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Two Las Vegas Men Plead Guilty in U.S. Criminal Streaming Piracy Case

torrentfreak.com

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Re: Two Las Vegas Men Plead Guilty in U.S. Criminal Streaming Piracy Case

#61

Post by anongraddebt »

PeterStuer wrote: post #36

Services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video would be a lot more successful if only their catalogs in regions outside of the US would be comparable to their home turf. If US clients would have the tiny tiny catalogs they offer e.g. in most of Europe, you would also be scratching your head how this could ever justify the subscription cost.

I just got back from vacationing in Greece and Croatia. Though I can't say whether the number of movies was higher or lower than in the states, I can say that the quality of films was much higher. Both my girlfriend and I complained multiple times that the movies we were watching in Europe were not available to us in the states.

Re: Two Las Vegas Men Plead Guilty in U.S. Criminal Streaming Piracy Case

#62

Post by GhettoMaestro »

qwerty1234599 wrote: post #14
slykar wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess Netflix needs their developers for all the random UI changes nobody is asking for and some "unrelated recommendations" engine.

Have you used any pirate streaming websites? They're pure garbage, bad UX, bad image quality, choppy video. The only reason anybody uses them is the price or lack of legal options

I know you’re referring to websites but Plex is a pretty damn good offering these days. I recommend everyone check it out.

Re: Two Las Vegas Men Plead Guilty in U.S. Criminal Streaming Piracy Case

#63

Post by GhettoMaestro »

1234ideclare wrote: post #8
mapleoin wrote: post #2

So two programmers ran a streaming website bigger than Netflix from their garage?

I would be super interested in a detailed breakdown of their stack, I assume something built on p2p was used, otherwise the compute, bandwidth, and storage costs would be insane.

Bandwidth at any decent metro area colo these days is cheap af. Last I did the math I saved 15x the egress Data charges versus if I just put it directly in AWS.

Re: Two Las Vegas Men Plead Guilty in U.S. Criminal Streaming Piracy Case

#64

Post by GhettoMaestro »

Dirlewanger wrote: post #58
firefoxd wrote: post #4

This might be a naive question but, why is the FBI the office in charge of enforcing copyright? Especially when it comes to entertainment. Why do we get an FBI warning on a cartoon's dvd?

Think of the FBI as the police for the federal government. Roughly, as soon as your typical crime goes across state lines, they can get involved (because a state's jurisdiction ends at their borders).

Incorrect. They are a federal investigative agency with arrest powers. They are NOT charged with standard policing type roles.

The US does not have a federal police force.

Re: Two Las Vegas Men Plead Guilty in U.S. Criminal Streaming Piracy Case

#65

Post by dobleboble »

zaarn wrote: post #18
paule89 wrote: post #5

Its like in the beginning of torrenting. Nobody willing to offer a service for everyone, for a fair price. Everybody gatekeeping selling only their stuff. And if you want everything pay this atrocious sum of money. I tell you this will happen more often and people are willing to pay. But not pay for everything. Good thing they had going. Well it was still illegal, but hey it will happen again i tell you.

Streaming is a service question. Netflix/D+/AMZN offers you a limited catalogue for 10$ or so a month. You select a movie from their website and it starts playing on your phone or computer. Pirates offer you everything for free . You select a movie from their website and it starts playing on your phone or computer. Why would any customer pick the more expensive product? Netflix and Friends need to offer a better serv…

Why would any customer pick the more expensive product? 1) they don't want to be criminals 2) they want to support the art that they enjoy so that more of it can be made

Re: Two Las Vegas Men Plead Guilty in U.S. Criminal Streaming Piracy Case

#66

Post by zaarn »

dobleboble wrote: post #65
zaarn wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Streaming is a service question. Netflix/D+/AMZN offers you a limited catalogue for 10$ or so a month. You select a movie from their website and it starts playing on your phone or computer. Pirates offer you everything for free . You select a movie from their website and it starts playing on your phone or computer. Why would any customer pick the more expensive product? Netflix and Friends need to offer a better serv…

Why would any customer pick the more expensive product? 1) they don't want to be criminals 2) they want to support the art that they enjoy so that more of it can be made

Since piracy isn't quite the most uncommon criminal activity, I supposed people only care weak about those two and I would bet most people care more about 2 than 1 because people don't see it as criminal activity.

