It's baffling how someone could advocate for, consider morally right, an excellent alternative, etc. something that is illegal in practically every developed country in the world.
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Netflix Gains 8 Million Global Subscribers Amid Price Hikes and Push to Ad-Supported Streaming
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It's baffling how someone could advocate for, consider morally right, an excellent alternative, etc. something that is illegal in practically every developed country in the world.
Well first, I’m not saying piracy has to be defined within the constraints of “theft” any more than I am saying piracy should be defined as “murder.” I sort of think piracy is piracy and theft is theft.
Second, your scale isn’t that far off what I was suggesting for example purposes.
Third, your application of the scale, I suspect, to most rational persons, is a bit problematic. You rated theft to keep yourself alive 0 and 10. You rated pirating 0, and Netflix -10 (lower is more morally correct on your scale).
How could stealing food, to keep yourself alive, be rated equal to, or worse than pirating? What sense does that make? You don’t need to pirate anything to stay alive.
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I had hoped for more but alas, this seems the only response you are capable of when caught in your own hypocrisy.
Piracy = No subscription
No subscription = No income
No income = No paychecks
No paychecks = Poor people
You encourage piracy = You encourage making people poor. Hope you are proud of yourself.
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So it's OK to be the person, no doubt with camera in hand, yelling to the person on the building ledge to "Jump Jump"?
Encouraging something to happen... and that's what your posts are advocating.
Copying is theft... hence COPYRIGHT law exists.
You cannot look at someone's product and make a copy of it without issue in most of the world and pressure is there to change laws and enforcement in other parts of the world as well.
You sound like the type to also think paying for free-to-air TV is a great idea.
You’ve intrinsically damaged the worth of the a product as there are now less customers to potentially sell it to. You can argue nothing of value is lost all you want that’s simply not true.
The second comment is totally spurious. Many countries have different laws on all kinds of things that has no bearing on what posters are saying.
After leaving the UK I do think paying for free to air TV is great.
I would love to have easy access to the BBC for the small fee that the TV licence really is.
Free to air tv in Australia is the pits for the most part.
That is not true. That person who made a legal copy wasn't a customer in the first place, because he is not going to pay $50, $100 or whatever amount per month Netflix comes up with.
Netflix simply priced themselves out of the market for that customer and the only way he is interested to watch it is by making a digital copy.
And nothing is lost because the product remains 100% in tact by making a digital copy so nothing is lost at all.
And I need to remind you that in various countries, this is all legal. So they are not "common thieves" at all as they already indirectly paid for it by taxes.
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One is not entitled to view content for free or at a price of their choosing. One pays the asking price to view / listen to content or they decide the content is not worth the cost. Simple as that. Step outside that box and you are a common thief.
On another note: Netflix has not priced themselves out of any market. The most expensive plan is ~$23/mo, this is dirt cheap for a months worth of content, providing you like the content and binge it. If you have half a brain, you only subscribe to a service or two at a time, binge consume, cancel and move on to another. The only reason people find increased streaming costs "too high" is because they are lazy and want to be subscribed to them all at one time, this used to be called cable.
Subscription income is lost. Subscriptions pay salaries. No subscriptions, no jobs.
MacRumors: "You are a common thief!!!!"
The law: "It's legal as you paid a piracy tax to Netflix already"
Can't make this **** up.
You are being purposefully pedantic and evasive. Where is a "piracy tax" paid? What country and how is it paid to Netflix or any other content creator? Is the mythical tax also paid to music creators who have CDs or sound files copied instead of purchased?
Second, do you not agree that lost subscriptions cost content creators income and if content creators are not paid then they cannot pay employees?
You purposefully nit pick sound bites but don't meaningfully address the issue.
No perfect world of piracy exists that you’re describing, so this has definitely transformed into a philosophical discussion. Even if nothing is lost to the owner, why would it be “ok” for someone to copy something that they don’t have a right to?
Who would be the gatekeeper in your hypothetical perfect pirate world, the pirates self-police when their USD reaches their willingness to pay for the content?
Piracy doesn’t have to be theft for it to be immoral or a crime.
