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Hollywood studios say they’re quitting Netflix – the truth is more complicated

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Re: Hollywood studios say they’re quitting Netflix – the truth is more complicated

#41

Post by cabaalis »

Causality1 wrote: post #20
paulcole wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I the only one who doesn’t threaten piracy when I don’t get exactly what I want for the price I want? Is it really that unusual to not take things that you shouldn’t? I mean if Hulu doesn’t have a movie I want to watch I’ll just watch something else, I won’t go take it because I feel entitled.

It's not a threat, because I don't consider media piracy to be morally any different than "pirating" a recipe by printing it out, "pirating" a joke by retelling it, or "pirating" a book by lending it to a friend. It's not "taken" from anyone, it is replicated by someone who already has it and then given freely to me.

Have you ever created anything that you charge money for?

Re: Hollywood studios say they’re quitting Netflix – the truth is more complicated

#42

Post by StavrosK »

aplummer wrote: post #26
chx wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a Chromecast because it worked with Netflix and stupid cheap. It is convenient! Then comes Amazon Prime and says I need to buy another dongle to watch them. I am so not interested. Grow up, work together with Google, I can't care less whatever petty competition you are playing, your problem not mine. I will just pirate the things I wanted from Prime.

“This is inconvenient and expensive which gives me the unilateral right to steal your intellectual property”. It’s an interesting take, that you get to steal anything you like if it isn’t priced and sold how you want.

While I get the moral argument here, I'm going to go with the market signaling. Hollywood can get its shit together and make something that's convenient, or it can die. Either choice is fine by me, and I'll figure out how to integrate piracy in my moral framework later.

The future I want looks like what GoG is for games, or Bandcamp is for music.

Re: Hollywood studios say they’re quitting Netflix – the truth is more complicated

#43

Post by BLKNSLVR »

aplummer wrote: post #26
chx wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a Chromecast because it worked with Netflix and stupid cheap. It is convenient! Then comes Amazon Prime and says I need to buy another dongle to watch them. I am so not interested. Grow up, work together with Google, I can't care less whatever petty competition you are playing, your problem not mine. I will just pirate the things I wanted from Prime.

“This is inconvenient and expensive which gives me the unilateral right to steal your intellectual property”. It’s an interesting take, that you get to steal anything you like if it isn’t priced and sold how you want.

It's definitely interesting in that this is a great example of the "when elephant's fight it's the grass that gets trampled".

Amazon trying to battle Google results in chx's purchased hardware not being supported by Amazon's service despite the fact it's a very standard streaming device.

It by no means gives any rights to breaching intellectual property laws, but Amazon are making a commercial decision to leave out Chromecast support because they believe it'll make them more money overall, with the express knowledge that it could drive some potential customers to alternative methods, which includes breach of intellectual property laws ("piracy"). It's not like "piracy" isn't known to be a potential option when the likes of Amazon and Google and all the others make business decisions.

No, it's not a justification of illegality, but it's an understandable position to take as an offset.

Definitely interesting on both sides.

Re: Hollywood studios say they’re quitting Netflix – the truth is more complicated

#44

Post by tzs »

AnaniasAnanas wrote: post #18
paulcole wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I the only one who doesn’t threaten piracy when I don’t get exactly what I want for the price I want? Is it really that unusual to not take things that you shouldn’t? I mean if Hulu doesn’t have a movie I want to watch I’ll just watch something else, I won’t go take it because I feel entitled.

> I mean if Hulu doesn’t have a movie I want to watch I’ll just watch something else Would anyone loose anything if instead of something else you ended up pirating the movie that you wanted to watch?

Whoever would have gotten the royalties from watching that something else on Hula would not get that if instead he pirated the movie he originally wanted to watch.

This aspect is often overlooked when people analyze the impact of piracy. People just look at the sales of the seller of the pirated item, and so if it costs $X and $X is more than I am willing to spend, my pirating won't cost them a sale because there was no scenario in which I was going to buy, and so no harm was done to that seller.

But in the case of entertainment products, if piracy is not available I'm probably not going to simply forego entertainment. I'll instead look for something that is within my budget and entertain myself with that instead.

Re: Hollywood studios say they’re quitting Netflix – the truth is more complicated

#45

Post by monetus »

paulcole wrote: post #23
AnaniasAnanas wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean if Hulu doesn’t have a movie I want to watch I’ll just watch something else Would anyone loose anything if instead of something else you ended up pirating the movie that you wanted to watch?

Yeah, I’d lose respect for myself. I don’t take things that aren’t mine.

