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Scene bust triggered historic drop in ‘pirate’ releases

torrentfreak.com

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Re: Scene bust triggered historic drop in ‘pirate’ releases

#41
post #27

It's much easier to pirate the content and have a single source of media than trying to figure out which pay service a show/movie is available on. 'Piracy' of tv/movies won't go away until that problem is solved.

I think that problem has been solved for the most part. https://reelgood.com/ and other services are excellent for it. To me, the real issue is finding movies/tv shows where you cannot buy or rent them. Amazingly, it is still an issue in this world. I would love to see The Bob Mathias Story from 1954. It was created by Allied Artists that has been bought and sold a few times ending up at ViacomCBS. Through many weeks…

> I think that problem has been solved for the most part. > >https://reelgood.com/

I get: "Heads up! Reelgood does not support your region yet."

Re: Scene bust triggered historic drop in ‘pirate’ releases

#43
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too avoid calling it piracy. Instead I call it "taking something you know you're not supposed to take." Edit: Really love these downvotes. Shows that people who engage in this act would rather have it called piracy because it's easier to brush off than having to look in the mirror and admit they're obviously doing something wrong. Sure they can mangle definitions of common words and perform incredible mental gymnas…

I don't understand how all the people here, who all want to be the next Bill Gates and make a ton of money selling software, services, or Juiceros, think it's "ok" to steal content. (The same content that they probably deny they watch because it's not hip enough.)

Thinking about your comment is bringing up a number of interesting threads of thought.

Bill Gates made a ton of money and wasn't necessarily following either law or moral guidelines to do so.

The success enjoyed by Bill Gates was hard earned. Success is a destination at the end of a journey that is too hard for a lot of people.

Bill Gates' software is some of the most pirated software ever.

Bill Gates is one of the richest people ever.

Can anyone become anywhere near that scale of rich without being morally or ethically bankrupt?

What crime 'piracy' in comparison to the business practices of the highly successful / profitable / rich?

I don't know the answer to those questions, and I don't pass judgement as it's subjective, but they're the places my mind went in relation to your comment.

Re: Scene bust triggered historic drop in ‘pirate’ releases

#44

It's much easier to pirate the content and have a single source of media than trying to figure out which pay service a show/movie is available on. 'Piracy' of tv/movies won't go away until that problem is solved.

If cost wasn't an issue, I don't think that's really true. My friend uses sonarr + usenet and its not as easy as amazon/google/itunes/redbox/fandago rentals or purchases on a roku.

[deleted]

Re: Scene bust triggered historic drop in ‘pirate’ releases

#45
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cost isn't an issue for me (I pay for a bunch of these services already) - I much prefer the alternative where I can open up Plex and find everything I want there in one place. Shows shift from service to service as licenses expire, etc...it's a huge pain in the ass as a consumer.

Apple TV is actually pretty good for that. You voice search for a title and it tells you which apps provide that title.

But for me, there's no guarantee that Apple TV will be around forever, or always be contracted to have the same content. With something like Plex, my library is always my library and I don't have to worry about content disappearing.

Re: Scene bust triggered historic drop in ‘pirate’ releases

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is this the right thing to do? Is this something you should be doing? People have said it better than me, but in short: Disney and friends have legally stolen public domain from all of us and erected a barrier between us and our human right to access to our culture. I therefore consider it my moral right to take back what should be mine - I may not have the means to buy the laws that would make it legal, but I have…

So you only pirate Disney?

Not the person you were responding to, but -

I don't really consume TV or movies.

I do listen to music, and lots of it. I have a YouTube Red subscription (or whatever Google has decided to rename it this week), mostly for supporting small creators on Youtube (when they don't have a Patreon / I don't watch enough of their stuff to fit them in on Patreon). So basically all music from major labels I listen to, I do through Youtube (or Youtube Music, when I remember to open the right app up). But that's a small fraction of my listening habits.

Mostly I like stuff from small, independent artists - a lot of which I've discovered through Youtube, and a lot of those Youtube videos were probably copyright infringement (unauthorized uploads). If I listen to something more than a few times, I buy it on Bandcamp- last month I spent over $100 on Bandcamp purchases.