Re: Two Las Vegas Men Plead Guilty in U.S. Criminal Streaming Piracy Case

#67

Post by mywittyname »

PeterStuer wrote: post #36

Services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video would be a lot more successful if only their catalogs in regions outside of the US would be comparable to their home turf. If US clients would have the tiny tiny catalogs they offer e.g. in most of Europe, you would also be scratching your head how this could ever justify the subscription cost.

Could you imagine how great these services would be if copyrighted works fell into the public domain after 28 years instead of the nearly 100 years they are now?

Re: Two Las Vegas Men Plead Guilty in U.S. Criminal Streaming Piracy Case

#68

Post by mywittyname »

Pigo wrote: post #56
haunter wrote: post #13

It's cable TV all over again. The current streaming scene is not any better at all.

My mind is blown that these sites were actually getting paid subscribers. I thought the beauty of piracy is the whole "not paying for it" thing. I refuse to pay for more than one subscription service, I'm not going to end up paying more than I did for cable tv. Hulu still wins for me because it has the live/local tv, and I'm not giving Disney anymore money.

The beauty of piracy is that you can watch/listen to what you want to, how you want to, when you want to. People are more than happy to pay reasonable prices for content, so long as they can use it how they want; see: Spotify.

I'd pay $50/mo for a streaming service that had a significant number of movies and television shows that I want to watch. As it stands, I still need to pirate movies because they are not available on stream services, or they are only available for "purchase" at like $14-17 when I know for a fact that the same movies are sitting in the Walmart DVD bin for $5.

Re: Two Las Vegas Men Plead Guilty in U.S. Criminal Streaming Piracy Case

#69

Post by pingyong »

PeterStuer wrote: post #36

Services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video would be a lot more successful if only their catalogs in regions outside of the US would be comparable to their home turf. If US clients would have the tiny tiny catalogs they offer e.g. in most of Europe, you would also be scratching your head how this could ever justify the subscription cost.

Just yesterday I read something about the show "White Collar" and checked it out on Amazon Prime Germany. In German language it is available for free. I like to watch shows in their original language though. English costs 4€ per episode. Alright then, torrent it is.

Re: Two Las Vegas Men Plead Guilty in U.S. Criminal Streaming Piracy Case

#70

Post by Pfhreak »

zaarn wrote: post #18
paule89 wrote: post #5

Its like in the beginning of torrenting. Nobody willing to offer a service for everyone, for a fair price. Everybody gatekeeping selling only their stuff. And if you want everything pay this atrocious sum of money. I tell you this will happen more often and people are willing to pay. But not pay for everything. Good thing they had going. Well it was still illegal, but hey it will happen again i tell you.

Streaming is a service question. Netflix/D+/AMZN offers you a limited catalogue for 10$ or so a month. You select a movie from their website and it starts playing on your phone or computer. Pirates offer you everything for free . You select a movie from their website and it starts playing on your phone or computer. Why would any customer pick the more expensive product? Netflix and Friends need to offer a better serv…

> Now that EGS is trying to bleed customers, video game piracy is going up again because nobody likes exclusives except those that get money for them.

Big fat citation needed on the piracy numbers there...

I honestly don't mind timed exclusives because they provide stability and income to the studios that make the games I like. While there's a lot to criticize Epic for, the fact that they essentially guarantee a certain number of sales means devs like Coffee Stain studios can make a risky bet like Satisfactory (basically a 3D Factorio).

As a consumer, it's really not material to me whether I'm launching one or two stores, whereas these studios can be freed from the worry of boom/bust cycles, layoffs, etc.

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