[HN Gopher] Several piracy-related arrests spark fears of high-l...
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Several piracy-related arrests spark fears of high-level crackdown
Author : gslin
Score : 117 points
Date : 2023-11-27 16:56 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (torrentfreak.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (torrentfreak.com)
| MyFirstSass wrote:
| I'm from the region and every regular person pays for streaming
| these days, especially youngsters.
|
| I've searched for content on danish trackers once, for content
| that wasn't on any services, and i think a few people use it for
| that, ie. fans or film buffs.
|
| Often whole seasons are removed, content jumps around, or stuff
| just disappears forever even if you've paid for it.
|
| So this operation seems very excessive.
|
| Maybe there's an active strategy to remove old stuff to keep
| people interested in the newer?
|
| Either way this weird cultural goldfish-memory is tragic. There's
| so much out there not on streaming these days.
| ptek wrote:
| I can understand people wanting to share rare local stuff which
| would be otherwise harder to find. In New Zealand even though
| tvnz has streaming, all the older material still hasn't been
| digitised.
| ptek wrote:
| I think back in the Amiga days the major groups were Trilogy and
| Paradox late 80s-92
| oldpersonintx wrote:
| can you imagine going to prison over dreck like Indiana
| Jones:Dial Of Destiny or The Marvels?
| stuckinhell wrote:
| I'm fairly certain many executives believe those movies failed
| due to piracy.
| baz00 wrote:
| The Marvels failed because it was vomitus garbage
| Aaronstotle wrote:
| I think any person who saw The Marvels trailer could have told
| you that movie was going to bomb.
| kyriakos wrote:
| They released multiple trailers hinting to come back of older
| characters and yet it bombed. It wasn't just the plot in this
| case but the characters didn't have neither the star power
| behind nor the coherence that characters like iron man and
| captain america had.
|
| Marvel movies kept upping the stakes with every movie
| reaching the point where it makes no sense why other
| superheroes don't join in to help. For example where were the
| avengers during the events of The Eternals?
| ghaff wrote:
| You can never go home again, so to speak, to watch the first
| Indiana Jones film cold. But Last Crusade and Dial of Destiny
| were IMO perfectly good (though not great) films.
| typon wrote:
| I wanted to watch a special by my favourite comedian Stewart Lee.
| It's only available on BBC iPlayer and most VPNs I have tried
| don't seem to work with it. Is it really unethical for me to
| torrent that special that I literally can't pay for even if I
| wanted to? Information wants to get out (almost like a gas), and
| as long as it's suppressed, torrenting will remain relevant.
| WendyTheWillow wrote:
| Yes, it is unethical to pirate content you don't own the rights
| to.
|
| The problem comes from the false belief of entitlement to the
| media. The common argument that it's the "only way" to obey
| certain content forgets the alternative, which is to not
| consume that content.
|
| You aren't entitled to watch what you want.
|
| Obviously this is closer to "littering" than it is to murder,
| but technically it's unethical.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| That depends on what you think the purpose of copyright is.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Humans are exceedingly adept at determining fairness and
| adjust their own actions to match fairness levels[1]. If you
| pay for something and becomes unavailable, because someone
| else messed up and effectively lowered the value of your
| purchase[2], there is a simple argument to be made that maybe
| lack of ethics on one side is almost negligible when compared
| to that of a multimillion faceless conglomerate. In other
| words, it may be unethical, but it is hard for me to argue
| that it is not warranted.
|
| [1]https://www.apa.org/news/podcasts/speaking-of-
| psychology/fai... [2]https://www.polygon.com/2018/4/27/172928
| 36/gta-4-soundtrack-...
| graphe wrote:
| >Yes, it is unethical to pirate content you don't own the
| rights to.
|
| If I'm not entitled to media, why are they entitled to have
| no 'piracy' with digital technology? If you decide to spread
| information, don't be surprised if it spreads.
| hotnfresh wrote:
| The ethical distance between this and littering is about as
| large as the one between littering and murder, though.
|
| If it's unethical, it's somewhere around running a stoplight
| that's plainly not registering your presence and hasn't
| turned for ten full minutes, with perfect straight mile-long
| views either way and not a car or person in sight. Not really
| unethical at all.
| WendyTheWillow wrote:
| I like the littering analogy because it's a kind of
| tragedy-of-the-commons problem. If _everyone_ pirated,
| clearly there 'd be a problem around capitalistic
| incentives for making intellectual property, similarly to
| how if _everyone_ littered, there 'd be a problem around
| environmental cleanliness.
|
| But I don't think most people would argue that everyone
| should pirate IP.
|
| That's a good follow-up question though; for those who
| believe pirating is ethical, do you a) believe everyone
| should pirate, and b) if not, what makes your pirating
| acceptable but other pirating unacceptable?
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Weren't we talking about the situation where there's no
| way to buy? Piracy there isn't going to undermine the
| incentive to create.
|
| If everyone litters in public areas where trash cans are
| reasonable to expect, but have not been installed, a
| likely and good outcome is that trash cans get installed.
| (But in a more accurate analogy, the trash cans would
| cost negative money to install!)
| WendyTheWillow wrote:
| That's a problem, however, because it presumes an
| entitlement to content. Maybe there _is_ no way to buy,
| and that 's on purpose. You don't have an inherent right
| to consume content; that ought to be up to the owner of
| that content, even if they decide to arbitrarily limit
| access to their content.
|
| It's up to them, and when you take that decision away
| from them, you commit an immoral act.
| zlg_codes wrote:
| > That's a good follow-up question though; for those who
| believe pirating is ethical, do you a) believe everyone
| should pirate, and b) if not, what makes your pirating
| acceptable but other pirating unacceptable?
|
| Pirating something, I see as gaining access to something
| when the official or preferred channel is either
| unreasonably expensive, or the product itself is unknown.
|
| Piracy is an effective way to _try before you buy_ , at
| your own pace. On one hand, sure, once you pirate
| something you don't _need_ to buy it, but my own dabbling
| has resulted in MORE purchase activity, not less. I could
| buy games or movies or shows knowing I would enjoy them
| and be satisfied with my purchase.
|
| There were totally games and whatnot that I downloaded,
| tried, and then ignored or deleted. Was anyone really
| damaged by that? I see that as the equivalent of window
| shopping. It's what you do after you try it that forms
| the ethical stance, in my opinion.
|
| Are you a struggling student pirating AfterEffects or
| something else so you can earn money and then buy a real
| copy? Some might say that's ethical pirating because
| there's an intent to be legit about it but there are
| obstacles. "Don't buy or get it" one might say, and
| forever lock themselves out of opportunity.
|
| Choosing to keep a pirated version of something is as
| much a social and political commentary as it is a
| technical violation of monopoly. Someone who can afford
| something they pirated, that they liked and kept, may be
| seen as a cheapskate.
