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Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

theguardian.com

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Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#331

Post by teruakohatu »

mattbee wrote: post #60
sunrunner wrote: post #24

"Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem" -- Gabe Newell [1] And I think he was largely correct, although the term _service_ seems like it now has to do a lot of heavy lifting as it now encompasses: - Availability by Company - Availability by Global Region - Stream Quality - Advert Policy (why does the lowest tier need to be ad supported? What am I paying for aside from being upsold?) - Qu…

Absolutely right! A week ago I downloaded a couple of movies and shows from Netflix for my 6yo daughter, to watch on a 3hr flight. Worked nicely! Today we made the return flight. She opens Netflix, and ⅔ of the films have now "expired" with no notice and she can't watch the one she wanted. For the next flight I'll remember to pirate!

> She opens Netflix, and ⅔ of the films have now "expired"

I have given up saving Netflix titles in advance of travel because this has happened to me too many times. What is bizarre is you can only "download" them a certain number of times, despite being expired. So I now cannot download some shows ever again.

Nobody loses money if I cache a Netflix show to my device. The limitation is bizarre.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#332

Post by cosmic_cheese »

chongli wrote: post #180
ryandrake wrote: post #153

Piracy offers: 1. Unrestricted access to an absolutely huge library of movies, music and TV shows, nearly unlimited. Certainly not limited by opaque "licensing deals" between various companies. 2. Highest resolution/bitrate/quality that was available at the time of the work's original release. 3. No arbitrary device/OS limitations. 4. Can watch/listen/download from any location on earth with sufficient bandwidth. I d…

2. Highest resolution/bitrate/quality that was available at the time of the work's original release. Arguably higher. For example, fans of Star Wars have scanned the original 1977 theatrical release with very high quality film scanners and created a 4K release complete with film grain and the original scenes intact which is not available through approved channels.

There’s also a number of movies where the best quality publicly available is a pirated rip of an HDTV broadcast from a Malaysian TV network or something similarly odd because the rights holders never released a BD and the official DVD release was a transfer from a crappy VHS or similar.

In cases of TV shows, fans have gone to the lengths of producing the best quality release possible by patching together video, audio, and subtitles from myriad sources, sometimes even splicing individual cuts when their quality varies between sources. It’s so much more effort than you’d see from any official restorations.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#333

Post by trenchpilgrim »

daseiner1 wrote: post #274
ryandrake wrote: post #153

Piracy offers: 1. Unrestricted access to an absolutely huge library of movies, music and TV shows, nearly unlimited. Certainly not limited by opaque "licensing deals" between various companies. 2. Highest resolution/bitrate/quality that was available at the time of the work's original release. 3. No arbitrary device/OS limitations. 4. Can watch/listen/download from any location on earth with sufficient bandwidth. I d…

Plex is phenomenal software

Jellyfin is shockingly good now also

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#334

Post by ajmurmann »

parpfish wrote: post #108

i wish we could go back to a pre-streaming version of netflix. the near-infinite library and lack of algorithmic nudging resulted in an era where i had healthy view habits. reasonable levels of screentime and VERY diverse content. i add so many movies to my queue with the best intentions of watching them someday, but always put them off because something about staring at that endless scroll of options makes me crave…

For a few years Mubi solved this. They only had 30 movies at a time. Every day the oldest movie left and a new one was added. All well curated and movies you'd remember. No empty calories. Because of the timing it had the same effect as you described. While Mubi is still one of my favorite platforms it now has a regular catalog.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#335

Post by codedokode »

crote wrote: post #291
yalogin wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good point. Stealing is a crime only for end users and not for companies. Why should end users feel any shame violating the DMCA when the government itself says it’s ok for companies to not honor it

You're not downloading a movie to watch, you are just "acquiring training material" and "reviewing" it to make sure you can use it to train a high-quality model.

You just want to train a neural network in your head to be more knowledgeable about confronting evil empires, space flights and laser weapon, I think it is a "fair use". It's not like I planned to enjoy it.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#336

Post by jrflowers »

socalgal2 wrote: post #270
hbn wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget censorship-free I swore off streaming services when they started pulling episodes of comedy shows and editing out scenes because they were worried someone might be offended

I hate the censorship. But when some groups are willing to kill if you don’t censor then I can’t blame others for not wanting to be martyrs and put their lives on the line for it

What groups are you talking about

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#337

Post by Melatonic »

ryandrake wrote: post #153

Piracy offers: 1. Unrestricted access to an absolutely huge library of movies, music and TV shows, nearly unlimited. Certainly not limited by opaque "licensing deals" between various companies. 2. Highest resolution/bitrate/quality that was available at the time of the work's original release. 3. No arbitrary device/OS limitations. 4. Can watch/listen/download from any location on earth with sufficient bandwidth. I d…

I think thats the issue most people missed with Piracy the first time around - it wasnt even the cost (free) - its that the experience itself was just so much easier.

I have several streaming services and its always a struggle to find out which one the show I want is on. And then maybe I don't subscribe because its something random.

Streaming took off originally because the experience was just smoother and easier than torrenting

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#338

Post by ajmurmann »

neves wrote: post #8

For me worse than the can't pay is the lack of options. In the VHS time I had more good movie options than in the current streaming services. I remember when I bing watched Kurozawa or Mario Monicelli's movies. Now it's very hard to find non American cinema. The tech is there, but the System fail us.

Have you checked out Criterion or Mubi. Lots of excellent foreign movies. Criterion seems to have about two dozen Kurozawa movies.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#339

Post by MattDaEskimo »

ryandrake wrote: post #153

Piracy offers: 1. Unrestricted access to an absolutely huge library of movies, music and TV shows, nearly unlimited. Certainly not limited by opaque "licensing deals" between various companies. 2. Highest resolution/bitrate/quality that was available at the time of the work's original release. 3. No arbitrary device/OS limitations. 4. Can watch/listen/download from any location on earth with sufficient bandwidth. I d…

For me it's being able to fully browse movies and tv shows, along with their universal rating and not some vague "You'll like it" nonsense.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#340

Post by x62Bh7948f »

galleywest200 wrote: post #159
dilDDoS wrote: post #82

I actually think pirating encourages a healthier approach to watching TV/movies. I've fully made the switch to pirating instead of subscribing to any streaming services, and it's led to me thinking more critically about what I want to spend time downloading and watching rather than just flipping mindlessly through endless amounts of readily available garbage on a streaming service. I do still have Kanopy though, whic…

Why not purchase the discs and copy them yourself? At least artists can get paid that way.

I haven’t bought a lot of DVDs lately, but the ones I have all were from used DVD stores. I think the artists were paid once.
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