Visits to piracy websites have increased 12% in the past four years
fastcompany.com
LOL.
We pay for 4K, but we don't get more than 720p unless we use some proprietary shit hardware and agree to their super-invasive "privacy policy" - and they expect people to NOT set sail in the high seas? GTFO..
I'm willing to pay for one, maybe two subscriptions, and ain't nobody got time to dig for which service has what show to find out season 2 is on some other service entirely.
Piracy provides a better user experience 🤷♂️
I generally agree with him, but there are a lot of people who pirate simply because they don’t want to pay. And I’m not casting moral judgment here, i just feel like it bears mentioning lol “almost always” is pretty generous
No it also means it's a service problem in the sense that it's not priced right for a geography. Pricing a game $70 where local average monthly income is $120 a month is a service problem. If you expect people from that geographic region to pay, the product should be priced within their means. And thus argument is valid only for digital goods where every new copy of the said goods costs mere few cents.
You’re gonna have to put in some work to convince me he used “service“ to also say “too expensive” when he said that. Hell GAAS as a concept didn’t even exist when he said that.
Lets compare three options as example:
One streaming service with everything:
Piracy:
Current streaming services:
People choose whether to pay monetary or opportunity costs. For a broke student priacy might still be the way to go, because they have time but not money. For most people a convenient streaming service will be the way to go though, because not having to worry about everything around and just finding your movie/series in 30 seconds, after you put dinner in the plates is the preferred option.
The current situation combines high monetary costs with high opportunity costs, so that piracy becomes attractive to many people, who would be happy to pay for a streaming service, that actually covers everything.
So i think "almost always" is perfectly applicable. Also keep in mind, that the offer of pirated stuff is directly related to the demand. if the demand reduces, so will the offer, which in this case would make piracy even less convenient. Of course the pricing matters, and if the one streaming service would cost say 50 €/month, more people would pirate again. But the dominant factor first is the service quality.
He made that statement when streaming barely existed. People were still primarily buying DVDs. That was the late 2000’s when it was only Netflix, maybe Hulu was just starting, and game streaming was barely a concept.
Actually not very true in regards to gaming at least, a study found a decently wide majority of game pirates end up buying the game. Alot of em just either use it as a demo or to bypass the copy protection garbage that fucks up the game they want to pay for.
For gaming, you've got Steam, which is pretty close to the ideal legit content delivery service. You don't even necessarily have to pirate in order to demo games if you're comfortable paying up front and making a decision within 2 hours.
Nothing similar exists or has existed for TV/Movies. Netflix was pretty good for a while, but you've never had the option to download the content to your own hard drive. Now you're not even allowed to log in to your account on as many devices as you want.
Give me a service that's a free storefront where I can pay a one-time fee for content that I'm actually interested in and download it to my hard drive as many times in as many places as I care to. Bonus points if I can stream to other devices that I'm logged in to and lend my purchases to my friends & family like I can with Steam. I don't care if there's DRM in the form of me having to log in to actually use the content if I can use it the way I want.
There is no way they could possibly know the percentage of Pirates to do that. Just because it occurs doesn’t mean there aren’t countless people who do it for free things. It’s also important to remember that those claims come from advocates, so you need to take it with a ton of caveats/pinches of salt. They have a pretty strong incentive to make that case.
"Any information I don't like is bullshit"
What? There is no information. You made a broad assertion. You don’t have a single source for that claim.
Where's yours? 🤷
Alot of piss in the wind 😂
I don’t need to prove that people download free media because it’s free because it’s literally the reason for it. The motivations may change but the entire appeal of piracy is that it’s free. It’s why Napster was created.
If that's true on its face, then you're not losing any money either way since they are never going to pay regardless even if you try to force them to.
Meanwhile, you can absolutely scare away what could have been a paying customer by offering dogshit service.
That’s never been an assumption you can make.
If you hand me a $10 version of a thing or a $5 option of the exact same thing, I’m taking the $5. Free is no different. Especially when they can do it from the comfort of their home and not drive to a mall to buy the CD or whatever. Remember what year it was when this all started man.
1903 when Edison v. Lubin was filed?
If you’re going to be a smartass then I have no desire to continue this conversation. I am talking about when piracy became mainstream via napster because it became easy for people to get free music.
