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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

#411

Post by qrios »

imoverclocked wrote: post #406
godelski wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Piracy also offers: 0. Ability to watch offline! 1. Ability to fix subtitle issues with minimal tweeks like change size or moving location. 1.2 Ability to get subtitles if they aren't offered (or offered in your language) 2. Ability to normalize audio. 3. Ability to buffer videos when on a poor connection. 4. Ability to create collections, organize, and track your movie as you wish 5. Arbitrary number of user account…

Until recently, 3. (poor connection) has been a huge issue for me and streaming services. When there is a download/watch later, I sigh with relief. 7. is only sort-of an issue, IMHO. Anything that is pirated is usually fairly benign content and I don't care if someone knows how many times I've watched Idiocracy. I just wish I could know how many times I've watched it too. I would add: Piracy offers the ability to rem…

> I don't care if someone knows how many times I've watched Idiocracy.

I come from Germany, from East Germany. And some people there wanted to know if you had seen certain films and how often. And ‘Idiocracy’ would have been very high up on their list.

Not all films were banned right from the start (‘The Legend of Paul and Paula’ [1]), but right from the beginning the Stasi found it very interesting who had watched the film.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Paul_and_Paula

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#412

Post by matheusmoreira »

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…

Piracy also offers the ability to use the software of your choice.

You get to use mpv instead of the streaming company's obnoxiously shitty video player.

You get to use Linux without some asshat in a suit taking issue with the fact he doesn't fully own your computer and deciding he'll only stream you 720p video as punishment.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#413

Post by thedrexster »

GuinansEyebrows wrote: post #268
l72 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also often time have versions of old movies and shows that have been modified due to silly things like license agreements on music expiring! I have felt gaslighted when I rewatch and old movie and some scene isn’t how I remember.

the DVD/streaming releases of Daria suffer from this. i used to have old TV rips of the show with the original contemporary MTV soundtrack but i'm not sure what happened to them. the stock music just doesn't carry the weight of the times.

I was literally complaining to my partner about this exact thing last night -- we ended up torrenting a collection of what look to be old VHS rips and really enjoyed them.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#414

Post by PKop »

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…

- Not having to watch ads after you've already paid for a subscription

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#415

Post by matheusmoreira »

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.

They release better products than trillion dollar corporations.

There are piracy groups out there who are known to source frames from multiple different blu-rays in order to create the best version of a work.

Imagine caring so much about something you compare different releases frame by frame in order to select the best ones so that you can splice them all together to form the highest quality ultimate version of a work.

Meanwhile corporations are perfectly happy shitting out some butchered streaming slop with compression artifacts in 90% black frames.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#416

Post by ncr100 »

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…

Nn. Also you can code up your Own Video Player interface, if you like to.

Ever get frustrated because you can't determine if you're selecting a button or if the button is always outlined/large ish, fix it yourself!

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#417

Post by probotect0r »

xyproto wrote: post #175
8fingerlouie wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I didn't even mention that it's free or that there are no ads It's free in the same way shoplifting is free, until you get caught. You are very much in violation of copyright laws if you pirate.

It's not comparable, because copying a bread with a bread copying machine should be completely fine.

I don't think analogy is comparable either though. With a bread copying machine, the baker of the original piece is not involved in creating the new piece of bread (other than the recipe), so it is more acceptable (though maybe not completely, if you consider that the recipe is also being copied) that the baker is not compensated for the new piece of bread produced by the copying machine.

With digital media, the creator is expecting people to pay to view the content. By making a copy and viewing it for free, imo, you are stealing the content.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#418

Post by scheeseman486 »

pezezin wrote: post #360
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DVDs are 480i, the parent comment described far higher quality than DVD.

DVDs support progressive scan and most movies were encoded in 480p; the player then just sent half the picture on one field and the other half on the other field. Your point still stand though, these modern 4k editions are far higher quality.

The DVD releases of the original theatrical versions of Star Wars were encoded in 480i non-anamorphic, drawn from analog video masters intended for Laserdisc, which employed an early version of DNR that created a bunch of ugly temporal ghosting artifacts. Blown up onto a modern display it looks really bad.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#419

Post by callc »

qrios wrote: post #411
imoverclocked wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until recently, 3. (poor connection) has been a huge issue for me and streaming services. When there is a download/watch later, I sigh with relief. 7. is only sort-of an issue, IMHO. Anything that is pirated is usually fairly benign content and I don't care if someone knows how many times I've watched Idiocracy. I just wish I could know how many times I've watched it too. I would add: Piracy offers the ability to rem…

> I don't care if someone knows how many times I've watched Idiocracy. I come from Germany, from East Germany. And some people there wanted to know if you had seen certain films and how often. And ‘Idiocracy’ would have been very high up on their list. Not all films were banned right from the start (‘The Legend of Paul and Paula’ [1]), but right from the beginning the Stasi found it very interesting who had watched t…

This. Privacy does not matter until it does.

Thanks for your example, qrios

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