81–90 of 168 posts
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There's apps for that these days. Not going to names them, but if you're still downloading a torrent file on a computer, you're behind the times. It's as easy as Netflix on an Android TV with a remote these days.
Don’t all those apps also expose you to VPN services using your connection as a gateway, or enrol you in a botnet, or exfiltrate your watch history to this weeks popular bad-actor, or expose everything on your local network to the internet?
The same argument applies to DRM and piracy. DRM only disadvantages people who want to consume content legally. Only one person has to bypass it (be it through cryptographic or software failings or the good old fashioned analog hole ala telesync) then upload the resulting unencumbered media file to a piracy site. As a result, it's not just cheaper, but also easier and more reliable to steal media than it is to buy it…
Cheaper & easier - not by much. Australia blocks all the good torrent sites, so now I need a VPN, a reputable one. Also need terabytes of network connected storage, and usually I need more and more of it over time. Better and more networking equipment to buy and maintain. Media management and streaming software that works locally and remotely, to (maybe buy) and maintain. Or I can usage discount offers for the variou…
You don't have to take it upon yourself to archive the entire history of Hollywood, you know.
You can get _very_ far with 20TB, hell, even with just 10TB.
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Apple TV has a search function that allows you to find a film or series irrespectice of whatever service it's on, and launch the appropriate app to play it.
Some times I read these mental gymnastics comments about piracy being easier and wonder if these people have actually tried to learn how to use something like an Apple TV. I think the services part they really dislike is just the part where your credit card gets charged when you click the buy or rent button. Doing all of the piracy stuff with VPNs and navigating torrent sites and getting a setup where you can play fi…
You think wrong. My Steam account has 300+ games on it. I pay for several streaming services. I have a physical media collection that even includes a copy of windows vista, to my eternal regret.
> Doing all of the piracy stuff with VPNs and navigating torrent sites and getting a setup where you can play files on your TV is an order of magnitude more work.
And yet that's what you have to do if you don't want to pay to get total garbage in return for your money.
The pirates compete with each other to release the best encodes, to the point they mix multiple Blu-Rays together into an ultimate release because some region somehow received a better version of some scene or whatever. Normal files you get to play using mpv.
Netflix ships horribly compressed nonsense where color gradients are so full of artifacts it hurts my eyes. Highly dynamic segments are painful to watch. Amazingly enough it's still the least bad option, the other services have even worse quality and a borderline unusable video player software to boot.
Service isn't just about ease, it's also about quality. If you want quality, piracy isn't just easier, it's almost always the best option, if not the only option. It's sad that the copyright industry can't seem to match what's essentially a bunch of amateurs but what can you do?
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Its the time and the electricity needed to train them. The US sacrificed quite a lot in order to make this happen. We're tolerating a measles outbreak, our economy is in the trash due to tariffs and draconian immigration enforcement. Basically every sector that's not AI has been poisoned in one way or another in order to drive sufficient investment towards AI. If China wants to compete at building the best forefront…
> We're tolerating a measles outbreak, our economy is in the trash due to tariffs and draconian immigration enforcement. Basically every sector that's not AI has been poisoned in one way or another in order to drive sufficient investment towards AI. Incompetence is not sacrifice.
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Piracy is a service problem. Copyright monopolists always defeat themselves with their obnoxious greed. Things were easy enough when Netflix had a complete catalog, now every studio wants to roll their own shitty streaming services in order to cut Netflix out. Result is a fragmented mess where you want to watch a great film but you have no idea where the hell it even is, and even if you find it you discover it doesn'…
> Piracy is a service problem > Meanwhile the pirates offer Blu-Ray remuxes with commentary tracks, subtitles for every language, DRM free files that just work on your video player of choice. I think the only people who believe that pirating is easier than using the streaming services are people who spend so much time with computers that they round the mental overhead of navigating torrent websites, finding the corre…
That's just because you're fine with consuming the low quality slop they stream out. Doesn't mean people who care more than you do are engaging in "mental gymnastics". We don't want the same things.
I want the best version of everything. The highest quality version. The uncensored version. The uncompressed version. The lossless version. The DRM-free version. The best version.
The copyright holders just aren't providing it. They only provide slop, and only on their terms, take it or leave it.
Then a bunch of fans gather together, hunt down an old film roll, drop tens of thousands of dollars on equipment to scan it and somehow it becomes a better version than the one the industry released. It's not fair to dismiss that level of commitment as "it's just people who don't want to pay for things". Industry should probably hire more people like that. People who give a shit.
