold, emotionless hater!" You can't disagree with me, because "no enemies to the left, no friends to the right."

Do you see how this goes? All I have to do is out-extreme your extremeness, and you can't disagree with me, because emotional appeals to child cancer research. It's an intellectually dishonest form of argument, so please, knock it off.

Seriously, do you not realize that you are proposing to give the government ownership of all expired copyrights? What part of "for limited times" and "public domain" do you not understand? You actually want the government to own everything in our culture?!

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

#535

Post by explainplease »

distances wrote: post #115
lostcolony wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally. Which is why it ends with the author's death. OH WAIT. But it's totally necessary; back before it existed no one ever made any money for their creative works, so with no incentive no one ever made anything creative before copyright law. OH WAIT.

This kind of rhetoric is quite tiresome, please don't.

This kind of complaint is quite tiresome. Please don't.

Seriously, I tire of this notion that discussion must be dry and boring. Holding discussion hostage to "don't say anything that might offend, police your tone, and say everything as plainly and factually as possible"-type rules allows intellectually dishonest participants to game the system, i.e. bullshit asymmetry. Clever use of rhetoric is an effective tool for highlighting disingenuous arguments. In this age of information overload, we need it.

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

#536

Post by leetcrew »

floatboth wrote: post #495
leetcrew wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

qbittorrent is the best out there for windows imo. my only complaint is that it seems to have no dpi awareness whatsoever.

Check out PicoTorrent. It's very very lightweight and simple. And DPI aware. https://github.com/picotorrent/picotorrent

that actually looks fantastic. thanks for the recommendation!

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

#538

Post by Maken »

ryandrake wrote: post #394
icebraining wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what is the profit for movie companies in narrowing down their own market. The movie company sold the rights to show that movie in the UK to some other company instead of Netflix, probably for more money than Netflix offered them. Also, you're paying a fixed monthly fee, and unless you're part of the small minority that travels a lot, you're not likely to drop Netflix over not being able to watch c…

Licensing a movie in such a way that it can be played in France but not Poland seems as ridiculous as licensing it such that it can be played in Pennsylvania but not Minnesota. When will this Stone Age practice go away?

When people in Poland earn as much as people in France, hence the local distributors can charge the same amount for a movie regardless of the country in which they are operating.

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

#539

Post by eeZah7Ux »

MarkMc wrote: post #531
eeZah7Ux wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pay for cancer research This is an appeal to emotion. It's not very honest to cherry pick a nice sounding example. How about taxes spent for wars and so on? > Isn't that more socially useful than giving everyone the right to watch Snow White on YouTube for free? The money that people saved by not paying disney do not disappear. They will be spent, perhaps on cancer research, or something else.

> This is an appeal to emotion. It's not very honest to cherry pick a nice sounding example. How about taxes spent for wars and so on? In some countries petrol tax must be spent on building and maintaining roads. Similarly, can't we have an 'expired IP tax' which must be spent on cancer research? > The money that people saved by not paying disney do not disappear. They will be spent, perhaps on cancer research, or so…

> Some people might decide to work less because they no longer need to pay for the movie. Hasn't the money 'disappeared' in this case?

No, you don't generate money out of thin air by working. It's a transfer from somebody else.

Besides, for many people working less is obviously valuable, otherwise you'd see a lot of people working 100 hours a week.

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

#540

Post by mason55 »

siimtalvik wrote: post #518
mason55 wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying it shouldn’t be legal? Or that the business practice doesn’t make sense? Let’s say you’re a French movie distributor. You know the French market, you know which movies will sell, you know how to market to French audiences. Because of this you can bid more on the rights to distribute movies in France than a global company that doesn’t have any specific knowledge about the French market (your return is l…

yes, it shouldn't be legal. EU single market and all that. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-17-4781_en.htm

The single market helps with physical media (e.g. DVDs) and the digital single market helps with electronic sell through (e.g. the Apple model where you buy a movie digitally and download it).

But there are still two big gaps

1. Even for physical or download to own media, you can still strike distribution exclusives and you can make them based on language. I can make a deal with a German distributor that they're the only ones that gets to distribute the German version of my movie. They can choose to delay the release of the German version for as long as they want. If you only speak German then you can't watch the movie even if the French, Italian, Spanish and Polish versions were released 6 months ago.

2. This really doesn't help with SVOD (e.g. Netflix-style) services. I can make exclusive deals with an SVOD provider in Germany and one in France. If the French provider decides they're going to hold back the release of the movie on their service then, sure, with the EU single digital market the German provider has to let you sign up, but now you're signing up for SVOD services all over the place.

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