Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

641–650 of 960 posts

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#641

Post by eleveriven »

sunrunner wrote: post #24

"Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem" -- Gabe Newell [1] And I think he was largely correct, although the term _service_ seems like it now has to do a lot of heavy lifting as it now encompasses: - Availability by Company - Availability by Global Region - Stream Quality - Advert Policy (why does the lowest tier need to be ad supported? What am I paying for aside from being upsold?) - Qu…

It's honestly wild that in 2025, you can still find better accessibility and quality control in a well-seeded torrent than on half the major platforms

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#642

Post by GoblinSlayer »

arrowsmith wrote: post #498
zerocrates wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The collapse being the collapse of the DDR? The Lives of Others must have been made way further beyond that than 7 years. Closer to 20, I'd figure.

TLOO came out in 2006, 16 years after the DDR collapsed. I wondered if GP was thinking of another movie so I asked ChatGPT, which told me: "The German film you’re thinking of is "Good Bye, Lenin!" — released in 2003, exactly seven years after the formal end of the DDR in 1990. " (My emphasis.) So much for GPT-5.

Linguistically it's an ok association. If you look at it unconsciously, you can find it plausible too, add 7 but in reverse.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#643

Post by johnvanommen »

l72 wrote: post #201
hbn wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget censorship-free I swore off streaming services when they started pulling episodes of comedy shows and editing out scenes because they were worried someone might be offended

They also often time have versions of old movies and shows that have been modified due to silly things like license agreements on music expiring! I have felt gaslighted when I rewatch and old movie and some scene isn’t how I remember.

> They also often time have versions of old movies and shows that have been modified due to silly things like license agreements on music expiring! I have felt gaslighted when I rewatch and old movie and some scene isn’t how I remember.

1990s Beavis and Butthead episodes seem completely bizarre/pointless without the music.

When Mike Judge started releasing new episodes back in 2012-ish, it's noticeable how he mostly avoided music clips and focused on satirizing reality shows that were on the same network (MTV.) I assume this was to avoid licensing nightmares.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#644

Post by exe34 »

dotancohen wrote: post #355
exe34 wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate that kind of destruction of what I think should ultimately be considered property of humanity. When you create something, you're free to destroy or ruin it. Once you share it with somebody else, you should need their consent to destroy it.

The social responsibility for ensuring that things could be shared falls on libraries. You might check a few libraries for old copies of vintage media. My sore spot is the original Rust In Peace album. It was rerecorded and the rerecording is horrible. Any copy of the original is treasure to me.

> The social responsibility for ensuring that things could be shared falls on libraries.

That's a fair point!

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#645

Post by boredhedgehog »

arrowsmith wrote: post #498
zerocrates wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The collapse being the collapse of the DDR? The Lives of Others must have been made way further beyond that than 7 years. Closer to 20, I'd figure.

TLOO came out in 2006, 16 years after the DDR collapsed. I wondered if GP was thinking of another movie so I asked ChatGPT, which told me: "The German film you’re thinking of is "Good Bye, Lenin!" — released in 2003, exactly seven years after the formal end of the DDR in 1990. " (My emphasis.) So much for GPT-5.

GPT-5 fell into a coma and missed a few critical years.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#646

Post by throwaway05241 »

teruakohatu wrote: post #331
mattbee wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely right! A week ago I downloaded a couple of movies and shows from Netflix for my 6yo daughter, to watch on a 3hr flight. Worked nicely! Today we made the return flight. She opens Netflix, and ⅔ of the films have now "expired" with no notice and she can't watch the one she wanted. For the next flight I'll remember to pirate!

> She opens Netflix, and ⅔ of the films have now "expired" I have given up saving Netflix titles in advance of travel because this has happened to me too many times. What is bizarre is you can only "download" them a certain number of times, despite being expired. So I now cannot download some shows ever again. Nobody loses money if I cache a Netflix show to my device. The limitation is bizarre.

> Nobody loses money if I cache a Netflix show to my device. The limitation is bizarre.

It wouldn't surprise me if some executive has an irrational fear of millions of people passing ipads around their family and friends with a downloads of movies/series as a way to avoid paying subscriptions.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#647

Post by sensanaty »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #550
dotancohen wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not TV show editing, rather a satire magazine, but a now-deleted reply mentioned that Charlie Hebdo was pressured to censor and would not. They had staff members murdered because they would not censor.

That is a thing that happened. But if it's what socalgal2 was talking about, then their comment was a non-sequitur. They saw the word censorship and rambled something almost entirely unrelated to the topic at hand. That's why it's worth asking what they're talking about.

There was also South Park's episodes 200 and 201 where they got a slew of death threats for depicting Mohammad. Funnily enough, Mohammad's depiction was the least offensive of all the other religious figures they showed in that episode, which was basically the point of the episodes more or less.

The funniest part of it all is that the network decided to not only remove the episode after the initial airing, it even censored Kyle's speech at the end of 201[1] about fighting back against intimidation. The censorship was done in such a way that it looked like South Park was satirizing the censorship itself too [2].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TMHIYDHMSE [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Imj_pHXzJbc

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#648

Post by v5v3 »

SilverElfin wrote: post #503
ryandrake wrote: post #153

Piracy offers: 1. Unrestricted access to an absolutely huge library of movies, music and TV shows, nearly unlimited. Certainly not limited by opaque "licensing deals" between various companies. 2. Highest resolution/bitrate/quality that was available at the time of the work's original release. 3. No arbitrary device/OS limitations. 4. Can watch/listen/download from any location on earth with sufficient bandwidth. I d…

Where does one safely pirate these days to avoid authorities

https://www.reddit.com/r/Piracy/wiki/megathread/movies_and_t...

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#649

Post by sensanaty »

alkonaut wrote: post #614
ryandrake wrote: post #153

Piracy offers: 1. Unrestricted access to an absolutely huge library of movies, music and TV shows, nearly unlimited. Certainly not limited by opaque "licensing deals" between various companies. 2. Highest resolution/bitrate/quality that was available at the time of the work's original release. 3. No arbitrary device/OS limitations. 4. Can watch/listen/download from any location on earth with sufficient bandwidth. I d…

I think the key thing it misses though (usually) is that you usually have to go grab things. I'm not willing to go download something in order to view it. Not even spending a few minutes time grabbing a whole season of a series and then storing it somewhere, even if viewing it takes many hours. Spotify's convenience killed the mp3, and Netflix is hyper convenient compared to most piracy. No one (to a rounding error,…

It's been super easy to stream pirated content for more than a decade (Popcorn Time) at this point, especially of late with the billions of pirate streaming sites that all pull from 20 different sources.

It's funny in a sad way how much better the UX of a lot of the piracy sites are, too.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#650

Post by BlobberSnobber »

maest wrote: post #434
hbn wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget censorship-free I swore off streaming services when they started pulling episodes of comedy shows and editing out scenes because they were worried someone might be offended

The DnD episode from Community (S2E14) can't be seen on any streaming services because one Asian character wears black makeup while cosplaying as a drow.

The list of Sunny's removed episodes from Hulu is insane to me:

- Season 4 Episode 3: America's Next Top Paddy's Billboard Model Contest

- Season 6 Episode 9: Dee Reynolds: Shaping America's Youth

- Season 8 Episode 2: The Gang Recycles Their Trash

- Season 9 Episode 9: The Gang Makes Lethal Weapon 6

- Season 14 Episode 3: Dee Day

They're all in my home server, though :)

Post reply on HN