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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

#211

Post by lovehashbrowns »

papln wrote: post #153
SilasX wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. But people complained just as loud when cable TV "made them pay for everything even though they only watch three channels".

All people want is everything for a tiny price. They are morally entitled to that, no?

Why are you presenting a straw man and making people seem entitled based on that straw man? That's not at all the issue and has never been. In the channel subscription days, people wanted to be able to select certain channels, like let's say Discovery Channel and History Channel, without having to pay $X base + $Y for the package that has both of those channels. In that case, you're also paying for channels you'll never watch, whereas you want to pay for select channels only. But cable companies never offered that option because they're using bundles to subsidize less popular channels.

Now we're back to the same issue. Previously, Netflix and maybe Hulu were the options. Still sorta bundling, but at least if you like X show and Y show, they might both be on Netflix and you can stay in one subscription. Now with every company making their own subscription, and forcing shows to be exclusive, you're having to subscribe to multiple services just to watch X and Y shows. Same problem as before.

Don't make it seem like people are entitled just because they want simplicity and choice.

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

#212

Post by kempbellt »

quineoa wrote: post #190
kempbellt wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may (or may not) have built my own Netflix competitor. It had more content than all of the major providers combined. Legal buffer: I will not say what the content was. It may have all been non-copyrighted cat videos ;) The service was available cross region. Stored videos in multiple resolutions for streamability in low-bandwidth situations. No DRM bs. It cost me under $400/month to run the whole service, and I cou…

I am curious to know about the infra / tech stack, if you're comfortable with sharing any information.

Sure.

As @diminoten mentions, legality is questionable here, so I do not recommend. If you do dabble, restrict access, and encrypt everything so that if you lose your keys, they only option is to destroy the stack and start over.

Cloud provider of your choice

Plex media server running on a high-throughput instance, with cloud storage mounted locally for reading. (Redundantly created in multiple regions depending on where the service is being accessed from)

A separate master instance responsible for downloading content from a private torrent site, with cloud storage mounted locally for writing.

Multiple on-demand background workers that are spun up when new content is available to be reformatted in various resolutions. They pull the original video from cloud storage, create various versions, and re-upload it to the cloud storage.

The largest cost is in data usage, and storage.

@diminoten Not sure what I did to "oversell" it. I used off-the-shelf tech components, and some cloud-enginuity from experience, to build a proof-of-concept competitor. I didn't build the entire interface from scratch, or write my own OS, if that's what it sounded like.

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

#213

Post by my_usernam3 »

LeoNatan25 wrote: post #192
dobleboble wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Convenience does not justify theft. You don't have an entitlement to consume specific content.

Sort your legal definitions. Copyright infringement is not theft.

"You wouldn't download a car"

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

#214

Post by greggyb »

x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #126
joshstrange wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can tell you I know a number of people who pay for Netflix/Amazon Prime/Apple TV+/Hulu/HBO/etc and then turn around and pirate the same content because watching it though Plex/other is simply a better experience. And frankly, I 100% understand where they are coming from: 1. What platform was I watching show X on? 2. Oh Platform X removed show Y? Well it's also on Platform Z but now I can't remember where I was in t…

The media industry is doing it's best to try to refragment itself as it had done during the heyday of cable. Whereby you had to have this package, that package and this addon, that addon to get the content library that you truly wanted. When the main competitors were only Hulu and Netflix, it was simple to sign u an dmove on with your life. Now, the content makers want to have their own streaming services (Disney), p…

Sad, yes, but unsurprising. In the heyday of cable, consumers in aggregate proved that they are more than willing to stomach complexity and fragmentation to have access to a wide range of video content.

Sure, many people complain about it, and nearly everyone wants the same thing for less money. But it's been proven that despite the complaints and cost, people are willing to pay.

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

#215

Post by LeoNatan25 »

diminoten wrote: post #202
LeoNatan25 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only reason you can listen to a concert outside of the venue is because there's no way to stop you that's also in any way proportionate to the crime. As is stopping people from pirating. Where there is will, there is a way. The promise of Netflix was that virtually all content (or at least a very large percentage of it) would be there, under one subscription, at optimal quality. And convenience. As years have g…

I agree, I don't think the individual pirates are ever going to be in any real trouble. HOWEVER, while it's impossible to find every person who improperly listened to a concert without paying for a ticket, it is not impossible to find every person who improperly obtained a video file for content they haven't paid for. Just something to keep in mind as we talk about this; you can actually find the people who did it, a…

I do also believe that a comprehensive intellectual property is necessary (not necessarily abolishing it), so I sleep soundly.

