Fuck a corporations but let’s not act like piracy is the modern version of Robin Hood or righting a huge injustice
I mean yeah it’s selfish, but it is definitely righting a huge injustice:
There is literally no customer centric way to watch these shows, or most modern media at all. Where can I literally buy shows that I can then resell. Where can I get a subscription service that’s focused on giving me the best content possible and not trying to squeeze value out of me by influencing what I watch or selling my metrics or up selling me to a bigger plan after killing the previous plan or any number of other dark practices. Where can I buy DRM free offline files of these shows so I can watch them on an airplane on my own hardware without Internet?
It’s fucked up that there is literally no way for people to buy their entertainment and not be fucked over more for trying to do it the legal way and spending money. And piracy needs to exist as a breaking point to stop these companies from getting even worse.
If you are a gullible consumer whose devices are always connected to the internet, you don’t notice you’re getting a worse service. Unfortunately, way too many people are falling for this.
Luckily, at least PC gamers are largely outspoken about DRM and there are pretty popular platforms that cater to them. But console games and media (other than some e-books)? No end of DRM in sight.
at least PC gamers are largely outspoken about DRM and there are pretty popular platforms that cater to them
I fear the day that’s no longer the case. Feels like gaming is becoming more “proprietary platform first” with every year.
The Steam Deck has helped bring it to light. I loved the Hitman games, for example, but I won’t buy the studio’s 007 game if that has the same always-online-singleplayer shite.
Steam is full of DRM and people still worship Valve. If people actually gave a shit about DRM, they wouldn’t accept that bs. They would force publishers to release DRM-free games on GOG.
Steam’s DRM doesn’t negatively impact paying customers. That’s really all that matters.
The good that steam does for linux currently outweighs the DRM issue present in steam. It why they are catching less heat than others for it.
I don’t use Steam, but I think the sentiment was that Steam’s DRM is less anti-consumer.
It is but they also allow crap like Denuvo on there. But I always buy on GOG if I can. Having access to my own copy of a game wins out every time.
Hence why the people on the internet needs to reject people coming here to profit.
There’s no middle ground in trying to keep the internet good and having it be a platform to hock stuff.
We should go back to the roots. Promote collaboration and be hostile to those people trying to manufacture scarcity online
I’m not against platforms, if they actually compete on features and not content.
This somewhat works for music. Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, YT music all have pretty much the same catalog.
Why are you OK with platforms?
Giving that all of them have shown you that the end state is to reduce the features and quality of content while making you pay more and more for this stuff.
We had the perfect opportunity. We had a new thing to shape and mold for future generations. Instead We let the people in who ruined every other thing we enjoyed. What I can’t understand is how people thought they could let them in and also think it would somehow be different.
The right move is to do everything possible to make the internet anti profitable. The minute anyone. Tries we should copy and share it to infinity. Crack all the software. Treat everything the way NFTs were treated. Move the needle back to what we started with a space for hobbyist and enthusiast to create and share information without the endless pursuit of profit enshitifying every space we enjoy
I get the spirit of that, but actual creators (not executives and investors) still need money. We can’t fully rid the internet of monetizable platforms without harming them.
For sure. We all need money. But I’m not willing to accept all the stuff that comes with it. Which is why I believe there isn’t a middle ground. I think what the internet could be and evolve into is much greater than some creator making money by exploiting its spaces.
But also, they can make money in what I’m proposing. What I’m saying is it shouldn’t be a place where that is the creators main motivation for being here.
These creators end up with the same behaviors as any Spotify, twitter, Facebook executive. There are inherent barriers with modern online creators that work against the good internet we all want. Its insidious and not as evident as it is with the bigger players. But they are all the same.
I’ve been buying movies and series on Bluray, which I can rip and resell. Not every show has a physical release, but the most popular do and you do not have to watch every show there is.
It’s not about percentages or watching everything. It’s about I want to watch what I want to watch, and usually that’s the opposite of the popular stuff.
