I put this entirely at the fault of the movie industry. I'm happy to pay a subscription fee for a reliable service that lets me stream movies/shows. The issue is, none exist. For example, Netflix used to have an amazing selection before (I imagine) various licensing issues effectively crippled them.
With torrents, I'm able to find a vast selection of movies and shows that really aren't available anywhere else. Obscure cult classics, pre-Code movies, and so on. This really seems to be a power play by Hollywood executives that is more based in making profit for them than supporting creative artists.
Edit: it's interesting to see this get downvoted. I'm curious what peoples reasonings for downvoting it is.
This sentiment is amplified if you live outside of the United States. It is amazing how often you will try to watch a video online and see, "This content is not available outside the United States". It is amazing how difficult distributors and copyright holders make it to actually pay for and consume their content.
So people turn to alternative methods. Not because they can't afford it, but because it's often the only way that they can even access it.
Here's an example from a few years ago I still use. When the Harry Potter movie #6 came out, I wanted to watch movies 1-5 a few days prior. I already owned 1-4 on DVD, but needed #5. I could not find it. iTunes, Netflix, and other streaming services didn't have it. Stores were sold out. I did spend more time than I thought it deserved trying to find a way to pay for this content. Then I gave up and torrented it. The kicker? iTunes removed the movie about a week before this.
My other random perspective on torrenting/piracy is this: the industry will often use the price of the digital good * number of downloads as the figure for the loss of profits. However, this gives them way too much credit. They don't have the magic oracle or the distribution system to price each sale individually so as to extract the maximum amount of money from every buyer (Alice thinks the movie is worth $6.82 while Bob thinks it's worth $9.13). I argue that if there is a million downloads of a movie off a torrent site, that does not mean a million lost sales. I imagine it's closer to 0 than 1m. Basically, if most of the people downloading the movie couldn't get it for free, they simply wouldn't pick that particular movie.
1) Nobody cares about you, the customer. You are a number. You are one in millions. Nobody cares whether you can get the entertainment you want. The entertainment you want is going to be held hostage, and people as a whole will demonstrably pay the ransom. If you're in charge, there's no problem in sight.
2) Your job and bonuses are tied to keeping numbers high. The industry isn't in a catastrophic tailspin (yet), so the safe thing to do if you want to keep your job is to keep doing what worked before, which is hold tight to content and punish those who "steal" it. Business as usual, and it seems to be working.
3) The law around this is extremely complicated. You need a team of lawyers to navigate the minefield of licensing, and nobody wants to do anything too risky (see point #2). The wrong licensing deal can quickly ruin your multibillion dollar enterprise. Even if you wanted to create an awesome product like the one you propose, it would be a herculean effort to get everyone together for it. Not worth the risk, not worth the effort.
The solution seems simple until you look behind the curtains.
"We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable."
I was just saying this to a friend yesterday. I would pay twice the price of Netflix to have all DVD-available movies streamable. Hell, I used to pay around 60 Euros a month to rent around one DVD a day, having all these movies available at a click is even more valuable to me.
However, the MPAA doesn't want my money. I'm not going to go buy a DVD player and go down to the store to rent a DVD with unskippable piracy warnings and only be able to watch it on the TV every time I half-fancy a movie. It's not even the price, it's just that the hassle isn't worth it. Therefore, the MPAA can suck it.
I feel completely morally justified in downloading a movie when the creator/distributor won't make it available to me, in the same way I think it's fine if someone from a country that doesn't support a payment system I use pirates my software.
> I'm happy to pay a subscription fee for a reliable service that lets me stream movies/shows. The issue is, none exist. For example, Netflix used to have an amazing selection before (I imagine) various licensing issues effectively crippled them.
There's effectively two models:
* The Netflix model, where a large group of people effectively pool a small amount of money each month and buy a big batch of content. You end up paying for some things you don't care about, but you also probably get some stuff you do want for cheaper than you could get it by yourself.
* The iTunes model, where each person decides what content they want and pays for it directly. There are no bulk-discounts, so individual content pieces are more expensive.
Your argument seems to be that you want the unlimited content selection of the iTunes model, but you want to pay for it like the Netflix model.
Which is fine in the "I want a pony" sense, but seems to ignore economic reality.
