It's not just Netflix.
Disney+ has a bunch of National Geographic infotainment ... minus the info type shows.
HBO is going to end up with Discovery Channel ... stuff.
I want some way of telling them "I don't want to wade through crap..."
Yarr matey, one way do be not parting ways with coin for said services, instead making a more... equitable re-appropriation
Granted there aren't many / any.
I do donate to my local PBS station ... the content they provide is pretty dang good.
Can you offer a full throated defense of why you feel it's okay to pirate media in 2023, with so many options for consuming media legally, on whatever device, at any time? That was the dream of pirates in 2003, but we've achieved that dream legally today and it's still not good enough for the pirates it seems.
-- NOT OP --
In the general case, no, but consider the cases of:
1. "Altered media" e.g. (1) Star Wars, (2) THX 1138.
2. "Remixed media" e.g. (1) Terminator 2 not having its theatrical CDS mix, (2) Earthquake not having its SENSURROUND mix
3. "Omitted media" e.g. (1) Halloween not having its original mono soundtrack, (2) The Exorcist not having its original mono soundtrack
4. "Missing media" e.g. (1) The Star Wars Holiday Special, (2) HBO's "Real Sex" documentary show
5. "Censored media" e.g. (1) Fantasia, (2) Song of the South
There are entire online communities dedicated to finding, restoring, and preserving items like the ones mentioned above.
So, is piracy OK in these cases? I emphatically believe it is.
If the form of art has value, then the original form of that art has at least as much value since it reflects the original intention of the artist which inherently has value by being part of the historical record.
If the original form of art has value, then there's value in preserving it for future generations to appreciate.
If there's value in preserving the original form of art, then there's value in distributing it widely since history has shown time and time again that copyright holders alone are not enough...
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1937_Fox_vault_fire
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1965_MGM_vault_fire
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Universal_Studios_fire
4. https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/bbc-archives--wiped-missing-and-lost/z4nkvk7
5. https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/the-steely-dan-songs-on-aja-that-cant-be-remixed/It’s the fewest clicks to see new content.
Comically I subscribe to many online services (Hulu, Netflix, apple+) and will end up discovering and watching new shows through plex and my rss feeds than the actual apps.
So pirating still gives me the best user interface. Especially with combining content from multiple services.
Also, it’s not just pirating. I ripped my couple hundred dvd collection years ago when kids kept breaking DVDs.
Comically, the cheapest way to watch most movies is to buy the dvd at Walmart for $4 and rip it to watch through Plex. The file never goes away and it skips the frustration of figuring out if Wolf of WalStreet is on Netflix, or Hulu, or HBO, some stupid one off streaming service that I’ll never use (peacock, paramount, whatever whatever).
So I think it’s the same reason in 2023 as it was in 2003.
I certainly wouldn’t steal food from a store as that deprives the store of food. That seems cut and dry.
If I could photograph food and turn it into food to feed myself, I would certainly do that, even if it was illegal. It doesn’t deprive the owner of anything.
There’s lots of injustice in the world. And I think IP leans more towards unjust than just. Do I think creators should be compensated? Yes. Do I think creators’ descendents should be compensated for 90 years? Probably not.
I think copyright is designed and biased toward massive corporations to the detriment of society. So I don’t feel bad when I subscribe to HBONow and also “illegally” download torrents so it’s easier for loved ones to watch.
I also feel like there’s a giant PR effort from wealthy entities against a few individuals and the fact that you’d equate downloading a movie with stealing food is so weird to me that it shows how distorted the discussion is.
So we need some distinction between essential rights that seem real to me (bill of rights stuff) and “rights” that only exist because of successful lobbying on behalf of a very tiny industry (content industry is only like $100-200B globally where agriculture is $1.2T in the US alone).
I think following the law is ethical, and copyright is not only the law, it follows directly from the Constitution.
> If I could photograph food and turn it into food to feed myself, I would certainly do that, even if it was illegal.
Context and perspective. We're talking about a media landscape that is flush with content, to the point where people complain that it's all just rehashed. There's plenty of media to go around.
> It doesn’t deprive the owner of anything.
It deprives someone of their rights, which is something I think pirates don't really care about at all, as it's never considered in the calculus. It's always "what's more convenient for me and my desires to consume particular media, rights be damned". I wish pirates would just be frank and admit this like the other poster who was replying to me.
> I think copyright is designed and biased toward massive corporations to the detriment of society.
