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Everyone Is Stealing TV

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Re: Everyone Is Stealing TV

#51

Post by secretballot »

doubled112 wrote: post #42
ghusto wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think people feel entitled to free entertainment, they're just tired of being so badly ripped off. It used to be that you'd pay one company a little extra, and get all the extra channels you actually wanted. Now you pay multiple companies _a lot_ extra, and still might miss out on what you want. Many people still remember the original deal.

Yes, I remember when Netflix was going to "save" us all from the cable company. When there is only one streaming service, being subscribed to that streaming service means you get everything. Now there are 15 different ones to choose from, each licensed to show a different set of content. Watching NHL hockey in Canada is a strange situation right now, but I'm not sure how it compares to the original cable situation.

[dead]

Re: Everyone Is Stealing TV

#52

Post by jsnell »

stuxnet79 wrote: post #21

It is estimated that all these pirate streams combined bring in more revenue than Netflix & other established media companies[1]. Margins are of course pretty incredible as capex and opex is effectively zero since the content is "free". Such a great business that it's attracted organized crime. But on a technical level how can a federated "shadow Netflix" operate out in the open and pull in that kind of revenue witho…

That does not sound like credible estimate, and your link does not make any such claim.

Re: Everyone Is Stealing TV

#53

Post by MisterTea »

Going back I dumped all the streaming platforms as most of their new programming was not at all interesting. Turns out I was watching reruns of shows I downloaded years ago that were still sitting on my server. So I made my own cable channel by dumping every downloaded TV show into a single playlist then turn shuffle on. I have a low power PC hooked to my TV running Debian. The power is low enough that I just turn the TV off and leave the PC running.

Since I mostly put the TV on to have background noise this solution works perfectly. It's really nice to turn the TV on and see random x-files, mst3k, max headroom, cowboy bebop, futurama, and so on 24/7. And most of it is in SD or ripped from TV/VHS which doesn't bother me at all, in fact, it adds charm and character via those artifacts of the past.

Re: Everyone Is Stealing TV

#54

Post by trinix912 »

elzbardico wrote: post #11
sparrc wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be much easier said than done, most video segments are served up by CDNs, so it would have to be done via processing on CDN edge nodes. Cloudflare might support something like this but most CDNs don't as far as I'm aware. Doing it server-side would kill CDN cache hit rates and massively increase cost.

You don't need to serve it all the time. A couple hundred frames here and there maybe would do the trick.

Good luck finding the person streaming it and proving that they did. The days of BBC TV license vans are long over.

Re: Everyone Is Stealing TV

#55

Post by michaelt »

juujian wrote: post #31

Even now living in the states, I cannot comprehend how someone can end up paying hundreds of dollars a month for tv streaming. Can someone enlighten me?

Google ‘more fios tv’

As I understand it, the difference is sports channels. Sportsball stars’ high salaries are paid from TV rights, and the subscription cost reflects that.

Re: Everyone Is Stealing TV

#56

Post by disease »

Night_Thastus wrote: post #39
nkrisc wrote: post #4

I too got tired of paying so much for TV so I canceled and just stopped watching it. I find the attitude that one is entitled to entertainment media fascinating. People like to say that it’s not stealing because there is no physical product the producer is being deprived of, which is factually true, but even so why are you entitled to it at no cost? NFL games aren’t water or food.

It can be a bit frustrating that these services: * Continually remove good content * Continually produce 'new and exciting' series only to cancel them after 1-2 seasons * Continually raise the price * Continually split off into ever more services - so instead of having 1 or even 3 good streaming services, there are dozens of them with limited content I would not mind paying for 1-3 good, well-made services with a rea…

Even worse than cancellation is when there's sloppy writing that is very obviously in place to push the series into another season while a bunch of plot threads go unresolved. It's like the corporate greed is being placed front and center of the content itself.

Re: Everyone Is Stealing TV

#57

Post by masfuerte »

trinix912 wrote: post #54
elzbardico wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to serve it all the time. A couple hundred frames here and there maybe would do the trick.

Good luck finding the person streaming it and proving that they did. The days of BBC TV license vans are long over.

You don't need to. During premium streams the clients are frequently rekeying. So you cancel the streamer's subscription and the stream soon stops. The streamer also loses the rest of the month's subscription and goes onto a blacklist. This is already a thing with, for example, Sky in the UK.

Re: Everyone Is Stealing TV

#58

Post by trinix912 »

masfuerte wrote: post #57
trinix912 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck finding the person streaming it and proving that they did. The days of BBC TV license vans are long over.

You don't need to. During premium streams the clients are frequently rekeying. So you cancel the streamer's subscription and the stream soon stops. The streamer also loses the rest of the month's subscription and goes onto a blacklist. This is already a thing with, for example, Sky in the UK.

This works as long as each of these boxes connects directly to the streaming provider's servers. With pirate streams often there's a pirate streaming provider with a legitimate subscription, whose STB handles the rekeying, then the already-decoded AV stream is captured and redistributed. The end-users never actually stream from the streaming company, they stream from the pirate. That's often how sports are pirated, and your best bet is going to everyone's homes and checking that they're not watching your streams without a license.

Re: Everyone Is Stealing TV

#59

Post by masfuerte »

trinix912 wrote: post #58
masfuerte wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to. During premium streams the clients are frequently rekeying. So you cancel the streamer's subscription and the stream soon stops. The streamer also loses the rest of the month's subscription and goes onto a blacklist. This is already a thing with, for example, Sky in the UK.

This works as long as each of these boxes connects directly to the streaming provider's servers. With pirate streams often there's a pirate streaming provider with a legitimate subscription, whose STB handles the rekeying, then the already-decoded AV stream is captured and redistributed. The end-users never actually stream from the streaming company, they stream from the pirate. That's often how sports are pirated, a…

Right? Each legitimate stream, including the pirate's, includes a unique ID. The content protection company subscribes to the pirate stream, gets the ID, and shuts down the pirate. This works today.

The problem that Sky has is that most premium sports content is available in other countries with less effective copy protection, so that's where the pirate streams originate, and Sky can't do anything about them.

You're right that none of this affects the end-users.

Re: Everyone Is Stealing TV

#60

Post by pixelready »

doubled112 wrote: post #42
ghusto wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think people feel entitled to free entertainment, they're just tired of being so badly ripped off. It used to be that you'd pay one company a little extra, and get all the extra channels you actually wanted. Now you pay multiple companies _a lot_ extra, and still might miss out on what you want. Many people still remember the original deal.

Yes, I remember when Netflix was going to "save" us all from the cable company. When there is only one streaming service, being subscribed to that streaming service means you get everything. Now there are 15 different ones to choose from, each licensed to show a different set of content. Watching NHL hockey in Canada is a strange situation right now, but I'm not sure how it compares to the original cable situation.

Isn’t this every “disruption” story in a nutshell? The value being converted into consumer benefit is always a temporary situation.
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