|
| But honestly, there are many games and music albums and
| shows I would never have tried out if I didn't have an
| easy and accessible means to just give'em a whirl.
|
| So you could say I see no harm in "explorative" piracy,
| or pirating that then gets deleted when you find out you
| don't like it. In the rights-owner's world, that person
| should be out money, and disappointed in their purchase!
| Seems like more moral harm than making sure you like what
| you're buying.
| WendyTheWillow wrote:
| The problem with that is, of course, the lack of consent
| from the property owner. This is the "entitlement
| problem"; the options are not listed by asking, "How will
| I obtain this content?" they're listed by asking, "How
| will the content provider allow me to consume their
| content?" Sometimes, the answer is, "There is no way to
| consume this content."
|
| If the owner of AfterEffects doesn't _want_ to allow
| students to use their software, that 's their right as
| the property owner. Students have _no_ entitlement to
| that software. Violating the owner 's property rights is
| an immoral act.
| zlg_codes wrote:
| And business has no entitlement to profit. Business
| models do not have to be respected, they must be
| validated through market success. And the intellectual
| property model is invalid. Copying an idea does not rob
| another person of that idea.
|
| "But it's law", I don't care, law is religion for the
| ruling class and judges are essentially priests. They
| work on _doctrine_ , adjacent to _indoctrination_. They
| operate with the attitude that the judge, and by
| extension the state, can do no wrong. That 's already
| operating from a place of moral invalidity.
|
| If I shared something to the world, even under license,
| and people copied it endlessly, I'd be told that I have
| _personal responsibility_ , and _what did I expect to
| happen_ when I shared. Victim blaming, essentially.
|
| But the moment it's a business, the moment money's
| involved, suddenly we aren't entitled to anything and
| business deserves every last dollar they can squeeze.
|
| The understanding is flipped. Businesses are second class
| entities to citizens. They deserve no more consideration
| than an individual, and indeed already enjoy too many
| privileges they've done nothing to earn.
|
| They aren't entitled to money.
| garfij wrote:
| Following the example from the original comment, I would
| argue that if the content is otherwise unavailable for
| purchase or rent, then yes, it is ethical for anyone and
| everyone to pirate it.
|
| Conversely it is unethical to retain the rights to shared
| cultural artifacts and _not_ provide a way for people to
| access them.
|
| I'm papering over some grey area where if it's not
| available for purchase but you could get it from the
| library, maybe via inter-library loan, then maybe in
| aggregate it's better ethically to do that.
| fluoridation wrote:
| What do you mean when you say that it's "unethical"? I
| understand that something is "unethical" when it contravenes
| some code of correct behavior. I'm not sure what code is
| contravened in the following scenario:
|
| * Steve sells secrets for a fee.
|
| * I want to buy a secret from Steve but he refuses to sell to
| me specifically.
|
| * Steve sells his secret to Bob.
|
| * Bob is willing to tell Steve's secret to me for free, so he
| does so.
|
| It seems to me that in this scenario everyone got what they
| wanted. Steve got to sell his secret to Bob and not to me,
| and Bob and I got to learn Steve's secret. I think it would
| be unethical to _force_ Steve to sell his secret to me if he
| doesn 't want to, but I don't see what's unethical in
| learning his secret from someone else even if he refuses to
| sell it to me directly.
| fragmede wrote:
| Steve didn't want you to have them. Depending on what they
| actually are, it could be important. If you're North Korea,
| and they're the secret to nuclear weapons, Bob is in a lot
| of trouble with Steve. Or if it's Steve's mom's ashes, and
| you did something to her that Steve didn't like. Regardless
| of how you got them, you got them, when Steve didn't want
| you to have them. You might as well have broken into
| Steve's house and stolen them yourself. That you had a
| third party, Bob, to get you those secrets doesn't
| contravene the fact that Steve didn't want you to have
| them.
| fluoridation wrote:
| Of course, I used the word "secret", but it really is the
| wrong word. A secret is something you don't tell anyone,
| because you can't afford the wrong person finding out.
| The game we play with copyright is pretending that
| cultural artifacts are secrets, even though culture by
| definition exists in the transmission from one person to
| another.
|
| If Steve didn't want me to have his secret at all he
| shouldn't be selling it to Bob or anyone else.
| WendyTheWillow wrote:
| It's a fair question, but you are ethically responsible for
| knowingly obtaining ill-gotten goods, and pirated media
| violates the original purchaser's agreement with the IP
| owner.
|
| Basically, Bob agreed with Steve that Bob would not give
| anyone else the secret, and Steve only sold Bob the secret
| because he made that agreement, but then Bob turned around
| and gave it to you for free.
|
| So Bob lied, and you know Bob lied, and you benefit from
| Bob lying, so it's unethical.
|
| Again, all kinds of modifiers and caveats apply to the
| severity here. I really have little sympathy for Steve when
| he's a gazillionaire already, and the marginal value lost
| isn't meaningful enough to stop Steve from making more
| secrets, but technically speaking it appears to be an
| immoral act to pirate.
| fluoridation wrote:
| >ill-gotten goods
|
| I reject that there's such a thing as "ill-gotten bits".
|
| >So Bob lied, and you know Bob lied, and you benefit from
| Bob lying, so it's unethical.
|
| If unethicality is transitive like this then the concept
| of what's ethical or unethical dissolves into
| meaninglessness. Everyone's actions affect everyone else
| in form or another. How many murders and thefts am I
| currently indirectly benefiting from just by existing, or
| by using this computer? Even if I count just the ones I
| know about and the ones I can infer, I think the number
| is too large to care about.
|
| I'm willing to concede that Bob's behavior is unethical,
| but not that "my" behavior is, by transitivity.
| WendyTheWillow wrote:
| But I'm not talking about "affecting", I'm talking about
| the direct action of knowingly obtaining stolen goods.
| That's not indirect, that's direct!
|
| We can look at law as an example of an application of
| ethical concepts; it's illegal to knowingly purchase
| stolen goods.
|
| That said, if you don't believe in ownership of "bits",
| then you probably don't care about this even if it were
| unethical to you to obtain stolen goods.
|
| You also probably don't have a great deal of respect for
| property ownership generally, or capitalism, so there are
| more foundational issues that can't really be resolved in
| this context.
| fluoridation wrote:
| >I'm talking about the direct action of knowingly
| obtaining stolen goods. That's not indirect, that's
| direct!
|
| "Stolen goods" are stolen because someone stole them and
| is now trying to give them to you, probably in exchange
| for money. If Bob purchases a secret from Steve and tells
| me "hey, do you want to hear this thing Steve told me?
