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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

#351

Post by PostOnce »

Greed has a ceiling, eventually the customer will unsubscribe entirely.

Maybe we could also measure by wifi how many phones are present and refuse to play video until the # of viewers in the room has dropped to the contracted level.

Maybe we should ban book and DVD sharing. If I finished reading my book, should I be allowed to just give it to someone who didn't pay the publisher ? No, I should be thrown in jail in fact! Along with the presumptive reader!

Calm the hell down and go take a swim in your Scrooge silo.

(remember, these are paid accounts! Paid "unlimited viewing" accounts that can only be watched by X logins at a time, they're making plenty, and the sharing has a limit on it already by virtue of how many devices can be simultaneously viewing)

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

#352

Post by russdpale »

floatingatoll wrote: post #341

Imagine how all these comments glorifying "let's steal paid content and share it for free because content should be free" must read to a YCombinator founder who is misled into thinking that it's okay to sell content for money. What is even the point of starting a startup that offers content of any kind if people are going to do everything in their power to rip you off, share your value everyone they know for free, an…

If you product doesn't make money because of piracy, then perhaps your product sucks. GoT was the most pirated show ever, and also the most popular show ever. Piracy isn't that big of a deal if you make a good product, it actually helps.

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

#353

Post by briandear »

russdpale wrote: post #352
floatingatoll wrote: post #341

Imagine how all these comments glorifying "let's steal paid content and share it for free because content should be free" must read to a YCombinator founder who is misled into thinking that it's okay to sell content for money. What is even the point of starting a startup that offers content of any kind if people are going to do everything in their power to rip you off, share your value everyone they know for free, an…

If you product doesn't make money because of piracy, then perhaps your product sucks. GoT was the most pirated show ever, and also the most popular show ever. Piracy isn't that big of a deal if you make a good product, it actually helps.

So people are pirating out of altruism or because they want to steal content. You didn’t pay for the right to the content — it isn’t yours. It’s stealing no matter how you justify it. The creator and financer of the content isn’t getting paid when you steal. And GoT was popular which is why it was pirated, not the other way around.

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

#354

Post by techsupporter »

filmgirlcw wrote: post #349

Lol. Good luck. I’m the weirdo millennial who pays for cable and Netflix and Hulu and Criterion Channel and Amazon and Disney+ and Apple TV+ (well, that’s free for the first year) and basically every video service offered, but I still share passwords with people. Like, my cable provider (who gives me access to HBO, Showtime, Starz, cable and networks on-demand and live stuff) offers me 6 or 7 user accounts. I have on…

I do the same thing. I pay for cable TV including HBO--through Comcast, no less--because I want to pay for the content I am watching. However, my friend who lives in Ireland has a subaccount on my cable account and uses a VPN to watch sports. And I run my cable TV through my Plex server to both DVR content and to be able to watch whatever is coming through the coax to my house without being told "you can't stream outside the United States" or whatever.

I will absolutely pay for the content but I have no shame in reformatting it into something that then makes sense for me. I happen to disagree with people who could pay for it and don't, but that's on their conscience and shoulders.

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

#355

Post by jumelles »

floatingatoll wrote: post #341

Imagine how all these comments glorifying "let's steal paid content and share it for free because content should be free" must read to a YCombinator founder who is misled into thinking that it's okay to sell content for money. What is even the point of starting a startup that offers content of any kind if people are going to do everything in their power to rip you off, share your value everyone they know for free, an…

Copyright infringement isn't theft. All of the creators have already been paid. Arguing that piracy will "bring an end to content creation altogether" is pure hyperbole.

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

#356

Post by tomnipotent »

tenebrisalietum wrote: post #259
dobleboble wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I mean most of this in a devil's-advocate sense: The proper economic arrangement for those who wish to make a living with creative works is patronage. Someone asks you to make something, you make it for them, then you get paid. You then don't get paid until you make another work. Thus content creators shouldn't have an automatic entitlement to get paid each time someone reads/listens to/watches a work. If you work on…

> The proper economic arrangement for those who wish to make a living with creative works is patronage

We have this in the 21st century, it's called paying for content. If you pay Netflix, you're their patron.

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

#357

Post by briandear »

tenebrisalietum wrote: post #259
dobleboble wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I mean most of this in a devil's-advocate sense: The proper economic arrangement for those who wish to make a living with creative works is patronage. Someone asks you to make something, you make it for them, then you get paid. You then don't get paid until you make another work. Thus content creators shouldn't have an automatic entitlement to get paid each time someone reads/listens to/watches a work. If you work on…

> Thus content creators shouldn't have an automatic entitlement to get paid each time someone reads/listens to/watches a work.

If those are the conditions for which the work was created, then they absolutely do. Regardless, downloading a work and distributing it, that’s theft. If the creator/financer made it available, then that’s their prerogative. At some point in the chain, that content left someone’s server under a license agreement that then was broken when the downloader shared it.

The breaking of the license agreement is the issue here. People don’t have a right to break a valid contract unless a court says they do. Regardless if your feelings, it’s still theft.

And yes, we do benefit from copyright. It protects your work from thieves who played no part in the financing or creation of the work.

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

#358

Post by tomnipotent »

tashi wrote: post #283
tenebrisalietum wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean most of this in a devil's-advocate sense: The proper economic arrangement for those who wish to make a living with creative works is patronage. Someone asks you to make something, you make it for them, then you get paid. You then don't get paid until you make another work. Thus content creators shouldn't have an automatic entitlement to get paid each time someone reads/listens to/watches a work. If you work on…

Similarly, the proper economic arrangement for those who wish to consume art is patronage. If you want to view someone's creative work, you must hire them, come to an agreement about the subject to be depicted and materials to be used, and commit to paying the full amount upon delivery. The idea of reproduction of artistic works from all over the world and from any time in the past? It makes everything too complicate…

> who wish to consume art is patronage

You mean like paying a monthly subscription fee to access content on demand? That's still patronage.

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

#359

Post by tomnipotent »

AYBABTME wrote: post #262
dobleboble wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If I pay for streaming service Z but don't like their streaming tech or the geofraphical restrictions they put on show Y that I was watching while traveling, I feel that there's no ethical harm happening if I obtain a copy of Y for private storage. It might not be legal or might be in violation of ToS, but personally I wouldn't call this theft. Would you agree?

> no ethical harm

According to whom? If region enforcement is in place, it's because of legal obligations. So yes, there's ethical harm involved when you do something like this because you're intentionally circumventing a business's legal obligations to their partners.

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