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

#216

Post by magduf »

jasonlotito wrote: post #54
maxsilver wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 You're right, it's not. And Netflix is fine with this. However, should you be able to share your Netflix username and password with everyone on the block?

>However, should you be able to share your Netflix username and password with everyone on the block?

Presumably, your Netflix subscription has limitations on how many people can simultaneously watch it. So, yes, you should be able to share it with everyone on the block. Why not? By doing so, you're potentially preventing yourself from using it during that time, for instance if it has a maximum of 4 simultaneous streams. Why should you not be able to use the maximum number? It's no different than having 4 copies of a book or Blu-Ray and lending them out to your neighbors: if they haven't all borrowed them, you still have at least one to view, but if they're all borrowed, you're unable to view them.

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

#217

Post by LinuxBender »

diminoten wrote: post #202
LeoNatan25 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only reason you can listen to a concert outside of the venue is because there's no way to stop you that's also in any way proportionate to the crime. As is stopping people from pirating. Where there is will, there is a way. The promise of Netflix was that virtually all content (or at least a very large percentage of it) would be there, under one subscription, at optimal quality. And convenience. As years have g…

I agree, I don't think the individual pirates are ever going to be in any real trouble. HOWEVER, while it's impossible to find every person who improperly listened to a concert without paying for a ticket, it is not impossible to find every person who improperly obtained a video file for content they haven't paid for. Just something to keep in mind as we talk about this; you can actually find the people who did it, a…

Out of curiosity, do people only torrent, or is usenet still a thing? For the longest time, usenet providers would not log read access, only writes.

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

#218

Post by LeoNatan25 »

thephyber wrote: post #210
shmerl wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could for years do something about it. I.e. start offering DRM-free video for sale. They never cared, so the conclusion is that they don't want to do anything proper about it, they will only spread the DRM paranoia.

To be fair, iTunes and Amazon do/did offer DRM-free for some music selections. I think blaming the distributors is misplacing the blame. The problem is that the distributors don't have the legal right to do that without contractual buy-in from content owners who fear that their golden goose will dry up if content is offered without DRM or if digital content can be kept and used in perpetuity by consumers.

Indeed, greedy and out of touch Hollywood execs are to blame. But as a consumer, we shouldn't really care.

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

#219

Post by thephyber »

magduf wrote: post #204
joshstrange wrote: post #20

> If none of those tactics work, pay-TV subscribers could someday be required to sign into their accounts using their thumbprints. This feels like an idea from some idiot corporate suit who said "Well there are fingerprint readers on phones, let's use that to lock down accounts" without understanding that your app just gets as "Yes" or a "No" when you ask the phone to scan a fingerprint. The apps themselves don't get…

>> The pay-TV industry is projected to lose $6.6 billion in revenue from password sharing and piracy this year, according to Parks Associates. By 2024, the number could grow to $9 billion, the research firm said. >BULLSHIT, we heard this SAME argument about piracy. Piracy/Account sharing DO NOT equal a 100% loss in sales. The software, music, and video industries have been posting enormous "losses" in the billions li…

I think I know the point you are making, but...

They use that number to put political pressure on the DoJ, FBI, and DHS to enforce their IP ownership claims. I get that 100% of their claimed loss would never be 100% of a potential revenue, but AFAIK there is no standard alternative way to calculate those "losses". From what I know, all companies use the same method when describing losses/damages due to hack/cyberattack.

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

#220

Post by basch »

moate wrote: post #159
basch wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix pricing was always temporary. Content owners werent ready to destroy their old business models, they temporarily rented licensing rights to Netflix while they figured out how they were going to handle shifts in consumption. It's almost the same thing as Uber prices being VC subsidized. And now Disney is following the same playbook, sell Disney+ at or below cost for a while until they can inflate MAU enough th…

>>We are also talking about a generation who is saying "I wont pay $7-$15 four times, thats too expensive" but while growing up, who's parents were paying $150/m to Comcast or DirecTV. Yea I'm part of the group of millenials killing everything. Here's my honest to god thoughts: I don't care if piracy is killing the industry, or if these people aren't able to keep operating. Let the whole thing burn to the ground. We'…

No comment on responsibility or culpability. But, "I want everything for $9 that used to cost $99" is an unreasonable expectation. People paying for cable and satellite are paying way more than the cost of even 5 of these unbundled services. And pay for tv still has commercials. These direct from content producer unbundled apps are still significantly cheaper than the old world. People's expectation of what content should cost seems to be shaped by "I want everything cable does but for the price of netflix." Thats not a delivery volume or price point that ever existed, anywhere.
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