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.

The pirates are back - Anew study from the European Union’s Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) suggest that online piracy has increased for the first time in years. In fact, piracy rates have bee...

The pirates are back - Anew study from the European Union’s Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) suggest that online piracy has increased for the first time in years. In fact, piracy rates have bee…::We analyze a new study where the EUIPO suggests online piracy is on the increase within the European Union.

keryxa ,

deleted_by_moderator

    •
    Olgratin_Magmatoe ,

    Why?

    Smacks ,
    @Smacks@lemmy.world avatar
    • Need a subscription to +5 services to see all the content & shows.
    • Ads being forced into paid services.
    • Unfinished AAA games now cost +$70 USD.
    • All games now have battlepasses and FOMO.

    All I need is one VPN subscription.

    Aux ,

    The games are cheaper than ever though.

    Marcbmann ,

    What?

    Aux ,

    They cost the same as they did 10-15-20 years ago. If you adjust to inflation, they got cheaper. Much cheaper.

    localhost443 ,

    The ‘games prices have increased below inflation’ is flawed comparison. The size of the market and number of sales has far out scaled inflation so a game sold at the same price now as 10 years ago would be expected to make a lot more money even after adjusting for inflation. Plus the large reduction in physical media cost and the risks associated.

    If we were talking about a physical product, maybe, though not always as production efficiency improvements can sometimes offset inflationary costs. However games don’t have a production related unit sales limit anymore.

    There could be arguments mares along increasing production cost lines, but they still don’t scale with the past growth rate of the industry. And when you look at recent games like starfields budget and compare with better titles, the main take away seems to be some studios are just pissing money up the wall through incompetence and dumping that bill on the customer.

    Aux ,

    The number of sales don’t matter for the buyer. The games got cheaper. MUCH cheaper.

    There could be arguments mares along increasing production cost lines, but they still don’t scale with the past growth rate of the industry.

    Yeah, the costs has risen way faster.

    poopkins ,

    There is also much more competition. While it’s hard to get a singular number that encompasses all platforms, if we assume that Steam has had a relatively constant proportion of the user base over the past 10 years, according to Statista, the number of titles released has nearly grown exponentially.

    Furthermore, the average price of a game in 2023 is just $15. I don’t ever recall paying $8.50 on average in the year 2000 for video games; back then even the cheapest games went for $25, which would be equivalent to $45 today.

    Aux ,

    Exactly! The games have never been cheaper, even if you disregard inflation, which is just plain wrong.

    Cringe2793 ,

    I don’t pirate many games nowadays

    hubobes , (edited )

    Second, piracy is illegal

    Not for me :)

    kleenbhole ,

    what county?

    hubobes ,

    Switzerland

    newIdentity ,

    It’s not illegal if you don’t get caught

    thorbot ,

    Back? Baby I never left

    GiovaMC ,

    Arrrr!!!

    flango ,

    GoldDRoger

    Obi ,
    @Obi@sopuli.xyz avatar

    Who knew that that whole time, “that” place was the internet.

    aredditimmigrant ,

    Hmmmmm. Let’s see here.

    People don’t like cable, because it’s too expensive and inconvenient

    People start pirating

    People like having 2-3 streaming services that show everything, without ads, for much cheaper even combined than cable. They stop pirating.

    People don’t like having 20-30 streaming services that show only a little in each service, NOW WITH ADS!?!?! and that become MUCH more expensive than cable ever was.

    People start pirating again…

    I wonder what happened?!?!

    KneeTitts ,
    @KneeTitts@lemmy.world avatar

    “The more you tighten your grip big tech, the more users will slip through your fingers”

    aredditimmigrant ,

    Not after we demonstrate the power of raising prices princess!

    Bluescluestoothpaste ,

    Yeah, it’s reall not even about the prices. It’s just so inconvenient to go between all those apps, and then login forgot your password, rest, 2FA so i have to get up from my couch and grab my phone.