People who pirate because they don't want to pay will never, ever pay. Not worth considering them to be honest.
Im willing to pay for two. It used to be netflix and prime, then hulu, paramount plus, disney…
Now its down to one- Proton VPN 🏴☠️
I use Mullvad. How good is Proton?
The best public option is Proton imo. With paid subscriptions you even get access to Secure Core servers where Proton runs their own data centers instead of hiring 3rd-parties like NordVPN, etc.
Case-point: Nord has been hacked before bc of third-party data centers. Proton has no breaches so far and does regular security audits, has plenty of servers outside the 14 Eyes Alliance, and actively fund privacy focused projects.
Mullvad is a close second bc of their anonymous payments.
It really depends on the quantity and sensitivity of the content I'd say.
But Proton has replaced everything I used Google for (Drive/Email). Proton will work for a good 90% of everyone most likely.
I’m all in on proton personally.
I dont have much to compare it to.
I was fine with paying for Netflix. Then they started pulling shit off for their own services and I quit when there was nothing but the lame Netflix originals and some old shit I don’t watch anymore. One of the things that put me over the edge was when they would do things like put a sequel up but not the original.
How the fuck do you expect me to just jump into The Two Towers and not expect me to want to watch The Fellowship of the Ring first?! Oh you think I’m going to go buy/rent the first movie 😂 that’s cute.
No, I’ll just go back to pirating. Much more convenient to be able to say, watch an episode of The Office and then switch to a Marvel movie from Disney+ and then a Marvel show from Netflix without paying a dime to 3 different subscriptions and being inconvenienced to have to close and open a whole new fucking app.
Now I just spend money for a VPN each month. Less than what it costs for a single of any of those other subscriptions too and I can choose my quality and version and not worry about it getting removed tomorrow!
How do people still not grasp that Netflix can't just buy whatever they want to stream? Licenses are often being held by other services at the time. They also have no control over if a show gets pulled or not. I still see people complaining that Netflix "got rid" of the Office.
Like, I have no love for Netflix or any streaming service at this point, but at least shit on them for things that are actually in their control.
And frankly, this is how HBO, Showtime, Stars, etc have operated like this for decades before Netflix came along. It's so weird people think "shows/movies being pulled because the license deal expired" is something unique to Netflix.
That rhetorical question goes out to those who hold the rights. I know Netflix had no control. I just find it weird that studios/etc. felt that was a wise decision.
Music industry seemed to figure it out pretty well. Except for a few rare case outliers, it doesn’t matter if I’m using Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon music, etc. Sure they all have different features, but I can blast Taylor Swift to my heart’s content and never leave one app
For the record, you can use justwatch.com and it will tell you exactly where you can watch it, and which seasons. But I'm still not paying for multiple subscriptions.
Since #1 on the list is always The Seven Seas there's no reason to proceed further.
Stremio also has a default addon with this info
I saw this on someone's phone and was wondering what it was, seems neat tbh but I already own a ship 🏴☠️
Hell, I even pay for a service that has all the magnet links resolved and ready to stream, no downloading involved. For 30 bucks (a year!) it's been the most convenient way of enjoying movies & shows.
I am actually paying for a piracy service : )
Got two. Not doing anymore. Ive had up to 4 or 5 and still couldn't find what I wanted.
https://www.gamesradar.com/gabe-newell-piracy-issue-service-not-price/
As Gabe Newell said: "Piracy isn't a pricing issue, its a service issue"
As my friend said: "every time a plastic video disc says " operation not permitted " a torrent is born...
As I say: "People will pay when it's easy, more reliable and more convenient." As a software product manager, I forbid my product from ever wasting developer cycles with copy protection.. It's expensive to deliver, annoying to real customers and doesn't make us any more money...
As a user of software, I salute you.
I don't disagree with anything but I feel like GabeN said that before streaming and subscriptions took over.
Photoshop is an incredibly easy to use and powerful tool for creators - I'd be happy to drop like $200 on, for example, the 2024 version. I'm not happy to spend $10 or $30+ a month for life to use it, especially when they lock you in to a year subscription and charge you a fee if you cancel early so you literally can't just sub only the month when you need it, it's the whole year, period. I'll just pirate or use photopea or whatever.