I'd also pay to be able to watch these offline and using FOSS software only. I really enjoyed netflix when I had it but I had to do some wonky work around to get it to work on Linux. Then eventually I got another Linux machine and didn't want to do the work around thus I stopped using it and eventually cancelled my subscription (thanks microsoft for helping me be more productive!).
I'm happy to pay a subscription fee for a reliable service
This, a million times.
I have Amazon Prime, a NetFlix subscription and an AppleTV.
I'd have happily paid $5-$10 to watch 'Interstellar'. But none of these services offers it in my country. On BitTorrent it was just one click away, so I watched the BitTorrent version.
It goes like this for almost all new movies. I really don't understand why they don't want my money.
Most probably, this reasoning would have morally justifiable if the commodity is essential, say, medicinal or may be to lesser extent educational.
May be me, you and some others have the benefit of doubt that we will be good Samaritans, we won't resort to piracy unless the payable content is not available.
That really doesn't absolve tons of other people who abuse free content through piracy while having alternatives.
This. I pay for Netflix and Amazon Prime. In the UK, I can't watch Amazon Prime on my Roku because (apparently) Sky has a share large enough to stop Roku adding Amazon in favour of Sky's own movie service. I'm happy to pay, just make it easy and stick it all on one platform! This kind of thing really makes you appreciate how great Spotify is.
Making profit does support creative artists as some of that money goes to them. As a business they want to maximize profits. Why shouldn't they go after sites that cause them to lose profit?
As someone who 1) works in the web/software industry and 2) actually paid for Photoshop, how do you (the collective you) see this playing out? Will we have this cat and mouse game ad infinium?
I see thing the opposite way from qeorge; I think that people are literally growing into piracy - for the younger generations, it's natural to have content available for downloading, so when they become old and get bigger say in the government (not just via democracy, but also via leadership positions), the copyright monopoly will loose its position and will be forced to withdraw.
For example, I'm 26 years old (so one of the younger generations), and I think it's absolutely immoral that copyright terms prevent me from using art that was produced more than 50 years ago. I strongly oppose any copyright term longer than 28 years; and I'm only open to one longer than 14 years if a strong economic (statistical) case for it can be made.
I think for some segment of the population it will continue forever. But I think most people grow out of piracy eventually.
In my experience, adults generally don't steal things, even if no one is going to catch them and even if they really want it. And consequently most people grow out of piracy. Not everyone of course, but enough for me to believe there's still a future in selling IP.
This game is hardly cat and mouse. Pirate Bay went down and all the traffic went to Kickass, now Pirate Bay is back up and chugging before "they" can get Kickass down.
I bet Kickass is back up before the next one goes down, seems a bit more like Road Runner and Wile E Coyote.
I pay for photoshop now, but back when I was starting I couldn't afford it.
I wouldn't be able to have a job now, if I hadn't had used photoshop in its trial edition. Not even their education pricing was affordable for a student.
As long as there are large populations unable to afford there will be piracy.
Also pirated products are genuinely better - games can be modded, no activation. Tv shows are simultaneously released and so on ...
Of course we have some attempts at cloudwashing software, but I doubt they will be successful. The benefits of cloud are tiny compared to the freedom of having code run on hardware you control.
It will play out like that until the internet is effectively balkanized and under full control and censorship. Otherwise the back and forth aspect is both politically beneficial for copyright holders and economically beneficial for those doing the shutdowns.
You lucky pal. You were actually able to legaly get the tools you need. I on the other hand have no legal way to pay for some of the TV shows I'm watching. Even if I wanted. And I want. I have a netflix subscription. But even netflix doens't have all the shows / movies.
So how will this play out? The companies will figure out, sooner or later, that if they provide a reasonable service then people will pay for it. Until then, TPB / bittorrent will remain the only source for a rather large group of people.
Historically, it seemed easier to set up a torrent website than seizing one. But if the authorities allow for faster take-downs I don't think mice will be able to reproduce.
When getting new software is as easy as finding a friend to hit "copy" > "paste", it will always be like this. Further, even when they make it difficult with keys and what not, there is almost always a way to break it. If that fails, there is always an alternative.
If we look at morals...
I always enjoyed the story in the bible where Jesus broke several loaves bread and a few fish and shared it with a massive crowd. No one cared about the poor fishermen or farmers. Why then is it morally objectionable to share software in the same manner?
In other words, unless people fine it morally reprehensible we will always have something like this going on.