    All these paid services could be totally free from a monetary perspective and I still wouldn’t sign back up for them. It’s a worse service than cable TV used to be at this point.

    aredditimmigrant ,

    The thing that is killing me is Netflixs attempt to crack down on password sharing.

    I share an account with a few family members. If I want to watch a program on Netflix, which my brother pays for, I have to call him up to get the unlock code. He has a newborn and sleeps weird hours.

    I end up just pirating it myself.

    captain_aggravated ,
    @captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works avatar

    I believe it was Gabe Newell who said the best way to avoid piracy is by making legitimate purchasing easier and/or better.

    In the early history of streaming services, you could get access to a lot of content in a straightforward way for not much money. People started doing that instead of pirating. The corporations got greedy, they made the services worse and increased the price to the point that piracy is preferable again.

    And I don’t have the least amount of sympathy. Yarr matey.

    ladyanita22 ,

    And Steam is a show of success

    Thoas ,

    With the advent of self hosted streaming services and the arr services the option is even easier now. If 1 in 20 ppl are motivated/tech savvy that’s 20 streaming products not being paid for.

    Littleborat ,

    What would be the technology behind my own streaming platform?

    So far I do it very old school with data on my Nas and a software that catalogs and plays over Lan only.

    Sygheil Bot ,
    @Sygheil@lemmy.world avatar

    I thought, im the only one left using this method. Not anymore

    DarthVader ,

    Look into the arr suite of apps, radarr + sonarr + prowlarr to manage your library and jellyfin/PleX to play it. Get overseer for request management. You can set it up for remote access from anywhere, have people make requests on overseer and have the data available a few mins later. It’s amazing when it’s set up.

    Thoas ,

    Plex is the most worked on solution out there, runs on Windows, Linux and Linux headless. For the automation of stuff then looking at suff like radarr and sonar alovk with tracktarr and jackett foe the trackers, along with a torrent client. There is also jellyfin as a media client, it’s more open, but getting users onto it could be more problematic as it isn’t as straight fwd from what I hear, haven’t used it myself though.

    thorbot ,

    It’s funny because I pirate everything… except PC games. Because it’s so cheap and convenient on steam to just buy them, I like the tracked achievements thing and comparing to friends, and I can play the games on any PC or my steam deck with a quick login and install. I can easily download and install PC games from my private trackers but steam is just so easy and cheap. If movies and TV were as convenient and affordable as steam I wouldn’t pirate any of it. But as it stands, I’d have to pay over $200 a month just to have access to all the streaming services that have shows that I like. Fuck that noise. Someone needs to make a version of Steam for media. Kind of like Vudu but less crappy. Just let me pay a few bucks to own a series or a movie, have lots of good sales and deals, let me access the content on all platforms easily, and I would definitely start building a library over time like I’ve done with steam.

    edit: I still do pirate games on PC sometimes just to try them, but usually end up buying on steam because it works better and it can be played on multiple devices easily.

    poopkins ,

    Almost all games these days have a requirement to be online to play them, even in single player, and are absolutely ridden with DRM, sometimes even to the extent that it installs rootkits like in the case of Uplay and Valorant. By not voting with your wallet and pirating it yourself, you’re doing yourself and the community at large a disservice. ^♪

    thorbot ,

    edit because they deleted:

    “Poopkins” wrote

    Almost all games these days have a requirement to be online to play them, even in single player, and are absolutely ridden with DRM, sometimes even to the extent that it installs rootkits like in the case of Uplay and Valorant. By not voting with your wallet and pirating it yourself, you’re doing yourself and the community at large a disservice. ^

    And I replied

    Okay then. I guess you didn’t even fucking read what I wrote.

    poopkins ,

    Nothing of what you wrote related to my comment, which wasn’t deleted—after all, you replied to it. I guess you didn’t read what I wrote.

    warmaster ,

    And now that I switched to Linux, Steam releases Proton, like If I needed another reason to only get my games from them.

