this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2024
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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[–] [email protected] 193 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

If you follow some of the links to pirate sites in the article you'll get redirected to some anti-piracy site which amongst other things tells you this:

Bitch ... that's literally the reason I pirate.

[–] [email protected] 76 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Now only 1400$ a month to watch any show at 480p! Upgrade now to 2100$ per month for the high resolution videos? Can't afford it? Just get another job you lazy hobo!

[–] [email protected] 49 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Not so fast now! High resolution video only available on edge on windows

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[–] [email protected] 166 points 10 months ago

They keep telling us that we can’t own or preserve media. We strongly disagree.

[–] [email protected] 139 points 10 months ago (2 children)

My mind is turning on the piracy front. I've paid for Netflix for like a decade, and it was good.

I tried not to pirate, but there was no legal way to stream Game of Thrones, so we would do watch parties. Eventually HBO came to Canada through bell and I could watch it online.

That moment was pretty great, I could watch all my shows, and HBO, and Netflix was putting out some strong content.

Then everyone decided they wanted a piece of the pie. Netflix has continued increasing prices while everyone pulled their content out, Amazon turned prime video into a roulette wheel of "can I watch this or not", and Disney+ launched and very quickly turned into only shovelling garbage quality star wars and marvel projects, and now everyone is stuffing ads into their shitty content fiefdoms.

We're back to where piracy is the better experience and now I can't watch the content I want because it's at most 2 shows a year per platform.

[–] [email protected] 79 points 10 months ago (1 children)

When they remove access to content I paid for... Fuck em.

If buyin' ain't owning, piracy ain't stealin'

[–] Chais 31 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

To be fair, streaming was never buying. It was always paying entry to a library. If stuff gets removed from the library that's the way it is.
That isn't to say I don't agree. Piracy is a service problem, as Gabe Newell so eloquently put it. Streaming started losing the moment it started splintering into cable networks.

[–] mnemonicmonkeys 31 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Sony allowed you to purchase episodes and seasons of shows like Mythbusters. They specifically stated you were purchasing that content.

Then they removed that purchased content from people's account's after they went separate ways with Discovery. Sony and Discovery stole from their customers

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[–] [email protected] 86 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Have they considered offering better content and services than the free options?

[–] [email protected] 61 points 10 months ago (10 children)

Gabe said it best! "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."

[–] Reverendender 23 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I've dropped something like 5 services in the last year and a half no the last year, due to the declining quality of their offerings, both in user interface, user experience, and content. EDIT: And price hikes!

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[–] [email protected] 85 points 10 months ago (4 children)

sparking concerns on Wall Street that the services will never be as profitable as cable once was

Obligatory fuck Wall Street

[–] [email protected] 24 points 10 months ago

All my homies hate wall street

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[–] [email protected] 71 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (10 children)

Say it louder with me for the people in the back.

Piracy is not stealing.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 10 months ago (1 children)

"If buying is not owning, then piracy is not stealing."

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[–] [email protected] 71 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (9 children)

The solution is so easy. Make your content available at a reasonable price, make it easy to use, don't restrict it by geography, and let people watch it on any device that can connect to your service.

Piracy is about ease of use (it's getting even easier), and about value. DRM has repeatedly been shown to hurt only the people who try to pay for legitimate access. Not a single time has it prevented me from getting a copy of something if I wanted to, and it's clearly not stopping people from providing those copies or streams.

So stop wasting bathtubs of money on stopping piracy, but maybe take a few less buckets of money from consumers in exchange for your service. As long as you price it such that the cost of being legit can't compete with the ease of use and value from piracy, some folks aren't going to make the choice you want them to.

Some folks won't be able to spend on your service anyway, because they just can't afford it - but they still might buy other merchandise, they can still spread how great your show is to their friends who possibly will subscribe to your service, but regardless you aren't going to get their dollars no matter what you do. So stop trying.

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[–] [email protected] 66 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Just stopped in to say fuck you to the greedy motherfuckers who created a market for sharing massively overpriced content and now cry all over their piles of money cause they are BIGGER piles of money.

Which is to say: "Fuck you".

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[–] [email protected] 60 points 10 months ago (4 children)

I don't use these services, but after learning a bit about them I have to say I'd rather pay an honest thief than one who lies about ownership ¯_(ツ)_/¯

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[–] [email protected] 53 points 10 months ago (1 children)

The people who are stealing our movies and our television shows and operating piracy sites are not mom and pop operations,” says Charlie Rivkin, chief executive officer of the MPA, who adds that some of the operators also engage in drug trafficking, child pornography, prostitution and money laundering. “This is organized crime.”

