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The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

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Re: The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

#481

Post by TeMPOraL »

Symbiote wrote: post #344
caf wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While only a small minority might travel (across country borders) a lot in the US, I imagine in Europe it's a much higher proportion of the population that regularly travels to other countries.

There are regions where people commute daily over the border, and even more where people commute weekly. e.g. I have a colleague who lives in Malmö (Sweden) and commutes daily to Copenhagen (Denmark). Lots of people travel into Luxembourg every day. When I lived in the UK, the director's family lived on a pretty island in Spain, and he went every Friday for the weekend. Not exactly good for his CO₂ emissions, but peo…

Yay, cheap airlines. When I was interning at Rutherford Appleton Laboratories in the UK, I met a cleaner who was flying back to Poland for the weekend every other week, to attend university ("extramural" is the proper term, I think?). I was pretty shocked that one can afford this on a salary of a cleaner in a government facility.

Re: The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

#482

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

jobu wrote: post #417
phil248 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Torrenting for me has always been about convenience, not money. I recently wanted to watch a new show called A.P. Bio. It's free on NBC's website. But after struggling through one episode with lags and ads with no volume control, I gave up and just torrented the show. Until they master such exotic technologies as "streaming video" and "volume control" they're going to keep driving people to torrenting. Netflix figure…

> But after struggling through one episode with lags and ads with no volume control, I gave up and just torrented the show. It amazes me how actively hostile most of the TV networks are towards viewers. It's very obvious that we're the product and the advertisers are the customer. If the NBC app crashes in the middle of a show you're forced to re-watch all of the ads from the beginning. If an advertisement doesn't lo…

They're not specifically hostile, it's more the industry - like many others - selects True Believers who cannot understand the outsider/consumer point of view.

And yes - ultimately it's about ad sales.

Re: The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

#483

Post by thirdsun »

Semaphor wrote: post #474
thirdsun wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm so tired of this evil label narrative. It's unfair to reduce them to those 5 major labels. Particularly on Bandcamp there are countless small, honest labels that act as a curator and really help to develop their artists while taking a fair cut. Being featured on one of them is a huge opportunity for most artists.

I make it easy for myself. Any label that's a member of RIAA of IFPI is evil, the others I throw money at.

A very simplified view.

Re: The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

#484

Post by Broken_Hippo »

airstrike wrote: post #378
8draco8 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law/studio deals have to change. Netflix offers great movies and they lock it down to certain countries. For example I am big fan of Back To The Future. I can watch may favourite movie every month when I'm in UK but when I am in Poland then no luck. Same goes in other direction. While being in Poland I downloaded via Netflix National Lampoon Animal House to watch on plane. I watched half of it on plane then tried…

Do you really watch the same movie every month?

That doesn't have anything to do with it. Many folks don't - but their children are likely to do so. People watch the same shows every month, depending on their viewing habits. People research movies and shows at different times than they watch them, only to find out they can't actually watch it when they get to the other country. And it sucks.

Re: The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

#485

Post by Broken_Hippo »

sosborn wrote: post #444
imglorp wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been tagged for torrenting things which were broadcast over the air. The way I saw it, there was no way to get the show on my device and on my schedule, and the content provider was actually getting someone watching their program--with ads intact--for no additional effort or expense on their part. Financially, they won. They didn't see it that way :)

Financially they lost. They can’t sell advertising based on the number of people who pirate the show. Yeah, the advertisers made out (assuming you didn’t skip the ads) but the content producer did not.

This was their choice. They could have simply made it available for streaming during or after the show was broadcast, adverts and all. It isn't like most folks I know sit there and watch adverts on "regular" channels anyway. They can offer an ad-free service for a charge. When they don't offer such things on a fairly broad (global) scale, I don't see how they can be surprised when folks watch it illegally. And I seriously don't understand why the courts aren't asking the providers to do such things.

Re: The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

#486

Post by dalbasal »

jedberg wrote: post #120
distances wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a major issue with streaming services. Netflix usually doesn't offer even English subtitles to an English-speaking movie if you're in a non-English speaking country! At least with DVDs you could rip it and add subtitles yourself if needed.

> Netflix usually doesn't offer even English subtitles to an English-speaking movie if you're in a non-English speaking country! Sadly, this has nothing to do with streaming and everything to do with rightsholders (aka "Hollywood"). The rights on the subtitles are held by the company that makes them, are then sold to the company that distributes the movie, which are then resold to regional distributors, separately fr…

To me, whenever I hear someone (seems to have died down) about abundance/scarcity economics, that's exactly is exactly what I think of.