    Asudox ,
    @Asudox@lemmy.world avatar

    @autoTLDR

    autotldr Bot ,

    I’m sorry, I don’t know how to handle links for that site. You may contact my maintainer, @rikudou or visit the official community at !autotldr, if you wish to add it to supported sites!

    canihasaccount ,

    Glad to hear this classic may make a comeback

    www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVXCr6upWUo

    jeena ,
    @jeena@jemmy.jeena.net avatar

    I like this version better www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALZZx1xmAzg

    gohixo9650 ,

    If not, we can expect to see legal channels raising their prices again to cover the losses caused by piracy.

    what a shitty take. Well, anyone who has better memory than only one month back can realize that the reason the people turned to piracy was that they raised their prices. There is no loss caused by piracy. They only missed potential gains. And the reason they raised their prices were not because they were loosing money. Was because they needed to “grow infinitely”. If the free market evangelists are right, the free market will self regulate and the prices will go down in order to attract back the lost customers lol

    poopkins ,

    I’m not disagreeing with you—the conclusion these services have taken are indeed not logical ones based on historical trends—but I’m curious how you know these services didn’t need to raise the fees? Why have you assumed that it’s to “grow infinitely”?

    From my understanding, almost all streaming video providers except Netflix have been operating on a loss. That can only be sustained for so long before the parent company will need to see it begin to generate a positive revenue stream. The most straightforward way to do that is to increase subscription fees. Furthermore, the number of subscribers of Paramount+, MGM+ or even Disney+ is certainly not trending towards “infinite growth.”

    I’m not justifying anything, because with five monthly services that have been hiking prices I’m looking at what to slash myself, but I was eager to encourage a bit more discourse on this topic.

    gohixo9650 ,

    That can only be sustained for so long before the parent company will need to see it begin to generate a positive revenue stream. The most straightforward way to do that is to increase subscription fees. Furthermore, the number of subscribers of Paramount+, MGM+ or even Disney+ is certainly not trending towards “infinite growth.”

    then their model is flawed. They sell something at loss in order to attract customers because they know that if they sell it at higher profit margins customers will not come. Customers are willing to buy it as long as it is in a price that they are willing to compromise at. So, when they raise their prices, customers realize that now it is above the price they are willing to pay and step out. Their model is based on hoping that the customers will forget or be bored to cancel a subscription that they cannot afford anymore. However it is a subscription that they wouldn’t had been willing to buy in this price in the first place.

    So, their initial market share and adoption rate was what it was because of the price of the subscription and the rate of price/value-of-product. Customers are not willing to pay double price and they wouldn’t had paid it in the first place. They are not loosing customers. They are not loosing potential profit. They are basing their numbers in a faked artificial audience that opted in only because it was a good deal in the initial price.

    And while the free market evangelists would argue that the market would self regulate, you know what will they in reality do? Ask the government for stricter enforcement of anti-piracy laws because huge loss . Loss based on nothing but their imagination of imaginative potential profit based on “if everyone was continuing buying our product with the same adoption rate we would had X billions. So since we don’t have X billions, this is a loss”. Great math skills and applying of logic.

    poopkins ,

    There are certainly consumers out there with this kind of mentality, but it’s a common sales strategy to lure new customers with a reduced subscription fee for the first months only. It evidently works, because businesses have been doing this long before SVOD services, or even the internet for that matter, existed.

    I expect that indeed, a significant number of customers cannot be bothered to cancel a subscription once they begin to use it, or, put another way, perceive the value of it to be justified against the increased price. I don’t think it’s fair to call this a fake audience, because these are real users of which a certain percentage will be retained.

    Another factor that probably weighs into this is the competitive race to the bottom among the many SVOD offerings that are available today. Users like you and me perceive a certain dollar amount as the maximum that we are willing to pay, but where does that figure come from? If you are a new player in this space, you are effectively capped to the current market price for subscription fees, whether or not that covers your costs.