For creators I really love, as mentioned earlier, I fund them directly on Patreon. This adds up to over another $100/month.

If I dropped the YouTube Red subscription - which is, due to their comically low revenue share, practically indistinguishable from piracy for artists in economic terms - I don't think I'd be in a meaningfully different position, ethically, if I chose to continue consuming music from major labels without a license.

On the other hand, if I stopped buying things on Bandcamp and instead listened to music from small artists through YouTube Red, I'd feel awful, and I'd consider that to be rather unethical, even though I'd have a license.

Re: Scene bust triggered historic drop in ‘pirate’ releases

#47

It's much easier to pirate the content and have a single source of media than trying to figure out which pay service a show/movie is available on. 'Piracy' of tv/movies won't go away until that problem is solved.

I'm not blaming you as you aren't the one to set them in the first place, but the goal posts keep moving! Two decades post-Napster we finally have what everyone wanted all along: an easy, cheap way to watch almost every movie without leaving the couch / listen to almost every song from almost any device. But now it's not good enough unless it's literally every piece of content from a single origin 0_0

I mentioned this elsewhere in the thread, but it's frustrating paying for a subscription to a streaming service when there's no guarantee the content - unless it's original content created by that service - will always be there.

We're seeing more and more content getting split up and requiring more and more separate subscriptions as time goes on.

Re: Scene bust triggered historic drop in ‘pirate’ releases

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you weren't going to buy it anyway, yes it's absolutely the right thing to do. Your utility increases, nobody elses decreases. Total utility increases therefore it is ethical.

As long as fairness has no utility for anyone.

Even if we could agree on what constitutes fairness wherein exactly lies the utility value of fairness?

Scenario A) 5000 people paid and enjoyed it

Scenario B) 4500 people paid and enjoyed it 50000 people enjoyed it without paying.

We can pretend that the percentage lost is equally taken from all people that participated in the production but it beggars belief to imagine bobby the grip got paid less because you pirated Indiana Jones. The reality is that the funds earned from the creative efforts aren't divided like friends sharing a Pizza gains and losses overwhelmingly hit the pockets of those whose interests in the matter are directorial or financial.

Ultimately creative work already enjoy such a ridiculously slanted treatment with insane punishments, public resources invested in policing, and terms that perfect enforcement would yield such a very small increase in utility for companies focused on creative work and much less for those actually engaged in it that it isn't worth the decrease in utility gained by more free distribution of creative works.

Fuck fairness if it results in a net negative utility for society I'm not interested in promoting a schoolyard notion of fairness at the expense of society.

Re: Scene bust triggered historic drop in ‘pirate’ releases

#49
post #26

It's much easier to pirate the content and have a single source of media than trying to figure out which pay service a show/movie is available on. 'Piracy' of tv/movies won't go away until that problem is solved.

Let's not kid ourselves, finding a torrent for a movie or looking up which service it streams on are both the same level of easy.[] The issue is you have to subscribe to all those different services, which is what most people are probably not willing to do. Now if a show or movie doesn't stream in your region or isn't otherwise easily online accessible, that's a different story. In that case it's on the industry to d…

More than once I’ve torrented a movie series because of hostile DRM. I used to play things on a Mac that was connected to a TV. DVDs wouldn’t play on an external screen. Actively preventing me from viewing the content caused me to just torrent it, then after a few occurrences I stopped buying or renting DVDs. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.macworld.com/article/311641...

Re: Scene bust triggered historic drop in ‘pirate’ releases

#50

It's much easier to pirate the content and have a single source of media than trying to figure out which pay service a show/movie is available on. 'Piracy' of tv/movies won't go away until that problem is solved.

I'm not blaming you as you aren't the one to set them in the first place, but the goal posts keep moving! Two decades post-Napster we finally have what everyone wanted all along: an easy, cheap way to watch almost every movie without leaving the couch / listen to almost every song from almost any device. But now it's not good enough unless it's literally every piece of content from a single origin 0_0

> but now it's not good enough unless it's literally every piece of content from a single origin

subscribing to 3 different streaming services has no benefit for the customer. there's no reason to pay for essentially the same thing 3 times just because some studios decided to have fun with movie rights

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