UK national extradited to US for film/TV piracy • Hacker News Board

Re: UK national extradited to US for film/TV piracy

#101

Post by chokeartist » Thu, Sep 02, 2021, 2:33 AM UTC

ssklash wrote: post #12

It is insane to me that someone can get up to 5 years or more for using one of the fundamental mechanisms of digital technology. If you put out a product on a medium whose design is fundamentally based on copying bits , I don't know how you can expect anything else to happen. Instead of accepting the reality of digital communications, the MPAA, RIAA, and the like lobby to have the law protect their outdated but favor…

Like, does anyone buy your bullshit? For real. I torrented the shit out of movies back in the day, but I clearly know I was stealing shit.

You can jack off to infinity with regard to the wording ("stealing") - but the reality is I knew I was getting something I didn't pay for. Dancing around the obvious is intellectually insulting.

Grow the fuck up.

Re: UK national extradited to US for film/TV piracy

#102

Post by esyir » Thu, Sep 02, 2021, 2:33 AM UTC

foota wrote: post #15

rebelos wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not hard to see how piracy threatens the entire business model. You can have rampant piracy or you can have financially sustainable content production. You cannot have both. There is some critical mass of piracy that would in fact destroy the economics of the content production model. The industry has to work to deter that by periodically making examples of people. The timing is likely not coincidental either. E…

In fairness, crowd funding and or altruistic consumers could theoretically sustain content production.

The current state of oss would be a counterpoint to this. That maintainers are often poorly supported implies what I suspect we're all trying not to acknowledge.

Re: UK national extradited to US for film/TV piracy

#103

Post by pidminusone » Thu, Sep 02, 2021, 2:37 AM UTC

ssklash wrote: post #12

It is insane to me that someone can get up to 5 years or more for using one of the fundamental mechanisms of digital technology. If you put out a product on a medium whose design is fundamentally based on copying bits , I don't know how you can expect anything else to happen. Instead of accepting the reality of digital communications, the MPAA, RIAA, and the like lobby to have the law protect their outdated but favor…

Companies after selling your data to 3rd parties: "We just allowed bits to be copied lol".

Re: UK national extradited to US for film/TV piracy

#104

Post by toast0 » Thu, Sep 02, 2021, 2:40 AM UTC

ndesaulniers wrote: post #98

loxias wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember that narrow window of time when Netflix had All The TV and was the only streaming platform, which you could access for a low monthly fee? I've always thought and argued that while money might be part of the motivation for digital piracy, ease of access and user experience is also a large component. 10 bucks a month to stream anything, without commercials, was great! For those few years I didn't download anyt…

> Remember that narrow window of time when Netflix had All The TV and was the only streaming platform, which you could access for a low monthly fee? Pepperidge Farm remembers. I have all the streaming services, and yet now I find that most of what I want to watch is not licensed to any service! I'm constantly using justwatch.com and yet still many famous movies aren't being licensed by any of the services I have (at…

I have a heck of a time finding the content I want to watch on (paid) streaming services. I, like Pepperidge Farm, remember when Netflix had tons of stuff I wanted to watch, but now I can only find it on janky free channels that can't even figure out how to slot ads into spots where ads should go. To be fair, some of the low tier broadcast subchannels haven't figured that out either. But if I'm going to watch ad supported tv, would it kill people to not cut to ads 15 seconds before the break, then show that 15 seconds and then the stunning conclusion which sometimes has a bit of a recap? Also, I don't know why switching from programming to ads needs to retrigger HDCP negotiation, and it seems like the ads have stricter settings, because I'm more likely to get a fail screen when it goes to ads than when it goes to content.

I just want to watch 80s action garbage like the A-Team, Knight Rider, and MacGyver. I'd pay $5/month for an 80s service, I already got suckered into Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon; something that has the low class stuff I want would be an easy sell.

Edit: fixed spelling of MacGyver

Re: UK national extradited to US for film/TV piracy

#105

Post by hattar » Thu, Sep 02, 2021, 2:41 AM UTC

pidminusone wrote: post #103

ssklash wrote: post #12

It is insane to me that someone can get up to 5 years or more for using one of the fundamental mechanisms of digital technology. If you put out a product on a medium whose design is fundamentally based on copying bits , I don't know how you can expect anything else to happen. Instead of accepting the reality of digital communications, the MPAA, RIAA, and the like lobby to have the law protect their outdated but favor…

Companies after selling your data to 3rd parties: "We just allowed bits to be copied lol".

Yes, this is pretty much what they do.