    The free market effect will gradually resolve this as services that are all currently operating at a loss will correct their price models, which is what I believe is currently happening.

    gohixo9650 ,

    There are certainly consumers out there with this kind of mentality, but it’s a common sales strategy to lure new customers with a reduced subscription fee for the first months only. It evidently works, because businesses have been doing this long before SVOD services, or even the internet for that matter, existed.

    Your claim that this is a tactic happening since for ever doesn’t take into account the differences between subscription model and traditional businesses. In traditional businesses, yes, a business may decrease the prices in order to lure customers, but this was never their business model. This was limited time “get to know us”. I don’t think there was for example any supermarket operating at loss for 5 years before they decide to “ok, lets put the real prices on the shelves now”.

    I don’t think it’s fair to call this a fake audience, because these are real users of which a certain percentage will be retained.

    of course it is a fake audience. The fact that some users will be retained doesn’t make the 100% of the audience real. And also by fake audience it doesn’t necessarily mean that the whole 100% of the audience is fake. However, when they present their numbers, and they claim that “because of piracy we lost 5 million subscribers” this is based on the 5 million subscribers who potentially would never be subscribers if they had their “real” price upfront, instead of a price in which they operate at loss.

    However, when people are charged for piracy, they are charged based on imaginative loses who are based on a potential profit which would had been achieved if their 100% of customer base had been continuing paying a subscription which they would had never agreed paying if the price was not faked in order to attract them.

    The free market effect will gradually resolve this as services that are all currently operating at a loss will correct their price models, which is what I believe is currently happening.

    the free market will turn to the government to cover their losses and they will push for stricter anti piracy law enforcement. The free market evangelists just want a free to control market. I don’t think they will be “ok, customers are leaving after our latest increase in price, then let’s just decrease the price to get them back on board”

    Littleborat ,

    I am pretty sure they know how many accounts they will lose for every dollar they increase the price. It should be a net positive for them because otherwise they would not do it.

    Enforcing terms and conditions that they previously did not is just another price increase in the grey area that is not directly perceived that way.

    I agree that “Lost x amount to piracy” does not even make sense in that context. They know exactly what they are doing.

    poopkins ,

    With regards to discounts to lure new customers, I was thinking about conventional subscription based services like newspapers or cable providers. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to me that in a sector with heavy competition, such services might be offered at an initial loss if data suggests that retained memberships can recoup it.

    I misunderstood what you were referring to with a definition of “fake audience.” I wasn’t giving any merit to their claims about how it all ties to piracy, clearly that’s nonsense. I’m not completely following your train of thought with a “fake price,” though.

    It’s possible this might result in a harsher stance on piracy again, that’s true. Realistically, though, I think it’s more likely that three things will happen: we as consumers will gradually recalibrate our cost expectations for streaming services, production corporations will cut costs with more reality type content, and smaller companies will either be bought up or go out of business as users settle on a deliberate few services to subscribe to.

    gohixo9650 ,

    I’m not completely following your train of thought with a “fake price,” though.

    you said that they now needed to correct to the “real price” in terms that it is a price that will allow them not to operate at a loss. So the previous one was a “faked” (artificial) price, that they knew was below cost, however they chose to go with it in order to lure customers.

    I’m not implying that they tried to scam anyone with “fake prices” if this is what you understood.

    poopkins ,

    I see. Whether or not the price covers costs, businesses will often invest into attracting new customers, for instance through marketing campaigns or incentives to switch from a competitor. In such cases, the cost isn’t visibly calculated through to the consumer.

    However, since the cost is a main factor for purchase decisions, companies might similarly invest in growing their customer base by offering a pricing tier below cost. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the service as a whole is operating at a loss, because there might be higher cost tiers that offer premium content or family plans. Different plans might also have degrees of underutilization that reduces service costs. Finally, cohorts of service tiers might change based on external factors like economic recession or competitive offerings.

