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Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

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Re: Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

#321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are using hyperbole to straw man what is being said. If you go into a store and take a laptop, this is completely different from downloading a movie. If I could, I would download that laptop, and that, too, would be completely different from physically taking the laptop from the store, which robs the store owner from compensation. To use your argument, if I go into a store, look at a laptop but don't buy it, that…

Sorry, I'm not, and there simply is no moral argument for pirating content, because no , if you believe in intellectual property, the is nothing whatsoever different about stealing a laptop and downloading a movie. If you believe in intellectual property, piracy is amoral. It's not pure evil incarnate, but harms more than it helps. And yeah, of course I would download that laptop. Doesn't mean I should!

I find it difficult to have any remorse, given that this industry is one of the most morally bankrupt and predatory. Sorry, agree to disagree.

> Sorry, I'm not

Indeed you are. Even US law disagrees with you, and that is some of the most ridiculous.

Re: Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

#322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am curious to know about the infra / tech stack, if you're comfortable with sharing any information.

Sure. As @diminoten mentions, legality is questionable here, so I do not recommend. If you do dabble, restrict access, and encrypt everything so that if you lose your keys, they only option is to destroy the stack and start over. Cloud provider of your choice Plex media server running on a high-throughput instance, with cloud storage mounted locally for reading. (Redundantly created in multiple regions depending on w…

Interesting, thanks for sharing!

Do you think it would be viable using a pool of 'a few' residential connections (think fiber >500 Mbps upload) in each region, with some x86 server behind each to transcode / store?

The idea being to self-host the whole infra between users themselves, those willing to plug a desktop/server somewhere.

I figure you'd only need a basic load balancer in an actual cloud (always on) which redirects to whichever server is available enough.

Any thought about any of this?

Re: Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

#323

No worries, I'll just use the torrent sharers. I bet those will give me a constant 4K quality on all my devices, no ridiculous DRM, get to keep them once I terminate my "subscription", etc. Oh and it's free, not 10-15$ USD for each service.

I don't understand the moral indignation. Getting angry at netflix et al. for trying to improve their bottom line is like getting angry at water being wet.

If you want to pirate, fine, pirate. I just don't understand why people are so insistent on coming up with moral justifications for their actions. If it's moral or immoral fine, who cares? It's simply a sign of weak character when someone needs to come up with a justification for every little thing they do.

Re: Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

#324
Meanwhile, AT&T and Comcast made it so difficult to sign-in and stay signed in let alone all the false positive "this is only available at your house" nitpicking that I rarely was able to use my TV service except when I was ass-in-seat in the living room.

I do not plan on ever getting cable again. If NetFlix wants to work with them to start being anal about how I use the service too I know who's on the chopping block next.

Re: Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

#325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You couldn't be more wrong. You do not have an entitlement to intellectual property, our entire society is built on top of that concept. It's more like you're saying you get to use any logos you want because you can download the images for them on their website. The only reason you can listen to a concert outside of the venue is because there's no way to stop you that's also in any way proportionate to the crime. Edi…

Eh, we're in legalese grey area here. "Entitlement" is a loaded word. Personally, I believe that if I am walking down the street and someone is playing The Avengers on a screen, I'm very much entitled to stick around and watch the movie. The internet, to me, is the same thing as walking down that street - public space. Feel free to disagree though - the CCP does. Not to get into politics, but it's fundamentally simil…

> The internet, to me, is the same

That's not the same scenario. The content was taken from a private place (bootleg, studio leak, paywall/subscription, etc) and put into a public place.

Re: Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

#326
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't Google/Apple all have pay per view for movies and shows? You don't have to have a subscription.

Because of politics and DRM, Apple doesn't offer Disney movies in 4K, for example. I really don't give a rats behind about Hollywood politics. I would have purchased if I could get DRM free movies. Alas, this is not an option. So I go the "remux" way, where everything is free, quality is better than all streaming services and there is no DRM. It's up to Hollywood to make change.

> I would have purchased if I could get DRM free movies.

I have a feeling this isn't true. I'm sure if they released DRM free movies you would simply balk at the cost and then use that as justification for not purchasing it.

Re: Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$400/month and multiple cloud instances sounds like overkill though. The same could probably be achieved with a Raspberry Pi or Intel NUC on your home network. Maybe an RPi wouldn't be great for multiple reencodings, but I don't think that's really needed. How often do you really want to watch low resolution TV-series on your mobile data connection? One feature I haven't seen on any commercial service is the ability…

You could run it off of a laptop sitting in your closet and be able to support 3-5 simultaneous users no problem. It'd be a benefit if you had 1GBPS symmetric fiber, though. But yeah, RPi is rough because you do need legit CPU to transcode on the fly, which is what Plex does, and the more users the more transcoding power you need.

It's possible to cache Plex encodes, I think.

But Plex is very limited in its encoding capabilities. H265 with HDR is just not supported properly. On top of that, there is just no way to encode H265 in real time (a high quality reencode of a Bluray can take days on top of the line Xeon CPUs). One would be better off downloading a few versions of the same movie; plex supports choosing which version to play.

Re: Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

#328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Convenience does not justify theft. You don't have an entitlement to consume specific content.

Sort your legal definitions. Copyright infringement is not theft.

Why do you think this matters?

Re: Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

#329

No worries, I'll just use the torrent sharers. I bet those will give me a constant 4K quality on all my devices, no ridiculous DRM, get to keep them once I terminate my "subscription", etc. Oh and it's free, not 10-15$ USD for each service.

I don't understand the moral indignation. Getting angry at netflix et al. for trying to improve their bottom line is like getting angry at water being wet. If you want to pirate, fine, pirate. I just don't understand why people are so insistent on coming up with moral justifications for their actions. If it's moral or immoral fine, who cares? It's simply a sign of weak character when someone needs to come up with a j…

> for trying to improve their bottom line

Put in a more relatable phrasing, they're angry that they're not being compensated for the substantial expense they put into creating that content (e.g. $8M/episode for season 2).

Not paying for something you value is a good way to reduce its quality.

Re: Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

#330
The CEO of Charter is banging his head against the wall? How about legitimate, paying consumers (such as myself) who happily pay for these services yet endure pure bullshit like unskippable ads on DVR recordings or disabling accounts because of IP address changes? These chumps are making money hand-over-fist yet feel like they’re “losing billions” to password sharers. If these streaming services move to the tactics the article mentions, consumers will drop them like a hot potato. I can tell you that the day Hulu (for example) starts using crap like 2FA to allow me to continue watching a stream is the day I would cancel my account without hesitation.
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