There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

Do you pirate? And do you justify pirating? i.e., what is your piracy philosophy?

Well, my friend, he’s kinda poor he can’t afford some books and some streaming services, so he pirates. He pirate books, audiobook and videos and other stuff. Sometimes he buys books he likes a lot out of loyalty to the author (yeah, I don’t understand it either), he likes to read physical books, but yeah, if he hates the author or just wants to skim through it, he will download the book.

He usually doesn’t like to pirate from small companies or professors who are trying to make a living by selling books, but from millionaires & plenty of mega corps which already have loads of money, he feels like it’s the right move to pirate

Also, have you ever noticed that you have felt that the value of a product has decreased just because you didn’t pay for it, thus you are less interested to read it? i.e., had you paid for the book, you would have more likely read that book.

He says he will buy stuff when his time is more valuable than money, let’s all hope that day is soon.

What are your piracy habits?

TrismegistusMx ,
@TrismegistusMx@lemmy.world avatar

There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Even if I pay for a product I love some asshole suit is going to get a bigger cut than the artists who did the work.

Subject6051 OP ,

bigger cut than the artists

that’s the shitty part! I don’t like that one bit.

makingStuffForFun ,
@makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml avatar

Then pirate and make sure the creator gets nothing.

Subject6051 OP ,

not ideal, you know, I would prefer it if creators had pay links attached to their accounts and you could anonymously send them money. Pirate something, pay the creator some money if you can. I mean, if enough people do it, the corps would be forced to change the game.

makingStuffForFun ,
@makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml avatar

How do you tip say 500 people who made a film?

The sentiment is great. I’d love this also, but for film it won’t work.

Honytawk ,

They were already paid during production.

The thing that would change is that we won’t have movies where 500 people worked on who do it to get a paycheck, but instead 5-20 people who are really passionate about it.

TrismegistusMx ,
@TrismegistusMx@lemmy.world avatar

While undermining the system that is already failing artists.

Hanabie ,
@Hanabie@sh.itjust.works avatar

I’m an indie author, and all my novels ended up on PDFdrive.

Not that I’d be mad about it. If someone pirates my books and likes them, maybe they’ll support me in the future.

Just saying, I’m not wearing suits. I’m working full-time and write when I have off and got the time and energy.

For us Indies, getting eyeballs on our books is next to impossible anyways, so I already gave up on the idea that writing will ever be more than an expensive hobby.

TrismegistusMx ,
@TrismegistusMx@lemmy.world avatar

If we had any sense as a species we would be funding artists so that they can pursue their art full time. Industry advances technology, but art advances the mind.

Hanabie ,
@Hanabie@sh.itjust.works avatar

We might end up like people who do graphics… replaced by AI tools. There aren’t any that make it as easy yet (and maybe there won’t), but who knows where tech will lead us.

If you do it as a hobby, you don’t need to worry about it so much, but it does take something away for sure.

TrismegistusMx ,
@TrismegistusMx@lemmy.world avatar

AI will change the game, but I think after an initial period of growing pains that we’re really facing a shift in the economy whether we’re ready or not. All of the “problems” of capitalism have been due to runaway efficiency. A scarcity economy is absurd when we’re infinitely capable of producing everything people want or need.

Hanabie ,
@Hanabie@sh.itjust.works avatar

I agree, and the optimist in me desperately wants to experience a post-scarcity society like the one we’re seeing in the The Culture books, where AIs run the world, and we humans are free to chase whatever it is we’re dreaming of.

Maybe that’s a romantic notion, but I’m hesitant to give up on in. Dreams are what’s kept us going for the past millennia.

Zippy ,

You might become bored and depression does seem to be more common when you do not have a particular sense of purpose.

I like the idea as well but human psychology might not be so conductive to easy living.

ASeriesOfPoorChoices ,

You mean, being forced to find your own meaning instead of just going down a socially acceptable to-do list?

Boredom is simply a lack of imagination and drugs.

Zippy ,

Honestly drugs lose their luster eventually and most people whos life resolve around them daily are often pretty uninteresting.

ASeriesOfPoorChoices ,

You seem fun at parties.

(No, not really.)

Zippy ,

Actually I am quite fun. Do drugs few times a year. Can be interesting as well.

ASeriesOfPoorChoices ,

WeLL AWktUALLy…

Hanabie ,
@Hanabie@sh.itjust.works avatar

What do you mean when you say we need a purpose?

We are biologically designed to reproduce. So our current purpose is to survive until we’re grown to sexual maturity, reproduce, then raise our offspring to a stage where they’re able to survive on their own. Then, we either do it again, if we’re still young enough, or die and make room for the next generation. That seems like a very depressing purpose to me, but this is how evolution works.

I think that we now have the intellectual capacity to transcendent this cycle. We’ve been for a while, and we formed societies, developed technology. Our first models were small tribes, very much hippie-like little communities, that suffered from attrition by tribe warfare and rule of the strongest, where reproduction was controlled by “the fittest”. Then we developed monarchic systems that provided a much more stable life for everyone, but ran on servitude (slavery) of peasants. We experimented with systems like communism, that then lead to terror by the ruling class (can still see that in China today), and landed on a somewhat democracy-adjacent system of capitalism that we’re running today, and that’s not sustainable, because we’re destroying our planet.