Similar for streaming. Netflix gave us the option to pay for more screens to watch on. Now suddenly it matters whose house it's in?? All while you're constantly removing value from the platform and you cancel anything decent if the production value is too high? Fuck you man I'm not paying like $30 monthly for that.
Please do keep voting with your wallet - its one of the few remaining ways to express our discontent!) That being said, I feel like both of those examples are where the service provided by adobe and then Netflix are terrible.
Adobe is making you buy a whole year and Netflix is hassling you for "letting your pensioner mum watch your account".. To me, both of those are examples of bad service (coupled with cost).
For me, a counter example for me is amazon.com: I hate what they're doing to the retail landscape but find it hard to resist, as I find them SOOO convenient, and their customer service (for now) is absolutely stunning!!! Now if their prices were too high, I'd personally probably pay for that convenience a bit. (Where there model breaks for me completely is warranty major purchases: I've had warranty denied by manufacturers for items purchased through non approved amazon resellers. So now, for me, anything over $100 and I'm looking for direct purchase from the manufacturer as a preference. )
I think not getting what you paid for is a pretty big service problem idk man
Maybe people would pirate less if you let them keep what they pay for.
If buying isn't owning...
You're buying... A temporary permission to access certain content.
...then piracy isn't theft.
No it's just borrowing, it's temporary anyway, I recently looked at some movies on a very old harddisk and it was like DVD quality or worse. Threw the entire disk out.
I don't know if it's even borrowing, really. If you borrow my drill, I can't use it. If you torrent a movie... Like... You're seeding, and more people can use it!
It's almost like our economics models with supply and demand barely work for physical products and are even worse at modelling easily reproducible digital goods
Naaaah, probably just a coincidence, best not to think about such things. /S
12% over four years? Damn. Somehow I had the impression that there'd been a significant increase.
Netflix revenue is up by roughly 60% in the same four years.
Thank you for keeping things in perspective.
if these two numbers were reversed, piracy sites would get the same treatment as videos with actual criminal content. we're lucky
I'm really surprised by this, specially since I cancelled Netflix over a year ago myself...
It's like renting movies that can be taken away at any time since you don't own them. And ads can be introduced whenever. Not to mention poor streaming quality on top of all this.
Cracking down on account sharing has sent lots of people sailing as well, and market fragmentation.
Don't forget ads.
I'd happily pay for anything I consume if it were convenient, private, and no ads. Since I can't get that anymore, well, it's the high seas for me. I pay as much for high seas related services as I would for the official streamers, but the experience is 10x better.
Netflix turning off account sharing is what sent me to the high seas. Disney+ doing the same will push me over even more.
Is there anything with pirating on Disney+?
Sometimes piracy is the only method of archival
Some things are literally not available anymore by legal means. Piracy is an important tool in preserving content for future generations. Future historian will be proud of pirates.
I really want to show my friend the original Fullmetal Alchemist series, but Funimation has completely replaced it with the newer Brotherhood series everywhere. It's such bullshit. I would be happy to pay them to watch it, but literally the only option is piracy.
Absolutely true, I was actually looking for this flash game mike shadow and the vending machine and it's partly lock cause reasons, pirates where you at
Put everything on 1 or 2 platforms and take cuts depending on what people are watching.
I don't care if there are 10 platforms. Let them compete on features and customer service, but the content should be available on all. A bit like ISPs, give me the content and pay the creator a cut when n I watch.
But fuck this 10 services with fragmented content.
That would be smart and is what originally happened.
Well streaming prices have gotten ridiculous.
It's not just the prices, people are lazy. You can go to one place and get all the things or search 10 different places.
Or they just demand good value for their service. Netflix hugely curtailed piracy in their early days. Same with Valve's Steam.
I stuck around with streaming for as long as I could but with the price increases, the restrictions, the lack of content as they revert back into cable bullshit has driven me back to getting the bulk of my stuff via torrents again.
Honestly, I'm pretty shocked that streaming remained decent for as long as it did but we all knew this was inevitable because we all know how this song and dance with greedy corporations go.
The lack of content is really bothering me.
Disney plus is the absolute worst there's nothing on that platform for like 9 months of the year. Then they'll have an interesting program (usually Star wars related) you can binge and then nothing for another 9 months.
