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Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

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Re: Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

#61

Post by DanBC »

maxsilver wrote: post #26
criley2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entitlement people feel to steal is always surprising. Especially on this board. I understand a lot of reddit is younger and irresponsible so piracy-as-the-norm is a popular trope, but among the engineers whose livelihoods depend on subscription models, we still promote service theft without so much as a hint of shame? If the economics of a service don't make sense to you, then do not subscribe. But to turn aroun…

> The entitlement people feel to steal is always surprising. It's not stealing when you already paid in full . Sharing my Netflix password with my wife and/or child is not stealing , I paid in full for that account, and have now for many many years. My Plex server is full of DVDs and BluRays I paid full retail price for (that's $20 to $30 USD each), it's not stealing to use it, and it's not stealing to let some frien…

You're ignoring the history.

Disney for years resisted selling films on videos because they had no way of controlling how many people would be in the room watching the content. And they investigated single-use tapes (these had a latch that prevented rewinding, you'd have to send the tape back to the factory to be re-wound) and 24 hour DVDs (these would be sealed in an oxygen free case and would start oxidising on contact with air).

This short time we've had of "owning content" has been an anomaly and it's something they've wanted to stop as soon as possible.

> My Plex server is full of DVDs and BluRays I paid full retail price for (that's $20 to $30 USD each), it's not stealing to use it,

Format-shifting is not legal in all places. It's currently not legal in the UK. And if it requires circumvention of technical measures (which ripping DVDs and BluRays does) it's probably not legal because of DMCA.

If you want to change the law you're going to need a better argument than "I bought it", because you haven't bought it, you've licensed it, and they control the licences.

Re: Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

#62

Post by dfxm12 »

“If you ask any cohort of young people if they will ever pay for Netflix or video services, the answer is unequivocally no,” said Mike McCormack, an analyst at Guggenheim Securities.

Ah, yes, "young people" are the problem here. No one born before the 90s has ever stolen cable...

Growing up, tons of families had chipped cable boxes in my neighborhood (including cops & judges). My dad calls me once a week to ask how to stream this or that for free.

What a joke.

Re: Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

#63

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

Dobbs wrote: post #4

For the love of all that is holy let us split our netflix account out! My user is on my brothers account from when we lived together a long time ago. Every year I check to see if there is a way to split the user out. Every year I remain disappointed and continue on using the same account.

Is there some sort of data you require from your user? I guess there's a preferences algorithm you may have cultivated, but that's really it. Unless you really care about having handcrafted the Netflix algorithm, it kind of feels like that's just an excuse.

Re: Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

#64

Post by ajna91 »

criley2 wrote: post #12
magashna wrote: post #9

> “I feel like I’m beating my head against the wall,” Tom Rutledge, the chief executive officer of Charter Communications Inc., said during an earnings call last month. “It’s just too easy to get the product without paying for it.” Boo hoo. All these companies thinking they can split all their content up and get people to pay for every single service are in for a (totally expected) surprise. I'll share my plex server…

The entitlement people feel to steal is always surprising. Especially on this board. I understand a lot of reddit is younger and irresponsible so piracy-as-the-norm is a popular trope, but among the engineers whose livelihoods depend on subscription models, we still promote service theft without so much as a hint of shame? If the economics of a service don't make sense to you, then do not subscribe. But to turn aroun…

"Glib talk of ‘intellectual property rights’, then, concedes polemical ground to the monopoly rent-extractor by granting a certain perceived virtue to those who hold licences and rights. The rest of us are merely greedy and grasping grubbers for someone else’s property. But in so conceiving the domain of ‘intellectual property rights’, the notions of borrowing, reuse, reworking, remixing and constructive enhancement – all of which are needed for culture and science and art to grow – are lost in the semantic mire created by ‘property’. Things that are owned in the exclusionary way that the indiscriminate use of ‘intellectual property’ suggests cannot sustain art and science and culture."

- https://aeon.co/essays/the-idea-of-intellectual-property-is-...

Re: Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

#67

Post by tracker1 »

rayiner wrote: post #22
magashna wrote: post #9

> “I feel like I’m beating my head against the wall,” Tom Rutledge, the chief executive officer of Charter Communications Inc., said during an earnings call last month. “It’s just too easy to get the product without paying for it.” Boo hoo. All these companies thinking they can split all their content up and get people to pay for every single service are in for a (totally expected) surprise. I'll share my plex server…

Why do you feel entitled to get the product of other peoples work for free?