What’s next, and what purpose for the individual do you have in mind?

Zippy ,

You don’t need a purpose and in fact most of the purpose people identify with are rather unnecessary for lack of better word. But people without some feeling of purpose are definately more prone to depression. Countries like Mexico should be less happy being people have far less wealth and have to work harder but the opposite it true. I find people are overall more happy and content. Now I would normal discount my experiences as being limited but if you look at the suicide rate of say the US to Mexico, the US has 4 times the rate.

This is actually true for nearly every developed to developing nations and I think speaks a great deal about human nature.

Hanabie ,
@Hanabie@sh.itjust.works avatar

purpose

Okay, so what you’re saying is that you think friction creates a sense of purpose. That might be true. People in Mexico are probably more happy about little things and enjoy them more, because that’s what they have. Less freedom of choice paradox to contend with, and less free time to sink into depression (I believe in “the olden times”, people were just too tired from fighting to survive to sit down and have an existential crisis). That sounds like a valid idea and is supporting your point.

The question is, how can we combine my (borrowed from the Culture series) idea of a post scarcity society with your idea of a psychological need for friction? Do you think it’s impossible to simulate the same feeling of need for something to result in the same strain that then causes happiness?

Zippy ,

First I will say the culture series is one of favorite books. But I would start by suggesting a post scarcity society would be difficult in the limited size of our solar system. The main reason being resource theory. Like animals with unlimited food, they will grow in population untill there no longer excess food. Humans likely would do the same until there again is a limit of resources and things develop value. Ie. There is a limit of ocean front property thus we will make a reason to toil to better ourselves and get the best view.

But that diverges somewhat from the question you ask. Could we be happy in such a society if it could exsist? If we bring up the culture series, nearly every character in those books have purpose. Actually great purpose in that often they are doing some deed to better humanity. So it is hard to really use that as an example. So the question then becomes could a regular person be fully happy be having all their needs met and not having to do anything? I rather think of the hedonism bot in Futurama. He does nothing all day but all his needs are met. He has to expend zero energy. To me that seems quite depressing. I would rather be doing something to better myself and overall other people but in a post scarcity society there is nothing physically anyone would need thus there would be little I can contribute. Now could there be a true post scarcity society? I suggest not While money should not exsist, there will still be currency. That will be in the form of fame or talent or power. Creative people will be in demand and trade that for favors. Actors same in that they will gain favor. People in power will use their influence to have access to interests that others may not. But these people would be the minority. The majority of people always will be your average Joe. Will they be happy just comfortable exsisting? Honestly I really don’t know. Maybe we can evolve to that.

I will bring up one other point. In the history of humanity, during times of great difficulties are also the times when humans evolved the fastest. Could the opposite occur? If we have all our physical need met, might our overall intelligence decrease. I suspect it might. Then again, might it be better to be dumb and happy than intelligent and depressed?

ASeriesOfPoorChoices ,

Just like the invention of the camera stopped people painting portraits.

ASeriesOfPoorChoices ,

Yep! Often the math is “the people who pirated probably wouldn’t have bought your product if they couldn’t pirate it, so you didn’t lose anything. But you did gain a reader, who can now recommend it to others, and / or make future purchases themselves”. Generally speaking, pirating isn’t bad to the bottom line (not saying it’s good).

It hurts brick and mortar stores, but then, so do libraries. (Hah)

Subject6051 OP ,

It hurts brick and mortar stores, but then, so do libraries. (Hah)

libraries are not comparable to what damage piracy does to brick and mortar stores and small authors

Haui ,
@Haui@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Piracy does not damage at all compared to the damage monopolized america is doing to them.

ASeriesOfPoorChoices ,

That was a joke about how much capitalists hate socialist libraries.

Hanabie ,
@Hanabie@sh.itjust.works avatar

I’ve always been of the opinion that people who truly love what they piratesd will at some point want the author to carry on writing. Just like someone who just stumbled upon your work by accident. That’s the beauty of humanity, people do remember, and they do care, and creative arts are a pursuit that connects author and reader.

Subject6051 OP ,

For us Indies, getting eyeballs on our books is next to impossible anyways, so I already gave up on the idea that writing will ever be more than an expensive hobby.

I am sorry to hear that. If it ended up on pdf drive, then I guess it’s either that, enough people want to read it or pdf drive has a bot which is ruthlessly uploading all the books it can find. Have you tried self publishing on kindle? Also, name your books if you want to, it looks like some eyeballs and popularity will do you some good.

Hanabie ,
@Hanabie@sh.itjust.works avatar

I tried on Kindle, but the reality is that every day, a six-digit number of books are being released, which leads to insane odds.

I wrote cyberpunk/urban fantasy crossover books, but am now switching over to space opera. If you’re still interested, I can give you the title of the “entry book” that starts the story.

ASeriesOfPoorChoices ,

Shadowrun?

Hanabie ,
@Hanabie@sh.itjust.works avatar

No, I’m not writing Shadowrun, but the genre has some similarities.