Then just subscribe for that month and then cancel. We switch around from all of them; one month netflix, next month HBO, apple the next, etc... Don't understand why people keep the subscriptions when they dont use the service...
I don't keep the subscriptions that's the point.
Paying up to 23$ a month (not including other streaming services) to watch maybe 5% of the shows and movies I'm interested in just didn't seem like a good deal after a while.
Nope, you need more than 1 subscription, because quite often services only offer a few of the seasons of your favorite show, while the others are on different services.
Example: https://www.pokemon.com/us/animation/where-to-watch-pokemon-episodes-movies
EIGHT different services? That is some corporate greed bullshit right there.
LOL if it wasn't on the official website I'd have assumed it was a joke.
Would you:
Or... Just click on "get all missing episodes" on sonarr?
And for those that are able to keep to just one subscription, switching to another when they've finished watching whatever show it is that said service had, they aren't safe either.
One of the next steps that these corporations are going to take is to add fees for dropping their services, with year long contracts.
They don't want competition, so they will try to force you to stay.
Kind of what I meant as being a problem but thanks I guess.
I know a lot of people who are sailing the Seas until the streaming Market crashes. There's way too many businesses trying to do the same exact thing which has limited the media selection available without paying multiple $12 a month subscriptions. Eventually they will either fold or merge together again
Ironically this is a double edged sword. If they merge, expect prices to rise. Won't be long before $100/mo is expected and accepted.
Those are rookie numbers! Let's pump it up!
This is the number one reason I won't ever pay for a netflix subscription (or others) again. Pay for 4K but you dont get 4K if you want to watch on your laptop or android streaming box that they don't approve of. Like how much fucking greedier could you be? Fuck them I hope they all go the way of blockbuster soon.
When Netflix had (seemingly) everything I was totally cool and the gang with paying for that service.
Now I have:
and I still can't find the content I want to watch. I had an urge to watch The Good, The Bad And The Ugly the other day. Could I find it on any services I pay a combined £50+ a month for? Could I fuck. Why would they be surprised they're pushing people to 'alternative' sources? Sure, I can rent or buy Barbie and Oppenheimer if I want, but I don't want. What I want is access to the tens of thousands of old, excellent, films that have been made.
My NAS literally arrived today.
I'm done.
Been paying for years but it's becomming equally predatory as linear TV so I'm out.
That's honestly one of the biggest wtf things to me. Movies like that are old as fuck. How many people are still buying the DVD? Or paying to rent it? Not talking down on the movie itself. There's a reason it's still talked about. But honestly, it's not making much, if anything.
Why not have it throw up on a streaming service? At that point, if I had the rights, and Netflix said they would pay me like $200 a week, I would probably still do it. That's probably $200 more than what it's currently making a week. Netflix gets to have it for cheap. And then the people who want to watch it get to.
But yet its a problem for us to pirate it?
I need to continue the dollars trilogy, A Fistful of Dollars was pretty good.
For A Few Dollars More is so-so (but I'd still watch it again), but The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly is epic.
And if you enjoy them, then take a crack at High Plains Drifter or Pale Rider which are both excellent though share an underlying theme. The Outlaw Josey Wales is also well worth a watch, as is the magnificent (and best picture Oscar winner) Unforgiven starring and directed by an older, wiser, and grittier Clint Eastwood.
Definitely will check out High Plains Drifter and Magnificent Seven. Pale Rider and Unforgiven are already on the list along with Gran Torino. Also already watched The Outlaw Josey Wales, it was a really good movie.
You might also want to add Yojimbo and The Seven Samurai to your list too - they're the Kurasawa films that A Fistful of Dollars and The Magnificent Seven are western (in both senses) remakes of.
I watched Yojimbo already (which I personally found to be mediocre). I'm actually planning of watching Seven Samurai before Magnificent Seven.
1 of those 12% is just me lol /s
I get pissed at my family for being traditional hoarders but I somewhat inherited that as a data hoarder. The amount of stuff I have pirated over the years and not actually used or watched is hilarious.
Same here. But on the bright side, at least data hoarding doesn't take up a ton of physical space.
Well, it does if you do a lot.
What are we taking TB wise?