Me too. But I also enjoy the rule of law and the hard work of people who make content that I consume.
> There’s lots of injustice in the world. And I think IP leans more towards unjust than just. Do I think creators should be compensated? Yes. Do I think creators’ descendents should be compensated for 90 years? Probably not.
I would feel more sympathetic to this argument if pirates had ever given an inch, or seriously attempted to organize to fix the law in the US over the past 20 years. Instead, they just kept pirating as hard as they could, even when the industry moved toward streaming services, and rationalized their behavior away.
> I also feel like there’s a giant PR effort from wealthy entities against a few individuals and the fact that you’d equate downloading a movie with stealing food is so weird to me that it shows how distorted the discussion is.
So you're saying my strong feelings about copyright infringement are due to a PR campaign, and not a carefully considered position I've come to on my own, through my own experiences as a content creator, artist, and owner of copyrighted works?
I understand that some people are so blasé about violating copyrights, they don't even think they could possibly be doing anything wrong. On the other end of the spectrum are people who have to spend money and resources to defend their rights from violations of law by others. I fully understand that digital media and physical goods are not the same. But I categorically reject that zero people are harmed when copyrights are violated.
> “rights” that only exist because of successful lobbying on behalf of a very tiny industry
As I said, copyright is a fundamental provision of the US Constitution. We can talk about the parameters of "securing for limited Times" but "exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." is not up for debate. The word "exclusive" is important here.
And as for the size of the industry interested in copyright... upending copyright would also upend trademarks and patents. There's a much larger industry (well... all of them) interested in those forms of IP.
Copyright was 14 years at the time of the Constitution. If it was still that, I’d have no problem waiting it out and only watching material 14 years old.
Following laws isn’t always ethical. The constitution also allowed slavery. Do you think owning slaves was ethical? There’s lots of instances where laws are out of sync with ethics and morality, and, hopefully change over time.
In the past 20 years gay marriage became legal and I would argue it’s always ethical. Same for recreational drug use. And therapeutic mdma and ketamine. The list goes on and on.
Especially when the copyright laws aren’t the result of some specific debate and determination but by very targeted lobbying by Disney and others to extend copyright from 14 years to its current length of life+70 years or 95 years for corporate works.
Upending copyright would have nothing to do with trademarks (perpetual as long as in use) or patents (usually 20 years) and can be reformed completely independently. Although those other IP topics could also be improved.
I’m not making a judgement on your beliefs or how you formed them. I don’t know you. But there are PR campaigns to promote copyright targeted toward school kids (remember “don’t copy that floppy” [0] and “you wouldn’t steal a car” [1]) and I think they are in alignment with “copying a friend’s video is like stealing bread” so you just seem to be using simile analogies. It’s quite possible that you reached the analogy independently. It’s also possible that you aren’t aware of how you reached this analogy and are influenced by advertising and PR, just like everyone else.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Copy_That_Floppy [1] https://youtu.be/ALZZx1xmAzg
"pirating still gives me the best user interface"
To support this argument, you cited the various inconveniences you face when dealing with copyrighted works. Only after more prompting have you landed on a high-minded, ethical argument. Why didn't you argue this in the first place if you feel so strongly about these points? Why was your first foot forward an argument based on convenience?
Personally I pirated a ton back in the day due to convenience. Why did I stop? Because now I have money and it's all on my TV one click away. It's so convenient today compared to 2003, so that's why I don't understand why people who can afford it still pirate. I can understand why people without money would, but still... it's like $10 a month for all the music in the world, anytime, anywhere; whereas back then all you got was a CD for $10 that you could play in your crappy boom box or walkman. As a young pirate, Spotify was my dream growing up, and now that it's a reality, the pirates still aren't satisfied.
> Do you think owning slaves was ethical?
I think you know the answer to this question.
> slavery... gay marriage.... medical drugs.... etc...
Everything you listed was changed due to robust and organized social movements to effect that change. Because the societal ills were so egregious, society mobilized to neutralize those.
If you want copyright to stand next to slavery, gay rights, and the drug wars as a worthy social cause, it's fine to make that argument. But you've got to back it up with a robust social movement centered around effecting change, not selfishly consuming.