    All this is to say that pricing models are complicated, and breaking even with a SVOD service is extremely difficult in an industry with extremely high production costs, aging licensable content that viewers are losing interest in all while being overrun with complex, regional licensing agreements that affect both. Especially when this is further compounded with macroeconomic factors including inflation and interest rates that affect both corporations operating at a loss and consumers looking to tighten their belts or user decline due to subscription fatigue, an argument could be made that some middle ground needs to be found to simply remain in business.

    poopkins ,

    Why is this being downvoted? I thought Lemmy was a place for discourse? How does this not contribute to an open discussion?

    homicidalrobot ,

    Pretty common take that people feel like they’ve seen and argued in a lot of other places. In the future, ask YOURSELF why you got downvoted, not the thread. Works way better.

    poopkins ,

    I have genuinely asked myself this, and can’t help but find it strange that the only comments in this thread and other almost identical threads are effectively complaining about corporate greed, and never go into any kind of depth about underlying causes and contributing factors.

    Why instead is the same old empty rhetoric repeated and upvoted time and time again? This platform seems to be an echo chamber for ignorance.

    gohixo9650 ,

    and never go into any kind of depth about underlying causes and contributing factors.

    sure, if you don’t agree with what is being replied to you, then these are shallow comments. Your replies here were the deep analysis. Good job

    poopkins ,

    Whether or not the insights are deep or shallow, Lemmy would be an inclusive place where discourse is welcomed and civil interactions are commonplace.

    Instead, any comment that invites conversation to go more in depth is downvoted with ad hominem attacks, further adding toxicity to the cesspool that is the comment section behind effectively any post on this community.

    gohixo9650 ,

    downvotes is just a way to show that you disagree with something. It is not there to punish you. People choose some topics to engage actively by participating in the comments while in some other topics they prefer to express their opinion just by agree/disagree (upvote/downvote). Now you call a whole community toxic just because not everyone agrees with you…

    poopkins ,

    This really gets to the heart of the issue: downvoting a comment that one doesn’t agree with is precisely what creates a toxic community. Having opposing opinions is indeed exactly what makes conversation insightful. Imagine listening to a debate where one side has their microphone muted; that would be very dull and quite literally an echo chamber.

    I personally welcome opposing views and often find myself upvoting entire threads full of constructive conversation, regardless of which side I lean to, because the discourse invites the conversation. Having this additional dimension behind a submitted post is what I came to Lemmy for. Unfortunately, the sentiment on the platform further and further shifts towards a mentality that a comment that doesn’t immediately reinforce a comment I agree with must be downvoted.

    gohixo9650 ,

    you’re overthinking it. There is not even a “global” karma like reddit. Your up/down-votes are not counting towards your “internet points”. They are in a per-comment basis and they’re a quick way to interact with opinions. Would you prefer everyone commenting “agree”/“disagree” ?

    poopkins ,

    I’m not sure how some measure of internet karma weighs into the point I’m trying to make. The point rating of a comment determines its positioning in a thread, sometimes even altogether hiding it in some Lemmy clients when it falls below some threshold.

    By this measure, the visibility of comments is determined by their individual score, and to reuse my analogy from before, effectively determines the volume at which voices are heard. What I often see here on Lemmy, is that like-minded and reinforcing comments are amplified, drowning out insightful ones.

    No, I don’t think people should make comments like you’ve suggested, much in the same way that votes shouldn’t be used to achieve the same. Should I be downvoting your comment because I disagree with it? Or upvoting it because this is an interesting point of debate? I choose for the latter.

    gohixo9650 ,

    I get your point. For me (and I suppose for some other people) works a bit different. When I’m not actively participating in a conversation, up/down vote is a quick way to show agreement/disagreement. I cannot upvote something that I complete disagree. However, in cases that I’m actively engaging, I don’t use it as a punishment tool so I just abstain. Like here, I weren’t downvoting you because it was an active ongoing conversation and I expressed myself by comments. You were actively engaging in good faith (I suppose) so it was fine. But at the same time I could not upvote either the comments in which I was finding myself disagreeing (I think I upvoted 1-2 at the end). However people are “passing-by” and up/downvote to show their view. Don’t take it as your punishment. But also you cannot “demand” that since you wrote something that you believe contributes to a discussion everyone should also believe that your points were so well made that should be upvoted even though they disagree. By this logic we should upvote everything that is longer that 5 words.

