Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

torrentfreak.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 268 posts

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

#171

Post by IshKebab »

dml2135 wrote: post #167
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.

It's down from it's heyday for the mainstream, but for the dedicated few, it's better than ever before. Gone are the days of manually searching for a movie on tracker sites, downloading them, organizing your library and watching stuff on your laptop. There are now open-source, self-hosted applications that automate that entire process, so it's as simple as requesting a movie on your phone and having it show up on you…

What are the names of these immoral piracy applications, so that I can know to avoid them if I happen to stumble upon one?

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

#172

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#173

Post by IshKebab »

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 think it was down when the answer to streaming was "get netflix, it has most stuff", but now it's "pay for netflix, Disney+, Amazon prime, apple tv, ...".

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

#175

Post by Wojtkie »

standardUser wrote: post #141
MSFT_Edging wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

>but I think the important takeaway is that these situations are created artificially

Are they really though? It's easier than ever for an indie creative to create and distribute their works through the many channels. Problem is, people don't spend as much money as a whole on indie works compared to focus-grouped blockbusters.

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

#176

Post by kimbernator »

namrog84 wrote: post #99
dsissitka wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my circles the modern alternative seems to be using Yandex to search for "$show stream". I don't know about BitTorrent but Usenet is way up: https://www.newsdemon.com/usenet-newsgroup-feed-size

Daily volume could just be more bluray high quality downloads with people with better internet. And not neccesarily larger number of people right?

I would be pretty surprised if the quality of rips since 2017 would account for a 20x increase in traffic.

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

#177

Post by criddell »

philips wrote: post #125
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…

An archival incentive is the reason I am pro 25 year copyright. This current situation is causing our cultural heritage to rot.

Seems like a fair solution might be limiting damages on pirating movies that aren't widely available. For example, if a movie isn't available for streaming cap damages at $2.99 or whatever the going rental rate is.

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

#178

Post by imglorp »

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…

They've ended/sold/traded away many of their licensing agreements. Many things they used to have are gone.

It stinks because some of the things they tossed are mundane, but they add to the depth of the catalog if you're looking for something and improve the experience.

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

#179

Post by Reason077 »

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…

In fairness to Netflix, in the old days they only had to own a copy of the DVD in order to rent it out.

Now they have to secure rights for every title they want to stream. That’s a lot of work (and cost) for a hundred thousand titles, especially when your competitors own some of the studios that license those titles.

Disney, for example, owns the Disney / Marvel / Fox / Searchlight / Lucasfilm back catalogues and wants to hoard much of it for its own streaming service.

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

#180

Post by Henchman21 »

mystraline wrote: post #73
CamperBob2 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing."

I've argued that if 'buy' is DRM encrusted shit (hardware or software), then the sale should be considered fraudulent conversion to a rental. And since its a rental, and the company still retains control, that's a lot of capex they failed to declare with the IRS. And yeah, tax fraud.

This should be pushed into the public consciousness as far as possible
Post reply on HN