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

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

#371

Post by spicybright »

pirate-Loo6uoDu wrote: post #159
esperent wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point being made by other people here still stands though. It's not piracy that costs you money. It's your desire to store/hoard huge amounts of data. Whether or not that's a problem is up to you, but if you deleted things after you watched them the costs would go down to nothing except 4the normal costs of running a computer.

I don't disagree with that point, you could probably find everything I've got on sketchy streaming sites if you spent enough time.

That's pretty much my method now a days.

Used to torrent a lot, but realized I'd forget what I actually had and ended up re-downloading a lot.

So now I just go on sketchy streaming sites. I have 2 that are good for movies/ty, 1 for animated content.

Maybe once a year something will go down and I'll find a new site, but it really is as easy as clicking through the first 10 links when googling "watch $movie online free" and picking the most reliable one.

In the extremely rare case I can't find something, I'll drop the 4 bucks or whatever on youtube movies or amazon prime. Probably only happens a few times a year.

~~~

Unrelated to the discussion, but still HN worthy, is how interesting these sites are when they operate.

Websites will constantly lift not just content but entire pages from each other. A lot of the time they'll even just change a X.com to an X.biz and add a banner saying "THIS IS THE REAL X, UPDATE YOUR BOOKMARKS!".

What are they going to do, take legal action?

I'm also suspecting everyone sources their movies from a very small set of places.

I tried watching the movie Multiplicity on one of these sites, but every single site hosted the first 4 minutes 27-ish seconds of it, exact same cut. It makes sense content propagates out, likely by automation. Everysite is a race to get the most ad clicks before getting shutdown.

A very interesting "industry"!

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

#372

Post by FrenchDevRemote »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #15
FrenchDevRemote wrote: post #5

I haven't paid for 90-95% of the content I consumed in the past 12 years. I've never spent a cent on it.(and I used to spend many hours watching new movies/shows every single day+Music+AAA games) Maybe try not hoarding all the half-decent movies on earth in 4K bluray version? at this point you have more data than a small piracy site...

Do you ever feel guilty that if everyone did what you did none of the content would exist? That you are stealing from all the hard working artists and tradespeople that made the content you love?

No.

For multiple reasons.

First of all when you have a negative net worth you don't care about the royalties of some hollywood rockstars.

2nd of all, I'm not ready to pay 10 different monthly subscriptions while not even being able to watch 100% of what I want.

3rd of all, even though I appreciate the content, I don't necessarily approve the actions of the artist/producer/developer. I don't want to give a cent to a company that ask its underpaid workers for 100 hour work week during crunch time. I don't want to fund a rapist/abuser producer, I don't to fund anyone's yacht or Ferrari.

Even though I absolutely love his movies, I don't want to fund a guy like tarantino who willingly endangered someones life for one scene.

I mostly consume mainstream stuff so most of the money I'd spent would go to people who already are 1000x richer than me.

I don't really enjoy indie games/movies/music, if I were, maybe I'd act differently.

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

#373

Post by theturtletalks »

BenjiWiebe wrote: post #90
theturtletalks wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many countries outside of the US don't have unlimited[0] bandwidth ISPs. So downloading again and again is not feasible everywhere. 0. US ISPs are capped but in the TB range so most people never reach the cap.

Citation for [0]? I've even read the fine print for my current ISP here in the US. Unless you mean cap as in it's not possible to download more than that per month because your download speed is too low.

You can see some ISPs at the bottom of this page[0] with caps like Xfinity and CenturyLink. Although it seems like they are soft caps and don't penalize unless you exceed the cap every month.

0. https://www.cnet.com/home/internet/best-internet-providers-w...

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

#374

Post by fxtentacle »

kgwxd wrote: post #196
fxtentacle wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I buy all my stuff on iTunes. But that alone won't allow me to put a 4K HDR movie on a USB stick to watch it offline on my TV. In my opinion, the most practical solution is to buy things (for the ethics) and then crack the DRM anyway (for usability).

Rewarding consumer-hostile business models and middle-men that only add negative value to the products they're selling is, in my opinion, unethical.

While I agree with you, these middlemen at least pay some money to the original content creators. With pure pirating, there's no feedback to the movie company that I liked their offering.

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

#375

Post by vintermann »

nunez wrote: post #330
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…

I am 100% against hoarding, but data hoarding makes a lot more sense to me. I was looking for an album by a small punk band called Straighten Things Out called "Dawn Of A New Hope". Loved this album; listened to it all of the time on Apple Music (where I discovered it). Went on a walk one day and tried to load it...and it was gone. I can't even find this album on eBay, and you can find everything there! "Milo Goes To…

That small punk bands are a sensible target for data hoarding isn't surprising, but you know one I found out that's surprising?

Riverdance. Yeah, the Eurovision pause show from 1994 which became a huge hit and started a decade-long fad of various rhytmic dance ensembles touring the world and actually doing really well. Fantastic commercial success, of course. They did many CD releases, and there are a lot of differences between the recordings: the cast of performers, whether they have stepping noises mixed in, even the track listing. But you can only get the last of them on streaming services.

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

#376

Post by pmoriarty »