Everyone could have access to all movies/songs/books ever written with every subtitle file, dvd-only extra and whatnot they want. Could in the sense that it already exists and the marginal cost of delivering it to people is 0.

All that dealmaking, liscencing and such that you are describing... They're not strictly necessary. At least, they are not required to deliver the "goods." They are required in order to get revenue. Revenue requires pricing which requires exclusion, scarcity.

Not giving everyone everything is wasteful.

Re: The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

#487

Post by samfriedman »

tvanantwerp wrote: post #391
samfriedman wrote: post #206

While it's true that BitTorrent as a protocol has significantly fallen out of favor as the go-to technology for John Q. Pirate's needs, there are still many niche torrent sites that stay alive by differentiating on quality and community. Most of these sites are invite-only, and each tend to specialize in a specific type of media. One site might accept only movies, another TV shows, a third comic book scans, and a fou…

> BitTorrent as a protocol has significantly fallen out of favor as the go-to technology for John Q. Pirate's needs... Out of curiosity, what would you say is the go-to technology for pirates now?

Rather than search a public torrent site and download files themselves, I see most people I ask using streaming apps like Kodi plugins or streaming websites to watch content like movies and TV. Some sites, like defunct Popcorntime, used torrent protocols in the background but a knowledge/use of torrents isn't really required as much these days. At least among my experience talking to family/friends/coworkers.

Re: The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

#488

Post by carlmr »

jjrh wrote: post #253
shrimp_emoji wrote: post #215

>Cause 5: VPN Usage >The real problem here is that there’s no way to know just how much of VPN traffic is growing or how much of it is BitTorrent. Though different traffic studies look at the internet from different vantage points, some simply would not be able to see VPN-obscured BitTorrent traffic. I'm on a VPN all the time, and torrenting without a VPN, to me, is living on the edge. I'd constantly wonder: how long…

> I'm on a VPN all the time, and torrenting without a VPN, to me, is living on the edge. I'd constantly wonder: how long before I receive a stern letter? That's really a USA thing.

Or most of Europe (France, Germany, ...).

Re: The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

#489

Post by jesperbk »

vsl wrote: post #478
m_mueller wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I second GP's problem with subtitles and availability. For me torrenting always been about media I cannot get in the way I want - their release is delayed in the country I stay in, or it's only available dubbed or it doesn't have the subtitles I need (e.g. to watch Japanese, Spanish, French or Italian speaking films for me or anything other than Japanese for my Japanese wife). Where I come from around half the marria…

Netflix is improving in some locales, but remains a shitshow elsewhere (experimentally: countries with under 40M population). E.g. there are German and Polish subtitles for everything; there are almost none for Czech. They do things like providing them for only season 1, but not the rest, or don’t bother even with their own high-profile shows. Slovak viewers can choose between Slovak, Polish and Ukrainian subs, but n…

Interesting. I don't think I have ever come across anything that didn't have Danish subtitles. The same goes for the other Nordic languages that for some reason are available on Danish Netflix.

Re: The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

#490

Post by floatboth »

taneq wrote: post #392
brooot wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how Steam basically single handily defeated video game pirating. Newell himself is on record saying that piracy is an issue of not making something accessible enough, and he was obviously right. People will pay for convenience. We are no longer in the age of, "I want to watch/listen/play something, lets drive to the store". If the platform they use sucks, it will have the same problem. Last pirating site I wa…

Convenience, sure, but don't forget that games on Steam are often deeply discounted compared with off-the-shelf prices. PC games (at least in Australia) are often $60 - $90 on the shelves. Many of these games can be had on Steam for $20 or less, and sometimes for only a few dollars in a bundle or on sale.

Steam also sells games very cheaply in Russia specifically to compete with piracy.

(For reference: the launch price for all AAA releases is 2000 RUB (~35 USD), while the same games on consoles often go up to ~$60 and even beyond. Especially on the Switch: Zelda is ~$80!)

People here kinda grew up with the idea that paying money for non-physical things is just ridiculous. And still many people only pay money for multiplayer games that rely on official servers.

Steam offers the multiplayer AND good launch prices AND sales with huge discounts AND a very convenient interface for downloading and launching games… so tons of PC gamers did get sucked into it :D

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