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U.S. senators introduce new pirate site blocking bill, "Block BEARD"

torrentfreak.com

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Re: U.S. senators introduce new pirate site blocking bill, "Block BEARD"

#141

Post by standardUser »

MSFT_Edging wrote: post #116
parliament32 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is precisely the problem, and the whole reason why we still pirate TV/movies. I would have no problem paying $XX to a unified service that has basically everything; I have no interest in paying a dozen different streaming platforms for effectively "cable packages" that often add/remove/shift content around. The music industry figured this out: I pay Spotify, they have 95% of music content I could ever way, the U…

> The music industry figured this out > Why is this so hard for the film industry Music industry runs on barely paying any artist that cant fill a stadium. Movie industry runs on constantly re-licensing content to min-max their returns from IP. Music industry can happily barely pay musicians via the spotify model, but the Movie industry can't continually re-license their stuff to a higher bidder if it's all on one si…

I broadly agree with your assessment, but I think the important takeaway is that these situations are created artificially, usually by dominant market players for their own benefit. There is nothing natural or neccesary with the way these markets work, and it's certainly not unchangeable.

Re: U.S. senators introduce new pirate site blocking bill, "Block BEARD"

#142

Post by mindslight »

pessimizer wrote: post #61
mindslight wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both major parties are corpo-authoritarian, with the main dynamics of elections being to gauge how much the public is willing to accept and to make half the people think they actually wanted the resulting policies. And for this round the people have spoken that they want it good and hard.

> And for this round the people have spoken that they want it good and hard. Actually, the people have said "please stop this, this can't go on" at every election since 1992, with the possible exception of 2012 (unless you admit that 2012 President Obama was running against 2008 Candidate Obama.) They again said it in 2024.

I agree that's what the people have wanted to say and that they believe it is what they have said, but they get taken in by simplistic populist messages that transmute their frustration into support for the next corpo con long into when the results have become apparent. But for 2024 the usual excuses of "he reneged", "stick with the incumbent", or "less bad option" don't even work - it's a clear case of people putting their foot on the gas with a known quantity, but thinking it must be a good thing because those other people are really upset about it.

Re: U.S. senators introduce new pirate site blocking bill, "Block BEARD"

#143

Post by jasode »

parliament32 wrote: post #105
blackjack_ wrote: post #30

I've been trying to watch old 80s-90s movies recently. I'm happy to pay $5 or whatever, and they just aren't available anywhere. Rental stores are dead, so I can't go rent them from blockbuster or whatever, and streaming sites have splintered to the point I'm not even sure what is a scam and what is a legitimate business anymore. Trying to even find availability of what films exist on which streaming sites has been a…

This is precisely the problem, and the whole reason why we still pirate TV/movies. I would have no problem paying $XX to a unified service that has basically everything; I have no interest in paying a dozen different streaming platforms for effectively "cable packages" that often add/remove/shift content around. The music industry figured this out: I pay Spotify, they have 95% of music content I could ever way, the U…

>Why is this so hard for the film industry?

It boils down to money.

Movies & tv have higher monetary value to the studios than songs to the record labels.

So the ip owners of video content get more revenue by restricting it as exclusives to their respective platforms rather than licensing it out to everybody and get a smaller fractional payment from an everything-unlimited-catalog video streaming service.

E.g. HBO would rather get 100% of their own $16.99/month subscription -- vs -- licensing entire HBO catalog to Netflix and getting a fraction% of $17.99/month.

How much extra would Netflix conceivably have to charge per month such that the fractional amounts to each movie studio (HBO, Disney, etc) would be enough $$ that the studios wouldn't bother with their own exclusive streaming platforms? $99/month? $149/month? Right now, there isn't a number that Netflix + all studios + subscribers can converge on so instead, we get the current fragmented streaming platforms of video content.

For more evidence of how video content is more valuable than music (in terms of digital streaming platforms), consider that tech giants like Netflix, Amazon, and Apple -- all created their own movie & tv studio business to produce even more exclusives for their streaming platforms. But none of them have started their own record labels to sign musicians to get exclusive songs or albums.

Re: U.S. senators introduce new pirate site blocking bill, "Block BEARD"

#144

Post by csnover »

bombcar wrote: post #95
HanClinto wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a small country town. It's decent for its size, but it's very small. In contrast, Archive.org is an absolutely fantastic library, and we're happy to support them. Way better than my public library -- especially for hard-to-find media.

Ask about interlibrary loans; our rural library can get almost anything, given time.

Where I live, ILLs do not work for video games because the format identification for video games is “Electronic”, and their software is programmed to suppress the request button for these items because it is interpreted as “no physical media”. I emailed the people who run the system, they said it is a known issue, and as far as I can tell that just means they aren’t going to fix it, since it has been this way for at least three years.

Re: U.S. senators introduce new pirate site blocking bill, "Block BEARD"

#145

Post by Ylpertnodi »

keernan wrote: post #63

I am more concerned about "big brother" - the increasing use of the internet by the government to "watch" its citizens. The recent efforts by England's demand that Apple provide the English government with a "back door" into Apple OS. And more and more governments demanding ID under the guise of protecting children. How is that going to work? Are we all going to need a government issued digital identity in order to u…

Yes. And I believe you mean the 'Great/ British' [.gov].

Re: U.S. senators introduce new pirate site blocking bill, "Block BEARD"

#148

Post by standardUser »

chollida1 wrote: post #113
Me1000 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP, but yes believe it or not it's impossible to find certain movies anywhere other than pirating them. One example is "Pirates of Silicon Valley", I watched it when I was young and recently wanted to watch it again. I pay for basically all the streaming services, I'm would have been happy to rent it from any service at all. I spent several hours trying to find a way to pay to watch it and never could.

I'm pretty sure i just watched that via apple+. But your point generally valid regardless.

Apple TV doesn't allow me to stream in my browser, so I happily pirate their content. I pay for all the other "big" streaming services that I can use like a normal person.

Re: U.S. senators introduce new pirate site blocking bill, "Block BEARD"

#149

Post by johnisgood »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #79
johnisgood wrote: post #8

Amazing. These kind of bills / laws are being passed left and right "recently".

> These kind of bills / laws are being passed It hasn’t been passed!

Many of them have, but you are right, should have used a different term.

Re: U.S. senators introduce new pirate site blocking bill, "Block BEARD"

#150

Post by seanw444 »

bombcar wrote: post #100
seanw444 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm. The only streaming service I use anymore is Disney+, and I only have it because I like to watch the new Star Wars stuff when it releases at good quality. Everything else I care to watch, which isn't much besides older stuff, I'll just torrent now. Greedy companies really need to heed Gabe Newell's words.

Even Disney+ is crappier than Netflix in the streaming heyday - there are Disney Junior shows that Disney+ didn’t have (maybe still doesn’t). Buying DVDs and ripping to Jellyfin is much easier.

Why do the ripping myself when the torrents are mostly all rips other people already did?
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