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How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

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Re: How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

#51

Post by mmanfrin »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #46
omg_ketchup wrote: post #40

There's a massive gap between the pirate service and the "legitimate" media service. For one, you can just type something in, and get the movie you want. You don't have to navigate between 15 different services, and then find out the film is only available on mail-order DVD, or in other countries. For television, the networks are HORRIBLE about providing their content to cord-cutters. Want to watch the latest episode…

"not a payment issue, it's an access issue." ... "bullshit cash grab" So in other words, it's a payment issue? Let's say you watch $100/month for cable, and watch about 3 hours a day. That's over $3/hour. $10/month for 4 hours a TV is cheaper than cable, it's ad-free (I believe) and it's more convenient. It's expensive compared to Netflix or piracy, but it can certainly be argued it's not a cash grab.

You missed:

"You don't have to navigate between 15 different services"

I pay for Netflix, Prime, and Hulu -- I won't pay for CBS because there are already enough services.

Re: How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

#52

Post by bmsleight_ »

dazbradbury wrote: post #3

"In the UK, Kodi boxes have garnered more attention from authorities, thanks to stingy soccer fanatics driving an early swell of adoption" This is very unfair. I don't own a Kodi box, but in the UK it's against the law to show football games on TV on Saturday between 2:45pm and 5:15pm [1]. So it's not "stingy" football fans, it's fans that have no other way to watch a 3pm kick off without actually going to the game i…

The FA Laws have this regulation for a reason. To see a football match between 2:45pm and 5:15pm, go to one of them! Live! It is much more fun and entertaining the TV, with 91[1] clubs in the football league and many more football matches in non-League. It is easy and cheap to see a live football match. It not all about the Premiership.

Without supporting the lower league clubs, the top teams, do do have the talent coming through. It is easy to see the next top-player out on loan for less than £15 per match. There are many, many, in League one or two (Div 3&4) in old money or non-league within short distance - heck even walking distance from most placing the country.

This is a good regulation that protects the game. Don't let Sky/Murddock dictate what football is or is not.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFC_Wimbledon

Re: How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

#53

Post by bryanlarsen »

xzel wrote: post #50
bryanlarsen wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"not a payment issue, it's an access issue." ... "bullshit cash grab" So in other words, it's a payment issue? Let's say you watch $100/month for cable, and watch about 3 hours a day. That's over $3/hour. $10/month for 4 hours a TV is cheaper than cable, it's ad-free (I believe) and it's more convenient. It's expensive compared to Netflix or piracy, but it can certainly be argued it's not a cash grab.

I don't think its fair to boil the two points he made into the same argument. He said too many services and timing issues and one thing about Star Trek. His second point is pretty specific to occurrence, companies taking their shows off 3rd party streaming services and putting them behind their own paywall. That is definitely a cash grab and its become more common, in my opinion.

That's exactly my point. There are two issues: cost and access. The OP said "It's not a payment issue, it's an access issue." I say it's both.

Re: How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

#54

Post by disconnected »

hotgoldminer wrote: post #5
bhouston wrote: post #2

I was surprised by how prevelant these boxes are. It seems that every second family with kids has these and are streaming media to it. These families had no idea what torrents are, but were using pirated content basically every day and streaming it a la netflix. It is the future of piracy for sure. I suspect it is many many times larger in scope that torrents are currently. (BTW I do not have one of these.)

I know several people with access to Kodi that don't regard it as theft/piracy. They become pretty defensive when you accuse them of it. How do you think IP owners can adapt when piracy is made so transparent that it doesn't even feel like piracy anymore?

> How do you think IP owners can adapt when piracy is made so transparent that it doesn't even feel like piracy anymore?

Maybe it is time to admit that copyright is obsolete?

If crime is rampant, then there are only two possibilities: either society has collapsed and the rule of law no longer applies, or the law itself is broken, and is unjustly penalizing people for doing something that is perfectly normal and acceptable or desirable.

I'm looking out the window and there aren't cars on fire. I'm leaning towards the latter.

So called "intellectual property" needs a deep reform. It probably made sense a century ago, but it doesn't make sense today, where copying and transmitting data and ideas is so simple that it happens by accident.

As for IP owners and their "profits", I say fuck em.

Selling "copies" is an obsolete business model. The software world has already figured this out ages ago: services are where the real money is.

Netflix and Amazon are making a huge chunk of money with their streaming offerings. Microsoft's Azure and Amazon AWS are making their respective companies a huge chunk of cash. Hell, Microsoft is even giving Windows 10 (Home, but still) away for free now.