I have about 10TB of stuff. Around 600 movies and not quite 200 TV series. I'm planning on leaving societies embrace and being away from it all in a couple of weeks and have been hoarding stuff to keep me entertained, if needed. I'm not the one you asked, but here you go. I don't really feel like I have a ton of stuff, from a datahoarder perspective, but probably a little more than the average torrent monster.
Hm are those high res movies? 10 TB seems to small
Kind of all over the place, but mostly 1080 or so. Here's a little data:
I have 48 movies that are 1.7G, 43 that are 1.5G, and so on.
Probably around 30tb but all in, but drives being from 400gb to 8 tb of varying age and make. Most are just shelved and in the off chance I want something from them they get hot swapped in the dock thing
Just upgraded my truenas and plex to 8tb drives. 1600+ movies, 60+ TV series, 40,000 songs. I seed as much as I can, have uploaded over 5TB this month alone. Come get some.
I haven't used Torrents in years, since subscribing to Netflix. But I'm fed up with needing to pay 5+ different subscriptions to get coverage across shows, so perhaps time to think about other options. What are some of the best torrent sites today,?
I use OnTheSpot downloader to grab albums from spotify at 320kbps - https://github.com/casualsnek/onthespot
Use Soulseek (nicotine+) to grab more obscure stuff. Can get everything on there, just sometimes slower and not as reliable as a torrent.
I use these sites for movies, in order of convenience:
https://ytssss.jamsbase.com/ (basically just YTS)
https://www.magnetdl.com/ (search sucks, but if you get used to it, it has huge libraries of TV series)
https://en.torrentgalaxy-official.site/
https://rargb.to/
https://1337x.to/home/
https://psa.wf/ (PSA RIPS)
I don't really download apps anymore, so malware really isn't an issue, but make sure you're using UBlockOrigin plugin and a VPN like TorGuard
Could try the *arr software. Sonarr is tv, radarr is movies and lidarr is music. You can use jackett to act as an indexer and it will automatically grab the shows.
Haha, do you ever feel like the last one to get the joke? I do sometimes.
I've used them for a very long time, maybe a decade if they have been around that long, could be a bit less. I've seen them referred to as the *arr suite/software many times. I didn't know there was a joke to get until you pointed it out, I'm still facepalming.
So you are not the last one.
In my defence, I'm not a native speaker, but still..
My friends and I have been joking too much about this naming scheme without even mentioning what appears to be the intentional meaning... I feel rather dumb.
yeah, i've thought about it. but it's cathartic to find music/movies, download and organize them, choose artwork in Plex, things like that. I've got them all organized in media monkey.
Regarding music, there's also the slavart discord and their bot which allows you to download music from different streaming services in lossless formats
1337x and YTS are preferred for me. No sign up/log in BS
96KHz audio or bust.
oh god, the difference between some of my old rips at 128 and 320 is damn near night and day. i though the song just sucked, but the quality was just shit. also found a track that got corrupt, but still played, but at 1/10th the speed, it was about 30 minutes long, but normally only 3 lol. just stretched the fuck out of it.
You can also use this site for DDL's if you'd prefer them. No ads or premium and actively updated: dhokla.net.
I can easily say that the amount of my friends and family that have become interested in my Emby setup has expontentially consistently increased every round that these streaming providers have increased their rates.
The experience of launching 7 different streaming apps to find something, content constantly vanishing or moving platforms, and just an overall poor user experience coupled with doubling/tripling of each platforms costs....
The companies have almost successfully re-introduced the very problem that streaming originally solved.
It's like this dipshits don't want our money. I've always been firm that any content removed from streaming services is a message from that content company that they don't want the money of the customers subscribed to said service and thus are okay with those people pirating it instead.
If they cared about the money, they'd had left the content there.
But realistically even if pump and dump schemes like this make the customers hate them, it might still make more as a total sum - and if so as a cooperation they'd almost have to take the shitty route (or be surpassed by someone who will).
Yay capitalism
Lol, you think greed won't exist under socialism? Greed is why communism fails every time. People are inherently greedy in a world where scarcity exists.
Why yes, greed is exactly why Cuba deserves to be embargoed for all eternity, look how flawed communism is lol haha /s
https://www.cfr.org/in-brief/why-situation-cuba-deteriorating
All I see here is pointing fingers at Cuba and Venezuela failing in places that they were sabotaged by the US, big surprise.