| I'll tell you for free", at what point does the secret
| Bob tells me become "stolen"? How can an action that
| takes place after the acquisition of a thing have an
| effect on the legitimacy of the owning of the thing (in
| this case, a copy of the secret)? It seems to me that the
| only possible answers to these questions are "never" and
| "it can't", respectively.
|
| >if you don't believe in ownership of "bits", then you
| probably don't care about this even if it were unethical
| to you to obtain stolen goods.
|
| I believe in the ownership of bits. If we understand that
| control is a fundamental part of ownership, then it
| stands to reason that bits (or, more accurately,
| sequences of bits) are owned by keeping them secret.
| Therefore, if you reveal a secret you give up ownership
| of it, in the same way that you give up ownership of
| something when you hand it over to someone else.
|
| That aside, do you think bits are exactly the same as
| physical goods? Why would you think that someone who
| rejects ownership of bits rejects ownership of property
| in general?
| WendyTheWillow wrote:
| Your definition of stolen goods is circular; stolen goods
| aren't stolen _because someone stole them_ ; they're
| stolen because consent was not granted by the owner. You
| can however _contingently_ be sold a good, which means
| you are only allowed to have the good if you agree to
| certain conditions. Once you violate those conditions,
| you are forfeiting your ownership of that good if that 's
| what you agreed to (and it is in the case of most digital
| content).
|
| As for control, it is decidedly _not_ a fundamental part
| of ownership. You are not, for example, able to control
| driving your car into another person willfully, but you
| do still "own" your car.
|
| What it boils down to is the ethical obligation a person
| has to do what they said they would do. Are you ethically
| obligated to not lie? If so, when Bob tells Steve that he
| (Bob) isn't going to share Steve's secret with anyone
| else without Bob's permission, he would then break his
| word if he subsequently shared Bob's secret with you.
| You, knowing that Bob obtained the secret by lying to
| Steve, are complicit in Bob's lie, making you morally
| culpable.
|
| This is obviously complicated by the infinitely
| reproducible nature of digital goods, hence why I said
| you don't care much for capitalism if you don't agree
| with this notion, as capitalism introduces the concept of
| artificial scarcity to protect Steve's incentives to
| continue to produce secrets. There are many arguments
| suggesting that Steve would produce secrets regardless of
| incentive, but for a capitalist, the protection of the
| monopoly is paramount.
| fluoridation wrote:
| >Your definition of stolen goods is circular
|
| No, it's not circular. A good is a stolen good if it has
| been stolen. That's not circular. There's a distinction
| between something being stolen and something being a
| stolen good, and the definition of the latter rests upon
| the definition of the former. I didn't define "stealing"
| because I didn't think it was necessary, as I thought we
| all know what it means. But it seems we actually don't
| agree on what "stealing" means. I think you "steal"
| something if you remove someone's possession of an item
| without their permission. If there's such a thing as
| agreement between two parties that if violated can void
| one of the parties rights to exploit an item then that's
| not stealing. When you purchase something you acquiring
| complete ownership over the thing. If there's strings
| attached that can turn the purchase into a "theft" then
| it's not a purchase. Perhaps it's a lease of some kind.
|
| >As for control, it is decidedly not a fundamental part
| of ownership. You are not, for example, able to control
| driving your car into another person willfully, but you
| do still "own" your car.
|
| You're using control in a different sense than I. What I
| mean is that you can decide what to do with the object as
| you like, _with regards to the object itself_. No, you
| can 't drive your car anywhere you like, but you can sell
| or gift your car to anyone you like, and you destroy it
| you like, or you can leave it parked forever if you like.
| None of these are things you can do with a car you don't
| own, are they?
|
| >You, knowing that Bob obtained the secret by lying to
| Steve, are complicit in Bob's lie, making you morally
| culpable.
|
| Well, let's stick to one thing at a time, eh? If you have
| yet to convince me that my behavior is unethical, much
| less are you going to convince me that it's immoral.
|
| >What it boils down to is the ethical obligation a person
| has to do what they said they would do.
|
| I don't think a person has an ethical obligation to keep
| promises that are based on unethical grounds. Such as
| attaching strings to things that you sell. If you *sell*
| me a car and make me sign a contract that says I can't
| gift it to whoever I please, you bet I'm going to do
| whatever I please. Your contract is nonsensical and
| opposite to the notion of property. If you sell me
| something you relinquish all rights to the thing you sell
| me and acknowledge my right to do as I please with it. If
| you don't relinquish those rights then you can't call it
| a sale, and you have to price the transaction
| accordingly.
|
| >This is obviously complicated by the infinitely
| reproducible nature of digital goods, hence why I said
| you don't care much for capitalism if you don't agree
| with this notion, as capitalism introduces the concept of
| artificial scarcity to protect Steve's incentives to
| continue to produce secrets. There are many arguments
| suggesting that Steve would produce secrets regardless of
| incentive, but for a capitalist, the protection of the
| monopoly is paramount.
|
| If you want to say that capitalism cannot exist without
| intellectual property rights then I'll have to ask you to
| argue for it.
| WendyTheWillow wrote:
| So you must believe that Steve can't condition the sale
| of his secret with Bob upon Bob's behavior, according to
| you? Steve can't say, "Bob, this is yours _as long as_
| you don 't tell fluoridation. If you break this, you
| forfeit ownership of this secret, and it is now mine
| again."
|
| What mechanism prevents Bob and Steve from entering into
| such an agreement? To me, _that_ would be a violation of
| freedom, to limit the kinds of agreements people can
| enter into.
|
| Besides, if one _could_ enter into such an agreement,
| what would you call the deliberate violation of the
| agreement, resulting in you knowingly possessing what
| then becomes Steve 's secret again upon sale to you? To
| me, knowingly possessing something that does not belong
| to you seems like a fair definition of theft.
|
| If you don't believe people are free to enter into
| contingent ownership agreements, I do think you'll have a
| pretty large problem with capitalism, even separate from
| intellectual property, as it questions the very nature of
| both freedom and ownership. Even by your own definition
| of "control", wouldn't I not have control over something
| if I can't concoct whatever rules for that thing that I
| like?
| at_a_remove wrote:
| Well, it's sort of an "all bets are off" deal.
|
| The purpose of copyright was a tradeoff: exclusivity, for
| a while, but then cultural content is available and
| preserved. The latter part of the deal has been _broken_.
| And this is a deal with no teeth. There 's no penalties
| to the copyright holder for something just becoming
| completely unavailable, despite that availability being
| part of the original intent.
|
| So, if they let down their end of the social contract,
| anything goes.
| _bohm wrote:
| > technically it's unethical.
|
| For some technical definition of ethicality on which I'm sure
| we can all agree :)
| AlexandrB wrote:
| What does it mean to "own rights" to the distribution of
| information? It's effectively a restriction on everybody
| else's freedom of speech for the benefit of the rights
| holder. Whether this is a net benefit to society or not is
| _very_ situational, so the ethics here are not as clear cut
| as you imply.