aidenn0 wrote: post #326
pmoriarty wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd think that with all that competition, NetFlix's streaming service would be much better in order to compete with other companies (which have a far better selection). But somehow they get away with having a crappy selection, despite having lots of competitors. Conversely, since NetFlix's DVD service doesn't have any competitors they could get away with having a crappy selection, but they have a great selection, a…

Cost of adding a niche title to NF DVD service is probably less than $1000, since they won't need many copies. I doubt they can get streaming rights for any feature length film still in copyright for under $1000.

Amazon Prime Video does it, as does Youtube.

Both of these have way, way, way better selections than NetFlix streaming.

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

#377

Post by [deleted] »

b112 wrote: post #290
NikolaNovak wrote: post #139

I've quit pirating content a decade ago - combination of time, safety, priorities, and availability of legit content. I've considered getting back into it occasionally. Why: Convenience and access. From having everything on Netflix a decade ago, to now having almost as many subscriptions as I used to have cable channels, it's a pain (let alone a cost) to install dozen apps on my phone tablet TV roku etc. Their qualit…

Safety is easy. I download remotely, then have local snag from remote. Local is a custom server, on Pi, on an isolated network (with its own cable modem). Once the Pi receives a file, it transmits it over a modified optical link, where I cut the receive line on the sending nic board. Checksums are simple, and sent via email back to the remote server, checked, and I am alerted of wrong. My media PC is all that is conn…

[deleted]

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

#378

Post by antisthenes »

bityard wrote: post #267
300bps wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rewatch things all the time. If I’m doing side work at night and just want something on the background I’ll put on a movie or show that I’ve seen before. Beyond that, hard drives are cheap! I have a single 18 TB disk in my main computer that runs Plex. It lets me and my kids watch content from anywhere with an Internet connection. 18 TB hard drives are about $300.

> Beyond that, hard drives are cheap! I have a single 18 TB disk Fair warning: It is very dangerous to make statements like this in a public forum like this. You run the risk of someone spotting it and making a seemingly-innocent reply along the lines of, "Oh, you should at LEAST have TWO disks set up as a mirror so you don't lose all your movies when (not if, but when) the disk dies." And then someone else will say,…

Thank god I have an ECC memory stick and a mirrored/striped 4-disk ZFS array.

Weight off my shoulders!

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

#379

Post by A7C3D5 »

philistine wrote: post #295
temp8964 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> data hoarding, which is a problem. Data hoarding is not a problem. It's a hobby. Everyone needs a hobby, most hobbies cost money. Traveling? Cost money. Woodworking? Cost money. Photography? Cost money. Biking? Cost money. Gaming? Cost money (+ way more time). Data hoarding is just a hobby like others. Plus data hoarding can have great value, if you choose to hoard good content.

Any hobby can turn into a problem. I'm quick to judge the data hoarders, because I absolutely do not consider myself one, but it can absolutely be a benign hobby. That being said, a 45$ a month electricity bill directly related to the hard drives, that's a lot of dough for making a number go up.

This seems to suggests that data hoarders mainly derive their satisfaction from actually filling up a hard drive. For me, the satisfaction is from having instant access to organized libraries of music and video of generally far higher fidelity than you can stream with current technology. There are currently no streaming services that can stream UHD 4k movies at a quality that is close to even a normal 1080p blu ray never mind an actual UHD blu ray. I'm very into film and the difference in video and sound quality, which most people will not notice or care about, is pretty significant to me. An uncompressed BR rip is 30-100 GB so even a fairly curated library can quickly outgrow drive space that most people couldn't fathom a sane person using.

I have probably filled at least 60TB of drives in the past year alone since my ISP has been ignoring data caps, and that is besides the large amount that IS deleted, as I do not archive anything that's been lossily compressed after being ripped unless a higher quality version does not publicly exist.

I "hoard" TOSEC libraries for every conceivable console and consumer computer system from ~1970 up to the PS3, but don't archive PC games past the DOS era, because Steam exists as a better service than I can provide for myself, so I use that. There is no equivalent service for music or film or Amiga games.

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

#380

Post by lobocinza »

troyvit wrote: post #364
lobocinza wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where can you buy an album at $8.99? Spotify, if I were a customer, would cost me ~$4 / month. Music streaming at current prices isn't profitable. It makes sense for the average dude to subscribe to Spotify.

Lots of albums on bandcamp are in this price range[1]. Some are even "pay what you want." [1] Example: https://rubberoh.bandcamp.com If what spotify is doing isn't profitable then it isn't sustainable, so why sink your time into it? When they go belly up what happens to all the time you invested in it?

> Lots of albums on bandcamp are in this price range

Thanks, didn't know about it and it's an interesting marketplace. Catalog is limited but I found bands that I follow there.

> When they go belly up what happens to all the time you invested in it?

Spotify is just a platform to listening to music, the subscription fee is like paying rent, time is invested in what I listen to. And it will not go belly up, at least not all streaming services, it will just raise subscription fees.

I understood your argument it's better to buy the albums now than to expend all that money on streaming and then later having to buy all of that anyways. But that is a misconception because not everyone is a collector and some are just explorers and like to listen to a new artist/album for a weeek and then move on.

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