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Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

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461–470 of 535 posts

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

#461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ethics and contract law are different things though. Is regional licensing ethical?I don't have opinion one way or the other but violation of a contract is not automatically unethical.

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

#462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't make economic sense. If I create a piece of art that many people can enjoy, why shouldn't I get compensated for adding that value to their lives? Same is true for software.

Expecting endless (or effectively endless) compensation, or any compensation you demand unilaterally, for adding value once, seems abusive.

The correct solution is to fix copyright terms to 10 or 20 years, and the problems fix themselves.

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

#463

Guess I better send a heads-up text to 3 ex-girlfriends

Or maybe don't. Let a Netflix deactivation serve as a passive-aggressive way to get them to call you.

Might be a bad idea to Netflix and chill with 3 past girlfriends, unless it was all at once.

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

#464
I predict the following article in two years:

"Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Co-Watchers"

"A coalition that includes Netflix Inc., HBO, cable-industry titans and Smart TV manufacturers is stepping up efforts to crack down on people sitting on a couch and watching a movie together, discussing new measures to close a loophole that could be costing companies billions of dollars in lost revenue each year."

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

#465
post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude ... This comes off as incredibly self-entitled and arrogant. That piece of art? It takes years and tremendous amount of people hours to bring these films into existence your enjoyment. I grew up in Hollywood, in family of filmmakers. My friends are actors, producers, and well anybody else who is involved in the business - and we all dedicate unbelievable hours of love and labor into the “non copyrighted cat vide…

>Dude ... >This comes off as incredibly self-entitled and arrogant. >That ~~piece of art~~ bag of Rice? It takes years and tremendous amount of people hours to bring these ~~films~~ grains of rice into existence your enjoyment. I grew up in ~~Hollywood~~ a farm, in family of ~~filmmakers~~ farmers. My friends are ~~actors, producers~~ farmer, harvesters, and well anybody else who is involved in the business - and we…

> There have been artists, writers and inventors for millenia, and for the vast majority of time they haven't needed an intellectual monopoly l, so why do you ?

Isn't this argument completely wrong/pointless considering reproduction was close to impossible until the last ~20 years? If nobody can access/copy my product, i don't need to protect it much...

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

#466
post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one option among several. For example, don't take money for content the user hasn't experienced yet.

It's also the only legal option for the audience to take. The companies who own the copyright make the content available under certain terms. Don't like the terms? DON'T WATCH THE FUCKING CONTENT. If you do somehow contrive to watch the content despite not accepting the terms, then you are stealing and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Capisce?

How rich that you speak about law, yet insist calling it “stealing”, when the law is very clear that copyright infringement or breaking a civil agreement is not stealing.

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

#467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ha…

I am in the same boat. Content is so affordable and accessible these days that I don’t understand why people get pissed about it. Part of the reason, I feel, is that there’s so much abundance of content and stuff that choosing becomes impossible. We feel FOMO and slighted if there’s content which is not already included in the service we are paying for.

As consumers we have come to expect everything under the sun to be accessible right here, right now, according to my expectations and preferably for free. That’s honestly irrational on our (consumers) part. Internet and forums just amplify this part.

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

#468
post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still stealing. The dude above is freely admitting to grabbing movies wholesale and distributing them in a glib manner. And I’m addressing him, because it’s wrong. I’m the guy on the other end of the economic equation. End of the day it’s a choice to do the right thing and respect the artists behind the work you enjoy regardless what the “reality” is.

Not even remotely close to stealing. Stealing causes an actual loss to the victim - they owned an item which is worth money, and now they don't. Copyright infringement, OTOH, causes a potential loss to the 'victim'. The copyright industry's propaganda about 'piracy = theft' is based on the frankly absurd concept that anyone who pirates media would have paid for it had piracy not been an option. This claim doesn't hol…

> Except when you pay money for TV, movies or video games, your money either doesn't go to the artists behind it, or very little of it does. Rather, the money goes to the investors who funded the work, or the publisher contracted with the musician.

This is the reality with any industry that has lots of "losers" for every winner. What you don't see is the massive amount of money lost by these same investors on media that doesn't hit. Returns on the winners have to be high enough to justify continued investment in the space. Media isn't created for free.

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

#469
post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude ... This comes off as incredibly self-entitled and arrogant. That piece of art? It takes years and tremendous amount of people hours to bring these films into existence your enjoyment. I grew up in Hollywood, in family of filmmakers. My friends are actors, producers, and well anybody else who is involved in the business - and we all dedicate unbelievable hours of love and labor into the “non copyrighted cat vide…

>Dude ... >This comes off as incredibly self-entitled and arrogant. >That ~~piece of art~~ bag of Rice? It takes years and tremendous amount of people hours to bring these ~~films~~ grains of rice into existence your enjoyment. I grew up in ~~Hollywood~~ a farm, in family of ~~filmmakers~~ farmers. My friends are ~~actors, producers~~ farmer, harvesters, and well anybody else who is involved in the business - and we…

I don't see how changing the commodity from media to rice improves your argument, if anything it weakens it. Of course people who grow your food need to be compensated for it! Otherwise they'll stop growing your food. You're not entitled to steal rice from food manufacturers.

Secondly media is far more complex than the art we've had for millenia. The sheer amount of resources to create a modern movie dwarfs what artists have created in the past, its comparing apples to oranges.

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

#470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

If a work is truly useful, it's better for more members of a society to have it at a low cost. The other way around benefits one person at the expense of society.

Not true if the cost is too low to justify creators continuing to invest in such works.
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