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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

#401

Post by stevenjohns »

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…

I'm happy to pay for everything insofar that my rights are respected and the prices are fair. Which is what I do now. I pay for Spotify - the family plan - for my entire family. It's extremely well priced and I'm happy to pay for it indefinitely. My Netflix account is shared with a friend in a different state. It costs twice as much as what it was five years ago and the library is a lot worse. But it's acceptable... as it stands.

The reason why we accepted Netflix' DRM model is because they started off with "we encourage you to share your account!" which everyone jumped on. Now that we have all the b/s associated with digital content, they're pulling back. Which is okay... because we can pull back too.

A good example is when HBO decided to partner-up in an exclusive deal with a horrible price-gouging cable media provider, many Australians decided to pirate Game of Thrones instead. I don't know of a single person who paid for it. I know of professional suit-wearing offices that hosted watch parties for episodes that were pirated. And everyone knew... and nobody cared. I think the final numbers were that about 8% of the entire Australian population pirated the show. If only HBO had decided to not screw over an entire country then perhaps they would have made a lot more money.

The issue is that they will never have their fill. They will always be hungry, and if Netflix could charge you 10% of your annual income and get away with it, then they will. And a great example of this is with college textbooks.

I don't think I'm entitled to media, but I don't think the creators are entitled to my dollars either for digital content. I just don't care about content creators in this regard. This might come across as terrible, but I couldn't care less if it leads to their bankruptcy. If they want to produce something at a reasonable price, then great. If they won't, then it won't be paid for. That's the playing field they're choosing to enter. If they don't like it, they are free to exit.

There's no morality in it either way -- paying for content doesn't make a person any more or less immoral than someone who doesn't.

Adblocking is in a similar boat, insofar that if you think that stripping me of any privacy without my consent is okay, then you're going to be quickly disappointed with how well my pi-hole setup works.

I'd encourage you to take a step back and look at it as if you're dealing with software patents, cause that's all copyright law for digital media really is. And choosing to have a patent called "PROVIDING AN INTERNET THIRD PARTY DATA CHANNEL"[0] doesn't mean people are immoral if they don't pay. It also doesn't mean they're moral if they do.

[0] https://blog.cloudflare.com/the-project-jengo-saga-how-cloud...

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

#402

Post by fouric »

basch wrote: post #15
magashna wrote: post #9

> “I feel like I’m beating my head against the wall,” Tom Rutledge, the chief executive officer of Charter Communications Inc., said during an earnings call last month. “It’s just too easy to get the product without paying for it.” Boo hoo. All these companies thinking they can split all their content up and get people to pay for every single service are in for a (totally expected) surprise. I'll share my plex server…

I think the bigger issue than paying for multiple services is duplicate licensing. If I sign up for DirecTV, Amazon Prime, and CBS how many shows am I triple licensing? If all these companies want me to sign up for multiple services, there needs to be a way for them to pass "already licensed" information to each other, and pro-rate their bills accordingly. ATT, Comcast, Disney, CBS already own almost all the historic…

This is actually really important. While it's immoral to take the results of someone else's work without compensating them, it's also immoral to charge your customers multiple times for the same product.

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

#403

Post by javagram »

mkl wrote: post #398
fouric wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's especially obnoxious because, unlike educational materials or programming tools, you can't make an ethical argument that the content impacts the quality of life of people who receive it. It's entertainment, and so nobody is entitled to access it, ever - you must pay for the right, and the price and terms are entirely up to the owner to set however they like.

> It's entertainment, and so nobody is entitled to access it, ever You seem to have been indoctrinated by the big media companies, to believe their profit-maximising false narrative. Copyright was designed to terminate, at which point everyone is entitled to the material. Media companies have repeatedly pushed law changes that are purely in their own interest, to extend the original fairly reasonable short terms to w…

Pirates watch plenty of movies and TV newer than the original 14 year copyright term.

People aren’t getting too worried about people pirating Gunsmoke or whatever.

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

#404

Post by Matthias247 »

tomdell wrote: post #377
LeoNatan25 wrote: post #131

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.

