501–510 of 535 posts
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No it's not and no it doesn't. You are 100% wrong.
[citation needed]
You need a citation to demonstrate that you aren't entitled, legally, to all IP? That's sad.
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[citation needed]
> Our society is based on the idea that the public in fact does have an entitlement to all IP except trademarks. You need a citation to demonstrate that you aren't entitled, legally, to all IP? That's sad.
None of this is really in question.
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I can concede that I am certainly self-entitled and arrogant in many ways, but I fail to see how I am being so here. This project was built as a fun proof-of-concept. Less than a dozen people used it, and none of them cancelled their other paid services to use it. Also, like I mentioned, it was never profitable and I never made any money off of it. Also this is coming from a fellow content creator, of many types (mus…
You’re bragging about stealing the movies and distributing them. That’s not cool. Simple.
The point is, it's not that hard to build Netflix, it's hard to get the rights to the content itself. I, and many others, just want an easier way to get access to the content. Streaming services are frustrating because the selection is limited and varies, buying digital copies is frustrating because you are still beholden to the company you bought it from to support whatever devices you want to use it on.
I have absolutely no problem with paying for content, I have a problem with being locked into a specific DRM-scheme, especially when the price is essentially the same as physical media that I could rip myself to do whatever I want with. Just let me buy/rent DRM-free content and I won't be tempted to pirate. The problem is that piracy is often easier than the legal method, and when that happens, people will prefer to pirate.
For example, Netflix didn't work on Linux for quite a while. When it finally did, I was locked in to using a specific binary blob on my machine, so I have no idea if it's actually secure. If I choose to use another platform (let's say I experiment with RISCV or POWER9 devices), I'm again out of luck with most streaming services.
Why can't I just buy an MP4 of a movie and use whatever software I want to watch it? If that was an option, I'd buy a lot more movies, but since it's not, I suffer through the crappy selection on Amazon Prime and Netflix, not wanting to build too much of a library on Amazon or any other digital video platform.
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Not quite relevant to OP but apropos of the concept introduced above...apparently, quite a few people do pay for such a service as VidAngel ( https://www.vidangel.com ) is still running. I have not kept up with their developments but it was created by Mormons to help families stream movies while filtering out content deemed not appropriate. IIRC at one point and possibly to this day the tech included a massive farm o…
They used to stream DVDs kinda like my description, but there were several kinds of copyright complaints which is why they stopped doing DVD-based content. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VidAngel
I was interested because they had a way to rent movies for $1, which I think is a fair price for older titles (I'd actually pay $2 for older titles). I feel like their business was essentially Redbox, but with a more efficient way of transferring product from one person to another, with a layer of customizable filtering on top. That seemed completely legit to me, but apparently copyright law doesn't agree.
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I may (or may not) have built my own Netflix competitor. It had more content than all of the major providers combined. Legal buffer: I will not say what the content was. It may have all been non-copyrighted cat videos ;) The service was available cross region. Stored videos in multiple resolutions for streamability in low-bandwidth situations. No DRM bs. It cost me under $400/month to run the whole service, and I cou…
You did something wrong if that cost you 400$ a month
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You should post the full image: https://i.imgur.com/FPoJnH3.png ;-) Arr matey BTW—I never thought that I would still find use of these things from early 2000s. Going into the 2010s, it looked so promising. But they couldn't have a good thing going.
Copyright infringement doesn't change whether you charge for the copies or not. No authorization === infringement. Fair use privileges never let you reproduce and distribute an entire work for casual consumption.
That being said, the point here isn't to argue that file sharing is ok, the point is that making something harder to consume legally than illegally is a recipe for failure. Media companies try to maintain maximum control over their content and are surprised when people innovate ways to distribute it more simply?
I just want to have a file (preferably legal) on my computer that I can watch whenever I want with whatever software that I want. I would probably cancel my Netflix subscription and spend more total buying content if that purchase option was available. I would rent far more movies and TV shows if they were more reasonably priced ($1-2 per movie, $0.50 per TV episode or something), probably spending more in total if they were available DRM-free (as in, just an MP4 stream from some CDN). I don't want to steal stuff, I just want to consume media in a convenient, DRM-free way.
I don't want to steal stuff, but I absolutely don't want to be locked in to a content provider.
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It's worse than theft. When you steal a car, only that car is lost. When you infringe copyright on a massive scale, it dilutes the value of the original work and reduces the value of all future copies. This can be seen with music today. Rampant sharing made it so you can't really sell albums anymore. If you want to make a living, you almost have to go with a big label. It's also why most software companies have now h…
If I remember it increases the value of the most popular work. The content viewer creates a viral effect and shares feeling/opinions about the content. I remember one video game ceo saying. We don't want you to pirate oir game but if you do choose to pirate we hope you choose our game over the other guy. Makes sense if everyone is playing WoW and talking about it you are more likely to buy said game.
Hollywood should take a page from the iTunes/Steam world. Make purchases easy and you don't need DRM. Yes, Steam games use DRM, but it's much less invasive than movie DRM and also is usually optional (I can run most games without starting Steam directly on my Linux box without internet access).
I've actually reduced how many movies I watch and increased how many games I buy because the experience is so much better.
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> 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.
That's a bridge too far. If I have Netflix and I'm in the US and then I travel overseas on vacation and I can't watch the same content, I would have no problem pirating it.
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One thing in ethics you might ask is “if everybody did it, what would happen”? If everybody pirated their videos, maybe media companies would get a clue and make a better product. Nobody pirates music anymore—it is much easier to just pay a small amount to Spotify and the like and get access to almost any song you’d want on basically all your devices. If anything, perhaps it is more ethical to hard pirate video than…
> “if everybody did it, what would happen”? People would stop producing content because there's no money in it. So yeah, it's harmful.
Music piracy was a huge problem in the 90s, and from what I can tell, that's essentially disappeared with iTunes and Spotify. It should be easy to buy exactly what you want for a reasonable price.
From what I can tell, movie and TV show piracy went way down in areas where Netflix was available, so what does Hollywood do? They lock down their content even more and reduce the content available at any given service.
That's backwards. They have a winning service, they should double down on it and make more content available. Maybe distribute new releases to Netflix customers that have a premium account or something, and have a payment tier with nearly complete access to old content with a single subscription. That's essentially what Spotify does, and it works.
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Convenience does not justify theft. You don't have an entitlement to consume specific content.
I don’t think theft is a legitimate term to use. We need a new one for “used without permission”