I know it's about copyright 'piracy' instead of actual piracy, but the title being 'Piracy in the UK' makes me chuckle, like we've got buccaneers on Scarborough Mere.
Piracy in the UK: the failed war on illegal content
11–20 of 35 posts
Re: Piracy in the UK: the failed war on illegal content
#12when digital "property" can be returned for a refund, sold or transfered at will, works on any operating system, is insurable, then , it will be in a position where it will be respected enough to get public suport for inclusion as real property. idea: digital property could be uniquely insurable, as a loss could be re-issued withe same serial #
Or we could just accept the inherent properties of the medium and not try to shoehorn it into the model of exclusive scarcity for physical goods, whether for reductio ad absurdum or not. (Heck, the scarcity model is even starting to break down for sundry consumer goods in the light of "free returns" and whatnot, at least in the US)
It's hard to take the original article seriously when it's going on and on about "stealing". It does have an astute point about out of touch ham-fisted anti-piracy campaigns actually increasing public support for piracy. In that light, this article would have itself been better as a video clip.
Re: Piracy in the UK: the failed war on illegal content
#13No one wants to steal any content, they view content elsewhere due to ludicrous rights management systems on digital video content. Simplify the system to be closer to music and you wouldn't have any piracy. People aren't going to subscribe to 5-10 services monthly just to watch the latest shows. Until that happens, expect piracy, it won't ever be stopped.
>No one wants to steal any content, they view content elsewhere due to ludicrous rights management systems on digital video content. Actually I think they do. The median salary is quite low in the UK so there are a lot of people for whom piracy is an economic act rather than being about DRM.
I am from the UK and you are right to some extent, but I don't know many that pirate music (outside of bootleg recordings and unreleased mix CDs such as the gray album by danegrmouse because Spotify and Apple Music are affordable and have an extensive range of content so anyone that wants to listen to music often can afford a subscription. If movie or TV was collated in the same way, no one would be pirating either. Whether it's due to median wage or just an ethical stance, subscribing to satellite TV, netflix, Amazon prime, paramount plus, Disney plus, plus the range of TV channels for sport, is simply unrealistic financially and hard to support even if you can afford it. The fact companies go so hard after those that create easy ways to pirate TV broadcasts (such as the Premier League going after Fire Stick creators which is a debatable if it's a crime for many reasons.) shows they know this monopolising way is good for them financially but not remotely good for the consumer.
Re: Piracy in the UK: the failed war on illegal content
#14When will the movie industry learn from the success of services like Spotify or DRM free music services like Bandcamp? I want media I can own, or consume from a single subscription. I would happily pay a few quid for a movie if I could download a high quality DRM free file. Piracy is not only free but provides a better product, a file you can do whatever you want with and watch anywhere. Personally I don’t pirate, I…
Neither of those services are successful. They don't make any money. They are, essentially, only useful learning experiences in what not to do.
Looks like Spotify will report a profit for the first time in 2024
Re: Piracy in the UK: the failed war on illegal content
#15I don't know. TPB seems less active than ever. I know that's not UK specific, but does not bode well nonetheless.
Most piracy has moved to online streaming instead of distributing files for later offline viewing. Here's a site I found with 30 seconds of googling: https://westream.to/home - surprisingly polished and with much better UX than any legal service, because it doesn't require account creation or logging in. It just works. I clicked on Dune 2, waited for a moment, and it started playing. Picture quality is fairly muddy, but good enough for the average consumer. Under the hood, such sites might still use web-based torrent protocol to move the bytes around, but it's not visible to the end-user in any meaningful way.
Re: Piracy in the UK: the failed war on illegal content
#16No one wants to steal any content, they view content elsewhere due to ludicrous rights management systems on digital video content. Simplify the system to be closer to music and you wouldn't have any piracy. People aren't going to subscribe to 5-10 services monthly just to watch the latest shows. Until that happens, expect piracy, it won't ever be stopped.
>No one wants to steal any content, they view content elsewhere due to ludicrous rights management systems on digital video content. Actually I think they do. The median salary is quite low in the UK so there are a lot of people for whom piracy is an economic act rather than being about DRM.
Nonsense. A Spotify Premium or 1080p Netflix subscription costs one hour of work at UK minimum wage. If you're willing to settle for ads you can get Spotify for free, or Netflix for the cost of a single pint of beer. That's incredibly cheap entertainment, if you're not too picky.