AlexWIWA ,

Agreed. I can say that personally I went back and bought a lot of music that I copied off of my friends’ ipods as a kid. I’m sure it isn’t the norm to go back and buy stuff, but it happens.

Chobbes ,

Just curious — why do you consider writing to be an expensive hobby? I mean, it’s totally expensive from an opportunity cost perspective, but wouldn’t any hobby be? Is it the cost to get it published somewhere?

Hanabie ,
@Hanabie@sh.itjust.works avatar

If you just write for yourself, it only costs time. If you plan to (*self-) publish it, though, you want at least a good cover, and optimally, you’d hire an editor and maybe things like sensitivity readers. And then, most people seem to prefer audio books these days, which is either expensive, or hard to pull off, due to having to find a narrator who’s okay with royalty share with a non-established author. And then you haven’t advertised your book at all yet.

I’ve so far only worried about cover and editing. Wrote 4 novels. Now I’m writing a series and am considering writing the whole thing completely first, then getting a deal with an artist for all the covers. This also makes it easier to do foreshadowing properly over the course of more than one book, and it’s probably advantageous to stagger book releases, even if that means a few years without putting anything out to the world.

*All these points are moot if you aim to get published by an established house, but then you’re dealing with “the suits”, and people who rank “will it sell” higher than “is it good”.

Chobbes ,

How expensive does editing and cover art get? I imagine it’s pretty pricey to hire people to do that. You mention this is moot going the traditional publishing route — I guess because publishers will front the costs for these things if they think your book will sell? If you’re buying cover art and stuff to self-publish, where do you publish your novels? Do you sell print copies, or is it all digital? Is selling physical copies even feasible without a traditional publisher?

Hanabie ,
@Hanabie@sh.itjust.works avatar

The cover costs anywhere from USD 100 to 1000, depending on the artist and the cover, where 100 would get you a somewhat decent one on Fiverr, while something not generic can go up in price very quickly. Most “cheap” artists have a flat rate with one or more stock image sites, where you’d then pick a model and tell them what setting you’d like to have. If you have very specific needs that would require hand crafting, the sky is your limit (The covers for ebook, print and audiobook are separate, and print/audiobook covers will cost extra).

Editors come in categories. Developmental editors check the characters and plot for consistency, logic problems and structural things. Then there are copywriting editors that focus mainly on things like grammar, spelling etc and, while being a bit cheaper, still cost quite a lot (Which is why people use tools like grammarly or pwa to self-edit, which basically saves you the copy editor).

Sensitivity and beta readers are tricky. If you already have a fan community, you might be able to recruit some of them for this purpose. You’d want them to avoid faux pas when describing people of another ethnicity, sex, gender etc, and there are professional options for that, too (I already suspect my current project might not be fireproof, because names like Born Of Rain remind Americans of natives, even though they’re completely unrelated to my story – there aren’t even humans in my book).

Audiobook narration can go way, way up. You might be able to negotiate royalty share with a new voice actor who needs gigs to build skills and a portfolio, but nobody wants to spend hours every day for weeks in a recording booth if there’s no money to be made, and therein lies the problem – you need exposure to sell your books and make some money back, but exposure doesn’t come for free. While less and less people read books, they do listen to audiobooks, which would increase your chances of being seen drastically.

Newcomers don’t usually have a backlog of ten books, with lots of positive reviews, but most people don’t buy books from some dude with two books and zero reviews. They also don’t buy books that don’t have a nice cover, and they demand the professional quality you’re getting from having your book edited by an expert. Some genres also just sell better in general, like romance or thriller (to a lesser extent).

If you go with just a cheap Fiverr cover and some basic copywriter editing, you’re already looking at approximately 1 grand, with sales extremely unlikely, unless you have a platform somewhere with a related following (you often see book-related youtubers advertising their books during their videos). For someone like me, who has 3 books out (Out of 4 – I pulled my first novel, wasn’t satisfied with the book), writing something like science fiction, which doesn’t have a ravenous market, that means you calculate with 100% loss and are happy if you sell 10 units.

Indies often rely on things like Facebook/Google ads, newsletter and heavy social media marketing, all of which I hate with a passion. But it’s “part of the business”, which makes it a very unpleasant endeavor for me, and I’ve so far not done any marketing at all, which basically guarantees I’ll stay an obscure writer in the hobbyist league, one small fish in an endless ocean. And that’s okay.

If you think of traditional publishing, you have “the big 4” in the USA, and some foreign houses elsewhere, and you need an agent. Agents take a cut of anything you might earn, and they’re not optional. An agent helps with some very basic plot doctoring, and most publishing houses won’t even look at your manuscript if you send it in directly. Even with an agent, even if they’re well-connected, there’s a high chance your book will end up on the slush pile and never be seen. Not because editors are malicious, but because they’re overwhelmed. You wouldn’t believe the amount of books people put out every day, with a large percentage being unacceptable.

Agents, and editors at publishing houses, look for something they think sells. They’re notoriously bad at predicting trends, but they are the ones who decide what gets published and what not. Remember the vampire hype? Then the “magic academy” boom? Editors tried to create an “angel hype” with very lacklustre success.

