I'm not saying this guy is in the right. But neither is Disney or the motion picture association. Lots of wrongs adding up here.
It'd be great if there were something similar for TV and movies. The streaming landscape is too damn fragmented these days with confusing exclusivity deals, libraries shrinking, and prices rising.
It's better than cable was, no argument, but it's like we passed right through the bright future, ripe with possibilities, and landed at marginal improvement.
Streaming is a different kettle of fish. With streaming services I always expect my favourite content to disappear at random with no warning.
It took a minute, but the BBC themselves finally came through: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BritBox
I'm pirating something that I would gladly pay for if they'd just let me. I'm not going to do a VPN; that would be more work than piracy in the first place (and besides, Channel 4 demands a UK address and even a UK credit card). It's downright ridiculous.
Whether he is in the right or not is decided in a court of law. However Disney et al have deeper pocketed lobbyists than municipal taxi companies.
There will always be a type of entrepreneur who flouts laws they don’t agree with, whether it’s copyright law or taxi regulations or whatever. The enforcement of those laws ultimately determines what the market looks like after the fact.
Legally, sure.
Disney is an awful company and anything people do that hurts their bottom line is morally right though.
Copyright law is BS and Disney is solely responsible for the BS. It's all a complete farce and Disney can take their all their propaganda, brainwashing, and whining about copyright and shove it. Nobody should be feeling sorry for this company at all.
And the store is price fixing with nearby stores.
I think theres a difference between opportunistic crime, and reasonably upstanding people being utterly frustrated with a market status quo.
If course there is a ton of piracy that is just straight up theft from perfectly convenient platforms, but the unacceptable, anticompetitive commercial platforms are the core that keeps the community going, I think.
With physical goods, if the store is utterly terrible, at the very worst someone can buy and resell the product at a nicer store. Intellectual property you are not allowed to do that. Everything is a vertically integrated monopoly.
The evidence says that piracy actually increases the value of the original as pirates spend more money on the media than they would without the piracy option
I don't agree. For many people, it's the only way to access TV. Wide access to broadcast media is a basic right, not a luxury. Some would say (me, for example) that it's neccesary for the proper functioning of civic society.
Meanwhile I note that free-to-air TV has been in decline for over a decade, at least in the UK. Cable and satellite services have been stealing the broadcasters' lunch. BBC News has an ever-shrinking circle of reporters (which they nowadays refer to as "editors").
I have no use for a streaming "package"; I don't watch sports and athletics, vintage sitcoms or new-release movies. I have a Sky dish and DVR, with the basic package. I gather Sky want to move me over to streaming, which would mean I'd have to upgrade my internet service.
Which seems like a very strong claim.
If anything I'm half-expecting the UK to start taxing individual creators who livestream on Twitch or YouTube (or perhaps to tax the platforms, or require the viewers to have a TV licence). That would indeed be egregious.
Do you not think that's true? Why do people steal merchandise and sell it on the corner?
You see an almost identical argument all the time wrt cigarette taxes - even though cigarette buyers have inelastic demand, there's a limit to how high you can raise the taxes, because eventually everyone will be buying smuggled cigarettes.