Tell HN: I probably spend more on piracy than if I just paid for content • Hacker News Board

Re: Tell HN: I probably spend more on piracy than if I just paid for content

#241

Post by runesofdoom » Tue, May 17, 2022, 3:29 PM UTC

wollsmoth wrote: post #111

strken wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody lets me pay for content. They're all tying themselves in contractual knots trying to find the most lucrative deal, and meanwhile it's impossible to just buy a movie or a TV show without shipping a physical disc. I go to e.g. the South Park website, and I'm greeted by an error message saying they're "working hard to resolve [their] pre-existing contractual obligations," which is the same message they've shown f…

Uh, you can actually buy south park from any number of providers. Amazon and iTunes both list Season 1 for $25. You don't need to only watch things on monthly streaming platforms.

Do both. Pay for it to give the creators their cut and send a market signal. Then go pirate it rather than fighting with DRM crippled interfaces.

Re: Tell HN: I probably spend more on piracy than if I just paid for content

#242

Post by runesofdoom » Tue, May 17, 2022, 3:32 PM UTC

hotpotamus wrote: post #44

Hamuko wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes you can't even buy (or rent) the content because of georestrictions. At least I often encounter TV shows and movies that are available in some US streaming service, but are not available in our version of the same service, or the entire service is not available.

I mean, you can justify it any way you like - there's no referee, no judge, no one to stop you. I just don't bother with the justifications myself; it is what it is.

There's an easy solution if you want the clear conscience of paying creators but the freedom of actually controlling the content you paid for. Buy, then pirate. Don't even bother with ever accessing your crippled purchase.

Re: Tell HN: I probably spend more on piracy than if I just paid for content

#243

Post by sophacles » Tue, May 17, 2022, 3:33 PM UTC

dubswithus wrote: post #236

sophacles wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your piracy is an excuse for data hoarding, which is a problem. Your fake concern an excuse for busy-bodying, which is a problem.

How is it that? OP is the one that shared. No one is forcing him to post here.

Did OP ask if it was a problem?

Did OP state it was a problem?

Not that I see - AFAICT the only people declaring it a problem are the busybodies latching on to OP spending the same amount on this hobby as they would dining out at a decent restaurant once a month.

Re: Tell HN: I probably spend more on piracy than if I just paid for content

#244

Post by birdyrooster » Tue, May 17, 2022, 3:33 PM UTC

Same except everything is commercial equipment (rack hardware, UPS, PDU, 10GBE between NAS boxes and servers). I am at 120TB capacity of RAID10 currently. I have spent tens of thousands on my Plex setup. It’s not about the economy, its about never worrying about copyright licensing windows again. I don’t trust streaming platforms to maintain licenses for the stuff I like. The fragmentation is maddening and I wouldn’t even watch tv or movies if I had to use streaming services.

It’s funny Plex has an office in Los Gatos literally down the road from Netflix. They are literally the scrappy pirate ship plundering the booty of the incumbent.

Re: Tell HN: I probably spend more on piracy than if I just paid for content

#245

Post by moffkalast » Tue, May 17, 2022, 3:34 PM UTC

anon9191 wrote: post #152

Reasons (TV/Movie) piracy is better than any paid service: * All in one place/App/UI. Be it Plex/Jellyfin/Emby/Kodi/etc, you only have 1 app UI/UX to deal with. No more wondering "What network was that on?", "Wait, it's on 2 services but which one has my watched status?", "What does clicking forward/back do in this App?", "How do I turn on subtitles?", etc * Local playback. You never have to wait on your internet or…

The interesting thing is that for gaming Gabe Newell has figured this out decades ago i.e. "piracy is an issue of service, not price" and today Steam fulfils practically all of those reasons you listed.

All games in one store, offline play, hosting mods and support forums, cross-machine save sync, access even if the game gets removed from the store entirely later on, etc.

GoG for example goes a step further with the ownership principle, making games DRM free, and yet when it comes down to it their service offers less practical features to the average user than Steam and its ecosystem does.