The media companies need to adapt, but greedy fucks that they are, they refused to do that. In the age of digital, they still want to sell you DVDs, CDs and physical books. Worse: the digital copies in some instances cost almost as much as the - scarce - physical copies. WTF?

So, again, fuck em. They needed to adapt, but they have been resisting change and throwing roadbloacks at every intersection, and generally, being a nuisance.

If they go down in flames, serves them right.

Re: How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

#55

Post by Pigo »

omg_ketchup wrote: post #40

There's a massive gap between the pirate service and the "legitimate" media service. For one, you can just type something in, and get the movie you want. You don't have to navigate between 15 different services, and then find out the film is only available on mail-order DVD, or in other countries. For television, the networks are HORRIBLE about providing their content to cord-cutters. Want to watch the latest episode…

The Orville is so much better anyways.

Re: How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

#56

Post by pwinnski »

racl101 wrote: post #48
dazbradbury wrote: post #3

"In the UK, Kodi boxes have garnered more attention from authorities, thanks to stingy soccer fanatics driving an early swell of adoption" This is very unfair. I don't own a Kodi box, but in the UK it's against the law to show football games on TV on Saturday between 2:45pm and 5:15pm [1]. So it's not "stingy" football fans, it's fans that have no other way to watch a 3pm kick off without actually going to the game i…

That's my quagmire with movies right now. I have an 3rd Gen Apple TV and the thing is as slow as fuck to stream movies. Also, Apple TV doesn't immediately put out movies for rent, as fast as it does for buying. I just want to rent the fucking movies. Not buy them. There's no more brick and mortar video rental stores in my area. They just make it more enticing to pirate the movie since it's probably easier. (Not that…

I'm pretty sure "they" in this case are the studios, not Apple, but yeah, this sucks. They want us to spend a lot of money on a movie we're going to watch once, or we have to wait weeks or even months to rent it for much cheaper.

Re: How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

#57

Post by pnutjam »

omg_ketchup wrote: post #40

There's a massive gap between the pirate service and the "legitimate" media service. For one, you can just type something in, and get the movie you want. You don't have to navigate between 15 different services, and then find out the film is only available on mail-order DVD, or in other countries. For television, the networks are HORRIBLE about providing their content to cord-cutters. Want to watch the latest episode…

I'm not a big fan of comcast, but their x1 boxes do a pretty good job of aggregating content and giving it to you wherever it comes from. They have a deep on demand selection and include netflix access, if you use netflix.

Re: How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

#58

Post by LordKano »

dazbradbury wrote: post #3

"In the UK, Kodi boxes have garnered more attention from authorities, thanks to stingy soccer fanatics driving an early swell of adoption" This is very unfair. I don't own a Kodi box, but in the UK it's against the law to show football games on TV on Saturday between 2:45pm and 5:15pm [1]. So it's not "stingy" football fans, it's fans that have no other way to watch a 3pm kick off without actually going to the game i…

This is an example of market forces at work.

Re: How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

#59

Post by emodendroket »

blibble wrote: post #49
icebraining wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The Premier League and Sky maintain that, while grey market viewing of games is not illegal on the part of the viewer, it is illegal for anyone (such as a public house) to make such services openly available. This has in the past lead to heavy fines for public houses in the United Kingdom which have shown 3pm games in their establishments."

that's standard copyright infringement though, rather than an explicit law?

What difference does that make to anyone?

Re: How the Kodi Box Took Over Piracy

#60

Post by icelancer »

microcolonel wrote: post #42
rhino369 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>On-demand (Netflix, Hulu, HBO's online thingy, iPlayer, what have you) has been the most effective way to actually recover rights-holder revenues. Are they though? Only 2 out of 49 million HBO subscribers are HBO Now users. And Americans still pirate HBO content in large numbers. People are canceling $100/month revenue cable plans and getting $10 netflix. That's a large loss of revenue. It's not clear to me that str…

> People are canceling $100/month revenue cable plans and getting $10 Netflix. That's a large loss of revenue. But we can't pretend that that revenue is still up for grabs. The moment people are aware of the true market value of a copy of one episode of Game of Thrones, the price they're willing to pay for the convenience of watching it anywhere is going to be lower than the cost of cable. The upshot could be that wh…

>>But we can't pretend that that revenue is still up for grabs.

Exactly.

Just because your service no longer enjoys the massive margins it once does doesn't make it unviable, or dead. Learn to adapt. Not everyone can, or will, but these companies were not and are not entitled to huge fees, prices, and margins - just like the rest of us.

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