The U.S. Government has to walk a tightrope of taking down enough sites via DNS seizures to appease their RIAA and MPAA masters while not taking down so many sites that people wise up and switch to an alternate DNS scheme like OpenNIC.
I used kickass torrents to download Microsoft Windows 8 ISO (after legally buying it from Microsoft, MS did not have the ISO anywhere for me to download, and I needed it for a VM)
Then yesterday I used kickass torrents to download Mac OS Mavericks, because Yosemite is a piece of shit but Apple doesn't make Mavericks available any more, and torrenting was the only way to downgrade my OS.
Just in case it comes up again, or the info helps anybody else: you can download old Mac OS X releases if you previously purchased from the App Store. They'll appear in the Purchased tab of the App Store, and you can download the installer from there. You can then dig into the installer and get at the .dmg.
It's excessively dumb that Apple makes it this hard, but it can be done.
Why don't we just pass around the IP address for cases like these? All it would take is a pastebin link with simple instructions to copy and paste the IP in. While yeah, most people will be scared by a big string of numbers at first, it shouldn't be too hard to explain that domain names are just shortcuts. Alternatively, the pastebin could include instructions for adding a rule in your hosts file for whatever domain you want to resolve to kickass.
Maybe, eventually, someday, the copyright police will get it through their heads that these actions are ultimately fruitless, if not entirely self-defeating.
What a terribly worded and inaccurate title. The size was not seized, only the domain "kickass.so". The site has multiple (tens) of domains (that are still accessible) such as kat.ph.
[+] [-] aestetix|11 years ago|reply
With torrents, I'm able to find a vast selection of movies and shows that really aren't available anywhere else. Obscure cult classics, pre-Code movies, and so on. This really seems to be a power play by Hollywood executives that is more based in making profit for them than supporting creative artists.
Edit: it's interesting to see this get downvoted. I'm curious what peoples reasonings for downvoting it is.
[+] [-] brandon272|11 years ago|reply
So people turn to alternative methods. Not because they can't afford it, but because it's often the only way that they can even access it.
[+] [-] IgorPartola|11 years ago|reply
My other random perspective on torrenting/piracy is this: the industry will often use the price of the digital good * number of downloads as the figure for the loss of profits. However, this gives them way too much credit. They don't have the magic oracle or the distribution system to price each sale individually so as to extract the maximum amount of money from every buyer (Alice thinks the movie is worth $6.82 while Bob thinks it's worth $9.13). I argue that if there is a million downloads of a movie off a torrent site, that does not mean a million lost sales. I imagine it's closer to 0 than 1m. Basically, if most of the people downloading the movie couldn't get it for free, they simply wouldn't pick that particular movie.
[+] [-] tunula|11 years ago|reply
1) Nobody cares about you, the customer. You are a number. You are one in millions. Nobody cares whether you can get the entertainment you want. The entertainment you want is going to be held hostage, and people as a whole will demonstrably pay the ransom. If you're in charge, there's no problem in sight.
2) Your job and bonuses are tied to keeping numbers high. The industry isn't in a catastrophic tailspin (yet), so the safe thing to do if you want to keep your job is to keep doing what worked before, which is hold tight to content and punish those who "steal" it. Business as usual, and it seems to be working.
3) The law around this is extremely complicated. You need a team of lawyers to navigate the minefield of licensing, and nobody wants to do anything too risky (see point #2). The wrong licensing deal can quickly ruin your multibillion dollar enterprise. Even if you wanted to create an awesome product like the one you propose, it would be a herculean effort to get everyone together for it. Not worth the risk, not worth the effort.
The solution seems simple until you look behind the curtains.
[+] [-] Vaskivo|11 years ago|reply
Gabe Newell
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114391-Valves-Gabe...
[+] [-] StavrosK|11 years ago|reply
However, the MPAA doesn't want my money. I'm not going to go buy a DVD player and go down to the store to rent a DVD with unskippable piracy warnings and only be able to watch it on the TV every time I half-fancy a movie. It's not even the price, it's just that the hassle isn't worth it. Therefore, the MPAA can suck it.
I feel completely morally justified in downloading a movie when the creator/distributor won't make it available to me, in the same way I think it's fine if someone from a country that doesn't support a payment system I use pirates my software.