Of course the monetization approach is different, since you pay per game and not per month for access. I wonder if streaming networks would have more success with a similar pay-to-own approach. Making the service free by default, with some stuff free to view and the rest requiring a small fee each to own the right to view it infinite times. The approach that has worked reasonably well with VHS and DVD in the past. Then on the other hand most games have more replayability than your average TV show...

Re: Tell HN: I probably spend more on piracy than if I just paid for content

#246

Post by mechanical_bear » Tue, May 17, 2022, 3:35 PM UTC

philistine wrote: post #103

What you’re describing is data hoarding. I pirate a ton too, but you know what I do with a movie or TV show after I’ve watched it? I delete it. Poof, gone. But it’s still in the most important dataset I have. My memory. To help with the metadata of my own memory, I write down a list of the films I’ve seen. I only keep the movies I really love and want to rewatch (Robocop). That TV show I just finished that was great…

Any ethical considerations aside for pirating: I agreed with you until the final sentence. There is no problem with choosing to keep a show after watching it, that’s their choice. Why would a data retention strategy that differs from yours be a “problem”?

Re: Tell HN: I probably spend more on piracy than if I just paid for content

#247

Post by colinmhayes » Tue, May 17, 2022, 3:35 PM UTC

bluefirebrand wrote: post #201

colinmhayes wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or he could spend $10 on the tracker, $10 to run a normal computer without 30 drives, and still watch all the same stuff for half the price.

My interpretation of your original post was that you were saying spending $45 a month on this project illustrated that he has a problem. Is that accurate? How does the fact that he could be saving money support that?

My interpretation of OPs post is that they felt they had a problem. I assumed that problem was the amount of money/time spent installing and upkeeping those drives.

Re: Tell HN: I probably spend more on piracy than if I just paid for content

#248

Post by jrochkind1 » Tue, May 17, 2022, 3:36 PM UTC

philistine wrote: post #103

What you’re describing is data hoarding. I pirate a ton too, but you know what I do with a movie or TV show after I’ve watched it? I delete it. Poof, gone. But it’s still in the most important dataset I have. My memory. To help with the metadata of my own memory, I write down a list of the films I’ve seen. I only keep the movies I really love and want to rewatch (Robocop). That TV show I just finished that was great…

After all, if you want to watch it again -- you can always pirate it again!

(The one complication is that I pirate using private BitTorrent tracker sites where I need to do some amount of seeding to stay on good terms, under conditions that vary from site to site, and can be hard to keep track of as I try to recover storage space).

But yeah, I'd say the cost of OP is not in the pirating, it's in the hoarding.

Re: Tell HN: I probably spend more on piracy than if I just paid for content

#249

Post by dmantis » Tue, May 17, 2022, 3:37 PM UTC

Pirate services often are actually better. I pay monthly for pirate streaming service because the pirate service provide me well-maintained open-source Kodi plugin on RPI, no espionage and telemetry, no DRM on my devices. And linux web version works flawlessly.

Top 1 official streaming (netflix) always has issues with linux desktop browsers and don't want to provide me the way to consume content without been hooked . Others even worse.

Not talking about the fact that pirate service has everything in one place and copyright guys can't even agree on content sharing (like music streaming, where I can access the same music on different services).

Re: Tell HN: I probably spend more on piracy than if I just paid for content

#250

Post by jrochkind1 » Tue, May 17, 2022, 3:38 PM UTC

mechanical_bear wrote: post #246

philistine wrote: post #103

What you’re describing is data hoarding. I pirate a ton too, but you know what I do with a movie or TV show after I’ve watched it? I delete it. Poof, gone. But it’s still in the most important dataset I have. My memory. To help with the metadata of my own memory, I write down a list of the films I’ve seen. I only keep the movies I really love and want to rewatch (Robocop). That TV show I just finished that was great…

Any ethical considerations aside for pirating: I agreed with you until the final sentence. There is no problem with choosing to keep a show after watching it, that’s their choice. Why would a data retention strategy that differs from yours be a “problem”?

Only because of the cost, which is only a problem for the person doing it if they find it to be so personally, which the OP seems to, so.

Or maybe I misinterpreted this post and they don't think it's a problem, which is fine then. But if the post is about how expensive it is to pirate... that expense has a lot to do with the data retention policy choice, not just the pirating. Is the point to be made.