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Some times I read these mental gymnastics comments about piracy being easier and wonder if these people have actually tried to learn how to use something like an Apple TV. I think the services part they really dislike is just the part where your credit card gets charged when you click the buy or rent button. Doing all of the piracy stuff with VPNs and navigating torrent sites and getting a setup where you can play fi…
Sometimes I read these mental gymnastics comments about being leashed to half a dozen providers for “convenience” and wonder if these people have actually tried to learn how to use something like a NAS. I think the part they really dislike is the undermining of the moral superiority they claim by donating their money to corporations that contribute ~nothing to the actual evolution of culture. Inventing strawmans abou…
My local farmers and grocery stores contribute ~nothing to actual evolution of culture. I still think they deserve to get paid for what they do. I don’t think this is as smart of a point as you thought it was.
Regardless, the content can’t both be worthless and worth pirating at the same time.
This boils down to “I want free stuff but I want to feel morally superior about it”
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> Piracy is a service problem > Meanwhile the pirates offer Blu-Ray remuxes with commentary tracks, subtitles for every language, DRM free files that just work on your video player of choice. I think the only people who believe that pirating is easier than using the streaming services are people who spend so much time with computers that they round the mental overhead of navigating torrent websites, finding the corre…
> Nobody is ever going to convince me that pirating is actually easier than finding the thing I want to watch and putting it on my credit card. That's just because you're fine with consuming the low quality slop they stream out. Doesn't mean people who care more than you do are engaging in "mental gymnastics". We don't want the same things. I want the best version of everything. The highest quality version. The uncen…
This is absurdity. The average pirate is not downloading content that some fans spent $10K digitizing from an original film roll.
The average pirated content wasn’t even shot on film.
These piracy justifications are some of the weirdest mental gymnastics that happens on this site. I’m not taking about the pirate connoisseurs who only download the finest encoded sourced from artisanal film rolls to complete their collection. We’re talking about the average pirate who searches for a torrent or stream because they don’t want to pay a couple bucks.
This constant attempt to glorify pirates into the true, most moral, purest content consumers is so weird.
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Sometimes I read these mental gymnastics comments about being leashed to half a dozen providers for “convenience” and wonder if these people have actually tried to learn how to use something like a NAS. I think the part they really dislike is the undermining of the moral superiority they claim by donating their money to corporations that contribute ~nothing to the actual evolution of culture. Inventing strawmans abou…
> I think the part they really dislike is the undermining of the moral superiority they claim by donating their money to corporations that contribute ~nothing to the actual evolution of culture. My local farmers and grocery stores contribute ~nothing to actual evolution of culture. I still think they deserve to get paid for what they do. I don’t think this is as smart of a point as you thought it was. Regardless, the…
More commonly, at least in Australia which at various times has had record level piracy, content can be worth _something_ and also not worth "that much" and hence worth pirating.
This has been seen with games - once charged in Australia significantly more than in Europe or the US. Game piracy was rife and didn't really drop in volume until Australian game prices fell more in line with elsewhere.
With the coming of Netflix TV and movie piracy dropped a lot - as prices rose and sheer number of providers rose making it impossible to see whatever caught your eye all on the one source subscription, piracy volume in AU increased again.
This boils down to "We'll pay for stuff .. but only so far".
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Some times I read these mental gymnastics comments about piracy being easier and wonder if these people have actually tried to learn how to use something like an Apple TV. I think the services part they really dislike is just the part where your credit card gets charged when you click the buy or rent button. Doing all of the piracy stuff with VPNs and navigating torrent sites and getting a setup where you can play fi…
> I think the services part they really dislike is just the part where your credit card gets charged when you click the buy or rent button. You think wrong. My Steam account has 300+ games on it. I pay for several streaming services. I have a physical media collection that even includes a copy of windows vista, to my eternal regret. > Doing all of the piracy stuff with VPNs and navigating torrent sites and getting a…
That would satisfy both of your claims: That you don’t mind paying for things and you only do piracy to seek out the highest quality.
If you selectively choose not to pay for things where you can get away with it (e.g. not Steam games) then this claim doesn’t hold the slightest amount of water.
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> Nobody is ever going to convince me that pirating is actually easier than finding the thing I want to watch and putting it on my credit card. That's just because you're fine with consuming the low quality slop they stream out. Doesn't mean people who care more than you do are engaging in "mental gymnastics". We don't want the same things. I want the best version of everything. The highest quality version. The uncen…
> Then a bunch of fans gather together, hunt down an old film roll, drop tens of thousands of dollars on equipment to scan it and somehow it becomes a better version than the one the industry released. It's not fair to dismiss that level of commitment as "it's just people who don't want to pay for things". This is absurdity. The average pirate is not downloading content that some fans spent $10K digitizing from an or…
Why? You just said that they have to put more effort into it than the average person. Normie just signs up for netflix and watches whatever shows up. The pirate has to set up a torrent client, join private trackers and get connected with the so called scenesters, only to end up scrutinizing film grain of different encodes on screenshot comparison sites so he can spend his ratio budget on the best possible version.
It's true, that's a ton of work. Why would anyone put up with that nonsense, if not because they want higher quality than the industry is putting out? Netflix is not that expensive, and even if it was you can always share an account with some family members or something. Trivial.