I pay for a Spotify Premium subscription. It has 99% of the music I want to listen to, and it works on all my devices - including Linux. I only use it a dozen hours a month or so, but it's too convenient not to get it.
I tried a Netflix subscription early on for a few months - before the streaming service explosion. It had a horrible UX, didn't work on half my devices, and only had a small fraction of the content I wanted to watch. In other words, it was literally impossible to legally get a Spotify-like streaming experience.
The solution? I spent hundreds on a movie/tv download server instead. A single torrent tracker provides everything I could possibly want, with an extremely easy user experience, and the content is guaranteed to work on all my devices. It would be cheaper for me to subscribe to a streaming service, but a decent one does not exist.
In the years since then the streaming landscape has only gotten worse, with content now distributed among a dozen different streaming services. Why would anyone willingly subject themselves to that?
Re: Piracy in the UK: the failed war on illegal content
#17The first day I moved to Germany I immediately got fined €300 for streaming 10 seconds of a film using Popcorn Time.
I just couldn't believe it. I'd had decades of piracy through Virgin Media, no VPN in the UK and it just didn't occur to me that I couldn't do that elsewhere.
Re: Piracy in the UK: the failed war on illegal content
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
>No one wants to steal any content, they view content elsewhere due to ludicrous rights management systems on digital video content. Actually I think they do. The median salary is quite low in the UK so there are a lot of people for whom piracy is an economic act rather than being about DRM.
Nonsense. A Spotify Premium or 1080p Netflix subscription costs one hour of work at UK minimum wage. If you're willing to settle for ads you can get Spotify for free, or Netflix for the cost of a single pint of beer. That's incredibly cheap entertainment, if you're not too picky. I pay for a Spotify Premium subscription. It has 99% of the music I want to listen to, and it works on all my devices - including Linux. I…
Then you’re limited to Netflix’s country specific availability which is subject to change constantly.
With piracy, you download it, you keep it. Job done.
Re: Piracy in the UK: the failed war on illegal content
#19No one wants to steal any content, they view content elsewhere due to ludicrous rights management systems on digital video content. Simplify the system to be closer to music and you wouldn't have any piracy. People aren't going to subscribe to 5-10 services monthly just to watch the latest shows. Until that happens, expect piracy, it won't ever be stopped.
>No one wants to steal any content, they view content elsewhere due to ludicrous rights management systems on digital video content. Actually I think they do. The median salary is quite low in the UK so there are a lot of people for whom piracy is an economic act rather than being about DRM.
The cost of internet connectivity is a much larger barrier than any one of the streaming services.
If you can't download anything substantial without blowing your mobile data cap, you're not going to do much piracy; you're going to buy £5 DVDs.
Re: Piracy in the UK: the failed war on illegal content
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
>No one wants to steal any content, they view content elsewhere due to ludicrous rights management systems on digital video content. Actually I think they do. The median salary is quite low in the UK so there are a lot of people for whom piracy is an economic act rather than being about DRM.
Nonsense. A Spotify Premium or 1080p Netflix subscription costs one hour of work at UK minimum wage. If you're willing to settle for ads you can get Spotify for free, or Netflix for the cost of a single pint of beer. That's incredibly cheap entertainment, if you're not too picky. I pay for a Spotify Premium subscription. It has 99% of the music I want to listen to, and it works on all my devices - including Linux. I…
>Nonsense. A Spotify Premium or 1080p Netflix subscription costs one hour of work at UK minimum wage. If you're willing to settle for ads you can get Spotify for free, or Netflix for the cost of a single pint of beer. That's incredibly cheap entertainment, if you're not too picky.
The problem is the proliferation of different streaming services. Your friend recommends Slow Horses, which is on Apple TV+. Another recommends The Day of the Jackal, which is on Now TV. You want to watch Premier League football, so you need both Sky Sports and TNT Sports to see all the matches. Before you know it, you're spending £80 a month on subscriptions and you're still missing out on things that are on Disney+ or some American streaming service you've never heard of.
If your mates have all got hookey Fire Sticks and get to watch whatever they want with no ads and no subscription fee, you're going to feel like a complete mug for doing things legally.