Also let’s be real if we have to resort to going out physically to buy plastic disks that I’ll just immediately throw away after ripping, something is still drastically wrong.
It is civil disobedience, which I think is a valuable part of a functioning society.
No, it’s just stealing stuff. I’m a shameless pirate, but stop pretending that this is some noble resistance. The reality is that its a luxury someone is selling for a price, and we don’t want to pay the price, so we steal it. You could always just not consume it. That would be the noble move.
They’re assholes so I just don’t give a fuck.
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Maybe, just maybe, that “justifies” it for some content, but certainly does not justify it for all, or even most, content. I know I’m not out pirating old Disney shit that should be open to all for free. And just looking at what’s popular on trackers, this seems pretty common. So even if nothing had changed most, if not all, of the content that is pirated would be protected.
Again, they’re shit, and I don’t care. But why not admit what you are doing? Why try to justify it? Just accepted it for what it is: you’re a dirty pirate happy to steal from them because they are shit.
People are saying it is morally justified to pirate which is the same conclusion your seemed to have reached. Nobody is saying it is legally justified.
It might just be a definition thing, but I doubt it, considering how pretty much every argument I’ve gone across is implying I said it was wrong. I view it as a neutral thing, but not justified. We’re talking about illegally taking luxury things because we don’t want to pay the price. If we were talking about no one getting hurt to take something you need, 100% justified. But we are talking about taking something you just want. I have no moral qualms about doing it, but I don’t claim to be justified in doing so.
Like I think it would be justified if it were for some piece of software that you really need but can’t afford, or would really make your life much easier. But for watching old Seinfeld episodes, or getting a new video game on release, it’s not.
It’s not stealing, it’s unauthorised redistribution. They don’t lose anything from piracy, except for potential customers, which is a pretty intangiable concept. Don’t think it’s even remotely as bad as going into a tech store and taking all their DVR’s, or even literal piracy by chasing down another boat with guns and taking their cargo.
Don’t think it’s even remotely as bad as going into a tech store and taking all their DVR’s,
We’re getting into the pedantic weeds, but I never said nor implied it was this bad. I don’t even think it’s bad at all, as I said elsewhere, it’s chaotic neutral. it’s just trying to paint it as justified is ridiculous.
We want something, we aren’t willing to pay the price to the person who actually owns it, and because no one gets hurt, we don’t have moral qualms taking it. But at the end of the day we are illegally taking something just because we want it. There’s no “justified” in that at all.
I wouldn’t use the word “noble”. Probably “just” would be more correct.
Most of these companies are terribly unethical so I don’t feel bad about not supporting them.
sharing is literally not stealing
It’s more like Civil Disobedience on account that Copyright is an entirelly artificial construct (the idea that you can’t copy - not take, just copy, with your own resources - something is pretty anti-natura, which is especially obvious in the more traditional domains like storytelling) and even the one reasonable rationalle for it - that it incentivises creation in a way that enriches society - has been entirelly nullified by making the entering of copyrighted works into the Public Domain take longer in average from the time of creation than the lifespan of the longuest living human ever: it mainly enriches a tiny fraction of people, not society as a whole, even though the costs of compliance are bourne by society as a whole.
It’s about not obbeying unfair laws in a way that doesn’t harm anybody and only damages the interests of those whose gain comes entirelly from the unfairness of said laws: so not selfless like a Robin Hood situation, but also not the pure selfishness of trying to get more than others.
I’m not a proud pirate, but I’ll never be a proud data harvest free-for-all resource. there is no glamour to any of this, but I will patiently await a reasonable offering. in the music industry it also worked. as well as the video game industry. you can easily buy honest drm free games
New games are just annoying to pirate, old games and ROMs sure. Music I buy all the time but I also pirate all the time, every artist I buy music from and see live I probably first pirated.
I’d argue new AAA games are more annoying to buy.
