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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

#211

Post by mgh2 »

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…

Netflix also became popular due to people hating ads. Ads or piracy, which funds criminal activity? Hint: Hear social media CEOs testify in congress.

This seems like a PR piece to promote and justify Netflix's change in mind and business model.

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

#212

Post by angoragoats »

ESTheComposer wrote: post #178
angoragoats wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not though: * It’s definitely not stealing in the legal sense of the term, which requires a party to be deprived of physical property that they own. * It’s also not in the colloquial sense of the term, because if you call this stealing you’d also have apply the stealing label to blocking ads/trackers on the web, taking advantage of free trials for services without any intent of becoming a subscriber, or countles…

> because if you call this stealing you’d also have apply the stealing label to blocking ads/trackers on the web Yes that is quite literally also depriving them of revenue, and quite possibly their only source of revenue if they're a free website/app. >taking advantage of free trials for services without any intent of becoming a subscriber Yeah no, it's in the name...FREE TRIAL. It's literally given out for free. >co…

> Yes that is quite literally also depriving them of revenue, and quite possibly their only source of revenue if they're a free website/app.

I think I made an error here by assuming that every reader of Hacker News would be at least somewhat pro-adblocking.

So since you appear not to be, let me ask you:

* Do you use any ad blocker at all? If yes, can you define precisely when ad blocking is stealing and when it is not?

* If I visit a random website with ads, and I don't have an adblocker, the ads on that site may be used to track me across other sites, build a profile of me to sell to data brokers, serve me malware, bog down my system resources with audio, video, crypto-miners, and other garbage, or a myriad of other undesirable things. Would you consider any of these things to be the website (or the ad network) stealing from me? At what point, if any, does the website's right to extract revenue from me end and my right to privacy/security begin?

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

#213

Post by giancarlostoro »

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…

Honestly if Apple integrated Netflix and all those other services into a unified UI for Apple TV that transparently lets you go between the apps without realizing it (they do own the OS...) it would be exactly what I want to see happen to these streaming services, that or they somehow share their content to the official Apple TV app itself, and let Apple TV query across all those other streaming apps, it would be great. Sometimes I'll look up something with my Apple TV and it will try to have me go to a paid version, for me to realized I watched it on a completely different app, or it shows me the app that only has 1 single season, when I have every season in a different service.

I think there's room for improvement on the smart TV OS' to better integrate these services into one pluggable app.

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

#214

Post by paulddraper »

kylebenzle wrote: post #78
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.

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.

"hacker" = "free information"

??

I've never heard that definition.

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

#215

Post by topkai22 »

kylebenzle wrote: post #78
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.

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.

Its revisiting the origin of that phrase, which

“On the one hand you have—the point you’re making Woz—is that information sort of wants to be expensive because it is so valuable—the right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information almost wants to be free because the costs of getting it out is getting lower and lower all of the time. So you have these two things fighting against each other.”

I find this to be a much more intelligent formulation of the concept, as it recognizes the reasons and the tension.

We simply can’t get much of the media I like for free (gratis). That being said, it is maddening to have so much great content locked up. It feels insanely inefficient and that we produce far too much content unnecessarily.

There are probably ways to balance this better- separation of content ownership, production, and distribution; more limits on copyright length; mandatory content licensing; simplification of older content license rules…

That doesn’t mean it’s morally wrong to pay for content or put restrictions on distribution, just that optimum probably isn’t where we are.

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

#217

Post by fragmede »

tacticalturtle wrote: post #71
AltF4me wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

That's a good question. I'd love to see Netflix's stats. Some people really are going to watch the same show over and over again. Like the office.

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

#218

Post by danparsonson »

ESTheComposer wrote: post #128
RiverCrochet wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone spent time and money producing something, no matter how small, and they dictate they want $x for you to own/consume it, then you are stealing if you don't give them $x for it. Not quite. It's not stealing unless they are deprived of the original item (this is not to be confused with the money they think it is worth if they sell it or "sell" it). What is happening is copying, not stealing.

You are depriving them of revenue, it is stealing.

You're back at the start again though - if I wasn't going to buy it, then the vendor hasn't lost anything if I steal it. All that happens is I gain a free experience I would otherwise not have had.

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

#219

Post by ESTheComposer »

angoragoats wrote: post #192
ESTheComposer wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What fallacy did I commit? Please, name the fallacy and explain why it's an example of that fallacy, so I can learn from my mistakes. I simply took your argument, verbatim: > If the creator of something says “if you want to view my work, you must pay me a dollar”, then yes it is stealing (immoral) if you view it without paying. And showed how it is a ridiculous argument with a simple example. I created a comment, and…

It's called a false equivalence fallacy[1] and more specifically it's called the fallacy of composition[2]. I don't know why I'm taking the time to do this but I'm going to assume you're genuine with wanting to learn so:

Essentially the original argument I made is

1. Stealing (in this context) is depriving someone of their unearned revenue by duplicating or taking their work without their express consent and payment.

2. Stealing is wrong

3. Pirating is stealing

So, 4. Pirating is wrong

You took my comment and attempted to do this:

1. Stealing (in this context) is depriving someone of their unearned revenue by duplicating or taking their work without their express consent and payment.

2. Stealing is wrong

3. Reading my comment for free is stealing

So, 4. Reading my comment for free is wrong

Except step 3 is an invalid assertion since we are on a public forum with accounts created for the express purpose of reading and writing on said public forum for free. Your argument makes the assumption that because an action (using something for free) is wrong in one instance, it must be wrong in all instances.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence#:~:text=A%20... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition

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

#220

Post by ESTheComposer »

danparsonson wrote: post #218
ESTheComposer wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are depriving them of revenue, it is stealing.

You're back at the start again though - if I wasn't going to buy it, then the vendor hasn't lost anything if I steal it. All that happens is I gain a free experience I would otherwise not have had.

Except because you now actually went out, downloaded/took it, and experienced it, it implies there was a non 0 interest in the work, therefore there is lost possible revenue since you might have eventually went and bought the work.
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