|
| > You aren't entitled to watch what you want.
|
| The rights holder is not entitled to stop me from sending
| certain streams of bits in all circumstances.
|
| Edit: While calling IP "property" can be a useful abstraction
| in some cases, it leads you astray in others. For example,
| the only way to measure "losses" from piracy is as loss of
| potential sales since the owner is not deprived of the
| "property" in the process. But what are the losses when media
| not available in a given geography is pirated in that
| geography? There was no "potential revenue" that could be
| recognized there because the media was _not for sale_. Thus
| one _could_ argue that the losses are precisely $0.
| WendyTheWillow wrote:
| The rights holder isn't entitled to stop you from doing
| what you like; _you_ are entitled, however, to agree not to
| do things in order to obtain information.
|
| That's what pirating is based on; you've explicitly agreed
| _not_ to make available content for others when you agreed
| to purchase the content.
|
| By providing content for pirating, you are breaking your
| word. Further, by consuming pirated content, you have a
| reasonable assumption that the person providing you with
| the pirated content obtained that content through
| deception, which ropes you in on the culpability of the
| ethical violation.
|
| Nobody's freedom of speech is violated because nobody has
| been compelled to do or say anything! Rather, you are
| knowingly benefitting from the deception of others.
| kps wrote:
| > Obviously this is closer to "littering" than it is to
| murder
|
| Littering leaves behind something that costs money (effort)
| to deal with. Trespassing is a better analogy: temporarily
| using something that doesn't belong to you, in a way that is
| undetectable if no one catches you in the act.
| executesorder66 wrote:
| That's debatable. It's illegal to torrent, but not
| necessarily unethical. Is it really unethical to make an
| identical copy of a file? How would you feel if I made an
| identical copy of your car and drove off with the copy?
|
| Furthermore the people involved in making the content put a
| lot of time and effort into making this work of art. (Whether
| it is good art is for the perciever to decide) and now the
| distributor is preventing audiences from viewing/accessing
| the art for no good reason. Is that ethical?
|
| I see torrenting as a case of civil disobedience. Yes it is
| not legal, but it IS ethical. It is protesting stupid laws
| and policies. When distributers don't let you legally access
| content, they should get fucked over, and people should
| pirate it to send a message: "We would have paid for this,
| but you didn't want to let us. So fuck you, we will get it
| for free then. See how much blocking legal access helps you."
| nitwit005 wrote:
| The justification given for copyright law is typically to
| "promote the arts". In a situation where they refuse to sell
| the product, that justification is essentially gone.
|
| If you violate a law that doesn't benefit anyone, who is
| harmed?
| Avamander wrote:
| It's even more "fun" when it's the same streaming service, but
| your region is not amongst the blessed ones. One still has to
| pay the same price for the subscription as those that get a
| better catalogue, not to mention the differences in purchasing
| power. I struggle to see how avoiding in some sense unethical
| business practices is (as) unethical.
|
| EUIPO nicely published a study recently that very clearly says
| that it's primarily a service and economic issue. The amount of
| available service providers and the amount of piracy heavily
| correlated.
| stuckinhell wrote:
| Not surprised this is happening. Disney has had 10 major film
| bombs in row. Alot of executives must believe it's due to piracy.
| baz00 wrote:
| As a follower of all things arrrrrrrr, the reason I didn't
| watch the Disney stuff was because I'm fucking fed up with
| their fucking garbage. I don't steal it _or_ watch it in the
| cinema!
| hotnfresh wrote:
| Lots of the genre TV shows these days--like the Netflix
| Marvel stuff, or most of the Star Wars or Disney Marvel tv
| shows--can only be saved by fan edits because of the absurdly
| slow plotting, used to stretch a bit over a movie of plot to
| fill three or more movies worth of time. The scripts and
| editing are beyond flabby, they're morbidly obese. Even if
| you're paying for the service, the best version of the
| product's usually coming from pirates.
| kyriakos wrote:
| Watched all marvel movies up to endgame at the cinema. After
| that watched a few at home and gave up. It's not piracy it's
| repetitive uninspiring plots, bad special effects, and
| characters that we don't care about.
|
| The Critical Drinker has a series of videos about what's
| wrong with movies these days, even if he's always
| exaggerating his points are spot on.
| https://youtube.com/@TheCriticalDrinker?si=IwnFx_y3YCA-zBzU
| baz00 wrote:
| Just watched a couple of those. Absolutely nailed it.
| zlg_codes wrote:
| Same. I don't subscribe to any services and honestly, if it
| wasn't for my SO I wouldn't watch much of anything. They
| don't know how to appeal to me and I finish most movies
| wishing I had written some code instead.
|
| Even gaming is going that way with the bad business practices
| and over-reliance on filler content like crafting to extend a
| game's life.
|
| So it'll be funny when these media giants blame piracy, it
| gets studied, and found that even pirating for their stuff is
| less common than it used to be. Sometimes markets just
| shrink. Hollywood wasn't going to bust blocks forever.
| baz00 wrote:
| Yeah gaming is terrible. I just sold my GPU because I don't
| need it because the games are all shit.
| mythrwy wrote:
| They are now producing a product that isn't even worth
| minimal effort to steal.
| pixelpoet wrote:
| 100% guaranteed said execs won't be watching South Park: Into
| the Panderverse, which is literally directly about them. You
| couldn't pay me to watch that Disney crap.
| jjeaff wrote:
| I highly doubt that most of Disney's fan base is actually fed
| up because their movies aren't "edgy" enough. Perhaps some of
| the Lucasfilm fans, but Kathleen Kennedy (the target of the
| South Park ribbing), seems to be doing fine. I believe at
| least one of her Star Wars movies is the 2nd highest grossing
| Star Wars movie ever.
| networkchad wrote:
| You're confusing quality with gross revenue. First thing
| that comes to my mind: Marvel movies gross an absolute shit
| ton of dollars, but the quality of the story is absolute
| dogshit. Yeah, she won't lose her job, but the quality of
| said movies lacks.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| You moved the subject, not everybody cares about
| 'quality' of movies like movie buffs (like me) do.
|
| Marvel is popcorn fun, sometimes better, sometimes worse.
| These are not even planned as some art-aspiring movies,
| so as long as expectations are managed everybody is fine,
| earnings at least says so and if you don't like whole
| genre then simply skip them.
|
| Actually, snobbish bashing of Marvel became such a cheap
| 'look at me' desperate attention grab attempt of
| teenagers that I don't take it seriously. In same vein as
| globalization protesters focus on McDonald for some
| reason. You have endless line of say family movies that
| are absolute nauseating crap from cinematography,
| storytelling, character development etc., among other
| fails of hollywood, anybody wanting to be actually taken
| serious would start with those 'gems'.