The one modern-ish game I bought was Max Payne 3 and oh my god the fucking rockstar launcher. It needs to run in the background, it needs constant forced updates for nothing (i have very slow aussie internet) and it runs like shit. Not to mention the launcher bugged out and I lost my save half way through due to some cloud shit bug.
After buying like 300 games on steam It’s first game that triggered the thought, I actually regret buying this game through official channels. The paid experience is genuinely worse than the pirate copy.
Oh yeah I have Steam but any other launcher or management software would be strong motivation to pirate. I’ll buy new AAA games for the one reason that they’re mostly shitty on launch and are constantly updated to fix issues, and it’s easier to just update through Steam than constantly pirate and install it. Or things like Tears of the Kingdom where I don’t even have the console to run it on.
It kinda is though.
in a pretty limited, cultural archival and dissemination point of view, mayyyyyyyyybe.
the vast majority just want free entertainment.
No, they want easily accessible entertainment for a reasonable price.
Currently I’m supposed to pay 3-4 services at 10-15€ to get a somewhat reasonable library. There’s up to 60€, each month. For a collection of services, that I’m realistically using maybe 2h a day. That’s completely unreasonable.
And if you see, that especially Netflix seems to spend 90% of that money on extremely low quality crap, this price tag seems even less reasonable.
This. Why would I go through that whole rigamaroll when I can go to one site and it has everything, often with robust search that’ll actually find what I’m looking for when I misspell Benjamin Cucumberpatch’s name.
*Benadryl Cucumberpatch
What are your thoughts on borrowing DVDs from a local library?
It’s interesting that even though technology advances and public options could evolve with them, people are still expected to jump through archaic hoops. Even if there needs to be a quota for lending, that could be handled digitally too.
The way media companies act today, if libraries weren’t already a thing, they would not allow them to be invented.
Agreed, we definitely could not make libraries today if they were not already around.
There aren’t any in my area.
Oh. Well that’s a bummer.
How much would you be willing to pay for your entertainment? Historically 1$/hour isn’t a bad deal. Games used to cost double that on average. Movies have always been 5-10$ per hour if adjusted for inflation. A book is cheaper (say, 20$ for maybe 60h of reading), but an audiobook is around that 1$/hour you’re complaining about.
If you’re really complaining about how you cannot afford to be entertained, I’d surmise it’s a salary problem where the minimum wage hasn’t followed inflation almost everywhere on earth, and not the price of entertainment itself.
My issue with streaming isn’t a cost but a categorization. Even if I subscribe to five services there always seems to be two problems; 1. how do I find shit to watch and on what service, and 2. there always seem to have that elusive content that I haven’t subscribed to and would take me ten minutes to add all my information which honestly is just a blocker. I want TV to be more like music is right now (from a UX), even if I have to pay extra for that convenience.
I’m absolutely able to pay 100€ a month, for me personally it’s not a salary problem.
But I’m comparing streaming to public access TV here in Germany, which is currently 18€ per month and household and somehow manages to produce something like 20 TV channels, 50 radio stations, tons of podcasts, top notch news coverage, pensions for thousands of old journalists and doing all of that within the famously efficient German bureaucracy. So, how exactly is Netflix spending its money? Especially if you keep in mind that they can distribute most of their self-produced content worldwide.
I know your question is rhetorical, but they are paying it on the owners’ salaries.
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Or you could act like you have a spine and don’t accept every abuse companies throw at you.
I’m absolutely ready to pay for entertainment, but not that much for such a bad experience. Either I pirate at least some of my content, or I simply don’t watch it. It’s that easy.
Companies have to understand that the free market works both ways. If you don’t deliver, I won’t pay.
It’s interesting how “acting like a grown up” here entails to submitting to the demands of corporations and rejecting the reality that they don’t have absolute control, no matter how much they want to.
Are you going to tell me a poor minimum wage worker is the spoiled immature one, compared to a media executive?
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So you just wanted to do some vague moralizing without thinking of what that would imply? Alright then.