I appreciate where you are coming from. Many people understand that, physically, 'pirating' is more akin to copying than taking though. ..And then there is an argument that increasing the availability of content increases the revenue of the producer in the long run. Some game developers and many musicians are even releasing official torrents of their content, assuring quality control. I'm curious how this would work out if bigger studios dabbled with it.

Re: Hollywood studios say they’re quitting Netflix – the truth is more complicated

#46

Post by chii »

dewey wrote: post #27
JamesBarney wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plex is a really easy way to stream video files from your computer to a chromecast, and I can use my phone as a remote. It works just as well as googe play and better than my current amazon workflow.(Which I can only play from the computer because they won't allow streaming to chromecast)

You are not accounting for the important part of sourcing the pirated movies and running a Plex server though? That's what 99% of the people who only want to consume will be struggling with, not the playback client.

popcorntime still exists and works very well. No need to be running your own server.

Re: Hollywood studios say they’re quitting Netflix – the truth is more complicated

#47

Post by 14 »

40acres wrote: post #22

I don't think piracy will come back as streaming becomes more segregated, people generally will go with the legitimate market over illegal means as long as the fiction is under a certain level. Most Americans would rather pay an extra $15 a month for streaming that to pirate content and go through the "hassle" of getting that pirated content on their TV. How many non-tech people do you know who can mirror a PC or lap…

My old dad would rather pirate then pay any amount of money and still have commercials shoved down his throat. He feels it is double dipping so to speak. Plus pirates get 4K streams vs Netflix which serves you quality based on what you pay. I feel the hassle was fixed a long time ago. It’s pretty much point and click these days.

Re: Hollywood studios say they’re quitting Netflix – the truth is more complicated

#48

Post by voidwtf »

dewey wrote: post #39
rusticpotato wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Multiply that by about 10 subscription services each? Each at 7-11$ a month. I see a supernova

Didn't people also spent large amounts on one cable provider with different packages? Now it's just a bunch of different providers essentially.

The problem is that now they want us to have a cable subscription to watch all our normal shows and a network specific subscription to watch our favorite shows. Look at what they’ve done with Star Trek as an example.

They’re going hard on the content gating and distribution channel diffusion. Literally to the point where Plex+Radarr/Sonarr has become the go to for content I’m already paying for through my cable/Netflix/Prime/HBO subscription.

Plex works on all my devices no matter where I am. Netflix doesn’t even do that anymore. Not to mention their latest B.S. of making un-skippable commercials so prevalent on these pay services.

I’d be fine paying for every channel I watch individually if they’d stop creating their own little fiefdoms of varying viewing experiences each of which is designed to turn the profit screws a little further. Plex puts it all in one place on all my devices and doesn’t fuck me with a commercial every time I rewind 30 seconds to see something I just missed.

Re: Hollywood studios say they’re quitting Netflix – the truth is more complicated

#49

Post by syrrim »

40acres wrote: post #22

I don't think piracy will come back as streaming becomes more segregated, people generally will go with the legitimate market over illegal means as long as the fiction is under a certain level. Most Americans would rather pay an extra $15 a month for streaming that to pirate content and go through the "hassle" of getting that pirated content on their TV. How many non-tech people do you know who can mirror a PC or lap…

Cable costs ~$60 per month. If the majority of people switch from cable to streaming, we can expect it to reach a similar price (because people have demonstrated that they are willing to pay that much and because existing hierarchies are set up to consume that much money). If a person isn't paying full price, it will be because they cannot access to every show. In either case, it will be more desirable than you are presenting for then to seek pirated content.

Systems already exist to easily mirror between computers and tvs. I once installed an app called "popcorn time". This had a small button in the corner that I clicked on to find out what it did. All of a sudden, the movie was playing on my television through my blu-ray player. If I can do this on accident, a healthy portion of the less tech-inclined can do it on purpose.

Re: Hollywood studios say they’re quitting Netflix – the truth is more complicated

#50

Post by petre »

StavrosK wrote: post #42
aplummer wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“This is inconvenient and expensive which gives me the unilateral right to steal your intellectual property”. It’s an interesting take, that you get to steal anything you like if it isn’t priced and sold how you want.

While I get the moral argument here, I'm going to go with the market signaling. Hollywood can get its shit together and make something that's convenient, or it can die. Either choice is fine by me, and I'll figure out how to integrate piracy in my moral framework later. The future I want looks like what GoG is for games, or Bandcamp is for music.

I would rather it dies, then all the sexual harassement scandals it created can go away with it. Dinosaurs are dead. It's called evolution.
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