You're a senior software engineer and yet somehow you can't pay for content?

These things also suprise me, since my opinion is exactly the opposite: Content is so cheap nowadays, that it doesn't make any sense to look for illegal options anymore. If I pay 10$ for Netflix I get already more content than I can consume. And 10$ is not even that much for a non silicon valley non software engineering salary. I think even paying for multiple services shouldn't be an issue for people who actually have the time and interest in consuming the services.

And to why I think things actually are getting cheaper:

In germany you pay already mandatory 25€ for public broadcasting, which you might never watch. Pay TV back in the days was like 50€, and tons of people where willing to pay for it. You can get a lot of the new streaming services for that.

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

#406

Post by kempbellt »

bdowling wrote: post #395
kempbellt wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You don't have an entitlement to consume specific content. If it's on the internet and you can access it, yes you do. It's like arguing that if you watch a concert through the fence, rather than paying to get in, you're stealing from the musicians. This "theft" argument is old.

IP infringement isn’t like theft because it doesn’t deprive owners of their property, but it is a lot like trespassing (e.g., sneaking into a concert, movie, or amusement park without paying). Your “watching a concert through the fence” analogy doesn’t hold up because the experience of illegally copied content is identical to the paid experience.

That is actually a really good rebuttal to my analogy. Touché.

Also, I very much like the idea of trespassing being more analogous to IP infringement than theft.

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

#407

Post by manigandham »

kempbellt wrote: post #176
LeoNatan25 wrote: post #131

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 may (or may not) have built my own Netflix competitor. It had more content than all of the major providers combined. Legal buffer: I will not say what the content was. It may have all been non-copyrighted cat videos ;) The service was available cross region. Stored videos in multiple resolutions for streamability in low-bandwidth situations. No DRM bs. It cost me under $400/month to run the whole service, and I cou…

> "Just make it more convenient for people to pay to view it"

> "I... fell back to Netflix/HBO/other subs for convenience"

Seems like they're doing a fine job then.

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

#408

Post by sp332 »

fouric wrote: post #391
sp332 wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that you can't make money. It's that this particular business model doesn't jibe with reality. There's a reason iTunes switched to DRM-free formats early on. For video games, piracy can actually increase profits, because people really like a try-before-you-buy model. (Piracy is not as helpful for movies.) It's possible, actually not super difficult, to make money for "bringing films into existence" without t…

That's like saying that "trying to prevent kids from doing hard drugs doesn't jibe with reality". Piracy of entertainment content is straight-up immoral, and the only reason it's not viable as a business model is because certain groups of people actively work to prevent it from being such.

You can deal with people in good faith. You don't have to be so cynical as to think that piracy is going to kill your business or livelihood. Game of Thrones was HBO's most-pirated show and also one of the most profitable shows of all time. There are whole stores like GOG that are DRM-free because piracy is not the biggest barrier to making a profit. Getting your content to people and letting them give you money are the important parts.

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

#409

Post by scarface74 »

I bought my dad a 49" Roku TV. When I set it up for him, I used his cable credentials to log in to all of the apps that could use his credentials. Within a week, they all wanted him to revalidate. He's not going to go on a computer, go to an activation link, choose his cable provider, login with his credentials, and put in a code.

I finally gave up. I deleted all of the apps that required a cable login and signed him into my Amazon Prime Video and Netflix Account, I also installed the Roku channel (a few free movies), Crackle (free with commercials), and my Plex server. That was more than enough for him.

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

#410

Post by Merrill »

mikestew wrote: post #156
RmDen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about copying a $100 bill?

There's nothing wrong with copying a $100 bill. It's when you try to exchange it for goods that have value that it becomes an issue.

>Making photocopies of paper currency of the United States violates another section of the code, Title 18, Section 474 of the U.S. Code. Also forbidden under the statute: printed reproductions of checks, bonds, postage stamps, revenue stamps and securities of the United States and foreign governments. Those who violate this law can be fined up to $5,000 and/or be sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.

https://legalbeagle.com/7612138-illegal-copy-currency.html

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