If you’re lucky and write a book that falls into a category editors are looking for right now, they will then assign development and copywriting editors who work with you and tell you how to get the book in shape. They’ll get a cover made (over which you have zero control, even if your name is Stephen King or Brandon Sanderson) and pay you a 5k advance, with a small percentage of the sales if and after your book makes the advance back (and if it doesn’t, your pen name is burned).

It takes me about 3 months to write a book, which is just the writing. The planning can take weeks or months, depending on the setting, the characters, the plot and how far you lean on the planner-pantser-spectrum. If you just count the writing hours, a 5k advance means below minimum wage, so you won’t live off your books. Add to that the high barrier of entry and the other activities like marketing, in which you will have to participate especially as a new author, and you’ll see a very skewed effort/reward ratio.

Traditional publishing used to be more competitive, and until a few years ago the Big4 were the Big5. There also used to be a mid-list, the kind of author who could work as a writer full time, barely profitable, and usually paid for with profits from star authors’ sales, in the hopes that one of their books breaks through. G.R.R. Martin was such a mid-lister for decades. The trend though has been to abandon that concept completely and fully focus on the established star authors, and on cheap newcomers who hopefully sell their books themselves by somehow going viral on TikTok.

That’s why I said I see it as an expensive hobby, and why I don’t mind being pirated. I want to be in creative control of my work, get a cover I like, tell the story I have in mind, without deadline or the pressure of having to sell.

I want to be read, not to sell; readers, not customers. So if someone puts it up for free, cool. Not that I could do anything about it anyway.

Chobbes ,

That all makes a lot of sense. If I’m reading you right it sounds like you do make a profit, but you’re making much less than minimum wage? Or has it been not profitable at all and a loss in that sense? You at least mentioned that new authors go in expecting it to be a total loss, which makes it sound like it could be sensible to put the writing online (basically free self-publishing), at least if the point is just to have people read it, and you’ll make a loss from a more properly published thing anyway (although it sounds like your biggest costs are editing / audiobooks / covers which maybe you consider an important part of the work in the first place). That said I feel like the internet has changed quite a lot and people don’t really follow specific creators and their websites so much anymore.

Hanabie ,
@Hanabie@sh.itjust.works avatar

Yeah, I’m an Indie, I do self publishing without advertising. I’m spending more than I make.

The problem with putting your stuff online is, the pages that specialize in that and have it all set up and ready to go are mostly fanfiction and romance, so you won’t get a lot of reads there, either.

I guess I could just upload my books on GDrive and put download links on my website. Haven’t thought about that deeply yet. But I do write books, not blog posts or diary entries, and I like to have them in a neat package with proper presentation, in a format ebook reader apps can display painlessly. Nobody wants to read 70-100k word novels on a website ;)

alokir ,

So you pirate it and donate the normal price to the author directly, right?

TrismegistusMx ,
@TrismegistusMx@lemmy.world avatar

Sometimes, when it’s particularly impactful. But you can save your shaming for somebody who cares about your opinion. The fact that you’ve given me more attention than anybody with the power to change things shows where your allegiance lies.

alokir ,

I don’t know what you mean by “allegiance”, you were talking about ethics and that authors don’t get what they deserve. Your problem was not compensation itself but that some people that you don’t think deserve it get a bigger cut than you’re comfortable with.

It logically follows that in this frame of mind the ethical thing to do is to cut out the middle man and compensate the original author for their work directly.

I don’t know what kind of box you put me into based on one sentence but not everyone is out to get you who doesn’t 100% agree with you. This is why civil discussion is not possible online anymore.

uberkalden ,

The problem is that pirates are mostly full of shit. They just don’t want to pay. It’s that simple. Everything else is an attempt to rationalize.

Efwis ,

Not completely true. Are there shot pirates yes, just like there are shit uploaders that think it’s fun to bundle a computer virus with downloadable content.

If it’s something new, like a new book or movie, I will pay for it. The movies/shows I pirate are old and mostly out of circulation, unless they are streaming on some service. I pay for those so their is monetary transactions.

For example, I just recently spent 2 days downloading CHiPs original tv series, even with my high speed broadband it was that slow because there aren’t that many people offering it. Took me 3 days to find it to dl.

Not all piracy is bad. New stuff, ok not cool. But older stuff that has had a good run, the loss of revenue to creator/publisher is so minimal that they won’t feel it.

I’m an ethical pirate, if I think it’s worth watching over and over again I’ll buy it, if it’s available. I won’t pirate software or books.

I have kindle for reading and there is nothing new worth downloading software wise, plus I use linux on my computer, so all my software is free anyway, and if I can’t donate financially I find other ways to help. I’m not a big gamer and when I do game it’s on console, so I do pay for that.

TrismegistusMx ,
@TrismegistusMx@lemmy.world avatar

You want to criticize my protest and waste my time, but when was the last time you sent an email to an elected official?

alokir ,

I’m not some kind of activist set out to undermine your movement, I asked a question. This is an online forum where anyone can comment, if you feel like it’s wasting your time then don’t answer.

when was the last time you sent an email to an elected official?

Last time? A few months ago when a chinese company wanted to build a chemical distribution center in my district.