Right now, I pirate mostly because I can’t afford paying for my entertainment (like the vast majority of people where I live). But even if I had disposable income, I would not pay for some media because I don’t want to spend money and be restricted more than if I didn’t. I would not mind spending money for DRM-less copies. And even if this wasn’t possible, I would rather pay for the piece and then pirate it DRM-less to truly own it (like I already did with some games when I was better-off).
Sorta.
At a very narrow per-tree level it’s indeed about a selfish desire of the pirate.
At a broader forest-wide level it’s about the available choices having been artificially narrowed by legislation that creates a monopoly on copying. As seen more in the gaming world (mainly with GoG, Steam and indie titles) and even streaming video a few years ago, even with artificially narrow choices by law if the competition is still broad enough to provide lots of options at good prices, far fewer individuals will engage in Piracy, though as we see with streaming video, the artificial monopoly legislation ends up being sooner or later leveraged to narrow the available choices and Piracy flourishes in response.
It’s not by chance that the very same individuals who have simpletion takes on just about every subject (not saying you, just some commenters here) also seem have the simpleton “piracy is bad because the law says so” take when commenting on this.
It’s not the pirates that are Robin hood in this analogy, it’s the support network enabling piracy.
There’s definitely people only looking for free content, but others like me pay a fair amount of money for the services needed to get going a Plex server, for example. I pay for a VPN to stream outside my network, I pay for JDownloader, a MediaFire account, a Plex subscription, etc…
It’s cheaper to just stick to Netflix and their horrible catalog and practices than to run my server the way I do, but it’s not just about the money.
Hollywood put billions into the next generation disc, blu-ray, and you would still pay extra at Blockbuster for being late if it wasn’t for piracy.
While piracy isn’t without problem it is the closest we get to “supply and demand”. Piracy balances the scale.
At some level it happens due to people wanting stuff for free… but if it’s the consequence of that is that works are preserved and disseminated, that’s more valuable for our culture than when companies vault them and lose them, or when they never release them at all, like Warner has been doing lately.
One might say that these companies have all the right to make these works unavailable, but this is clearly a situation where the “proper” is more detrimental than the “clandestine”. After all, the way these companies handle it, when the ridiculously excessive copyright length is over and the works are supposed to cease their artificial monopoly and be returned to the Public Domain from which everyone takes inspiration, there might be nothing left. A DVD is unlikely to last 100 years.
This is not a matter of life and death but culture has its value.
Most people don’t have the understanding to fully appreciate the consequences of the current system of “free” services. That’s why it’s the job of governments to put robust consumer protections in place. The Europeans have been making some moves in the right direction, lately. Unfortunately, they also increasingly have been veering towards totalitarianism in their moves to enforce mandatory trusted certificates, weakening of encryption and other hare-brained schemes.
If by “free” services you mean ad-driven internet services, I don’t think this is as much a consequence of those, rather than the growing power of media companies and their influence over the law and technological development. They were fiercely against piracy since ever, their attempt to vilify VHS and cassete tapes comes to mind, but now copyright law is stricter than ever, digital ownership has been eroded into nearly non-existence through absurd one-sided License Agreements and devices increasingly act as if storefronts of the manufacturers rather than as a tools purchased by the customer.
This is not because there aren’t enough people paying, but because the media companies are never satisfied. Loads of people subscribed to streaming but it isn’t ever enough, it doesn’t guarantee that their quality and collections will remain as good.
Exactly. The bottom line is it’s still stealing. Do it all you want but don’t pretend you’re some hero, steal it with a smile on your face.
It’s illegal but not immoral, is the argument. Those two are a Venn diagram.
That was a fun watch. My friends give me shit when I complain that Netflix looks terrible on their huge expensive TV, and yet my pirated content looks perfect every time. I will never pay for a service that delivers a lower quality product than what I can get for free. And like this guy says, I’m a grown-ass man that can afford a Netflix subscription. But why the hell would I pay for a subpar product, when sailing the high seas has always allowed me to watch super-high quality content whenever I want?