What use is communism when it's so easily foiled by capitalism? Seems like a major flaw.
Luckily, we don't live in a world where scarcity exists, just one with a resource distribution problem.
Wrong, there's a distinct scarcity of logic in your arguments.
"Scarcity is so fundamental to economics that scarce goods are also known as economic goods. In economics, scarce goods are those for which demand would exceed supply at a price of zero." https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/scarcity.asp
Uh no? I don't think I really implied it wouldn't either, nor even that I'm a socialist tbh
something something manufactured scarcity changes things
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_socialist_states
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor
My map is bigger and, global.
I win.
Piracy has changed so much. Back when people were making the transition from p2p to torrents there was very little if any streaming sites.
Nowadays if you sneeze hard enough you're bound to spray down some big name streaming service.
Now there are even whole front ends that allow you to stream whatever you want anytime you want even on a little, but very powerful handheld computer.
I would say that 12% is more on the low end. If you were to factor in ad blocking and the various front ends I mentioned earlier I could see that number going up much higher.
Flixtor
I fucking wonder why. When owning isn't owning them piracy is totally justified.
Not only that... you pay to get tv content and suddenly they remove it because of licensing or political correctness bullshit.
Preach!!
Oh no
Always a tell tale sign when someone unironically drops a PC whinge.
Amen. Weird how people feel the need to insert it into random places. Cant think of any TV show that got hit from that!
The DnD episode of Community didn't need to be removed from all streaming platforms...
It’s amazing to me that people can cite a single example of canceling that is gray area or they otherwise feel is wrong and they think that that somehow invalidates the idea of a boycott, removing things, or just finding something distasteful in general. It’s baffling really.
I can cite 100 instances of domestic violence or comparable crimes in the NFL and that’s not enough. But one episode of a show is removed, and everything about being progressive or liberal or pointing out racism in media is suddenly invalidated.
There are a lot of insanely dicey jokes and moments in community that get a pass. I love the show, but let’s be real here. I think it is missing the forest for the trees when it comes to removing “advanced dungeons and dragons” as an episode, but ultimately, it’s a small con in what is generally a very valid exercise. Plus it’s not like it was erased from existence.
You're attributing a lot of things to me that I never said. On the whole though, I don't disagree with you.
You’re right I could’ve been more clear that that was more of a general statement. It’s just always the one that comes up with this implied “…and that’s why cancelling is bad.”
The Dukes of Hazzard
Yes we should destroy all media that isn't politically correct right?
Also riddled with ads
Bold of you to think that they even think of us at all.
I actually mean that seriously: we continue seeing, over and over, that no, quite often they do NOT expect people to NOT do that, they quite simply DGAF. They pirate us, we pirate them, it becomes just another "cost of doing business", until they are strong enough to eventually crack down further. See ad blocking & Chrome recently, after multiple decades of internet ads pushing the limits.
It's like a zombie nom noming your brains - after like 2 bites it'll get bored and wander off, and it literally doesn't even need to "eat", it simply is so fucking DUMB that it doesn't know what else to do with itself. It is truly horrifying b/c while your entrails may be strewn about on the floor, or in the throats of tens of zombies, they in turn... don't even have the decency to be aware that you've died!?
Lower-level managers sell ideas to higher-level managers, and "logic" has little to do with those conversations, compared to the amount of emo-stroking that goes on "oh, you will become so rich, and powerful, and handsome, and brave, and precious" (from here:-P) - and so long as enough people play along, that happens!
Our world is just so fucking STUPID.
That said, what they do is on them, while what we do is on us. Find a way to live - hopefully by finding a way to contribute, if/where you can.
Is that what my girlfriend & I were doing in her bedroom in the early 00s listening to Brand New and Death Cab?
Probably, and it was surely glorious (if you did it right)!:-P
What you say is exactly what I feel.
When I pay for a service, as long as I abide by the ToS, service provider should give me their products in full.
Your protection should not violate my right.
Not gonna lie, if you asked me what I would think the increase would be and I would have assumed it be a lot higher.
But then again, that could be the part of the pirate crew that doesn't use a VPN and is easily identified upon entering the site.
I agree. These stats are to be taken with a grain of salt.