When I look at the last 20 years of piracy, I don't see the same kind of movements. I see a lot of petulance disguised as civil disobedience (looking at the Pirate Bay), and a joke of a social movement (the Pirate Party), but other than that really nothing. Could it be because most of society doesn't really care about this issue the way they care about human rights? Maybe society recognizes piracy as the selfish act it is. I know that's not popular to say here on HN, but as a former pirate myself, I really can't justify my behavior any other way. I'm certainly not going to compare my actions to those of civil rights leaders and the movements they formed.
And if I did feel so strongly about the ethical nature of my actions, I wouldn't start by grounding my argument as "pirating still gives me the best user interface". Because if I did that, others would think that's what I really care about, and any ethical considerations would be secondary.
As I said to the other poster, I'm not judging you for this. It's okay to be unethical and selfish. I'm very unethical and selfish as a person (most people are), so it's okay if you are too. You can also be ethical and giving in other areas of our lives. Just be honest about your motivations like they were, and it's all good.
> Upending copyright would have nothing to do with trademarks (perpetual as long as in use) or patents (usually 20 years) and can be reformed completely independently. Although those other IP topics could also be improved.
My reply to you in this regard was in response to your assertion that copyright is not an "essential right", but instead a "right" only due to successful lobbying. My point was that this right is grounded in the Constitution itself, and no corporations today lobbied for that.
It's true that rights holders have broader protections today, and as a rights holder, I appreciate that. But as a citizen, I also recognize that the term should be much shorter, and we can indeed reform the whole system. But I wouldn't go back to the drawing board, because that requires a rewrite of the Constitution. As long as it's in the Constitution, rights holders will have representation to make sure our interests are protected.
> I think they are in alignment with “copying a friend’s video is like stealing bread” so you just seem to be using simile analogies.
I think what's actually happened here is that you've internalized these more than I have, and are jumping to conclusions. Because I didn't argue what you quote there, so let's go back and look at what I actually said instead of paraphrasing.
"Stealing food from the store is way more convenient than going through the line. Best UI there is for grocery shopping."
I was not saying that that copying data deprives someone of property, but that convenience is not an excuse for violating the law. I made no argument regarding deprivation of property. Stealing food and violating copyright are both illegal. I'm not saying they are both stealing, as was the argument when I was growing up. It doesn't matter that one is physical and one is digital. You are free to make the argument that the acts are different and therefore one should not be illegal, or the punishment should be different, but that's not what I'm arguing. I'm arguing that both are de jure illegal, and the convenience argument doesn't make one better than the other.
People had illegal gay sex for centuries before society mobilized. So it was the groundswell of “unethical” activity that eventually led to social movement. Same for drugs and whatnot.
I think the societal change for legalizing what I think is ethical (and what billions of people think is ethical enough to do despite laws) will come about after many years of people just not caring and doing what’s convenient.
The convenient argument is just the most straightforward and I think why people continue to pirate. So that answers your question. All the other parts are going into additional detail that you requested.
It’s like if you asked someone why they illegally smoked pot 40 years ago they’d likely say “because I like to get high.” That doesn’t mean that there aren’t deep reasons why, just that that is the most important one.
Obviously legalizing pot cost corporations lots of lost revenue. And modernizing copyright will cost corporations lots of lost revenue as well.
If it's just a backup I can't see any ethical reason why you shouldn't be able to do this.
We went through all this in the courts when we got the rights to timeshift recorded TV programmes.
Comparing it to stealing food is ridiculous. No body has been deprived of anything, it's just copyright violation.
The second part of your sentence doesn't follow from the first. If someone is violating a copyright, that someone else has been deprived of their rights to control their IP, and they're owed compensation. That's the system we set up, so that's the system we should follow.
If a rights holder wants to grant you the privilege of copying the data, that's great. Many of them actually do that. But that doesn't mean we're allowed to just violate the rights of those who choose otherwise. The response should be to consume media that is offered in favorable terms, not to pirate media just because you feel it's convenient.
Again, no one has been deprived of their rights and the copyright holder’s rights are not unlimited.
I occasionally pirate episodes of TV shows that would require another subscription (already paying for Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBO and Prime). Honestly, I'd much rather cancel all that and just pay à la carte for content as long as it's something reasonable (like $0.50 - $1 / episode or ~ $10 / season and $2 - $15 / movie - that adds up to about the same cost based on my family's viewing patterns, plus I get flexibility).
It was nice when Netflix was the only game in town and it was worthwhile to pay it for the library, now it's too much to pay all these services for just a pile of 99% excrement.
Similarly, if the streaming service continues to play ads despite paying for the service, we will just pirate the content.
