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Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly

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Re: Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly

#71

Post by tacticalturtle »

AltF4me wrote: post #47
SirMaster wrote: post #35

Music piracy used to be a big problem. I am not sure if it still is or not? Anyway, it feels like music piracy isn't close to what it was at its peak and that they figured out how to make it work. Is there a reason that video is so much different?

It's not fragmented like video is. You go to your favourite music streaming platform and listen. You don't need to check all 10 services you pay for to work out if the artist is available on it.

That’s a good point - I wonder why the two industries evolved differently.

I would think exclusive music would add much greater product stickiness than exclusive video content.

Someone might listen to Taylor Swift on every gym session, but how many people are going to watch Stranger Things twice?

Re: Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly

#72

Post by h4x0rr »

beart wrote: post #28
bojan wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now, it doesn't just work. You need to download the thing, find the right format, get it to the TV in one way or another, hope that the subs are good. Compared to that, it's the streaming that just works. Except when it doesn't.

Software has completely automated all of these steps. The only barrier is the initial set up, which a non-technical person can figure out over a weekend.

It seems to be quite a bit harder for dubbed stuff in non-english languages though

Re: Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly

#73

Post by JieJie »

The list of canned statements^0 about the dangers of piracy reminds me of Sinclair Broadcasting's famous memo to newsrooms^1.

^0:

> Apparently, there’s quite a bit of copying going on, as SEC filings from several companies include identical passages.

> Netflix: “In light of the compelling consumer proposition, piracy services are subject to rapid global growth”

> Triller Corp: “In light of the compelling consumer proposition, piracy services are subject to rapid global growth”

> FuboTV: “In light of the compelling consumer proposition, piracy services are subject to rapid global growth” > Redbox Entertainment: “In light of the compelling consumer proposition, piracy services are subject to rapid global growth”

> IMAQ: “In light of the compelling consumer proposition, piracy services are subject to rapid global growth” CuriosityStream: “In light of the compelling consumer proposition, piracy services are subject to rapid global growth”

> We don’t know where these references originate. Netflix has mentioned it for a while, that’s for sure, and apparently, the use of this language is widespread and subject to rapid global growth."

1: https://youtu.be/C-4HOgULcd8

Re: Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly

#74

Post by upupupandaway »

I have about $120 in streaming subscriptions (wife, daughter). Lat week I wanted to watch Korean movie “Sleep”, which I then found and rented from both Google and Apple. Turns out that neither had subtitles in English. So I refunded both and comfortably watched it in an “alternative” streaming site. I really try to pay for content but this fragmentation is destroying the business.

Re: Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly

#75

Post by nntwozz »

Crocodile tears, piracy beats streaming and will continue to do so as long as availability is a problem.

My example; a certain popcorn-related torrent site provides an archive of 315,669 movies.

Total torrents: 916,518

Webrips, full Blu-ray rips, remuxes, 2160p, 1080p, 720p, 480p; h.265/h.264, x.265/x.264, you also have DVDs and even VHS.

Some movies also offer 3D in various formats, some are director's cut, some are theatrical, some are uncut. I can go on, but just one movie is offered in a myriad of formats and options.

Places like these are equivalent to the library of Alexandria. They must not fall because they hold valuable media that is not even available elsewhere.

I remember Stallman mentioning a universal fee for internet access and all media, wishful thinking but for a subset of internet users this has been a reality for at least a decade.

With self-hosting services, VPNs like WireGuard and nice apps like Infuse on the Apple TV that can connect to any server and play anything you throw at it there's no going back for me personally.

At this point I find it morally imperative to keep seeding in order to keep media alive that would otherwise be lost to time because no-one else cares.

The big companies are all about profits, it's up to the little man to save the ideals of the early internet.

Re: Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly

#76

Post by Silhouette »

I'm about as law-abiding a person as you'll probably ever find when it comes to copyright vs. piracy. I don't mind paying a fair price for creative work I enjoy and I expect that obtaining it through authorised sources will ultimately support the people doing that work and the creation of more work that I enjoy in the future. And I find it absolutely infuriating that the experience of paying customers has once again degraded to be so much worse than what the pirates are presumably enjoying.

Content doesn't stick around reliably. I glanced at my "watch it again" list on one of the several streaming services we subscribe to in my household the other day and well over half of the items on it were now tagged as paid options. Those movies and shows were no longer available on the service where I had watched them sometimes only weeks ago.

Content isn't even added reliably to begin with. I've seen the first and third movies in a franchise on the same service but not the second. I've seen TV shows that are part of the same world and occasionally do crossover episodes and a streaming service that has one show but not the other so you can't watch the whole story.