I like how they always have to fabricate a connection to organized crime. Trying to convince the reader that is not just copyright infringement.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 10 months ago (7 children)

Can someone list those piracy subscription services so we can avoid them as responsible citizens?

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[–] [email protected] 52 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (7 children)

This has to be stopped. Just look at what Napster did to the music industry. That’s right, there used to be a music industry and now it’s just…gone. No more music, no more money to be made in music. Don’t let these evil streaming services do the same to poor defenceless Hollywood, bastion of women’s rights!

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[–] [email protected] 52 points 10 months ago (7 children)
[–] [email protected] 25 points 10 months ago (1 children)

No subscription fee to use Steam. Games are available to download and play offline. 3 clicks of the mouse to buy, install, and play a game. It's so damn easy to use Steam, I don't miss buying physical PC games and I certainly don't miss rolling the dice on russian cracks.

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Y'all fucked up by not leaving everything on Netflix.

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That illustration with the hook through the film reel is so clever, I love it.

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 10 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 87 points 10 months ago (2 children)

It's so funny to me that we have to circumvent the site's paywall in order to read an article about pirating.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 10 months ago

Based as hell.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 10 months ago (4 children)

So what they're saying is they could get all that extra revenue if they lower their price and just undercut the competition?

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 10 months ago

I've been doing this for free.

Meme: You guys are getting paid?

[–] [email protected] 38 points 10 months ago

Adding to the discussion, if you want to watch anything that's not mainstream (i.e. non-western, or arthouse), you're basically supposed to either wait for it to stream on Mubi or get a Blu-ray/DVD (that are often out of circulation if it's more than 5 years old). So the only real option is pirating.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 10 months ago

Oh no. Poor Hollywood. Darn.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

They make hardware with defects looking at you RROD and YLOD , they expect you to rebuy everything again every time there is a new console ( Nintendo). They remove your content that you have paid for from your library (Amazon, Sony, music from games), they alter the deal after purchase by instering DRM and shitty launchers and turn off servers (Ubisoft and EA). They lock you out of accessing stuff on devices you own with DRM (eg Netflix 4k on linux ).

Then we have regional releases, changes to privacy policies which we didn't agree to when we signed up.

Add to the fact we're being fucked over at every turn. The price of everything is increasing, housing is a mess, they're fucking up the environment while record profits have been pouring in year on year.

They can go suck a lemon 🍋

I will only support FOSS and those who help further that goal such as valve. Otherwise it the high seas everyday.

🏴‍☠️✊

[–] [email protected] 33 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

It sure is fascinating how surges in the usage of pirate platforms tend to coincide with eras of worsening value proposition in entertainment. We should really get some top notch analysts on this to get an explanation.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

So Hollywood copyright lawyers will target illegal subscription services rather than individual downloaders? Fine by me.

I can understand paying for a legal streaming service where at least a tiny percentage of profits goes into producing new material. I pirate out of convenience and availability, because movies and series aren't released immediately in my region.

Paying somebody for streaming film and TV shows that they have no hand in producing, and thus not supporting new productions — same as I can download for free myself? — that makes no sense to me.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (5 children)

Subscriber fees? Who's paying for pirated content?

EDIT:

[–] [email protected] 40 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Instead of paying for 50 streaming platforms, you pay for one that has it all. Convenient.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago (7 children)

Lots of people are. Real Debrid is the shit! It's about $2.80 per month for the ability to stream pretty much everything. But ads? Nah, man. There are ads on the torrent sites, but none on streaming. Pirates are pretty ad-adverse.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 10 months ago

Oh my God, that's disgusting! Illegal streaming services online? Where? Where did they post those?

thats-disgusting-where

[–] [email protected] 26 points 10 months ago
[–] [email protected] 24 points 10 months ago

Haha, they won't even allow me to watch stuff on Netflix in 1080p because I use linux. Eat shit

[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago

Oh no…

Anyway

[–] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago

Oh no. Poor Hollywood.

Anyway…

[–] [email protected] 21 points 10 months ago

Oh no! Anyway dot jpeg

[–] [email protected] 21 points 10 months ago

I block ads, so neener-neener. 🤡

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