[+] [-] hsod|11 years ago|reply
There's effectively two models:
* The Netflix model, where a large group of people effectively pool a small amount of money each month and buy a big batch of content. You end up paying for some things you don't care about, but you also probably get some stuff you do want for cheaper than you could get it by yourself.
* The iTunes model, where each person decides what content they want and pays for it directly. There are no bulk-discounts, so individual content pieces are more expensive.
Your argument seems to be that you want the unlimited content selection of the iTunes model, but you want to pay for it like the Netflix model.
Which is fine in the "I want a pony" sense, but seems to ignore economic reality.
[+] [-] longlivegnu|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moe|11 years ago|reply
This, a million times.
I have Amazon Prime, a NetFlix subscription and an AppleTV.
I'd have happily paid $5-$10 to watch 'Interstellar'. But none of these services offers it in my country. On BitTorrent it was just one click away, so I watched the BitTorrent version.
It goes like this for almost all new movies. I really don't understand why they don't want my money.
[+] [-] __Joker|11 years ago|reply
May be me, you and some others have the benefit of doubt that we will be good Samaritans, we won't resort to piracy unless the payable content is not available.
That really doesn't absolve tons of other people who abuse free content through piracy while having alternatives.
[+] [-] iamben|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] watty|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] malux85|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ikeboy|11 years ago|reply
They usually redirect all their old domain names to the current one, so they would need to change that, it didn't happen by itself.
[+] [-] lbotos|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomp|11 years ago|reply
For example, I'm 26 years old (so one of the younger generations), and I think it's absolutely immoral that copyright terms prevent me from using art that was produced more than 50 years ago. I strongly oppose any copyright term longer than 28 years; and I'm only open to one longer than 14 years if a strong economic (statistical) case for it can be made.
[+] [-] qeorge|11 years ago|reply
In my experience, adults generally don't steal things, even if no one is going to catch them and even if they really want it. And consequently most people grow out of piracy. Not everyone of course, but enough for me to believe there's still a future in selling IP.
[+] [-] Phlarp|11 years ago|reply
I bet Kickass is back up before the next one goes down, seems a bit more like Road Runner and Wile E Coyote.
[+] [-] skrowl|11 years ago|reply
HINT: drugs won.
[+] [-] dshacker|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] venomsnake|11 years ago|reply
Also pirated products are genuinely better - games can be modded, no activation. Tv shows are simultaneously released and so on ...
Of course we have some attempts at cloudwashing software, but I doubt they will be successful. The benefits of cloud are tiny compared to the freedom of having code run on hardware you control.
[+] [-] anonymousab|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wereHamster|11 years ago|reply
So how will this play out? The companies will figure out, sooner or later, that if they provide a reasonable service then people will pay for it. Until then, TPB / bittorrent will remain the only source for a rather large group of people.
[+] [-] rhino369|11 years ago|reply
Well that is sort of true. But that makes it harder to keep up with if you aren't tech savy / into the pirate scene.
The media companies just don't another Napster situation where everyone and their mom knew how to get all the songs they wanted.
[+] [-] agumonkey|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] walru|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lettergram|11 years ago|reply
If we look at morals...
I always enjoyed the story in the bible where Jesus broke several loaves bread and a few fish and shared it with a massive crowd. No one cared about the poor fishermen or farmers. Why then is it morally objectionable to share software in the same manner?
In other words, unless people fine it morally reprehensible we will always have something like this going on.
[+] [-] 300bps|11 years ago|reply
http://www.opennicproject.org/
EDIT Anyone that thinks the U.S. Government didn't pressure the various governments involved to do the actual takedowns is naive.
[+] [-] icebraining|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] corin_|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ccvannorman|11 years ago|reply
Then yesterday I used kickass torrents to download Mac OS Mavericks, because Yosemite is a piece of shit but Apple doesn't make Mavericks available any more, and torrenting was the only way to downgrade my OS.
[+] [-] ufo|11 years ago|reply
https://www.modern.ie/en-us/virtualization-tools
The VMs you get from there "self destruct" after a month or so but thats good enough for most testing purposes.
[+] [-] mikeash|11 years ago|reply
It's excessively dumb that Apple makes it this hard, but it can be done.
[+] [-] cooper12|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mike-cardwell|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Karunamon|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dshacker|11 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Flott|11 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] ryanlol|11 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] StavrosK|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sctb|11 years ago|reply