I got fed up with streaming years ago and have just been curating a small collection of physical media instead. Despite that, I still pirate digital copies because it's simply easier for actually viewing than ripping my own copies.
Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?
351–360 of 641 posts
Re: Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?
#352Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've started buying from ebooks.com exclusively, because they tell me it's DRM-free EPUB and PDF. I end up paying a big premium in practice over Kindle DRM and discounted paperbacks, but I'm doing my part to convince publishers to offer DRM-free.
Speaking of buying DRM-free books, let me mention again The Humble Bundle. Not many books in there, but for a good cause: https://www.humblebundle.com/
I bought a DRM-free Schneier's "Applied Cryptography" from a Humble Bundle, and got a virtual pile of other interesting books at the same time.
Re: Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?
#353Hmm. It helps that as an old guy, I can afford multiple streaming services, but, quite frankly, were it not for my wife, I would have none at this point. Beyond that, with few exceptions, there are few memorable items that make me reconsider ( or even bother to think of pirating it ).
To me it is just like gaming and it serves as a good example. Steam made it so easy, accessible and hassle-free that I accepted their online 'DRM' despite initially being staunchly against it. I have no reason to pirate. Just about ANY game I can think of is there. This is what the content owners need to create. They don't want to cuz they don't want to share, but to that I say, tough noodles.
I don't really want to go back to the old days, but oddly I clearly could if things got sufficiently annoying. The last time I wanted something that was locked behind another paywall was new Dexter. I ended up just skipping it ( I am not gonna subscribe to another subscription within Hulu ). I don't need it. I don't need any of it and this brings me to my main point.
It is a luxury item. It is entertainment. It is hardly a necessity.
Re: Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?
#354Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ebooks are the worst offenders IMO. Most stores I’ve seen don’t even tell me the format or DRM, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be an open format
Worst part for me is that even libraries, who want to promote openness and reading, are perfectly comfortable with delivering books using Adobe's horrible DRM delivery solution.
At least Adobe DRM is trivially easy to break. Right click in the Adobe software and it has a "open document storage location" option. Then drop that DRM loaded PDF into Calibre and you get a free and clear PDF in your library. At that point I go back to the library and hit the return button.
Re: Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?
#355I pay for music (Spotify) because it’s easiest to share with family members and I honestly don’t even listen to much anymore.
We’ve been trimming down our streaming services to just what we need for our kid at this point, and I’ve been beefing up my media server setup to support us friends and family.
I use streams for all sporting events because that whole landscape is stupid and it’s nearly impossible to simple pay per view stream the games/teams I want to watch. I would gladly pay per stream to watch any sporting event, it’s just not simple/possible, and I don’t want a package because other than nfl, I only watch other sports sporadically/during championships.
I don’t care about any live news or anything else so cable tv is useless to me. Also every time I’m in a hotel with my son and he sees commercials on tv you can see his brain warping so I avoid all ad content at all costs.
Re: Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?
#356Yar har fiddely-dee
Being a pirate is alright with me
Do what you want, cause a pirate is free
You are a pirate!
Re: Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?
#357I mostly play smaller or indie games, which have less aggressive monetization. If I were to go and play the latest AAA like Assassin's Creed or whatever, I would definitely pirate it, but the game doesn't call to me anyway. Not only due to pricing and additional monetization, but mainly to remove the invasive DRM these kinds of titles use. YouTube Premium I do the janky family sharing thing that makes the price toler…
The Spotify rant: Here's how I listen to music: entire specific albums, in tracklist order, maybe queue up a couple albums. I always know what I want to listen before even thinking of opening a music player. Maybe the odd playlist if it's say, a game soundtrack that doesn't have a single album release. Here's how Spotify fucks it up: Home page shows a couple recent albums, which might or not be what I want to listen…
I've heard that playing an album costs more in royalties than a playlist, since a playlist is more like radio which has lower royalty payments. So it's probably not a coincidence that the UI is heavily optimized for radio style playlists.
Re: Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?
#358Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have more details? I found that in my case the credit card provider has ways to continue paying for the subscription through the magic of recurring charges that is very difficult to stop (survives credit card cancelation/number changes).
Right, getting a new card number has nothing to do with the fact that it is the same account. The numbers point to the same account.
It seems the credit card providers would have an anti-incentive to provide this kind of consumer friendly functionality. Maybe Apple's card does? Any first-hand accounts?
Re: Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?
#359> “We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem,” he said. “If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and m…
I bought NFS Unbound when it came out. It was rendered unplayable on Linux repeatedly whenever EA updated their new launcher app even though the game otherwise ran fine on Linux. Piracy is our last refuge from companies delivering awful user experiences and shitting on our rights as consumers.
Fucking. Preach.
Just so you know you can fix EA games on the Steam Deck by logging into EA with your steam account and linking it. All the EA launcher games will work again.
Go to EAs help page. https://help.ea.com/en/contact-us/ Click login, and choose the Steam option. Link your steam with your ea account. Then try launching your game again. You’ll get the gray screen but give it time and it will go away.
Re: Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?
#360I'm open to piracy whenever product I need is either unavailable (like some old or lesser known works, or works issues in limited pressings) or isn't served properly (like 3 decade old games on Steam, which I own anyway but can't even use and have to pirate from archive.org)