Because people behind the content would like to pay bills and live?
I’m more than willing to pay for content, and frequently do whenever there’s DRM-free media available as an option. I’ll happily pay even more than the other options if there’s a DRM-free version (Baldurs Gate on GOG for example). But that’s so rarely possible. I’m not willing to risk losing access to a favorite old show or some super-obscure thing I love for a corporate tax technicality.
And call me old fashioned, but I like the option of watching a tv show or movie straight off my own hard drive. No internet to rely on, instant 4K playback no matter what. Streaming just isn’t how I want to consume my media. I get that a lot of people love it, and that’s totally fine, no judgement. But for me, if companies can’t make guarantees about resolution and content availability then there’s no reason for me to buy in when I can get by perfectly well without their blessing. I’ll continue to support local artists and larger media companies whenever they give me a fair way to do it.
I get it, but all of that still doesn’t give you the right to pirate it.
If they wanted us to stop pirating, they should provide a decent service at a reasonable price.
Sorry, but content creators should decide by themselves how to sell their goods. If that’s unfair with you, then simply don’t buy them. I really don’t get it why do you guys think you are entitled to them at your conditions. It’s not like they are essential goods for survival.
Because we’ve been fighting off having conditions imposed on us for generations now. The us government tried to enforce conditions on the drinking of alcohol a while back. Didn’t go so well. Imposing restrictions in this regard has never worked. People have been trading copies for a very long time now. Hell, the BBC is calling for people to hand over their tapes of early doctor who episodes cos they have lost the originals, and those who have them are still wary of handing them over cos it goes against the very idea of why they made the copies in the first place. You’ll also find that most pirates are spending way above the norm for media they love. Myself, I pirate a shit load of music. My biggest expense after rent is music, 90% of that going to digital and physical copies (I’d love to spend more on gigs but I can only to go to so many in a week). I literally spend more on it than I do on food and utilities.
Sorry, but content creators should decide by themselves how to sell their goods.
and i should decide for myself if i want to buy it.
Absolutely.
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oh yeah look at them actors and directors struggling to buy food!
Who makes most of the money? Disproportionately at that…
I may have missed it, but does he (or anyone else) have recommendations for options to simply pay for content and get high quality DRM free files (edit: I mean legally)?
And how much of a pain in the ass is it to buy DVD box sets and rip them? Presumably that’s legal for personal use? Is that the only way? :(
I have some additional frustrations with Netflix:
- they have removed some shows that I like
- if you travel to another country, you can’t always watch the same shows— even if you downloaded them within the app
- they completely remove some episodes: the episode of community where they play Dungeons and Dragons, and (other streaming services) remove the Michael Jackson Simpsons episode.
- extremely user hostile way to browse content. They always move your list around and show the same show in multiple places
- I absolutely hate how all these streaming services auto play to the next episode. You can often change this behaviour. But my partner sometimes casts it to our TV and the damn app (Disney+ in this case, I think) changes the interface just as you get to the credits. I want to sit in peace and let the credits play, and discuss the episode. But it tries to shove another one down your throat, presumably to “maximize engagement”. (I get it for content that you’re binging or are re watching. But this is horrible if you’re just watching an episode during dinner and don’t want to have to scramble to stop the autoplay as soon as it ends)
I believe ripping your DVDs is technically illegal because breaking CSS is a violation of the DMCA. It is quite easy to do though. MakeMKV is great.
There is actually a DMCA exemption (1201) for ripping DVD’s and bypassing the DRM for copyright that falls under fair-use otherwise. The Librarian of Congress has the power to grant these exemptions to the DMCA and grants quite a few other things. Exemption to Prohibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for Access Control Technologies
These exemptions are good until October 2024 but just like previously, the same exemptions and perhaps even more will likely continue.
the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that effectively control access to copyrighted works shall not apply for the next three years to persons who engage in certain noninfringing uses of certain classes of such works.
Do they define “noninfringing uses” anywhere?
Sure. Scroll down.