Susaga ,
@Susaga@ttrpg.network avatar

When I was in university, I watched a movie online using alternative means that I had been kind of interested in, but never went to see. I then watched it again. Then I went out and bought a DVD.

A little after that, I watched a lets play of a game that basically gave the entire experience in a single watch. I liked the game enough that I bought it immediately and just let it sit on my steam library without an install, just so the creator would receive their dues.

A year or so ago, I got a game through a charity bundle and wound up playing hundreds of hours of it. Since the creators got no money from my purchase, I bought merch, and waited for DLC to come out for me to buy instantly, just so they’d get something from me.

Recently, a AAA studio let go a bunch of creators while their game was wrapping up, essentially punishing them for a job well done. The creators will get nothing if I buy the game they made, but the studio that screwed them over will get everything. Just like I always have, I will give as much as they deserve to receive.

AlexWIWA ,

I did the same with Chernobyl. Originally watched it with my friends password, but I liked it so much I bought the steel book 4k. If I hadn’t had that shared password they wouldn’t have gotten any money out of me

Mandy ,

After going through many phases of why i should and or want to pirate, i honestly just stopped giving a shit entirely about any of those and i ended with “who gives a shit, fuck em”

those that deserve my money get it directly

choco_polus ,

Yes.

When I feel like doing it.

Even assuming I were a billionaire, my guideline is: Company acts nice? Take my bucks. Scummy practices, fragmentation, region locking, etc? Sail the seas

Stuka ,

Give me a reasonably priced, accessible way to enjoy the content and I will happily pay for it.

Streaming has become untenable and now it’s neither affordable nor convenient to watch what I want to watch. And with how frequently shows and movies bounce around platforms, who knows if the show I want to watch this weekend will be still available on one if the many platforms I’ve been paying for.

I’m just done with it.

dingus ,

I know people like to shit on Spotify. But it’s the reason I stopped pirating music forever ago and the reason I’ve paid for it for years now.

It’s fairly reasonably priced at $10-11/mo. It’s available on basically any phone, computer, tablet, etc. And nearly every song I could ever want to listen to is just there, seamlessly. You can even download the songs to play locally for when you don’t have Internet access. I will admit there are some rare occasions where a song I want is not available there, but it’s so infrequent that it doesn’t at all impact my listening experience. I can also very easily discover new music by generating playlists based on a song I like.

Now look at something like Netflix. It used to be this way…priced well and had everything you could ever want to watch on it. But now everyone and their mother has their own steaming platform. It’s absolutely ridiculous. It’s become as expensive as cable to get the same watching experience as TV streaming sites used to be. Sure there are people who say “well I just periodically subscribe and unsubscribe to the service I want to make it cheaper”. And sure, it makes it cheaper, but it sure as hell isn’t convenient. I don’t want to have to fuck with all that shit. So I use illegal TV/movie streaming sites instead. Or I just watch YouTube videos or use free services like Tubi and Pluto. Paid for TV streaming services absolutely suck ass nowadays.

If we started having issues with artist and production company fragmentation, I would cancel my Spotify subscription. But thankfully that hasn’t happened and I hope it never does. The trend doesn’t seem to be looking that way thank goodness.

If you have a reasonably priced service that has everything I could want, I pay for it. If you don’t, then I pirate. Simple as that.

Stuka ,

I’m with you. I’ve had a Spotify sub for more than a decade and have no plans to cancel.

greenskye ,

The biggest issue to me is that all music services offer effectively the same access to music. I’m not choosing between Spotify and YouTube music because my favorite artist is on one, but not the other. However we are conditioned to think this is ok when it comes to video. Streaming services never should have been content creators, we should be choosing Netflix vs Hulu based on price, app quality, video quality.

dingus ,

I was never conditioned to think it was ok for video and it’s why I hate TV/movie streaming services lol

Dawn ,
@Dawn@lemmy.world avatar

I still pirate my music, using YouTube music revanced, but the main reason I do it is because I find it to expensive for how often I use it. I don’t use it that often, mainly just when cooking dinner, if there was a way for me to use YouTube music for $5 a month, I would probably pay for it.

Also for me it has to be YouTube music, as alot of the songs I listen to aren’t on other platforms, (song covers, and remixes).

dingus , (edited )

Ah see I listen to music all the time. When I was in school, it would be hours upon hours every day. Nowadays, I listen to it far less, but it’s still whenever I drive, which is near daily. And when I feel like it sometimes I listen a lot at work.

_pete_ ,

YSK that YouTube Premium can be bought over a VPN for a whole lot less than the regular retail price, it’s a bit fiddly to set up but I’ve got a Nigerian based family account that costs me £1.76 a month.

Rai ,

192kbps max and now artists and corpos can pay to promote music on the front page.

No thx

dingus ,

Spotify claims 320kbps with premium (see the link below). Has this claim been debunked or something?

support.spotify.com/us/article/audio-quality/

Rai ,

Noted! I didn’t know about that, my info might be dated.

I ended up on Apple Music cuz they have heady lossless by default.

… I still horde flacs tho

dingus ,

Yeah I could definitely see a lot of streaming services starting out with lower quality before Internet speeds and such have gotten more robust.

