251–260 of 330 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just the opposite - every time you buy any content from the evil media mega corps you're funding their war against privacy, democracy and individual freedoms.
You're also funding them to make the content you enjoy.
Plus the artists who create the content get a miniscule part of your purchase money.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's a list of countries by number of broadband internet connections: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_... Now, if you like you can work out the intersection with countries that have access to a similarly complete selection of movies at comparable cost to what Netflix offers in the U.S. You will quickly find out that your "handful" of people is in fact hundereds of millions of people.
That really does nothing to disprove my point that people who can't afford movies (either purchasing, or importing, or renting in iTunes) are also extremely unlikely to be able to afford broadband internet and a modern computer and be knowledgeable enough to handle a cloud-based torrent client.
Broadband was expensive too, but 512k was something like 60$... And because internet access had so much more use than just consuming cultural information, people would prefer to get it and save on something else. Like the dvds that they would get by pirating.
Before 2002 when Broadband access was excessively rare... Most people would just buy pirated dvds from the flea market... For 5 $ or less. They where ready to pay for them... but at a lower price than what official goods where... You never bought dvd for youself except if you were wealthy or to give them as gifts.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's a list of countries by number of broadband internet connections: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_... Now, if you like you can work out the intersection with countries that have access to a similarly complete selection of movies at comparable cost to what Netflix offers in the U.S. You will quickly find out that your "handful" of people is in fact hundereds of millions of people.
That really does nothing to disprove my point that people who can't afford movies (either purchasing, or importing, or renting in iTunes) are also extremely unlikely to be able to afford broadband internet and a modern computer and be knowledgeable enough to handle a cloud-based torrent client.
Broadband was expensive too, but 512k was something like 60$... And because internet access had so much more use than just consuming cultural information, people would prefer to get it and save on something else. Like the dvds that they would get by pirating.
Before 2002 when Broadband access was excessively rare... Most people would just buy pirated dvds from the flea market... For 5 $ or less. They where ready to pay for them... but at a lower price than what official goods where... You never bought dvd for youself except if you were wealthy or to give them as gifts.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my part of the world (Eastern Europe) 25 mbps no-quota costs about $20/mo (~2% avg income) in the urban areas. Outside of cities the price stays the same but usually only (A)DSL is available, with bandwidth ranging from 512kbps to ~15mbps. Accidentally, an average price of a DVD movie is also around $20. So yes, there are places where fast internet is affordable, yet movies are not. Unless you want to watch only o…
If a $20 DVD isn't affordable, $20/mo internet isn't. (I'm also fairly skeptical that your average DVD movie is $20, as though that's the absolute lowest you'll ever pay.) Movies aren't a God-given right, so it's not like you deserve a set amount of movies per month. Even then, while that situation is certainly more excusable, you're still the minority . That site isn't made for the Eastern European lower class who c…
The only reason why broadband may cost that much is because it's localized and one can't simply buy EU broadband in US. There are actually good reasons for broadband prices to be affected by local economy, since labour and materials may have different cost there. That's not the case with DVDs, which cost the same (pennies) to manufacture.
But maybe I should have put more emphasis on the problems with availability rather than money. Having a choice of spending my $20 on cinema tickets or a DVD, sometimes I would choose latter to watch something at home. But here DVDs are released only when the dubbing is ready, often after a year from the original release. I could get to this content earlier online, but I don't have Netflix here, nor Play Movies, Pandora and many others. There were problems with DVD releases that were solved in two ways: by VOD with reasonable monthly fee or by torrents. Saying torrents are for the greedy is just a good excuse to prosecute piracy instead of improving the market.
It seems as though the primary use case being discussed and implied is torrenting of media that is not legal (however ethical you feel it may be) to torrent in many countries. Please remember that when you do so, you weaken the case the rest of us have against the same laws you're ignoring, against DRM, against intrusions into our privacy, and against unfair ISP practices.
I understand the ethically shady bit but... how does it weaken the case against DRM? Surely it just continues to demonstrate how useless it is as a strategy?
I have upgraded and downgraded my plan many times, depending on my own needs, it's been years I don't use a torrent client.
This is how you download torrents blazingly fast:
Download firefox + DownThemAll! extension, configure downthemall enabling all the maximum of speeds
go to http://put.io, add a torrent in the download queue, it will probably be done within minutes, if not seconds (no exaggeration), then download them straight to your computer through downthemall
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I understand the ethically shady bit but... how does it weaken the case against DRM? Surely it just continues to demonstrate how useless it is as a strategy?
In theory what you say makes sense, but then why is there still DRM? There's been strong evidence that it's useless for a long time already, and companies are still implementing it. What do you think will actually convince people to stop that hasn't happened already? I say it weakens the case because more piracy just inspires the knee-jerk reaction of "we have to do something to protect the children from pirated soft…
What you say makes sense as well, I guess we're really talking about two different arguments. One logical/reasoned (look, DRM has basically failed) and the other emotional (OMG piracy! We must have more DRM!). They're kind of orthogonal to my mind.
>> In theory what you say makes sense, but then why is there still DRM?
For a whole complex of reasons, some of which boil down to exactly what you say. Maybe if nobody ever pirated anything it would go away, but I doubt it. It's too useful for other purposes - market segmentation, multiple resales for new formats or devices, preventing reasonable backups etc etc.
I use and love put.io. Completely hassle free. I'd never go back. The killer feature is instant completion of torrents if someone else has already downloaded them. I can be watching a movie 60 seconds after thinking of it.
movies.io integrates great with put.io. Watch a trailer, click, watch the movie!
I would love to make
compatible for registered put.io users
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're also funding them to make the content you enjoy.
Enjoyment >> freedom /s Plus the artists who create the content get a miniscule part of your purchase money.
You can rent basically any movie on Amazon, or buy DRM free music from a variety of sources. If you choose not to and torrent, you're not performing some sort of noble protest in the name of the artists. I can assure that they don't see it that way.
Note: I'm not saying that people in creative capacities think that torrenting is evil, and yes, they know they are part of a broken system. I just think it's disingenuous when people justify torrenting using this argument. You're torrenting because you think the market price of whatever content you're downloading is too / you don't feel like paying. Simple as that.