Huh, I guess I’m not the bad-boy who plays by his own set of rules that I kept telling myself I was.
Thanks for the correction.
Some vinyl comes with a download card for lossless files.
Companies need to make it clear which and I would personally pay full price. As it is I only buy on sale and the cards are a bonus.
Ripping discs sucks but it’s a one time thing.
Some of the end credits on netflix are longer than the show. I would kill for auto skip in jellyfin.
Ah, I actually have bought a few music CDs a while ago, and they were actually fairly easy to rip myself. I can’t complain about that at all. If ripping DVDs was that easy then I would probably enthusiastically buy a few DVD boxsets. But I don’t really want to buy dedicated hardware just to read DVDs on my PC to do a cumbersome ripping process, and also probably lug that hardware (or the entire PC) to my TV now and then to watch a movie.
I’ve been interested in vinyl for a while, does it really sound better?
Vinyl is just a way to be intentional about listening and actually owning your media.
The dirty secret about vinyl is that everything since the 80s was recorded digitally anyway. a CD will always have better audio fidelity and record collectors hate this fact.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
For audiobooks I recently discovered libro.fm and it works great. You can use their app to listen to it like any other service, but you can also just download the plain drm-free mp3s. For music there is bandcamp if the artist is on there, but for movies and series I’m not aware of any vendors like that. DVDs I don’t see as an option because their file size limit is too low, the quality on a modern TV looks really bad. And Blurays are a whole other level of DRM hell.
There WAS bandcamp…
I know it got sold twice and I am worried about the future but I believe they still have the same purchase and download options for now.
Thanks for this! I’m so glad to see an audible alternative.
EDIT: I signed up for a free trial and will give it a go. Bummed to see they have a much smaller selection but I guess that’s expected with Amazon’s muscle.
Awesome, thanks for sharing this! I haven’t gotten into audiobooks yet, but it’s good to know that there are user friendly options out there.
Vaguely related: it’s also possible to listen to audio books through local libraries in some cases. I think the app is not as friendly, and does a lot to prevent you from getting DRM free mp3s, but at least there’s no charge.
I don’t know about the value of libro.fm… Seems to me that the monthly subscription is the price of a physical book and you only get one per month?
I get a much better deal with my city’s library which offers a large catalogue of audio books for free. It’s not owning, it’s borrowing like you would from a library but at least it doesn’t cost anything.
I think the pricing of their subscription is roughly the same as audible’s, but you get your books DRM-free. They also have some great books on sale sometimes that you don’t need a subscription for, and you can choose a local bookstore to share revenue with. That said, city libraries are an amazing option as well.
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In the US, you can make an archival copy of software for yourself.
However, you can’t legally sell it, give it away or use someone else’s archival copy for something you do have already.
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EDIT: Sorry, I replied to the wrong reply here. However, if you’re interested in these exemptions, you can read through them.
/EDIT
Audiovisual works fall under Section III (1) of the exemptions, including video.
Computer Programs fall under Section III (5 - 12).
Explicitly software isn’t even mentioned until Section III (6) though E-Books falls under Section III (1D) which is obviously software.
Under PROPOSED CLASS 1: AUDIOVISUAL WORKS—CRITICISM AND COMMENT, DVD CCA, screen captures and viewing the media in a classroom as part of the concerns of those that were against the exemption in Section III (1) specifically.
These exemptions definitely do not just encompass software only.
The DMCA and copyright law does not allow any of this without the exemptions. These are exemptions to those laws and what is contained in them is legally allowed.
If you are torrenting anything, you’re seeding that data, period. So therefore you’re uploading. It’s just the nature of the beast. It’s why you may end up with a letter from your ISP if you raw dog it with no VPN. This may differ depending on what country you reside in.
That being said, best thing I ever did was set up a NAS a couple years ago. I seed all day long and build ratio on private trackers. I watch whatever I want in the quality I want via Plex.