| sgift wrote:
| Sure, but the thing that "Into the Pandaverse" seems to
| make fun off (according to the description in the GP
| comment, I haven't seen it) doesn't lead to better
| quality. Edginess doesn't equal quality, even if some
| people seem to think just dialing up the edginess-meter
| would make the films magically better.
|
| It _can_ be part of a quality experience, such as so-
| called "woke" content can be, if it's done in the right
| way. But that needs good content creators, with enough
| leeway and time to make a good experience, same as
| everything else.
| autoexec wrote:
| It's exclusive to Paramount+ so I expect that a lot of
| people, Disney or not, won't be watching South Park: Into the
| Panderverse
| skyyler wrote:
| I'm going to illegally download it to watch it later
| tonight.
| godelski wrote:
| >> Alot of executives must believe it's due to piracy.
|
| > 100% guaranteed said execs won't be watching South Park
|
| Oh, really? Well, did you know that over one fourth of the
| people in America think that 9/11 was a conspiracy random
| metrics are meaningful? Are you saying that one fourth of
| Americans are r......?
| the_only_law wrote:
| Huh, since when did HN have strike through support.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| That is U+0336 COMBINING LONG STROKE OVERLAY
| the_only_law wrote:
| Ah got it. For a second i thought markdown support had
| been expanded.
| godelski wrote:
| Honestly I just google it every time because I can't be
| bothered to learn the keyboard shortcuts.
| jjeaff wrote:
| I could see why they might blame piracy for faltering Blueray
| or streaming sales. But piracy rates for movies still in the
| theater must be quite low. At least, I assume most people are
| not watching Cam footage of the screen with its terrible
| quality.
| sgift wrote:
| The underlying assumption here is that their accusation has
| to make sense, but that's not the case. It only has to sound
| reasonable to Wall Street, so the managers can get money for
| a bit longer, until people are fed up.
|
| Unsurprisingly, I think that piracy - whether blueray or
| streaming - isn't in any measurable way relevant to the
| current woes of Hollywood or even more specific Disney.
| They've made their bed, now they have to lie in it.
| autoexec wrote:
| > Not surprised this is happening. Disney has had 10 major film
| bombs in row.
|
| Which were they? The last Disney movie I think I saw was
| Elemental and that ended up doing pretty well in terms of money
| and reviews.
| angry_moose wrote:
| Its not 10 outright failures in a row, but they've been doing
| poorly for most of 2023.
|
| Keep in mind that ~2X the official production budget is
| roughly the minimum threshold for a movie to break even,
| after factoring in marketing and the theater take:
|
| Elemental was a modest success earning $495.9M against a
| $200M budget.
|
| The Little Mermaid maybe barely broke even at $569.6M against
| a $297M budget.
|
| Indiana Jones bombed hard, earning $384M against a $300M
| budget.
|
| The Marvels is trending towards about $200M against a $274.8M
| budget.
|
| Wish opened terribly this weekend, pulling in $49M in its
| first weekend against a $200M budget (will likely finish
| between $120-150M)
|
| Edit: Forgot about Haunted Mansion, earning $117.5M against
| $150M.
| slickdork wrote:
| I looked up their meta critic scores out of curiosity:
|
| Elemental - Metacritic score of 58/100
|
| The Little Mermaid - Metascore of 59/100
|
| Indiana Jones - Metascore of 58/100
|
| Wish - Metascore of 48/100
|
| Haunted Mansion - of 47/100
| tyfon wrote:
| Could perhaps also be due to them charging a subscription and
| demanding extra money to view the movie in addition.
|
| Just an idea..
| plagiarist wrote:
| I think you might be on to something. People already paying
| $XX/mo. might be more inclined to wait for the streaming
| release. I'd love to see some stats on viewership split by
| streaming subscriptions.
| gspencley wrote:
| That's me. I would have watched Wish already if it was a
| simultaneous stream + theatrical release. I don't think
| it's worth taking the family to the theatre to see it but
| (despite lukewarm reviews) I'm still looking forward to
| watching it on Disney+ nonetheless.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| _Alot of executives must believe it 's due to piracy._
|
| A lot of people think it's because they're woke. It's not even
| that - they're just bad movies. I watched Moana a few times and
| realized they're making fundamental story mistakes. Characters
| never resolve their conflicts, jokes are prioritized over
| theme, and important character traits are shown too quickly to
| the point where you can miss it if you blink.
|
| We really need Disney to slow down and understand that the
| story comes first with these movies and that good stories take
| a long time to develop. Frozen took like fifty years to finally
| make. BatB took four plus numerous failed iterations over
| decades.
|
| I highly recommend that everyone read the Katzenberg memo[0]
| from the 90s that was sent out right before Disney went from
| middling studio to international powerhouse.
|
| [0]https://sriramk.com/memos/katzenberg.pdf
| whatshisface wrote:
| "Woke" movies end up being greenlit like sequels are, on the
| basis of something about them not on their individual
| strengths. That's why spiritually correct movies (Lionsgate
| makes them too, it's not just Disney) and sequels are often
| worse than one-off productions that slip through the
| extremely challenging filtering process. If you combine
| ideology and sequels, you get some of these remakes. The only
| thing saving us from a live action remake of Chronicles of
| Narnia is that it was live action to begin with.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| What was woke about the Chronicles of Narnia movies?
|
| The books are famously super-Christian, and the movie
| adaptation was produced by Walden Media, owned by the
| ultraconservative Philip Anschutz.
| danShumway wrote:
| I don't think this is actually what most people _really_
| think when they throw out accusations of films being
| "woke", but if you take GP at their word:
|
| > "Woke" movies end up being greenlit like sequels are,
| on the basis of something about them not on their
| individual strengths.
|
| Then pretty much any Christian movie that is primarily
| marketed on the basis of being a Christian movie would be
| woke, and Narnia was heavily marketed in Christian
| circles and I remember Christians at the time certainly
| feeling that this was a Christian fantasy movie that was
| made for them that was going to serve as an alternative
| to more secular fantasy movie series.
|
| Modern Christian cinema is basically the definition of
| prioritizing a message and a demographic over any other
| cinematic feature or quality; these are films that get
| greenlit because they espouse a Christian ideology and
| because a subset of the market will pay to see any movie
| that explicitly espouses a Christian ideology regardless
| of its quality or how obviously the film is shallowly
| pandering to them.
|
| The broader Christian entertainment market even captures
| the sense of cynicism in that definition. A lot of
| Christian media is made by non-Christians not because of
| some holy purpose but because it's easy and profitable to
| pander to certain Christian denominations. If you don't
| know how to make good movies, a good fallback is to quote
| some Bible verses in a bad movie and then see if you'll
| get support from an audience that mostly just cares about
| being represented on a movie screen.