Personally, I saw an extreme increase among my peers in piracy, streaming and Plex servers.
don't need to use a VPN when my country could not fucking care less about piracy. Hell, some major chain shops here run pirated windows
Hope it goes up more
I'm torn. I think everybody should fight back the predatory practices of the entertainment industry. But the more mainstream the piracy practices become, the more crackdown there's gonna be, and the more of a hassle it's gonna be to find pirated content.
the more pirating there is the more incentive there is to find ways around the crackdown too so wouldn't be too worried. also they will presumably stop when they understand that pirating does not decrease when you increase crackdowns (or does not increase because of less crack downs).
If enough people pirate, there will be popular support for reforming copyright, so eventually there's less crackdown
The corpos will get rid of copyright when it becomes inconvenient. Like when they want to use copywritten data to train AI models.
Popular support rarely changes anything. Money talks to power, people talk to themselves
What can they possibly do to private trackers?
Infiltrate them to track users like they already do now. And if your answer to that is ''VPN'', there are already countries where these are forbidden by law, what's to stop them from being outlawed in more countries in the future.
I bet we'll reach a point again where normal services are just so shit that piracy is normal again. Then they'll try and take down even more things. Hopefully then we'll decide to move operations to I2P.
CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
and that's only what can be confirmed.
Literally every single time I want to watch any specific movie it's not on any streaming service without buying or renting, and I don't mean new or recent movies. So yeah, I'm pirating again.
I wonder what happened in those four years that gave people a lot of time to watch movies but not a lot of money to pay for them 🤔
This gives me hope
Perfect time for any aspiring system admin to create another piracy website (something I've been working out the kinks on)
Podcast focused, please. We're in desperate need of one.
Why do we need a podcast focused server. Podcasts for the most part are free. Just need a client like AntennaPod and listen away
They're not, though. The back catalog of many is locked away, and we lost many of those altogether when Stitcher shut down.
Clearly, if I could just listen away, I would be doing that. Just as clearly, we need a way to archive and share all of this.
Pirates up to the mountains!
What's that about only getting 720p though? My TV shows the 4K HDR stuff great from places like Netflix or Prime, has done for years now, and my TV isn't even new. Surely all modern stuff will show all that high definition stuff just fine.
I think my browser does too, though I only have a 2K screen as of recently on my PC, but I'm certain it's not playing video in 720p for sure. It's at least 1080p if not more.
But yeah, these services aren't giving enough bang for their pound these days, it's reaching insulting levels, it's unsurprising people are forced into piracy.
The consumer (or if you prefer, the market) decides what someone is worth, and if it's being sold for above market value.... people won't buy. Simple as that.
We've shown we're happy to pay a reasonable amount of money for these services, and yet they insist on squeezing exorbitant amounts of money out of us for less and less value. Madness.
I've bought a lot of 4K movies/TV shows on Google Movies and they're all 480 on my browser. Support tell me they understand my frustrations and say I gotta use Safari or Edge or something and they're like 720P or something. I'm like, oh great, thanks.
Firefox and Piracy seem more alluring to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4GZUCwVRLs
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=o4GZUCwVRLs
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Most likely it's Russians
Just pay for your content, it's not that hard sheesh
I think you missed the OP's point about the ongoing enshitification of paid services. From the words of Gabe Newell, "The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates.”
The reason why so many people are pirating even when they can afford it is because companies continue to make their services worse for their paying customers. Simply "paying for your content" will encourage these companies to continue their predatory, behavior.
Edit: I think I should add this isn't really true if you can buy physical copies of the content, but that's becoming less and less of an option as large streaming services make sure the only way to watch their content legally is buying their shitty subscriptions
I don't exactly recall when or where I heard/read this quote, but man it is dope
If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing.
I hope you noticed that the key phrase in your comment is "your content"
Good luck claiming any of the content on the streaming platforms as "your"
no
Cringe
There are a lot of times where my privacy set up, which isn't anything fancy, precludes me from watching something. That coupled with the fact that prices have been consistently rising in our late stage shit system, you have to realize at some point that the same system that drives companies to scrape every possible iota of a profit out of users is the same system that makes people equally not want to be gutted financially and have every data point about themselves be out on an open market. Complacency doesn't change anything.