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Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

theguardian.com

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Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#651

Post by InfinityByTen »

One thing that is becoming off-putting is not just the entshitification, but the price creep I've been feeling. I've been on Spotify for over 8 years now, and deliberately paying the cost in my resident country (while I could very well get a subscription in another, which is a lot of my peers actually do). But just today morning, I got the notification, that the price will increase by another 10% which is after a 10% increase only last year (or was it this year, I forget).

I get the inflation and all that, but honestly, I don't want to fund a business that is either squandering money or not growing, by paying more to it. And I have to admit, it is not getting any better either. The AI generated/ drone music slop is probably an industry issue, but the recommendation algorithm hasn't been able to work out that it isn't my taste.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#652

Post by sensanaty »

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

Maybe I'm just lucky with where I've lived, but I've literally never had problems pirating without obfuscating my traffic in any way whatsoever. I've been torrenting since I was a kid, too, and I torrent literally everything you can possibly torrent from software to music.

Do people really get hounded for piracy in other countries?

But you can check out fmhy.net, it's a great resource (unaffiliated, it's just a genuinely great resource for piracy :p)

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#654

Post by Mashimo »

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

I use torrent with private trackers for over 20 years now, no VPN. Never had an issue.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#655

Post by justanotherjoe »

Akronymus wrote: post #211
dilDDoS wrote: post #82

I actually think pirating encourages a healthier approach to watching TV/movies. I've fully made the switch to pirating instead of subscribing to any streaming services, and it's led to me thinking more critically about what I want to spend time downloading and watching rather than just flipping mindlessly through endless amounts of readily available garbage on a streaming service. I do still have Kanopy though, whic…

For me, I only seek out media I plan to actually watch. Rather than flipping through what is available and choosing from there. Currently it is stargate sg1/atlantis what I am watching. Also, a lot of movies/series are only available dubbed here. (I really effing hate "Sie" in dubbed media. So much so, that it's one of the major reasons I go for subbed in english, at most)

When i first used netflix at my friends house, I immediately used the search bar and looked for Jurassic Park... what kind of movie service doesn't have JP, i thought. It must be around 10 years ago, and I never used it once afterwards.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#656

Post by croon »

A couple of months ago I was sitting at my desk when the kids were asleep and was going to put some show on the second monitor while I was doing some boring admin. I open a Netflix tab on the same machine, same browser, same LAN, no VPN as I've been using for years, from the IP where likely 95% of our household Netflix traffic is requested.

I'm met with:

> Your device isn't part of the Netflix household for this account

> Not ? Create an account to enjoy your own Netflix today.

> Create an account

> Did we get it wrong? Watch temporarily until you're back on your Netflix household Wi- Fi, or sign out.

> Watch temporarily

> Sign out

Neither of the options actually worked to escape the bug(/feature?) either.

So that's when I cancelled my subscription after 8 years.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#657

Post by wiseowise »

godelski wrote: post #367
chongli wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2. Highest resolution/bitrate/quality that was available at the time of the work's original release. Arguably higher. For example, fans of Star Wars have scanned the original 1977 theatrical release with very high quality film scanners and created a 4K release complete with film grain and the original scenes intact which is not available through approved channels.

While that's the best option, there's always AI upscaling and frame gen. These of course won't be as good as native resolution and can sometimes make more errors, but they can make a big difference on low resolutions when you got a big screen.

While that’s the best option to eat chocolate, there’s always eating shit. If you put it in the right form it might even resemble chocolate.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#658

Post by fluoridation »

wltr wrote: post #165

Oh, I have a question to all of the people who pirate but live in a country where that’s illegal and punished (with huge fines, I assume). I’m very interested in listening to some stories of how it’s technically done (vpn, a seedbox, or you just keep things simple and don’t care). E.g. I’ve been trying sophisticated backlists of IPs, but I have no idea whether they work. But even more I am interested in a legal aspec…

Argentina. Have been using BitTorrent directly from my home connection for close to 20 years now without issue, no VPN or anything. Never heard of anyone getting a fine, a warning, or anything like that. Never ran into transfer cap issues either; despite my ISP having a stated monthly cap of 250 GB down (although that was years ago; it may have changed), I handily exceed it every month, and some months I've passed 1 TiB without getting throttled at all. The record according to pfSense is 2.2 TiB in a single month.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#659

Post by fluoridation »

alt227 wrote: post #182
massysett wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a surprise, it’s easier to steal than to pay content creators. (I know, someone will now chime in and say it isn’t really stealing, etc etc.) Actually I disagree though. Software and UX for torrenting is a pain. It’s easier to buy a $10 DVD.

> What a surprise, it’s easier to steal than to pay content creators. They make it this way. Buying a second hand DVD does not give any money to content creators, and I still get to watch the movie.

Devil's advocate: buying a second-hand DVD puts money back into a first-hand buyer, who may use it to buy first-hand again from the creator.

Re: Streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy

#660

Post by iamacyborg »

exe34 wrote: post #293
macNchz wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was so surprised and bummed when I discovered this was a thing. My wife and I started watching the original Beverly Hills 90210—a sort of ridiculous snapshot of American pop culture in the early 1990s—on some streaming service, and after a few episodes I noticed the music was just...super wrong. Reading online, I learned that a lot of the original music had been licensed only for the original run of the show, so ev…

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.

This feels like a terribly entitled way to view someone else’s work.
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