|
| ----
|
| Again, I'm not saying that I think this is a great
| definition to use. I think it's kind of reductive: good
| movies have themes, that's part of what makes them good.
| And good movies get made because people care about the
| themes and care about the finished product and how it
| will affect viewers. The idea that films having a message
| or political point of view is intrinsically counter to
| their quality -- it's just not a great way to approach
| film criticism. Theme/telos can't be fully separated from
| a film's quality.
|
| But if we're talking about message over substance, it's
| not at all surprising to me that someone would call a
| Christian or Conservative movie woke. It's only
| surprising because we know deep down that generic
| criticism of "message over substance" is not really what
| most people mean when they call a film "woke".
| whatshisface wrote:
| Art transcends conservatives-versus-liberals and so does
| the principle of substituting propaganda for art. That's
| why _I_ don 't like what Hollywood has taken away from
| itself; people who would accept the bad movies if they
| were preaching who-knows-what-else can speak for
| themselves. It's a common refrain that people criticize
| these new movies as a way to secretly criticize what they
| represent, but to be honest, it's just a lot of really
| bad movies...
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "realized they're making fundamental story mistakes.
| Characters never resolve their conflicts, jokes are
| prioritized over theme, and important character traits are
| shown too quickly to the point where you can miss it if you
| blink."
|
| Isn't that a common theme, in allmost all mainstream
| hollywood movies?
| gamblor956 wrote:
| You might have the wrong movie. Moana spent 5 years in
| development, made almost $700m at the box office, and has a
| 95% RT rating (critics rating) and an A CinemaScore (audience
| rating). Nobody else seems to have noticed the "fundamental
| story mistakes."
| kyriakos wrote:
| Consider that moana was before they went completely downhill.
| Give elementals a try and you'll see what I mean.
| gspencley wrote:
| > A lot of people think it's because they're woke. It's not
| even that - they're just bad movies.
|
| Every time I hear this claim "It's not that it's 'woke', it's
| that it's a bad movie" I ask myself: "what does 'woke' mean,
| then?"
|
| I don't consider myself to be a conservative. I lean left on
| a lot of issues, especially social issues. I love Star Trek
| and a lot of left-leaning art. Yet I can't stand "woke"
| movies and tv series.
|
| Why is that?
|
| In my opinion, _part_ of being a "woke" movie IS being a bad
| movie. It's not that it has a message or a point of view.
| There is tons of great art out there has a left-leaning
| message. To me, "woke" suggests that any combination of
| character, plot, theme, development or production design was
| neglected in favour of tokenization (or "pandering" as South
| Park put it). The implication being that the movie was
| supposed to do well because, allegedly, "modern audiences"
| are seeking titles with heavy handed messages and
| tokenization because that's what they are looking for, versus
| well thought-out writing and production. A "woke" movie is
| one where bad reviews can and are blamed on various *ists.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| What are some "woke" movies and shows, by your definition?
|
| The accusations I see are almost always aimed at either the
| basic and valid choices of theme, or complaining about some
| character's demographic when it doesn't come at the cost of
| anything else. And for the latter, often complaining about
| over-representation when that is not in fact happening.
| mason55 wrote:
| > _Every time I hear this claim "It's not that it's 'woke',
| it's that it's a bad movie" I ask myself: "what does 'woke'
| mean, then?"_
|
| I think the idea here is that "woke" is a loaded and
| controversial term. Even people who agree that "woke"
| movies are, by definition bad, can disagree on what exactly
| "woke" means.
|
| But for these movies we can skip that whole argument
| because _even if you forget about the wokeness argument,
| the movies are still bad_. Even if all woke movies are bad,
| you can have bad movies that aren 't woke, or are both woke
| + bad for other reasons. By removing the wokeness argument
| it makes it easier to form a consensus that the movies are
| _still bad_.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "A lot of people think it's because they're woke. It's not
| even that - they're just bad movies."
|
| That may be just an aftereffect of woke.
|
| The younger generation is heavily exposed to ideas like "you
| must not offend anyone ever, otherwise your career is over"
| or "teams must be diverse first and foremost, results don't
| matter as much, but you must tick all the required identity
| boxes".
|
| I can see how combination of those two results in production
| of bland, superficial art, regardless of the genre or medium
| used.
| MyFirstSass wrote:
| I think one of the reasons people are so tired of wokeness in
| movies is that they can sense the fact that it's fake justice
| corpo-speak.
|
| It's what happens when you vacuum any substance from the
| original justice movements leaving only identity without any
| critique of the actual power brokers of the world; the war
| machines, the financial exploitation, the industrial
| complexes.
|
| It's more sinister than having no social commentary at all.
| paul7986 wrote:
| I think it's due to TikTok and YouTube as well superhero movie
| fatigue.
|
| I personally canceled all streaming services and binge YouTube
| and some TikTok /reels when not socializing with friends or
| family.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| Honestly they are so dull and lifeless they are not even worth
| pirating. Like the recent Assassin's' creeds.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| It's not even piracy - it's their own streaming services. Why
| would I pay to watch a mediocre Disney movie in theatres when I
| already pay for the streaming service I know it's going to end
| up on in a few weeks? On demand, in the comfort of my home,
| without having to spend my precious non-work time making plans
| to drive to a theater?
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "Disney has had 10 major film bombs in row"
|
| Excuse me, I don't follow movies much, which are the 10 bombs?
| I would like to learn more about what happened.
| mullingitover wrote:
| Blaming piracy is just lazy, and I'm embarrassed for those
| execs.
|
| We're in the middle of a historic glut in entertainment options
| and there are only so many hours in a day to consume it all.
| Profits have collapsed over the past decade[1] as a result.
|
| > Professionally produced film and TV has more competition for
| attention than ever before. People spend more time (and money)
| on video games than they do on movies, and they spend more time
| watching YouTube than any other TV network.
|
| > This is fine for the business of culture since we're all
| spending more time consuming media. But it's bad news for the
| legacy players and for people who like to make traditional
| scripted programming. It's harder to justify spending $200
| million on a TV series when people can also watch a bunch of
| TikToks that cost nothing to make.
|
| [1]
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-06-25/film-a...
| gustavus wrote:
| When my son was younger he liked Paw Patrol, so we bought several
| season of Paw Patrol, I now have a duaghter that is the same age
| and likes Paw Patrol. I pulled up my handy Youtube subscription,
| went into my bought movies and found out that the Paw Patrol
| season I had bought and paid for was no longer available because
| it was now only available on KidsToons+ or PreimerParenting or
| some other bull hockey like that.
|
| I decided at that point if they can yank away media I had already
| paid for on a whim, we no long had a contract. Now I am working
| on buying myself a fine sailing ship, and unfurling the jolly
| roger to sail the high seas seeking booty and plunder and buried
| treasure.
| op00to wrote:
| Kids TV episode naming ESPECIALLY Paw Patrol is horribly
| inconsistent when sailing the seas, which leads to child revolt
| when they want to see a specific episode and the file names are
| all wrong.
| westpfelia wrote:
| Its a good time to get into it with Black Friday deals on
| usenet providers. Can snag year long subscriptions on the
| cheap.
| overtomanu wrote:
| plunder and buried treasure == pirate bay?