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Yeah you can set up an auto-stop ratio at 0 and it stops without uploading anything. I should probably VPN too but I haven’t cared enough for like 8+ years and nothing’s happened yet
Autoplay next episode is what many people want.
But Netflix or platform should let users make their own choice and put autoplay in the option/setting.
But Netflix or platform should let users make their own choice and put autoplay in the option/setting.
On Netflix, it is in the Profile settings. (Manage Profiles -> Edit Profile.)
options to simply pay for content and get high quality DRM free files (edit: I mean legally)?
Lmao. Heard of geoblocking? My Jellyfin instance has no geoblocking tho. 🙆
Ah, good point. I had briefly heard of this and was shocked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_region_code
For anyone who hasn’t heard:
This is achieved by way of region-locked DVD players, which will play back only DVDs encoded to their region (plus those without any region code).
This definitely furthers the original post’s point. And he may have even mentioned it.
It’s infuriating that you can pay for something and then move, and lose your collection. This comes to mind: https://xkcd.com/488/
This is way the piracy is the only way to enjoy content without any bullshit.
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Thanks, this is somewhat reassuring. Maybe some day I’ll try it. I used to like tinkering with things, but lately I haven’t had as much patience or free time.
Even assuming ripping is legal (it usually isn’t ,though it should be), the effort required is significantly higher, the cost is significantly higher, and at least for TV shows, you usually suffer from huge delays as you wait for the season box set to be released. This is even assuming they bother to release a bluray in 4k with HDR.
Netflix and other services (assuming it even has the content you want) have fixed these issues, with the massive downside of no 4k, lower bitrate, and no ownership at the end of it.
Piracy, while more illegal, has the content you want, at 4k, usually a higher bitrate, with minimal effort, no cost, and no delays. Now that I’m employed, I don’t pirate music or games anymore, because the services offered are good enough that piracy isn’t worth the effort. But for movies & TV shows, the services offered are simply terrible.
Ripping your locally purchased content for ripping is a fun hobby and can be addicting to getting everything to look just right in your media player of choice. Also, ripping gives you control over codecs as you can reencode as needed for different clients. This works for music, movies, and TV shows. I will say that ripping TV shows is a chore, so start with movies and music first.
stremio solves most of that
Scam and enshittification as always.
i like the Google play model where i can pay $3 to download the whole movie before watching it. I also like the band camp model where I’m paying a few bucks to the artist to download the music in whatever format i want. i think this is the way.
I don’t like Louis very much, because while we’re on the same team, he’s usually extrem in his opinion, and most importantly, he takes 30 minutes to explain a 3 minutes argument.
But on this, he’s right 100% I watched the whole thing! I’m an ex Netflix customer, btw.
Remember when Netflix used Silverlight? Couldn’t get it to work on linux back in the day.
Anyways, I don’t think this makes piracy completely justified. It just means the best user experience for desktop, or for super privacy related folks, is not supported by netflix. It was a weird self defeating ending to say at the end if it’s on netflix only, it’s just not worth watching, but also say it’s justifiable to pirate.
I think there’s a weird sense of irony in being both pro piracy and pro sag aftra. Although they didn’t win big, their payout is directly tied to streaming metrics. Piracy instead of streaming is going to screw them.
Odysee link for those who want to watch in the true spirit of the content:
lbry://piracy-is-completely-justified-louis
why do nerds think theyre entitled to free content, you just look like a bunch of whiny babies. if you’re gonna pirate do it with the same level of shame as everyone else
Looks like you did not watch the video.
I started to watch the video, but after listening to unnecessary rambling twice, I lost interest.
Can you give me a cliff notes of his argument?
Guy pays good money for a 4k tier Netflix subscription because he does not want to pirate. Has a home theatre linux machine because he is worried about the privacy risks of his smart tv and hence doesn’t connect his TV to the internet. Finds that he can only get a low bitrate 720p stream on his PC . He is appalled at the fact he isn’t getting the quality he paid for and amused at the fact that he would have gotten better quality if he had just pirated and concludes that piracy is just the better experience.
