31–40 of 118 posts
So two programmers ran a streaming website bigger than Netflix from their garage?
Something is fishy about this. Netflix's infrastructure is massive, and their bandwidth usage is a big chunk of the entire internet. How could this possibly go unnoticed for any amount of time?
There is no way they had more paying subscribers than Netflix. Netflix has 160 million paying customers. These two guys had "more" and made only 1 million dollars total. What? Probably their total pageviews vs Netflix's total paying customers or something dumb like that.
There is no way they had more paying subscribers than Netflix. Netflix has 160 million paying customers. These two guys had "more" and made only 1 million dollars total. What? Probably their total pageviews vs Netflix's total paying customers or something dumb like that.
Its like in the beginning of torrenting. Nobody willing to offer a service for everyone, for a fair price. Everybody gatekeeping selling only their stuff. And if you want everything pay this atrocious sum of money. I tell you this will happen more often and people are willing to pay. But not pay for everything. Good thing they had going. Well it was still illegal, but hey it will happen again i tell you.
Streaming is a service question. Netflix/D+/AMZN offers you a limited catalogue for 10$ or so a month. You select a movie from their website and it starts playing on your phone or computer. Pirates offer you everything for free . You select a movie from their website and it starts playing on your phone or computer. Why would any customer pick the more expensive product? Netflix and Friends need to offer a better serv…
Most notably, the headline of the linked article is ridiculously incorrect. The statement of facts states that they only processed 0.018M credit/debit card transactions over roughly the 2014-2016 period[2]. I would be extremely surprised if it reached Netflix's 152M of worldwide paid memberships for streaming in 2019[3][4].
[1] https://torrentfreak.com/two-las-vegas-men-plead-guilty-in-u...
[2] https://torrentfreak.com/images/polosof.pdf#page=1&search=%2...
[3] https://s22.q4cdn.com/959853165/files/doc_financials/quarter...
[4] https://s22.q4cdn.com/959853165/files/doc_financials/quarter...
If US clients would have the tiny tiny catalogs they offer e.g. in most of Europe, you would also be scratching your head how this could ever justify the subscription cost.
There is no way they had more paying subscribers than Netflix. Netflix has 160 million paying customers. These two guys had "more" and made only 1 million dollars total. What? Probably their total pageviews vs Netflix's total paying customers or something dumb like that.
The DOJ presser said the site was "larger" than Netflix, Hulu and Amazon combined in terms of available content - some media reports have misreported it as larger by subscriber count
Why would you do this from within the US? The mind boggles.
> "Specifically, Polo used sophisticated computer programming to [get pirated stuff] and then make the shows and movies available on servers in Canada," officials said.
So the fact that they were in the US is irrelevant.
But I'm sure that they got caught because they didn't know how to stay anonymous. Or were too lazy. Or got too greedy.
I mean, there are far better hosting alternatives than Canada. I guess that they wanted low latency for US customers. But still, they should have isolated themselves from the damn servers.
I'm guessing that it was their payment setup that got them pwned.
This might be a naive question but, why is the FBI the office in charge of enforcing copyright? Especially when it comes to entertainment. Why do we get an FBI warning on a cartoon's dvd?
I believe it's because it's an inter-state crime. Once crimes cross state borders you have to get the federal level police involved, which is the FBI.
Its like in the beginning of torrenting. Nobody willing to offer a service for everyone, for a fair price. Everybody gatekeeping selling only their stuff. And if you want everything pay this atrocious sum of money. I tell you this will happen more often and people are willing to pay. But not pay for everything. Good thing they had going. Well it was still illegal, but hey it will happen again i tell you.
Streaming is a service question. Netflix/D+/AMZN offers you a limited catalogue for 10$ or so a month. You select a movie from their website and it starts playing on your phone or computer. Pirates offer you everything for free . You select a movie from their website and it starts playing on your phone or computer. Why would any customer pick the more expensive product? Netflix and Friends need to offer a better serv…
Netflix and Stadia (or something like Xbox game pass) are more comparable in my opinion