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Consumer rights have taken a huge hit with digital
| distribution. For example, it's not possible to resell most
| "digital goods" as you could with physical media. Losing access
| to stuff you paid for with no recourse is another example.
|
| It's closer to a rental than a "purchase".
| gustavus wrote:
| And it's closer to independent backup than "piracy"
| gamblor956 wrote:
| YouTube does not remove purchased videos, those are yours to
| keep watching for as long as YouTube retains the right to keep
| distributing them (which is separate from the right to
| rent/sell them; generally the rightsholder agrees to indefinite
| distribution rights for _sales_ as a basic contractual
| provision since it would otherwise render the "sales" right
| meaningless).
|
| Note that it is the _exceptional case_ that YouTube would lose
| the right to show Paw Patrol to purchasers. Given the
| popularity of the show, something like that would have made
| national news. Politicians would be talking about it right now.
| zoogeny wrote:
| Recently a friend of mine recommended me to watch the movie
| Heavenly Creatures. I went to justwatch.ca to see if it was
| streaming anywhere in Canada [1]. Not only was it not listed as
| streaming, it wasn't even listed to purchase anywhere. I went to
| as many places as I could think to find it: Amazon, Apple,
| Netflix, even Cineplex online. I was not able to find it anywhere
| available in Canada to stream for any amount of money. I found an
| article online that corroborates this is true [2] and recommends
| using a VPN to access content in other regions.
|
| It made me realize that we are very much at risk of losing our
| cultural memory. For this particular movie I could use a VPN I
| suppose, but I imagine that some movies/music/books will someday
| not be available in any region in any form.
|
| 1. https://www.justwatch.com/ca/movie/heavenly-creatures
|
| 2. https://www.entoin.com/entertainment/heavenly-creatures-
| on-n...
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Some, someday? Most are already not available, it's about half
| of all produced that are available. There are online archives
| that try to assemble access to many of these lost or otherwise
| inaccessible films or other media, but they get shut down or
| lock access over time.
| ljm wrote:
| There was a TV show starring JK Simmons called Counterpoint. I
| was able to watch it at one point but now it is completely
| unavailable in the UK. Can't even buy the series!
|
| Despite subscribing to the Showtime channel on Amazon Prime, I
| cannot watch Homeland. I can watch it on Netflix though and the
| audio and quality is absolute shit. And I don't want to give
| Netflix 20 quid a month for that.
|
| Why homeland? Was on a Damien Lewis binge. Love that guy's
| work.
| ghaff wrote:
| Counterpart. Was a really good show. It's available in the US
| but it looks like you have to buy or rent.
| ljm wrote:
| That's the thing. Can't do it. Unless it was released on
| physical media.
|
| I really wanted to watch it again considering severance s2
| has been in limbo for ages.
| ghaff wrote:
| It seems to be available on DVD in the US. Though going
| forward--and given the number of people who don't even
| own DVD players any longer (even some older folks think
| it's weird I still have one)--I expect more and more
| things won't be released on physical media any longer.
| walthamstow wrote:
| > Was on a Damien Lewis binge
|
| Guessing Band of Brothers, Billions, what else?
| daveguy wrote:
| Life was a good one. Sadly, not enough people agreed and it
| was cancelled after 2 seasons.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_(American_TV_series)
| Arrath wrote:
| That crime procedural where he was a Good Cop who went to
| jail on a bad rap or whatever it was?
|
| E: Should have refreshed before replying.
| schlipity wrote:
| Don't forget about Life. The show that ended too early.
| Yoric wrote:
| Wasn't that Counterpart? The one that takes place in Berlin?
| LeonardoTolstoy wrote:
| Do libraries in Canada loan DVDs and/or Blu-rays (and I suppose
| do you have something to play those, a PS5 for example)?
|
| Just checked my local library system and there are 7 available
| copies of Heavenly Creatures, I could get it and watch it in a
| few days via inter library loan. But I'm in the States.
|
| 95% of the films I watch via the library I would venture. But
| it depends on your system.
| zoogeny wrote:
| I do not own a DVD or Blu-ray player! I'm sure I could buy
| the DVD/Blu-ray on ebay (I saw it on Amazon for over $40!)
| and then buy a DVD/Blu-ray player. Or maybe it's on VHS or
| Laserdisc and I could obtain a physical copy of one of those
| and the necessary machines. That seems like a lot of work for
| a 2 hour movie. Probably faster to pay for a VPN and then
| stream from a region where it is available.
|
| Of course, none of that has anything to do whatsoever with
| the point. As we transition as a society away from physical
| goods and towards digital goods, we are placing ourselves at
| risk of companies erasing those digital goods. For now we
| have backups (like DVDs) and workarounds (like VPNs).
| Reasonably soon that won't be the case. It is possible that
| the favorite content of toddlers today (e.g. on Disney+)
| might just be totally inaccessible to them one day.
| michaelleslie wrote:
| Goodwill (or similar) is your friend here. Physical media
| players are likely to get purged when someone's de-
| cluttering their home.
| beej71 wrote:
| Secondhand stores are also great for picking up CDs and
| DVDs for cheap.
| beej71 wrote:
| You can also buy USB DVD-ROM drives for $15 or so, then
| rip. I'm in the middle of doing that to my DVD collection.
| michaelleslie wrote:
| Anecdote, but I've gone back to public library DVDs and Blu-
| rays for titles unavailable on streaming for similar reasons to
| what you've described.
|
| I'm in the States, so it's less of an issue of region/market
| lock-out and more an issue of no one being able to own their
| own media any more.
| hn_ta456 wrote:
| Our cultural memory and our ability to develop it and pass it
| on was erased when we decided that a small group of people had
| to be in charge of writing, recording and broadcasting it.
| Recorded culture is dead and frozen culture.
| 0xDEAFBEAD wrote:
| >Our cultural memory and our ability to develop it and pass
| it on was erased when we decided that a small group of people
| had to be in charge of writing, recording and broadcasting
| it.
|
| When did we decide that? It's never been easier for an
| ordinary person to write, record, and broadcast...