Re: UK national extradited to US for film/TV piracy

#106

Post by pidminusone » Thu, Sep 02, 2021, 2:50 AM UTC

hattar wrote: post #105

pidminusone wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies after selling your data to 3rd parties: "We just allowed bits to be copied lol".

Yes, this is pretty much what they do.

Sure. I'm just noting that owning data is not an absurd idea, as OP implies.

Another case that comes to mind: spreading child porn should be punishable. Imagine if pedophiles could claim they were "just copying bytes".

I guess what I want to say is: there are valid reasons to be against IP. I don't like IP and I would like IP laws to be seriously revamped. But "bytes are meant to be free" is just a naive argument, as copying bytes can clearly be harmful to others in ways most societies consider criminal.

Re: UK national extradited to US for film/TV piracy

#107

Post by ABeeSea » Thu, Sep 02, 2021, 2:59 AM UTC

foerbert wrote: post #97

crazygringo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What business model would you suggest, that is capable of financing the TV and films we like to watch? I'm not aware of anything that works in practice, except for legally enforced copyright for at least a handful of years. And enforcing copyright means making torrenting etc. of infringing material illegal. (Of course, whether it should be 5 or 10 or 20 or 50 or 100 years is a separate matter.) And copying the music…

I'm not sure Netflix would agree that a low monthly subscription is not enough to fund TV and movie development, but regardless... Fairly recently I saw a very interesting proposal for this. The basic idea was to base it off of how artist commissions work, and combine that with crowdfunding. A creator can decide how much they need to make a thing - including both costs and how much profit they need to find it worth d…

Netflix is funding TV and movies through massive amounts of debt; not subscription revenues. It’s unclear if Netflix will ever make that money back since they can’t stop making content.

Re: UK national extradited to US for film/TV piracy

#108

Post by loxias » Thu, Sep 02, 2021, 3:08 AM UTC

toast0 wrote: post #104

ndesaulniers wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Remember that narrow window of time when Netflix had All The TV and was the only streaming platform, which you could access for a low monthly fee? Pepperidge Farm remembers. I have all the streaming services, and yet now I find that most of what I want to watch is not licensed to any service! I'm constantly using justwatch.com and yet still many famous movies aren't being licensed by any of the services I have (at…

I have a heck of a time finding the content I want to watch on (paid) streaming services. I, like Pepperidge Farm, remember when Netflix had tons of stuff I wanted to watch, but now I can only find it on janky free channels that can't even figure out how to slot ads into spots where ads should go. To be fair, some of the low tier broadcast subchannels haven't figured that out either. But if I'm going to watch ad supp…

> ...cut to ads 15 seconds before the break... HDCP is a PITA...

You know what really grinds my gears? This! It's not that hard to find a suitable splice point, most TV shows even have a natural break as part of the episode! Youtube sometimes does it during Colbert at a point which ruins the comedic rhythm.

> ...A-Team, Knight Rider, and MacGuyver...

I have similar taste; I swore there was a period of time I watched all 3 of these on the same streaming network, but I checked again and see only MacGuyver on Paramount/CBS. Which is an example of another poor user experience -- shows hop between platforms, so you're never actually sure that you have access, until you go to watch, and it's gone.

Re: UK national extradited to US for film/TV piracy

#109

Post by zarzavat » Thu, Sep 02, 2021, 3:18 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #83

ssklash wrote: post #12

It is insane to me that someone can get up to 5 years or more for using one of the fundamental mechanisms of digital technology. If you put out a product on a medium whose design is fundamentally based on copying bits , I don't know how you can expect anything else to happen. Instead of accepting the reality of digital communications, the MPAA, RIAA, and the like lobby to have the law protect their outdated but favor…

These people are accused of fraudulently obtaining the bits that they copied, which suggests that your whole argument would apply just as directly to credit card numbers, which are also just bits, amenable to the fundamental mechanisms of technology. As for the sentencing, as always: https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentenc...

There's nothing wrong with copying credit card numbers, people used to do that all the time with the manual credit card machines. What is wrong is stealing money.

Re: UK national extradited to US for film/TV piracy

#110

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o » Thu, Sep 02, 2021, 3:22 AM UTC

chongli wrote: post #64

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the content were free to use however you wanted, what would stop Netflix from serving Disney's content or vice versa?

It's not hard to imagine a scenario where individual downloading is decriminalized but large-scale commercial piracy remains illegal. This would stop Netflix from serving Disney's content without a license but it wouldn't stop Joe Public from downloading Game of Thrones or what have you. Such a regime would encourage content creators to make it more readily available so that users are willing to pay for the convenien…

I imagine this taking the form of individual copying being okay while distribution is illegal. That would probably have to be regardless of scale and price/commercialization.