Why though? Why don't you just watch some other content? There's so much out there, and you have so many choices, available without any ads, and also if you choose you can consume free content as well.
Given that you have these alternatives, why do you feel you have the right to nonetheless violate IP laws because you don't like that a subset of content carries ads or restrictions?
Because that content isn't this content, and I want to see this content.
>Given that you have these alternatives, why do you feel you have the right to nonetheless violate IP laws because you don't like that a subset of content carries ads or restrictions?
First, see above - that content isn't this content, so if there's not a suitable alternative, well, c'est la vie. I've demonstrated that I'm willing to pay for these things, albeit to a point. If the service goes beyond that point, and I still want the content, then I'll obtain it via other means. Besides, much of the specific content I'm referring to in this scenario rakes in massive profits every quarter and is doing quite well for itself regardless of whether or not I "violate IP laws" to obtain it. That's setting aside the fact that it's been shown that piracy doesn't harm sales[1]. Further, in spite of our pirating, we'll still often inject money back towards the IP via other means.
[1]https://gizmodo.com/the-eu-suppressed-a-300-page-study-that-...
I see. So is this your thought process?
1) I want it
2) I can't have it my way
3) So I take it, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks
Is that fair, or no? I notice you offered some rationalizations for your behavior, but those doesn't really change the above calculus right? They are provided to justify it.
They listened to consumers for a while. I stopped pirating for a good chunk of years because everything was glorious in the world of streaming. But after we finally got what we'd been asking for, they stopped giving that to us.
So, yeah, I'm going to go elsewhere to get it, your judgement be damned. I won't be losing sleep over it any time soon.
I did a lot of pirating when I was a kid; I still do a little now (but a lot less), mostly out of frustration with the cost and availability of the content on streaming platforms. I wouldn't steal stuff from a store (because I know that causes actual material loss among other things), but making an additional copy of a TV show episode (which I wouldn't have bought anyway) - it's a philosophical question whether that causes a loss for someone.
Streaming was going to "save us" from the big cable companies. No ads, just pay that small subscription fee and watch what you want when you want it.
Now there are a dozen subscription fees, I'm getting ads anyway, and I'm not getting content I want to pay money for. Some are even streaming live TV now, with no way to watch what you just watched again.
This is the opposite of my experience. It took next-to-no effort, maybe an hour or two one time, to set up my Synology NAS box with Plex, Sonarr and Radarr. The result isn't something temporary, it's a fully-working system that obtains all of the shows and movies I want to watch and drops them onto Plex almost immediately.
All I have to do is fire up Plex and the latest episodes of everything are right there, often within an hour of them airing on the east coast. I'm on the west coast, so this sometimes means I get to check them out before they air here.
The result is a carefully curated library that's far more tailored to my tastes than any algorithm has offered me on any service.
It is just that I'm never going to consume it.
This is the part I don't get. Why do you feel you have this right?
FYIW, HBO Max allows you to download episodes for offline viewing, so it's not exactly true they are dictating the scenarios. I watch HBO all the time on plane rides.
>I actually “pirate” some of stuff I pay for.
So, if someone pays for HBO Max and watches the latest episode of Barry at home via the app, but, as I do, feel that HBO's UI/UX is dogshit, and they then download a copy of it and slap it on their phone or laptop in a way that's more comfortable to them for their flight tomorrow, what's the difference? OP continues to pay HBO, but that next view is just on a local device.
Edit: HBO Max downloads "expire" after 30 days, and you have 48 hours to finish it once you've started[1]. You're also limited to 30 downloads at once. This is hardly 'convenient' for some people.
It’s also fantastic because I know -exactly- what my children are watching and if there’s some episode of Paw Patrol that’s particularly annoying it get deleted.
Sure.
> If it were easier like this to grab food from stores and restaurants, grab homes of other people, they would do that too.
You are implying that everyone pirating content would do these things if the chance of getting caught was low. I would posit that some people who pirate would, but it's a stretch to say that the entire group would.
Taking your simplest answer: just because one can does not mean one would.
Pretty much all the other video I watch is independent content on YouTube. Just people talking about and showing stuff they are interested in. I'm sort of amused that these people come up with more compelling stuff to watch than the big studios with their huge budgets, writers, celebrities, etc.
Welcome to the infinity pool. Spotify playlists, Youtube search results, your Twitter and Facebook feed....they're all bottomless for a reason.
Netflix isn't going to be any different.