An intern once thought it was a good idea to torrent a couple of Game of Thrones episodes using my startup's Digital Ocean box. We found out after Digital Ocean forwarded us an email from HBO (who presumably tracked Digital Ocean down via the IP) that we were engaging in piracy. We sent an email to everyone with access, saying whoever was doing it to stop. Then we got a second email (a final warning). Everyone denied…
Somehow I can only see one this comment of 252 in this thread.
I had the same issue, emailed the moderators using the "Contact" link in the footer, and got a response quickly. Recommended.
> as theft (it is) Are you sure digital piracy is theft? Wikipedia defines theft as: "The taking of another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it." Copies are made, sales (possibly) lost, but no property is being taken such that the owner cannot continue to sell/rent/etc it. My take: I'll pay for whatever streaming service that ha…
Just get a DVD/Blueray player. The content is there for you to legally get and pay for. Heck, you can buy pretty much any movie from Amazon digitally. There is really no excuse not to pay.
HN is a global community. Quite a few people here are in countries where legitimate DVDs/Blu-rays are not available locally. If a person were to try to order them from Amazon, the shipping fees would be enormous, and the package may get stuck in customs and require further payment to get it out. In fact, some online shops (like Criterion) will not even ship abroad, because they have licensed the content for a DVD/Blu-ray release only in North America or some other limited geographic region. Consequently, it is no surprise that many ardent cinephiles turn to torrenting (or buying a release from the local marketplace that is going to be a pirated copy anyway) even if they would have liked to build up a physical collection.
Couldn't the intern have paid for his own bare bones VPS and done it from there? Or used a different paid VPN service, which cost roughly the same ~$5? Seems like the cost of a VPN compared to the value of his internship wouldn't even compare. All for some campus clout.
DigitalOcean bills per hour.
But their lowest tier of VPS caps out at $5 a month
Couldn't the intern have paid for his own bare bones VPS and done it from there? Or used a different paid VPN service, which cost roughly the same ~$5? Seems like the cost of a VPN compared to the value of his internship wouldn't even compare. All for some campus clout.
Depends, was it a paid internship?
Even if it wasn't, I bet the experience of the internship would be worth more than the cost of a personal VPN. Unless the internship didn't really provide much value.
Because I make my money selling my labor and IP to my company (software engineer, it's in my contract.) If someone stole my IP from me or my company, it would be harder to pay the bills for either me, or my company.
I think the irony is that someone on HN will jump on this thread saying copyright needs to be abolished, and you didn't lose anything as the user wouldn't have paid for it anyways, with the irony being that a large majority of HN either earns money via tracking ads(which is far worse than any copyright), or works money by writing paid software.
> a large majority of HN either earns money via tracking ads
Have you ever seen any numbers on HN users jobs? I’m continually surprised by the diverse roles of domain experts that appear in threads. I guess I’m hoping you’re wrong.
I've been using a Seedbox since December 2014. Best 15$/month I pay. You can even pay with Bitcoin, tho I just use PayPal. 2 TB of storage, very fast speed with caching (i.e. some torrents finish immediately if someone else has it downloaded). An uncached Blu-ray ~4 GB movie gets finished in 15-30 mins. They also have auto-delete feature. If they get a legal complaint they just delete the offending torrent and keep m…
> Only problem I have with torrents are unpopular movies/series usually have no seeds, but there is nothing that can be done about that. > Pro-tip: Do not download the actual .torrent file. Many websites are setup to redirect you into an endless loop of shady .exe downloads. Always, always just copy the magnet link to your clipboard. A better pro-tip for these issues: if you're anyway using a seed box, figure out and…
Getting access to private trackers is non-trivial. Hell, I used to be on waffles.fm and lost my invite and getting access since then has been impossible.
Usenet and sickbeard have been adequate replacements since then.
seedr.cc, bitport.io or zbigz.com exist to solve this problem and would have saved him his job.
Seriously. The idea that it's just fine to pirate everything because you can or have the tech to do it is appalling to see in this community.
From an 1841 speech to the British House of Commons on the dangers of increased copyright times:
At present the holder of copyright has the public feeling on his side. Those who invade copyright are regarded as knaves who take the bread out of the mouths of deserving men. Everybody is well pleased to see them restrained by the law, and compelled to refund their ill-gotten gains. No tradesman of good repute will have anything to do with such disgraceful transactions. Pass this law: and that feeling is at an end. Men very different from the present race of piratical booksellers will soon infringe this intolerable monopoly. Great masses of capital will be constantly employed in the violation of the law. Every art will be employed to evade legal pursuit; and the whole nation will be in the plot… Remember too that, when once it ceases to be considered as wrong and discreditable to invade literary property, no person can say where the invasion will stop. The public seldom makes nice distinctions. The wholesome copyright which now exists will share in the disgrace and danger of the new copyright which you are about to create.
Because I make my money selling my labor and IP to my company (software engineer, it's in my contract.) If someone stole my IP from me or my company, it would be harder to pay the bills for either me, or my company.
I think the irony is that someone on HN will jump on this thread saying copyright needs to be abolished, and you didn't lose anything as the user wouldn't have paid for it anyways, with the irony being that a large majority of HN either earns money via tracking ads(which is far worse than any copyright), or works money by writing paid software.
I think a lot of HN readers write software that is hosted somewhere, so the users never see the code. Thus, copyright provides us no protection. (I suppose the ex-employee could always take the code and start their own competing service, so copyright does have some value.)
An intern once thought it was a good idea to torrent a couple of Game of Thrones episodes using my startup's Digital Ocean box. We found out after Digital Ocean forwarded us an email from HBO (who presumably tracked Digital Ocean down via the IP) that we were engaging in piracy. We sent an email to everyone with access, saying whoever was doing it to stop. Then we got a second email (a final warning). Everyone denied…
Couldn't the intern have paid for his own bare bones VPS and done it from there? Or used a different paid VPN service, which cost roughly the same ~$5? Seems like the cost of a VPN compared to the value of his internship wouldn't even compare. All for some campus clout.
It's potentially less anonymous to the people who might prosecute you. Probably didn't realize how anonymous it wasn't to the employer and didn't factor that cost in to the decision. But if you're willing to $5 to get a show, you're probably less likely to pirate it anyway (or at least be the seed).
> The movement away from physical copies I just don't understand this argument, physical copies of virtually any type of media absolutely still exist. If you want to own even Netflix shows on disc, you can do that pretty cheaply. I'd you want to get Blu Ray discs delivered to you by mail for a subscription fee, you can probably do that (although this is slightly more geographically restricted). This argument is simpl…
That claim isn't true. There are games that are not provided with a physical copy (i.e. Beatsaber for PSVR, Quest for Booty-Rachet and Clank, etc) Also, I'm sure there are other Hulu, Netflix, Prime excluses that won't make it to the physical market. ---- This still avoids the main issue here: It's the right of ownership of the copy. Having a digital copy, in it's current state, prevents you from transferring it to o…
It absolutely is. I said virtually all, and for virtually all it's true. A small number of counter examples that aren't relevant to the majority of the media-consuming public does nothing to change the inarguable fact that the vast majority of media is available in physical form.