    poopkins ,

    Certainly, generally I completely agree. Honestly I think it takes a solid dose of critical thinking to cultivate an environment where dissenting opinions are valued to encourage healthy discourse. I personally don’t care at all about the score of comments; what irks me is that communities here trend toward bubbling up poor quality interactions.

    Somewhat tangential, I find it strange that there would be anything in my specific comments here that can be disagreed with; I think it’s a very nuanced stance to suggest that price changes aren’t solely driven by corporate greed, but to some (at least small) degree, also affected by other factors.

    Perhaps Lemmy just isn’t the right platform for me, but it pains me because honestly I believe there’s an opportunity for it to be something better: a place where readers can learn more behind an article. I know that’s what I often seek in the comments.

    gohixo9650 ,

    I think it’s a very nuanced stance to suggest that price changes aren’t solely driven by corporate greed

    do you seriously believe that the CEO of netflix was struggling to survive, was living on a month-by-month paycheck, and was having any cut in their “wage” ?

    Some people tend to forget that behind a corporation that presents numbers that are falling behind, there are humans who make profits regardless.

    poopkins ,

    No, I don’t believe that, what would lead you to think that’s my position? In fact, I appreciate that there is market conformity in compensation, and lowering wages of everybody from chair people down to entry level engineers is not so simple. It is exceedingly difficult to on one hand try to reduce expenses through wage reduction, while on the other continue to develop a competitive platform with industry experts.

    I’m not saying there’s no middle ground, because there certainly is. Indeed tech companies have been slashing jobs and perks to reduce costs. A recent example of that is with Disney, which included layoffs in Disney+. I’m not quite sure who in particular you’re referring to in your last statement and surely I’ve misinterpreted what you mean with it, but to be clear, I personally don’t think it would be fair towards employees to slash their income and expect them to work without making ends meet so that the rest of us to enjoy a recreational service.

    That being said, I’m certainly not one to defend executive compensation. At the same time, we should appreciate that this is only a part of a much more complex issue than share price, dividends or executive pay. After all, even if the CEO received no compensation at all, it would make a negligible difference to the balance sheet and, by extension, our monthly service fee.

    I want to reiterate that I don’t disagree with you: corporate profits are certainly part of the problem. I just want to clarify that there are many more compounding external factors.

    gohixo9650 , (edited )

    I’m not quite sure who in particular you’re referring to in your last statement and surely I’ve misinterpreted what you mean with it, but to be clear, I personally don’t think it would be fair towards employees to slash their income and expect them to work without making ends meet so that the rest of us to enjoy a recreational service.

    what are you even talking about? I never said employees’ income should be slashed or expect them to work without making ends meet. I just said, that in such big corps, even though that in the papers they may saw declined numbers or even be below zero, there are still a few people (see executive board) who still make tremendous amounts of money. A CEO will always walk out with millions in their pockets because, well, that was their salary and the company’s debts are not their own debts, so, well, capitalism. Ok, the company failed, there is no money to pay off debts and employees, but the money they made from the company is now theirs and cannot be asked back to pay off company debt. Because that’s the legal system, the company was different entity. There is nobody liable for it in terms of personal liability.

    It is always the lower level employees who take the hit.

    poopkins ,

    I was afraid I had misinterpreted that part of your comment, so apologies. I was thrown off a bit by “humans who make profits,” and in particular who you are referring to.

    In my opinion, executive compensation is completely out of whack and perhaps the single most outright cause of wealth inequality. It would be unfair, however, not to acknowledge that when a public company is doing poorly, it does affect executive pay through the valuation of their stock, payout of their dividend or other equity based compensation. In principle, I think tying executive compensation with company performance isn’t a bad idea, but in reality overall comp is, well, just completely disproportionate.