Thanks I appreciate the break down. Have an upvote. I actually saw that, or at least part of it.
But…
concludes that piracy is just the better experience.
There’s a difference between it being “a better experience” and it being “justified.” Simply because someone has wronged you that doesn’t make any action justified. They provide a shit product because they are trying to milk everyone. You don’t like it, you simply stop consuming it because you don’t like the product. This does not “justify” stealing it from them.
And, again, I’m not shitting on piracy, as I do it myself, and I agree with the reason that it’s often the better experience. But I understand what I am doing is not justified.
I don’t know man. The companies have no respect for us as consumers. Why should we respect them and their copyright in that case.
“justify” stealing it from them.
In many cases, these services stream shows which they did not have a hand in creating but own the distribution rights to. In that case pirating seems like a weak case of stealing to me. The original crew have already been paid and rewarded for their work and now the streaming companies are just storing and streaming that content which is the same thing piracy websites do. On the other hand pirating newer content and content that is platform exclusive because they(HBO, Disney, etc) are the ones that made it seems a lot more like stealing to me. I am not going to feel guilty for pirating shit like friends or Seinfeld. I am also not going to feel guilty for pirating content which has been geoblocked in such a way that it is not available in my country through any legal means.
What I am trying to say with this is that there are situations where piracy is both convenient and justified
The companies have no respect for us as consumers. Why should we respect them and their copyright in that case.
You shouldn’t and I don’t. You’re arguing against a stance I did not take. It seems most everyone here is. It’s like people can’t imagine a position that doesn’t fall into the dichotomy of wrong or justified. It’s not, it’s like the actions of a chaotic neutral character.
Take a step back and read your argument. You’re talking about watching Seinfeld, a pure luxury. It’s not like you’re starving and trying to feed your family, or protecting someone from grave injustice. You want a luxury but aren’t willing to pay the price, so you take it. I have no problem with you doing so because fuck those greedy cunts, but it’s not justified.
Yes it’s a luxury but in a lot of 3rd countries, these luxuries help people to learn and improve their English and general soft skills.
literally no harm done so of course its “justified”. you are not hurting anybody
Noone getting hurt is part of why I don’t give a fuck and do it myself. But what you’re describing is something that is neutral, not justified.
Why do technically inept people think they’re entitled to the dumbest takes, just look like a bunch of wankers. If you’re gonna post your mental diarrhea do it with the same level of shame as everyone else.
deleted by creator
Why do you think anyone cares what you think?
While I am not advocating for regulations or for people to stop I don’t think that we are entitled to someone else’s work. I guess you could try to justify it for works of art that were publicly funded.
Did you watch the video?
no, it was 20 minutes.
I recommend you resist the urge to make a fool of yourself in the future then
Lol
Louis does like to rant, and often talks in circles
The jist of it is that he has a $3k TV he bought to watch 4k content. Signed up for Netflix 4k. But he didn’t want to install a spybox that collects his data so he tried to run it through his PC in the browser. It looked like shit. And that’s when he learned that Netflix only supports 720p in the browser.
If the free experience is better than the paid experience, the provider is fucking up and he doesn’t want to reward the provider with his money for fucking up.
Look at you being a nice internet person. Kudos to you. Have a good week.
And that’s when he learned that Netflix only supports 720p in the browser.
I believe on Windows you can use Edge to get better than HD.
Yeah but then you have to use Edge
That’s some Web Environment Integrity BS without Web Environment Integrity. Can you get around it by spoofing your user agent in Firefox or Chromium?
Apparently there are HD extensions to get you up to 1080p but I have no idea how they work. AFAIK your user agent will still say Chrome, since Edge is Chromium?
Thank. I’ve dedicated time to listen to him before and he is usually right but extremely long winded.
Couldn’t agree more with his take in this case. Had a similar experience with apple tv. Looks like shit in a pc by design.
back to reddit you go
How brave
Well, you can listen to it as a podcast too.
