Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by WhiskeyJack55 » Fri, Nov 08, 2019, 10:19 PM UTC

kempbellt wrote: post #176

LeoNatan25 wrote: post #131

No worries, I'll just use the torrent sharers. I bet those will give me a constant 4K quality on all my devices, no ridiculous DRM, get to keep them once I terminate my "subscription", etc. Oh and it's free, not 10-15$ USD for each service.

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 use the free version of plex. Only pain in the ass is having to pay the ~$5 to authorize for a new android device to use the app.

It does everything I need to watch my...personal home videos.

I'm sure I could use a completely FOSS setup, but plex is convenient especially paired with...other services.

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

#232

Post by LeoNatan25 » Fri, Nov 08, 2019, 10:21 PM UTC

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…

> If the economics of a service don't make sense to you, then do not subscribe.

That’s exactly what I’m doing. What does it matter exactly if I pirate or not? The money would not reach “engineers” and “artists” either way.

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

#233

Post by LeoNatan25 » Fri, Nov 08, 2019, 10:23 PM UTC

basch wrote: post #228

criddell wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't the analogy be that you lend them your service credentials and don't use it until they are done with it?

Rehosting and serving that file is costing the streaming company electricity, bandwidth, cpu etc. Your agreement with them is that you can press pay an unlimited number of times in a month, but they didnt agree to serve that file to other people in other households. It's not quite the same as lending someone a disc, because in this case you agreed to terms of service that specifically address sharing.

Going by that logic, if I watch a movie twice or more, I should be charged more? What is the difference, “electricity” and “bandwidth” wise if I watch twice, or me and my coworker watch once?

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

#234

Post by dmitrygr » Fri, Nov 08, 2019, 10:25 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #61

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…

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 con…

googling around i cannot find any info on this single-use tape story. do you have a link?

I did find the dvd one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexplay

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

#235

Post by michaelmrose » Fri, Nov 08, 2019, 10:26 PM UTC

kempbellt wrote: post #176

LeoNatan25 wrote: post #131

No worries, I'll just use the torrent sharers. I bet those will give me a constant 4K quality on all my devices, no ridiculous DRM, get to keep them once I terminate my "subscription", etc. Oh and it's free, not 10-15$ USD for each service.

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…

It's not even a copyright violation it's at best a violation of tos.

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

#236

Post by bscphil » Fri, Nov 08, 2019, 10:26 PM UTC

mrtksn wrote: post #135

option wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

plus I don’t have to sign up on yet another service for just one film/show. I am 100% in for paying for the films/shows. Just give me a convenient cross-platform option to do so without any BS

can't you just subscribe to all of them and use Apple TV or some Smart TV for the seamless experience?

No, I literally can't. I keep track of all the movies I'm interesting in watching in a list on IMDB. Checking right now (IMDB has this feature built in), it seems only about ~5% of them are on Amazon Prime. Assume I'm lucky enough that there's no overlap in the catalogues and subscribing to Netflix will get me another 5%, Disney+ another 5%, and let's say subscribing to the other services will get me 10% on top of that (they're smaller, but there are more of them ... this is just a guess). That means ... 75% of the movies I might want to watch any given night are simply not available through my streaming subscriptions. That's pretty bad, given how much money I'd be spending on all these.

You might claim I could still do this legally, by renting the other films I want to watch at $3-4 a pop on the same apps (e.g. Amazon video). But no, that won't work either. IMDB tells me that less than half of the movies I want to watch are available to rent from Amazon at all, even if I could afford the thousands of dollars it would cost to rent them all. And since catalogue overlap for rentals is nearly 100%, I have little hope that I'll be able to find any significant portion of the remainder somewhere else.

Even if e.g. Netflix somehow magically had every film I want to watch, it would still be a miserable experience, because since they don't like my browser / OS / hardware combination, I'm limited to 720p streams at 3000 kbps. That's noticeably bad compared to a Bluray.

Not everyone's film interests can be satisfied with the top five Disney films from each of the last 10 years. What piracy means is the ability to watch anything you want near-instantly for free in the highest quality it was ever released in, if not higher (pirates not-infrequently correct mistakes made on commercially mastered Blurays). And even some popular stuff (like the original non-special-edition Star Wars trilogy) isn't available at all, you'd have to pirate it.

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

#237

Post by LeoNatan25 » Fri, Nov 08, 2019, 10:28 PM UTC

kempbellt wrote: post #226

diminoten wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You couldn't be more wrong. You do not have an entitlement to intellectual property, our entire society is built on top of that concept. It's more like you're saying you get to use any logos you want because you can download the images for them on their website. 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. Edi…

Eh, we're in legalese grey area here. "Entitlement" is a loaded word. Personally, I believe that if I am walking down the street and someone is playing The Avengers on a screen, I'm very much entitled to stick around and watch the movie. The internet, to me, is the same thing as walking down that street - public space. Feel free to disagree though - the CCP does. Not to get into politics, but it's fundamentally simil…

Here’s the logical continuation of your analogy:

If the movie is showing in the park for free, you can stick around and stand to watch it, but if there was a better service at a reasonable cost, you could go home and watch it there more comfortably.

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

#238

Post by kevin_thibedeau » Fri, Nov 08, 2019, 10:29 PM UTC

LeoNatan25 wrote: post #203

steveeq1 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://torrentfreak.com/images/piracy-is-not-theft.png

You should post the full image: https://i.imgur.com/FPoJnH3.png ;-) Arr matey BTW—I never thought that I would still find use of these things from early 2000s. Going into the 2010s, it looked so promising. But they couldn't have a good thing going.

Copyright infringement doesn't change whether you charge for the copies or not. No authorization === infringement. Fair use privileges never let you reproduce and distribute an entire work for casual consumption.

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

#239

Post by walrus01 » Fri, Nov 08, 2019, 10:31 PM UTC

BubRoss wrote: post #230

walrus01 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everybody is in DMCA jurisdiction. Maximum liability in Canada is something like $5000, which makes it uneconomical for a copyright owner to actually send a lawyer to court to litigate against a person who wants to defend themselves.

I'm not sure what you are saying, no one implied everyone was in the reach of HBO. The parent was saying HBO was going to go after torrenters in the future, but they have been doing it for years.

I guess what I'm saying is that inevitably in these sorts of discussions, about legal repercussions, the assumption is that the torrenters are physically located in the US 50 states.

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

#240

Post by lukifer » Fri, Nov 08, 2019, 10:34 PM UTC

seph-reed wrote: post #225

magduf wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Legal buffer: I will not say what the content was. It may have all been non-copyrighted cat videos ;) Cat videos are far more enjoyable to watch than the dreck that Hollywood is putting out these days.

I don't know how pervasive the act of trying to fit into rules for a Chinese audience is, but the fact that all of cape-movies are made to fit in gave me some tangible reason to say why I find them so empty and lame (and you should to!). It's also really strange given how much the opposite web content is becoming. With patreon, we're starting to get some seriously fringe content, and the streaming services don't seem…

I don't think it's just the "rules" for a Chinese audience (though that doesn't help); I think it's the economics of making movies primarily for a global audience, rather than a particular language, culture, or even sub-culture. This was an "aha" moment in realizing why so many movies over the last decade contain seemingly lazy, blunt dialogue, lacking subtlety or subtext: the meaning needs to come across clearly in subtitles and dubs, divorced from English idioms, cultural context, and intonation.