    That being said, even if the compensation was a fraction is what it is today and that cost reduction immediately went towards a lower monthly service fee, it would be nearly negligible. Operational costs of services like these are astronomical, where the majority share remains in content assets; in the case of Netflix this constitutes production, licensing and delivery.

    homicidalrobot ,

    You misunderstand me. Your posts are the old empty rhetoric, your ideas are not new, and you come off like a parrot. After your long-winded explanation, I get the idea that you’re just young, which personally makes me want to interact with you less.

    poopkins ,

    I did not find any post here on Lemmy that discussed any of the reasons why subscription services are struggling (at least not the past 60 days that I browsed submissions and comments), which is why I chimed in to the conversation with context. If you did not find that insightful, that’s fine.

    At least we can agree that we don’t enjoy interacting with one another, no less because you are being a jerk.

    Tristan ,

    Nuanced post. Than you!

    Bluescluestoothpaste ,

    You’re missing the point, the article is wrong: it’s not about the prices.

    gohixo9650 ,

    enlighten me then

    Bluescluestoothpaste ,

    It’s about the service.

    Lightrider ,

    Defeat the fucking capitalists

    Mchugho ,

    Make sure nobody gets paid for anything so that nobody bothers making the content you enjoy??

    thatWeirdGuy ,

    I’d gladly support the content creators, be it with merch, Kickstarter, patreon or any other direct way. Giving the money to the corporate balls of greed is another story

    Mchugho ,

    If the content creators want to create content without the might of a studio behind them giving financial backing they are free to independently publish their work on Kickstarter. Most aren’t happy to do so.

    You want the studios to support your favourite content creators, but you don’t want to pay the studios. If everybody thought like this the whole system would collapse in a bad way.

    How about instead of seeking out free ways to steal other people’s work you actually seek out the independent creators you are supposedly happy to pay for?

    systemglitch ,

    That’s the problem with your view… it’s not theft, it’s a balance. We need piracy to suppress some of the greed.

    And you are also looking at things I extremes when reality is always somewhere I between.

    Aside from that, studies have shown piracy to be more of a positive than a negative and those who pirate also tend to spend more than those who don’t anyways.

    Mchugho ,

    I’m calling bullshit on pirates spending more on media than non pirates as a percentage of consumed content. I guess the correlation makes sense if we assume the worst offenders are those who are consuming the most media in general.

    Regardless it is theft. That’s not to make an ethical judgement but it is. You can make an equivalent stand by not purchasing the media, you don’t have to also illegally download something to make the same point or provide the balance as you put it.

    systemglitch ,

    Your enlightenment is a Google search away. Top result I expect.

    And it is not theft lol

    Mchugho ,

    Perhaps you should try reading what I actually said instead of what you thought I said.

    It literally is theft, theft is a well defined legal concept.

    HexesofVexes ,

    The cost of rent/mortgages is going up, the cost of power is now higher than ever, and the cost of essentials (such as food and medication) is nearly double.

    People are ditching streaming services because they can no longer afford them, and with price increases there it only makes things worse.

    Piracy is the natural fallback, especially in a market where ownership has degenerated into rental. At this point, streaming might follow cable as folks lose access and realise the folly of rental over ownership. Piracy offers a superior service with a superior experience, and the rhetoric of “tHinK oF THe cREatIVes” is wearing thin in the public eye.

    BearWolf ,

    The cost of rent/mortgages is going up, the cost of power is now higher than ever,

    Wow, I never thought I’d be seeing Russian Soviet KGB dezinformatsiya and provokatsiya on Lemmy. While it is true that the costs of these things have increased it’s simply because we’re all in this together the together of punishing Russia and Putler with sanctions so that we can assure endless and resolute Slava Ukrainye!