Then there are the ever-increasing ads and the "premium" tiers being introduced to remove them again as if they're doing us a favour. Spare me. And then tell me why I should sign up to the "premium" service when there's no guarantee about the content it will make available or the level of advertising it will also include in the future.

And finally there is a personal irritation that won't affect many people but really upsets me. Some services still insist on crippling the quality of the streams away from big name platforms like Windows and the main phone apps. Some people suggest this is because of DRM junk in their contracts with rightsholders but that doesn't really hold up when other streaming services seem to have no such problem or when the movie/show was an "original" from the same service. It's particularly irritating that the current worst offender seems to be Amazon Prime Video crippling playback on Linux. You know - the same Amazon who have made obscene amounts of money via AWS largely thanks to Linux.

One possible way to overcome these problems is to go "old school" and buy favourite movies and shows on disc. I still do that plenty. There are some that I do expect to rewatch later or lend out to a friend occasionally. But also discs work fairly reliably as long as you don't get caught by region locking or other similar junk - and usually if you do it's obvious immediately and you can send the product back as defective. (Amazon are once again a recurring villain in this story having sent several products that were in fact for different regions than the one ordered and in some cases literally had "Not licensed for distribution outside {somewhere I don't live}" printed on the box.) But this strategy is becoming harder with many distributors only making discs available for a relatively short time after a movie/show is released or only making them available in some countries/regions and not others. And again sometimes they change their mind between a movie and its sequel or from one season to the next of a TV show.

It's really hard to have much sympathy for an industry that offers such a bad experience to its paying customers. Particularly so when a lot of these problems are completely avoidable and avoiding them is realistically in the best interests of the big players when there is an ever-present "free" alternative that obviously a lot of people will be willing to choose even if some of us still prefer not to.

Re: Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly

#77

Post by al_borland »

eastbound wrote: post #43
dgfitz wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course this is 100% the correct reasoning. When I was a broke college kid I pirated all the things, and at the time wished, when I could afford it, I’d rather just pay. When I could, I did, for years. Now we’re back at the path-of-least-resistance is pirating.

But that means companies must sell for the marginal price of their website’s ergonomics, not for the marginal price of producing movies. (Which is not a big loss, because I can’t imagine producing the Netflix knockoffs be a hundredth the price of a 007).

It’s not about an individual website, it’s about the industry. It’s not that Netflix, or any other service, is hard to use on its own. It’s the fragmentation of the content that makes it hard to use.

This was solved for with music where pretty much every service has pretty much every song. People don’t need multiple music services, they just pick the one that best fits their style and needs. This is what the movie and TV industry needs to do if they want to beat piracy. This is what they should have done 15 years ago. Their greed is hurting them more than it’s helping.

Re: Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly

#78

Post by kylebenzle »

dgfitz wrote: post #24
PlutoIsAPlanet wrote: post #9

Streaming became popular because it was easier than piracy and better than TV (watch anywhere, on demand, pickup where you left off etc). Streaming is no longer easier than piracy, why pay for 8 different services and have to waste your time figuring out whats on what when you can just have one service for free, even if its illegal, and have it all under one roof. The services have taken the piss and now they'll get…

Of course this is 100% the correct reasoning. When I was a broke college kid I pirated all the things, and at the time wished, when I could afford it, I’d rather just pay. When I could, I did, for years. Now we’re back at the path-of-least-resistance is pirating.

This is HACKER news, our central ethos is (should be) all information wants to be free. Sad to see the desire to pay for content is getting upvoted.

Re: Netflix: Piracy is difficult to compete against and growing rapidly

#80

Post by thiht »

bojan wrote: post #18
bawolff wrote: post #10

> Piracy also threatens to damage our business, as its fundamental proposition to consumers is so compelling and difficult to compete against: virtually all content for free,” Netflix writes. People emphasize the "free" part, but it really is the "all content" part that makes piracy wins. Especially if you are not in the USA, often specific content isn't available at any price. Even if it is, its split across 5 billi…

Now, it doesn't just work. You need to download the thing, find the right format, get it to the TV in one way or another, hope that the subs are good. Compared to that, it's the streaming that just works. Except when it doesn't.

But all of this actually just works. Right format is never an issue. To get it to the TV, I just use Plex. There’s even a smart TV app. I can also watch it on my smartphone. And download it if I know I won’t have network. Subtitles are often embedded directly in most downloads, and if not Plex always manages to find the correct ones from OpenSubtitles. These are non issues, most of the times.
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