Rai ,

Absolutely. I’m very thankful for infinite fast mobile data now. I’d never have signed up for a music streaming service if I didn’t have they.

skullgiver , (edited )
@skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    CleoTheWizard ,

    Oh let’s be real here, this is what capitalism does. It chooses the worst possible option for entertainment because it’s what makes the most money. What makes the most money is not making you happy, but getting you to stay subscribed.

    Let me tell you the real secret. You know what it costs to rent a movie online? And stream it? And then never watch it again? Yeah now justify that against streaming services.

    I’ll tell you right now, go get Plex. If you don’t already use a media server, start. Because chances are that you don’t actually watch 90% of what’s on those services. So that $15 a month for content you don’t own could easily be $20 a month on content that you do actually own. Not to mention there’s no ads involved and you can stream as many devices as you want from anywhere. Get friends to pitch in and it’s even better.

    The ONLY argument for this is convenience of all the shows at your fingertips. Except now that’s not the case and they’re on different services, screw it, either pirate the media or buy it used on disc.

    skullgiver , (edited )
    @skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl avatar

    deleted_by_author

    •
    CleoTheWizard ,

    Agreed, totally depends on how much you watch. But shopping used DVDs and like I said banding together with friends to buy content eventually begins to work out better for you.

    I’m not someone who consumes tv and movie content en masse so it works out for me to do this and for a lot of people who watch a season or two of a show a month, it’s not that much more expensive to own.

    What I meant about the capitalism concept is that the core idea isn’t about enjoyment or getting to watch what you want. It’s not about convenience anymore. This is a capitalistic cycle where it stops innovating and starts to poison it’s consumer.

    So shows will now be splintered across services, shows will get cancelled for being less profitable, and the overall quality will dip because we’re driving art to the bottom price. Whatever makes shareholders more money. And is this true? I feel like it is. Quality of shows has dipped quite a bit to fit the streaming service pricing.

    We can argue about whether people want that or not, but it’s basically just what’s been done with every other consumer item. Dominate the market, lose money, get the subscribers, and then make their experience shittier over time.

    _pete_ ,

    This is how I do it.

    I pay for Netflix, Prime (only really for the free shipping), Disney+, Apple TV+ and Spotify, if it’s not on any of these then I’m going to pirate it.

    The whole exclusivity stuff is just rubbish, I get the reasoning but if you can’t make your content easily accessible then I just don’t want to pay for it.

    taranasus ,

    I do.

    Nope, not really.

    Life’s about more than money.

    verdigris ,

    I can’t find any logically consistent way too label piracy as immoral. It doesn’t remove the original and it’s just creating virtually free copies. It’s the definition of a victimless crime.

    The fact that you’re hypothetically removing profit from the creator only becomes a moral issue if that loss of profit is A) guaranteed, that is, the recipient of the free copy would definitely have paid for it otherwise, and B) is significant enough to impact their life negatively. And the latter happening is much more an indictment of the system that demands people justify their existence through the extraction of profit than it is of the consumers who are just copying a few bytes.

    The idea of paying more than a few cents for any digital media is frankly absurd. It’s highway robbery that we’re paying the same amount to rent a copy of a movie as to buy a pound of meat or a gallon of gas. It’s 99% just blatant price gouging.

    chiliedogg ,

    Some digital media costs a hundred million dollars to make. They make that money back by selling the product.

    If nobody buys software, there will be no software companies to produce it.

    verdigris ,

    Well call me a communist but I don’t think that our society is benefited by spending a hundred million dollars on a single video game. Or a single movie for that matter. I would very gladly trade the massive AAA budgets for more restrained passion projects.

    FIST_FILLET ,

    yes

    1. copyright is a deeply flawed system invented by capitalists with moronic consequences for well-intentioned artists today
    2. i regularly support musicians i like through bandcamp (especially on bandcamp fridays where they get 100% of the money)
    3. i usually do not pirate indie things (but remember that if your only options are piracy or “key reseller” sites, ALWAYS pirate. you are actively costing the devs money if you buy a stolen key from a reseller (and they are all stolen))
    4. i’m poor and adobe can choke on my balls
    Nobsi ,
    @Nobsi@feddit.de avatar
    1. Yes, it has gotten out of hand sadly. But it was a well meant way to stop people stealing intellectual property.
    Honytawk ,

    It wasn’t well meant, it was Disney who didn’t want other people to replicate drawing 3 circles.

    If someone else can not only copy the product you designed, but even improve on it, then that is on you.

    Nobsi ,
    @Nobsi@feddit.de avatar

    If i create something new, and you merely copy what i created or you use my thing as advertisement for any of your schemes, then yes, i deserve some protection from that.