    The fact you’re complaining about all this leads me to believe you’re not at all a hecking good human being but instead a Nazi bigot chud Putler apologist. You probably don’t even think Sam Smith’s nonbinary identity is valid. SMH. Do better, sweaty.

    Cringe2793 ,

    What the?

    BearWolf ,

    Don’t feign ignorance, Pyotr. Your agitatsiya doesn’t work on me! Begone to your Russian Soviet KGB troll farm and tell Putler we’re not swayed by cheap provokatsiya.

    Cringe2793 ,

    Okay

    gilbert31 ,

    The convenience of streaming services disappeared, this is just a natural consequence.

    Rosco ,

    I’m planning to make a seedbox with AirVPN running 24/7 on a Pi. I’ve been a big leecher for a while now and I want to give back to the community. Fuck streaming services, if I can’t own the product after I bought then it’s not worth buying.

    jabjoe ,
    @jabjoe@feddit.uk avatar

    If you already have a Linux/BSD server, say Nextcloud, HomeAssistant, etc, you could just use a container instead of a Pi.

    Rosco ,

    I don’t own a server yet, that’s why I’m planning to get a Pi to get the seedbox running and do some other fun projects.

    jabjoe ,
    @jabjoe@feddit.uk avatar

    Much as I love Pis and ARM, unless you are doing something with GPIOs/hardware, you might be better off getting a second hand thin client PC, like a Dell Wyse.

    Rosco ,

    Yeah I was actually thinking of buying a ThinkCentre or an Optiplex, but I’ll have to see. It’s just a project that I have for the moment. It would be fun to tinker with the hardware of the Pi though, I’ve seen so many cool stuff you can do with it.

    jabjoe ,
    @jabjoe@feddit.uk avatar

    Yer Pis are good for lots of stuff, just not such great home servers. Bit under powered for the money and not good for disks. I’m still a bit grumpy they aren’t more of a normal ARM device with U-Boot. Yes I know you can add U-Boot, but it has it’s own (closed) fat boot loader, rather than something minimal as normal.

    Rosco ,

    Yeah clearly not the optimal choice here, but I think it’s enough for my use-case. The form factor is also something I can appreciate, as I move around quite a bit. When I’ll get a more permanent home, I’ll definitively take something more appropriate

    jabjoe ,
    @jabjoe@feddit.uk avatar

    I’d say the form factor, assuming a big USB disk attached, is less portable than a single box, but what ever works for you. But whatever works for you. Just trying to stop draw e-waste of Pis bought for the wrong job.

    Rosco ,

    That’s a perfectly valid concern, there’s a lot of PIs out there that are dust collectors or paper weights unfortunately. You know what, If I can find an second-hand Optiplex or ThinkCentre for cheap maybe i’ll use that instead!

    jabjoe ,
    @jabjoe@feddit.uk avatar

    For server use, I sadly think that is wise.

    Tatsumoto ,
    @Tatsumoto@reddthat.com avatar

    Dont use VPNs where you provide personal information as ISPs and law enforcement can and do request data from those VPN services. Use something like Mullvad (and pay with XMR if you are paranoid :)

    Rosco , (edited )

    I already use Mullvad, but I doesn’t allow portforwarding anymore, sadly. So my uploads speeds are pitiful. As much as I enjoy Mullvad’s simplicity when it comes to accounts, I’ll have to pass. The point of the seedbox is to make the files that I download widely available. I don’t download a whole lot, and it’s usually files with very few seeders. It’s often stuff that you can’t find on streaming sites.

    ManOMorphos ,

    Is paid ProtonVPN good for this? It’s got port forwarding and is apparently private, but I can’t tell how willing they would be to provide details to others in a bad scenario.

    banneryear1868 ,

    We paid for streaming networks but our rural internet was too shitty to stream, so I’d torrent everything instead. Now we have good internet but all the streaming services are too expensive to sign up for. Just like the old days, the only available solution to see what you want at a fair price is piracy.

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