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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"

#151

Post by nickthegreek »

larrik wrote: post #70
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…

The Roku app is actually really good at determining where everything ever is currently streaming (or purchasable). It's not 100% perfect, but it's generally correct. I go there first for basically everything. For example, it tells me Wake Up Ron Burgundy (which isn't even a "real" movie) can be purchases on Prime, Fandango, or iTunes. Actually, iTunes and Prime have mostly everything for rent, what movies were you ac…

Plex does this as well.

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

#152

Post by endemic »

LeonardoTolstoy wrote: post #36
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…

How's your local library system?

Came here to recommend this. A viable option, at least until Republicans completely defund public libraries.

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

#153

Post by JoshTriplett »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #115
bilekas wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point could be made that if it's not available from the publisher for sale then piracy is not illegal.

Agree. However I'm willing to cut EA some slack here. NFS series (like some other games) has music in it that's been licensed by the devs for a limited time. Selling the game today would mean either ripping out the music which is what made the game fun, or paying the record labels more money, which will not be offset by the few sales to 30+ year old nostalgics. But at least EA isn't actively preventing you from playi…

> However I'm willing to cut EA some slack here. NFS series (like some other games) has music in it that's been licensed by the devs for a limited time.

If that practice gets killed as well, that'd be a bonus.

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

#154

Post by Marsymars »

e40 wrote: post #89
ryandrake wrote: post #29

Isn't torrenting way down from its heyday? Streaming companies are not perfect, but I always thought they were at least moderately successful such that in 2025, average, casual, non-techies no longer bother to jump through the VPN and private tracker hoops just to download a movie.

I torrent content I’m legally allowed to watch because the UX is far better with Plex than with the plethora of crappy apps.

I rip stuff from YouTube for the same reason. Currently watching Taskmaster which has all or most episodes freely available on YouTube, but no way am I interested in using that dumpster fire of a UX.

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

#155

Post by michaelt »

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?

The logic is pretty simple:

* It has been widely demonstrated that, in the US, many consumers are willing to pay more than $100/month for cable TV, with ads.

* Netflix costs $8/month with ads.

* Why leave that money on the table?

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

#156

Post by jasode »

tomwheeler wrote: post #133
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: I pay Spotify, they have 95% of music content I could ever way, the UX is good enough. I have no reason to pirate music anymore. > Why is this so hard for the film industry? My theory is that the United States has compulsory licensing for music, but not movies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_license#United_Stat... To my knowledge, a radio station or music streaming ser…

>To my knowledge, a radio station or music streaming service doesn't have to negotiate with the record label to play a given song, they just have to pay a small royalty as defined by law.

The copyright holders can legally prevent their recordings from being streamed by Spotify. Famous examples were Taylor Swift and Neil Young withholding their music from Spotify.

For extra nuance, copyright holders can't stop cover songs from appearing on Spotify. So the Taylor Swift cover songs do have to pay compulsory license fees to her and her record label.

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

#157

Post by EliRivers »

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…

Unhelpful but related; back in the day (15 or so years ago), Netflix had a truly excellent back catalogue of old movies. Over a hundred thousand titles. A DVD collection that we just didn't realise was going to vanish as quickly as it arose.

The current offering is just... less. I don't know if I mean in terms of sheer number of titles, but a million episodes of slop is just more slop. Netflix peaked 15 years ago and we didn't even notice.

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

#158

Post by JoshTriplett »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #123
bombcar wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see no strong moral argument against ripping DVDs (from the library or similar) of content you paid for on Apple or Amazon.

There's no moral argument against ripping DVDs one way or the other. There's a civil/economic argument: arguably copyright/intellectual property make for stronger societies that produce better stuff for everybody. But there's nothing immoral about copying or watching something you came across. The author isn't injured by it- nobody is. Except, like I said, perhaps society in general.

> arguably copyright/intellectual property make for stronger societies that produce better stuff for everybody.

They really, really don't. The tradeoff of offering temporary legal privileges in exchange for a future richer public domain resulted in better stuff for everybody. Those legal privileges have become effectively permanent, so the trade is broken.

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

#159

Post by mmcclure »

eagerpace wrote: post #132
mmcclure wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently joined a local independent video rental store and it's so, so good. My partner looked at me like I was crazy when I told her, but she was a convert after one trip to pick out a movie in person. Something about browsing in person is just so much more enjoyable than flipping between 9 services. Having a cinephile right there behind the desk that wants to nerd about movies and help pick something out is aweso…

Out of curiosity, what formats do they rent?

Most of the collection is DVD and/or Blu-ray, but he's got some VHS tapes and video games across a few platforms. When he was giving me the spiel about joining he was explicit that he doesn't have any Laserdisc or Betamax, though.

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

#160

Post by HelloMcFly »

EliRivers wrote: post #157
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…

Unhelpful but related; back in the day (15 or so years ago), Netflix had a truly excellent back catalogue of old movies. Over a hundred thousand titles. A DVD collection that we just didn't realise was going to vanish as quickly as it arose. The current offering is just... less. I don't know if I mean in terms of sheer number of titles, but a million episodes of slop is just more slop. Netflix peaked 15 years ago and…

This is why I started getting into physical media. I was subbed to so many services, but I felt like only 15% of the time would any service I want have the movie (and almost never Netflix as they prefer their own content slop).
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