    Defthani , (edited )
    @Defthani@jlai.lu avatar

    I don’t care about copyrights, and although I’d agree that I’m not entitled to someone else’s work, I’ll counterfeit it without a single qualm. I’m poor and would rather not have to choose between being well fed but bored as death, or hungry but entertained/educated. As much as possible, I try to support the little guys though; concretely, I’ll eventually buy a game made by Octavi Navarro or Unspeakable Pixels, but Activision won’t ever receive a kopeck from me.

    psychothumbs ,

    I pirate and I think doing so should be legal and accepted. It’s one thing to have a copyright for profitable uses of some content, a whole other much crazier thing to say copyright forbids sharing that content for free. File sharing should be thought of the same way as letting your friend borrow your book - just a normal and uncontroversial nice thing to do, that you shouldn’t avoid based on some concern it will lead to lower book sales.

    lupec ,

    I’m not the pirate I once was when it comes to gaming but there’s always EGS exclusives, games whose lack of regional pricing make them impossible to reasonably buy here, things like that. I’m a patient gamer for the most part so most of the time I can just get it a few years down the line but sometimes even that doesn’t cut it. I avoid doing it to indie developers, but those are usually the few that follow Steam’s recommended pricing guidelines so they tend to be fine anyway.
    I pirate unbelievable amounts of tv and movies on a regular basis though through the *arr apps and whatnot, mostly because I refuse to pay for a dozen different streaming services with their rotating content and usually terrible apps. I self host whatever I can to avoid relying on the whims of a few corporations, and the one surviving service so far is Spotify.

    Chobbes ,

    It’s super interesting to me that piracy is generally considered immoral, but going to the library is considered pious. Obviously there’s some differences with these things… But in general I find it incredibly frustrating and depressing that we have developed the tools to copy and share information pretty much instantaneously across the globe and that we have decided that this is a bad thing instead of a miracle. Obviously I still want people to be able to make things and make a living, but I wish we could find a better way to do this while providing access to more people. We can have kick-ass libraries with modern technology, but it’s stunted for legal and capitalistic reasons… I’m not saying I have all of the answers, but I wish more people could at least recognize that as a shame.

    Haywire ,

    “food isn’t grown to feed people. Food is grown to make a profit.”

    IonAddis ,
    @IonAddis@lemmy.world avatar

    I can’t speak for other mediums, I mostly know genre fiction best.

    (I also agree that the system we have in place is not the most ideal–it’s just the framework current authors work under, and thus the framework that pirating of their works interacts with, if that makes sense.)

    If you exclude textbooks (which work under a very different model) and non-fiction (which likewise works in ways I am unfamiliar with), libraries collectively have a ton of purchasing power and can make or break a mid-list author of genre fiction.

    Library buy-in can mean an author gets contracted for another book or not. It can mean that author is given another year of breathing room to grow their career or not.

    A novelist–and I’m talking specifically about traditionally published fiction novels, not short stories or screenplays or anything else–is part of one of the few cottage industries left. They are not employees of a publisher. Genre authors do not get salaries and health insurance and benefits from the publisher. They are contractors/small businesses.

    They hand-craft a unique product, partner with a publisher for a measly $10,000 (or often less) advance for their year of work and some hypothetical small % of royalties from books sold beyond the first advance. That % of royalties may or may not materialize depending on if their work takes off or not, and so many of these authors generally do not make even minimum wage. Also, they are taxed like a small business, about 1/3rd of that measly $10k advance goes towards taxes.

    So yeah. A small-time author sells one book for a $10k advance. That advance already has 1/3rd eaten by taxes, and it also gets doled out in shitty little $2k chunks according to whatever points their contract specifies. 10k would be tiny income to trickle in over ONE year, much less across multiple. And most authors don’t have the stamina to write more than one book a year–“unicorns” like Seanan McGuire or Mercedes Lackey who can do like 4+ books a year are rare.

    Most average genre authors do NOT make Stephen King-like money, most basically work/act like a small one-person business who have a contractor-like relationship with a publisher. They have families or spouses that support them, or a day job, or they live in abject poverty because the publisher does not give them much.

    Things like AAA games or movies are different in that there’s a lot of funding there and the whole financial aspect of those works very differently.

    But your average genre fiction author is basically the same as a one-man indie game team who does nearly everything from art design to storytelling to game mechanics.

    And the publishing house is like–hell, let’s say Unity because that’s all over Lemmy today. You can say the power of a game engine is roughly equal to the power of a book publisher/distributor, if you are examining power dynamics between the actual creator of something, and the tools they partner with to get their thing made and “out there”.

    Like, if that foundation poofs, whether Unity fucking over devs with weird contract shit, or the publishing house abruptly pulling support from the next books in the author’s series, the author/indie developer is super-fucked.

    So when you pirate genre authors who probably got less than $10k for their book (spread out over 3 or 4 payments over 1-3 years), the publisher doesn’t see enough financial income that would give them incentive to contract that author for another book. So they say “bye” to the author.

    And traditionally-published authors are fucked if their name/pen name gets tarnished like that. If they get a rep in the sales databases for being a low performer. You either try to go indie even if you don’t have the skills for the business side of things, or you start from scratch with a new pen name that’s not tarnished and try to build a new reader base. (Starting to build a base from 0 is hard.)

    Whereas if you use the library, the library DID buy that book, and that purchase appears on the publisher’s accounts, and gives a tick towards the author being profitable enough to contract another book from. So that author gets another chance to grow their career.