Nonetheless, I believe something is lost to the owner when a copy is made. Even in your perfect world where the hypothetical “only interested to watch it is by making a digital copy” and where they watch it alone in the closet with headphones on, and safeguard the deletion to prevent further sharing to someone not so diligent in their piracy. (Also, how would this hypothetical pirate even know whether or not it was worth 0$ or 100$ before they watched it?) Market forces are at play, the willingness to pay $50 or $100 (or 7$) is reduced when piracy is an option. And, the opportunity for a lower priced competitor to produce and sell similar watchable content but lower quality to the pirate say $0.01 a year, is likewise forced out. There’s also the issue of time and effort put into writing and producing the watchable content by writers, actors, and producers that now see their hard worked product in the hands of someone who didn’t pay for it. Imagine you spent your weekend outlining, organizing, refining and writing a term paper, and your roommate just copied it verbatim, wouldn’t that feel wrong? You didn’t lose anything, you’d never be paid for it, but your roommate gained off your hard work.
If everyone behaved this way without contradiction it would be ruinous. You should respect the property rights of other’s, even intellectual property rights. If you don’t like it, why don’t you make and produce your own content?
If I had to guess there’s a life story behind his pro-pirate position that would explain quite a bit about the lack of integrity. And if I had to take a second guess, we’d both regret spending our time writing responses.
Today's streaming services are actually pretty inexpensive compared to what premium channels like HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, Disney Channel, etc. could cost decades ago. In the late 1980s, for example, HBO could cost the equivalent of around $32/month in today's dollars. Max today which includes more content, on demand, etc. can be had for only $16.99 (ad free) or $9.99 (with ads). A relative bargain.
Back when we went into video stores like Blockbuster, most new releases were $5 a night.
Cheap Tuesdays were $2 and you could load up a few and binge (or I believe ripping was even done by "some people"...)
Weekly rentals were a good option for holding onto a whole series at variable cost depending upon age of the content.
You could easily pay more for the same amount of viewable hours in a month.
Not forgetting time to go there, to return videos, to walk around looking for something, question when what you wanted would be returned... streaming has a lot of advantages. even remembering what you've watched or what point you paused viewing. and recommending things you might like.
in the 1940s someone was simply advocating an "excellent alternative" to a little problem they saw in Europe too.
when something is illegal, you cant promote it without consequences.
given the group rules, I'm surprised this is allowed. it's not a political opinion.
On top of that, televisions were a lot more expensive (adjusting for inflation) decades ago. You also had the cost of VCRs and then DVD players.
Access to entertainment content is so much cheaper today in a variety of ways.
it's like people complaining how expensive Apple Vision Pro is.
Yes it costs a lot of money.
But it's first gen... and packs in a lot.
It is going to take some time to find out what works, what doesnt and where it goes from here.
And I paid more for a Sony laptop in 2004 - adjust for inflation and it would be even more.
Hardware is so cheap and powerful now.
It's your data that's worth the money - so back it up!
Hardware is an easy replace.
To have access to an entire library of content anywhere you have a data connection... to be able to throw it to a tv wirelessly ... for an affordable price. Not something we dreamed of 30 years ago.
Yes, the cost of various electronics and tech is much less today compared to decades ago including televisions, computers, software, and more.
Smartphones are a relative bargain when you consider all of the functions and features they can provide including phone, still camera, video camera, GPS, portable video player, portable music player, portable game player, tape recorder, clock, timer, stopwatch, flashlight, answering machine, pedometer, and more. Much of these things would've had to be purchased separately decades ago at a cost far exceeding the cost of a smartphone today. Camcorders alone could cost several thousands of dollars (adjusting for inflation), early GPS devices were quite expensive, and so on.
We've already discussed video streaming service but audio/music streaming services provide access to content for much much less than it would've cost to buy individual CDs (or cassettes, 8-tracks, records) decades ago.
The Vision Pro is pricey today but like so many other technologies, its price will come down and usage will become more and more mainstream.
The Disney Plus, Hulu, and Max streaming bundle is now available
Prices start at $16.99 per month for the ad-supported tier.
www.theverge.com
Bundling, bundling, and more bundling in the USA. It's all repeating again. All to compete with Netflix and Amazon.
Again? I don't think it ever really went away. Various cable/satellite TV providers have been offering streaming service bundles for a while just as they have long offered premium channel bundles going back to before streaming was a thing.