| hn_ta456 wrote:
| Write, record and broadcast _what_? What happened to the
| stories, music and performance handed down by cultural
| tradition? Unless you think Mr Beast qualifies. "Broadcast"
| is also part of the problem. Audience size is the goal, not
| the story, moral or history.
| glimshe wrote:
| I simply can't find my favorite Graphic Novels in DRM-free
| format outside pirate streams. I want to pay for them, but
| there is no scenario where I'll shell out hundreds of dollars
| to rent content from big DRM providers like Amazon.
|
| I'm not as afraid of _completely_ losing our cultural memory
| exactly because "piracy" can't be ultimately defeated: As long
| as people can consume their DRM-protected content, there will
| be always a way to remove the DRM and offer it through
| alternate means. I understand the risk of civil disobedience,
| however it seems that there has never been a time without the
| risk-takers that effectively protect our cultural heritage.
|
| Despite the immense power of the immoral US Copyright law, it's
| not all-powerful as places like sci-hub prove.
| sonicanatidae wrote:
| The media giants did this, with exactly what you mentioned.
| DRM.
|
| I can download a movie for free, or I can spring $20-30 for
| the DVD, then sit through forced FBI warnings, then previews,
| etc. when I really just wanted to watch a damn movie.
|
| They shifted the burden to the consumer (time wasted) and in
| a world with piracy, good luck with that model.
| jfghi wrote:
| Recently I tried to purchase an exercise book to find that the
| printed copy released in 2013 was nowhere to be found new or
| used although I remember it being for sale as recently as last
| year. Instead there is only a kindle version available.
| jhbadger wrote:
| In the US (and perhaps elsewhere) I recently witnessed this
| with _Angels & Insects_, the 1995 movie based on a novella by
| A.S. Byatt (who died last week). Not only does it not appear to
| be available streaming, but the DVD is out of print and used
| copies seem to be going for $40+.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| If steam and gog proved anything, it is that piracy is a service
| level issue. It is so much easier for me to purchase from of
| those, because I can trust ( at least until Gabe dies in Steam's
| case ) to some reasonable extent that they won't try to pull a
| rug from under me.
|
| CD Projekt is a public company now, but you CAN download raw ISOs
| if you are so inclined.
|
| If there was a similar reasonable repository for other media.
| Right now.. what we have almost the exact opposite that will
| likely result in a spike of piracy. I have 3 streaming services (
| wife's bidding; don't judge ), but it is going to end up soon if
| they don't have anything worthwhile on it -- and I already argue
| that they do not.
| ghaff wrote:
| A number of years back, an analyst friend of mine made a claim
| in a talk that Napster was more about convenience (i.e. near
| instant access) than it was about cheapness. I didn't buy the
| argument at the time but habits that have developed in the time
| since suggest there's a lot of truth in what he said. Video is
| more complicated than music because of fragmentation and
| outright unavailability of a lot of content. But most people
| with even remotely mainstream music tastes are _very_ widely
| fine with just streaming.
| hotnfresh wrote:
| I'd happily pay $50/m for a streaming service with a single
| UI that had all the shit my piracy server does, and a
| guarantee that things won't disappear (or at least a track
| record of that rarely happening). Hell, I might pay as much
| as $100/m. Maintaining the server and pirating stuff takes
| time, and hard drives cost real money.
|
| It's only the combo of money savings, higher quality (most
| steams are shit), unavailability of what I want (the best
| versions of several TV shows and movies are piracy
| exclusives, for one thing), and unified UI that make it worth
| it. Start chipping away at those, and it gets not-worth-it
| pretty fast. Apple tried with their unified streaming service
| UI on Apple TV, but several big players who hate their paying
| customers refused to implement it, so that's a dud.
|
| Hell, I in-fact still pay for like five streaming services
| despite all the above. I'd gladly pay one higher bill if it
| let me stop fussing with this crap.
| croes wrote:
| I would like to see the same enthusiasm in the prosecution of
| financial crimes committed by Wall Street & Co.
| fmajid wrote:
| "Treason doth never prosper: what 's the reason? Why, if it
| prosper, none dare call it treason."
|
| -- John Harrington
| winternett wrote:
| The other day I saw Netflix promoting they were streaming the
| WIZ (The 1970s movie With Michael Jackson FFS)... No new edit
| of the movie even, just a 40 year old movie that is now re-
| released for the 120th time, on streaming.
|
| There is often little to no value in new media, it's just
| rising costs in light of no alternative options for
| entertainment. Any other business doing that would fail, but
| these companies are having a field day on re-runs and low-
| effort content because social media encourages everyone to be
| isolated indoors on the Internet 24/7 when they're not working
| for large companies. A lot of the independent films being
| released rival that of major studios now, and no one is really
| citing the disparity in quality amidst the rising costs of
| online entertainment.
|
| I still kept most of my DVDs and a DVD player for the same very
| reason... I'll replay old movies if there are no new options
| forever and be happy if I need to. Most modern movies and shows
| are low-effort and rehashed ideas anyways, especially as Ai
| editing comes into play, the quality will decline in volumes of
| lazy work IMO...
|
| The single best way we can send a firm message is by not
| playing into funding the corruption. Instead of gamified Wall
| Street investing, high yield saving accounts and gambling on my
| own business ideas is still risky, but potentially far more
| profitable and stable than the markets in this new capitalist
| model.
|
| Don't play the game if the field is skewed for you to lose.
| plagiarist wrote:
| You would have to be able to subscribe to Justice+. It's costly
| but subscriptions come with government handouts so I think you
| end up making money.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > I would like to see the same enthusiasm in the prosecution of
| financial crimes committed by Wall Street & Co.
|
| What about corrupt politicians?
| lioeters wrote:
| That's the "& Co", for the company of collaborators,
| conspirators, and corrupt cohorts.
| uconnectlol wrote:
| why am i paying severe amounts of tax money to protect the
| investment [1] of some garbage software, movie, and music firms
| whose product quality for the last 20 years have been at an all
| time disgraceful low to the point where i'm basically getting
| scammed if i buy their products but there is a cartel of such
| companies so no matter what alternative i choose it's just as
| bad.
|
| 1. and not even. the threat of piracy is just theoretical
| InCityDreams wrote:
| >why am i paying severe amounts of tax money
|
| Define "severe"?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| All the court costs for litigating copyright issues are
| explicitly costs, the lack of creativity from people not
| being able to use previously created media an implicit cost.
|
| Societies want to incentivize creating media, not creating a
| monopoly for 100+ years. Copyright protections should last 10
| years.
| darigo wrote:
| ha, your comment reminds of that quote from the mentor:
|
| "We make use of a service already existing without paying for
| what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering
| gluttons, and you call us criminals"
| echelon_musk wrote:
| I'm confused by this article. They seem to equate the scene with
| p2p. Admittedly I did only skim read TFA.
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