    Most authors don’t break out with one huge book in genre fiction. Even Terry Pratchett–who died as “Sir” Terry Pratchett by the end of his career–had some real shitty books early in his career, and if his publishers had dumped him early on because there wasn’t enough of a profit to justify letting him grow his career and get better we might not have ever gotten the good books he wrote.

    Many authors build their careers one brick/book at a time. They slowly get better with time and experience. They slowly accrue fans over time as they develop a backlist of books that a new reader of the latest book can find and devour.

    And it’s pretty easy to disrupt that process for small-time authors if you choose pirating over library. Because they’re one-person dev teams, basically, and the ecosystem is fragile.

    (Big name authors–like, ones you actually KNOW have made shit-tons of money–are less affected. King, Rowling, Sanderson, Nora Roberts–are probably financially fine. But in the middle there are authors whose names you KNOW who actually aren’t making all that much. It’s weird–you might have read a midlist author’s books and know their name but they’re not raking in all that much even though instinctively you think that because you know their NAME they MUST be rich, right?)

    Now, big-budget movies and games…those act differently and are funded differently, they’re not one-man shows. There’s a lot of greedy corporate assholes at the top of those chains (thus the recent writer/actor guild strikes.) The impact of piracy on those creative mediums is probably different. I’m not informed enough to really know.

    But fiction? Yeah, most genre authors are tiny little indie creatives, and pirating actually does potentially fuck them over to some extent, if the author is still alive and still writing as their career.

    The big whale authors like Stephen King or Brandon Sanderson or Nora Roberts or J. K. Rowling are the exceptions, not the rule. Most authors are not bringing in that much with their works. The truly giant authors probably won’t notice if you pirate–but the smaller authors, that you might mistakenly think is “rich” because you recognize their name, might not actually be all that rich and might actually encounter problems if there’s more pirating going on than library checkouts.

    Libraries, as a demographic, can add up to be a nice chunk collectively (think how many libraries there are), so an author who is popular in libraries can see continued support from publishers. But if people choose pirating over libraries…well, that support goes away and it’s easier for the publisher to say “bye” to the author.

    Maybe sometimes it’s warranted, some authors just aren’t good. There’s an element of sink or swim going on with making/selling a book by the nature of it.

    But I know as a reader there’s several authors I like, and who later won awards…who kinda had crappy early books. Publishers nurturing them through their early wobbly careers is what allowed them to grow into the greats they became. (These days, Publishers are much more cutthroat in getting rid of midlist authors, as I understand it, compared to the 70s/80s/90s.)

    And although I mostly talked about traditional publishers above, indie authors can have it rough too (or even rougher) because they directly foot the cost of things like editors and cover artists and the like without being able to spread the risk of marketing and selling their book across a bigger pool of authors like a publisher can.

    Chobbes , (edited )

    Great reply :). I definitely agree, and do understand that libraries contribute to sales and can make or break books from certain authors. And I also agree that it feels different when buying something from a massive greedy corporation vs something from a smaller production where the creator probably isn’t making millions of dollars, and might be kind of struggling. I’m definitely not saying I condone these authors and creators starving or these works not being able to be created in the first place because piracy might make them unprofitable. I absolutely think that’s a bad thing! But at the same time I do think it’s a shame we can’t freely distribute these works with all of the amazing tools we have, and it’s a shame we’re losing the right to loan and resell things with digital media. It makes me wish we had some giant government digital library that paid for things with taxes (I mean… arguably this is just a library, but the restrictions and DRM on digital lending are depressing) or universal income or something so this was more feasible. Obviously neither of these would be perfect solutions, but I can’t help but feel like there’s a better way.

    Just wanted to clarify, I’m not necessarily saying that we should pirate things and have authors starve or whatever. I guess I just don’t think it’s as simple as saying “piracy is immoral / moral”, I think it depends on the context and on what the overall economic system is, and I like to believe that we could live in a world without artificially imposed digital scarcity and where sharing is a virtue and not a sin.

    piyuv ,

    I’ll stop pirating when creators get paid their fair share. Before that, support them directly or sail the great blue

    stagen ,
    @stagen@feddit.dk avatar

    I pretty much only pirate content that’s not readily available in my countrys streaming services.

    MoreAmphibians ,

    Sometimes he buys books he likes a lot out of loyalty to the author

    Your friend is pretty damn cool. I personally pirate whatever I feel like and then buy the stuff I like and want to support. I used to avoid pirating indie games then I realized I bought more indie games when I pirated them first to see if I enjoyed them.

    blackn1ght ,

    Honestly fair play to anyone that does this. I think people who create good quality content should be enumerated for their work.

    I think if there was a system where people were honest and paid the price of a product they enjoyed after consuming it, then we’d see a totally different landscape - businesses wouldn’t look into sales metrics and say “this was a great success!” when in fact it was just really well hyped which generated a lot of sales, but was in fact totally shit. They could instead see “it was downloaded x times, but only y% actually thought it was worth paying for”.

    joel ,

    Also, have you ever noticed that you have felt that the value of a product has decreased just because you didn’t pay for it, thus you are less interested to read it?

    I think what you might be referring to is the Paradox of Choice – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • [email protected]
  • random
  • lifeLocal
  • goranko
  • All magazines
    •