Who says we want it free... There's only so many $8-15 services you can get before it's just too painful to use.

I have Hulu+live, Prime, Netflix mainly. I've tried CBS all access and DCU. The later two are the same company.

CBS is a pain in a few ways and not worth it in others. Most of it is on Hulu live TV. The fact that DCU is missing so much content it isn't worth it either.

Disney+ is in for a shock too. Unless they have all of their back catalog and their new content is really compelling, I probably won't choose it over Netflix.

In the end, I'm left feeling like CBS is trying to sell be several of what should be a single service. And the rest are getting to be too split.

Netflix was the first good option... Hulu was the media industry's response. That was plenty. HBO and others wanted in, and now it's just too segmented.

As for comments in not wanting bundles. If the pricing were competitive and you could as a la carte in the interface of your choice, sure. Even then, offer bundle options.

As it is, having content strewn across a dozen apps, and finding a media device that supports then is downright painful in practice.

My advice to Disney is to also offer their content as a Hulu and Prime addon like HBO and Starz.

Hulu and Prime aren't going anywhere, but the rest, I'd rather just pirate at this point.

Re: Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

#68

Post by koolba »

ghaff wrote: post #33
koolba wrote: post #5

> But taking more aggressive measures poses risks. The people using services for free — especially younger consumers — may never agree to sign up for a subscription, no matter how many hassles they endure. That means companies would mostly just be alienating paying customers, who could get frustrated and stop using an app or cancel their service. In other words, there’s plenty of downside and possibly little upside.…

>I’m also surprised they haven’t cracked down on the source IP addresses. It’d be trivial to look at the net bandwidth and see that the usage is at a totally different physical address (and not just a mobile phone). I regularly use these services when I'm traveling. If any of them start restricting me to my home IP (which isn't static anyway) or otherwise start making it harder for me to use their service, I'll be dr…

I’m referring to massive consistent usage from the same IP. Most residential IP addresses are dynamic but remain fixed for weeks or months at a time. It’d be easy to see that the same IP not associated with the actual customer account has streamed every day for the past month.

Hell I bet they could go a step further and identify the exact person as well! There’s so little competition that it’s likely the account holder and sharer are on the same ISP (ex: you both have Comcast). They would know the name and account on the sharer’s source IP and, more importantly, that it’s not the original account owner.

Re: Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

#69

Post by GoblinSlayer »

criley2 wrote: post #12
magashna wrote: post #9

> “I feel like I’m beating my head against the wall,” Tom Rutledge, the chief executive officer of Charter Communications Inc., said during an earnings call last month. “It’s just too easy to get the product without paying for it.” Boo hoo. All these companies thinking they can split all their content up and get people to pay for every single service are in for a (totally expected) surprise. I'll share my plex server…

The entitlement people feel to steal is always surprising. Especially on this board. I understand a lot of reddit is younger and irresponsible so piracy-as-the-norm is a popular trope, but among the engineers whose livelihoods depend on subscription models, we still promote service theft without so much as a hint of shame? If the economics of a service don't make sense to you, then do not subscribe. But to turn aroun…

Business is inherently competitive, you can't ask others to be nice, capitalism simply doesn't work that way.

Re: Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

#70

Post by zelly »

maxsilver wrote: post #26
criley2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entitlement people feel to steal is always surprising. Especially on this board. I understand a lot of reddit is younger and irresponsible so piracy-as-the-norm is a popular trope, but among the engineers whose livelihoods depend on subscription models, we still promote service theft without so much as a hint of shame? If the economics of a service don't make sense to you, then do not subscribe. But to turn aroun…

> The entitlement people feel to steal is always surprising. It's not stealing when you already paid in full . Sharing my Netflix password with my wife and/or child is not stealing , I paid in full for that account, and have now for many many years. My Plex server is full of DVDs and BluRays I paid full retail price for (that's $20 to $30 USD each), it's not stealing to use it, and it's not stealing to let some frien…

> Sharing my Netflix password with my wife and/or child is not stealing, I paid in full for that account, and have now for many many years.

I am inclined to agree with HBO, Netflix, et al. that this is stealing. You are using their computing resources against the terms you agreed to.

However torrenting is good and not stealing. You are using your own bandwidth.

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