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the fact that Gabe said “piracy is a service problem” fifteen fucking years ago, and none of these fuckwits in content distribution have learned this at all is a source of continuous astonishment to me.
I havent pirated a single game since i installed steam 20 years ago
There was a short period of time where netflix was good enough so i didnt pirate movies or tv shows either
It’s 100% a service problem
Same story here.
Loved Netflix at first. I used to pirate a lot of tb shows and movies and then completely stopped once Netflix became decent.
Then they turned to shit and I’m back to pirating.
But not only that, I’m actually PAYING to pirate content because its a service that just combines all content from Netflix, Disney, apple, etc into one singular app that you can stream from any android device with the app.
It can have pretty shit quality sometimes, but at least I can watch it.
I will pay for shit if it’s easy access.
Fuck Netflix, Amazon, apple, Disney, etc. greedy fucks.
What do you use?
Not OP but I use IPTV. Roughly $150 for 6 months. I have over 9000 live channels and access to roughly 52000 movies, including movies that hit theatres maybe a couple weeks later.
The funny thing is, i actually have legit access to some paid streaming services. But because i refuse to download their app or connect my tv to the internet, i’m limited to 720p in the browser…
So i just pirate the shit anyway
The last game I pirated was Driver: San Francisco a couple years ago, because you couldn’t (still can’t? maybe?) buy it anywhere except for like, second-hand physical media, and I am not going through that hassle. I can’t even remember the game I last pirated before that (Probably Sims 4, because fuck EA and fuck that laundry list of DLC – but I can’t be sure).
Music, movies, and TV shows, though? Oh yeah, baby, that’s a weekly activity now. Netflix I dumped many years ago when the fracturing of content to twenty different streaming services happened, and Spotify I dumped just this last year for a few different reasons (the CEO donating to AI weapons programs, introducing a fuckass AI DJ, ICE ads, getting fed up with songs I either can’t find or can find but aren’t available in my region, or could listen to and enjoyed and then having them suddenly become unavailable, etc…)
I’m sure, someday, Steam will enshittify. Probably shortly after Gabe dies – and it will be a dark day for me and millions of gamers worldwide. But for now, I’m more than happy to let Gabe empty my wallet with sales and convenience, because the gettin’s been good for a couple decades and will likely remain so for another couple. I can’t say the same for music, movies, and TV; I don’t know if I’ll ever end up paying for them again unless the distributors involved sort their shit out.
At least, Steam has some pretty good followers should they enshittify. Gog, humblebundle and epic are all poised to take over should steam shit the bed.
They aren’t quite there yet, but at least you don’t need a subscription for any of them and can just add them to a unifying launcher like heroic etc.
I get stuff on Gog sometimes. They do some things right (no need for a client, no DRM stance, good compatibility support, chasing down lost rights for old games).
But unfortunately they can never get more than scraps from the big publishers because those will never agree to release their newer games without DRM.
And let’s be clear, I wouldn’t want them to go back on this, but that will make it hard for them to compete.
Interestingly, at the beginning everything on Humble was offering DRM-free options too. And then after a while they gave us some bullshit about their policy not being “DRM-free” but “DRM-agnostic”, which means, publisher can choose whether to use no DRM, or DRMs. Such a strong policy, thank you Humble.
Humble Bundle already enshittified, and Epic was evil to begin with.
I think a bronze lining to WW3 or a 2nd American Civil War, is that DRM-free and telemetry-free media would become very popular. Troops need their entertainment without comms, and civvies might have constant internet shortages. Thus, the markets would have to adapt to that reality.
epic
Lol at including the pre-enshittified store
The only games I pirate are those that either :
_ are completely abandoned by their publishers and literally unavailable through other means
_ are stuff I already bought long ago and this is the most convenient way to get them to run (I have occasionally bought games again if it was cheap and convenient)
_ have turned to such shitty business models I don’t want to give a cent to the publishers (and I almost don’t even do that one anymore since usually they’ve found a dozen more ways to turn the game to shit anyway).
So yeah. Totally agree with the service problem.
There is a lot of SEGA product that I would buy, if it was DRM-free. Shin Megami Tensei, Sonic Origins, and more. I don’t let DRM and rootkits onto my PC, so I either pirate that stuff or just engage with someone else’s product. Either way, SEGA has lost hundreds of dollars.
There was also a brief period when spotify was good enough.
Same for me with Steam. I used to pirate everything gaming and only once I got Steam and a steady job, pirating stopped.
As for media, nop. Pirating never really stopped. When using Netflix is much more annoying than using myflixerz.to, you wont be coming back to pay for a service that is fundamentally crap.
In the grand scheme of things, they don’t really care about piracy.
Yes, they could greatly reduce piracy by making their service affordable, available, and convenient … but they would lose more profits from doing that than they currently do from piracy. They know enshittifying their service will result in increased piracy … but they also know that it will result in extracting increased money from the people who do pay. And, overall, their profits are still higher despite the higher piracy levels.
(Heck, in some ways piracy has been shown to be overall beneficial. To some degree, it’s free advertising, helping media spread through word of mouth. And maybe while they missed out on a media sale or subscription, they still end up making money from that pirate with a merchandise sale or something.)
For anyone who hasn’t seen the clip OP is referencing: https://youtu.be/EQweFurRz4g
Yeah, I agree it still is. Like I am not going to subscribe for $10+ a month for a single show on a single streaming service. I need at least 3 for about $6 for it to even seem reasonable at a minimum. Like if the more streaming services were more like Movies Anywhere, I would love that. Like this service works better for me, I will give them my money type shit.
The recording industry did.
Who pirates music anymore. Everyone has one of the streaming services for it, because they all have functionally all of the music. There’s no exclusive releases on one platform or another.
Well, maybe there is, I haven’t looked in a while. Maybe they’re enshitifying that too.
Somehow the TV/movie shit heads can’t figure the same thing out.
I assure you, the enshittification of music streaming services is already here. Even before Spotify went completely to shit there were some things that just couldn’t be found on the platform, and others still that I used to listen to suddenly becoming unavailable.
I, and a lot of other people, pirate music now because (among other reasons) having a hard drive full of MP3s or FLACs is something no corporation can arbitrarily decide to take away from you at any time.
Everyone has one of the streaming services
Yeah, I use Navidrome server. You can even host it on your phone in Termux (assumes Android). And I mean, in the easiest damn way possible.
apt install navidrome, and runnavidrome. Though I recommend checking out the config options.
At least the Address option, Android has no firewall.
I tried to buy digital copies of an album the other day and couldn’t because it was only on streaming services and DRM’d to all shit, so I just pirated it instead.
Ended up with some high quality flac too…
Have you tried Soulseek? I finally got it recently, it’s kinda amazing. Like old school limewire or whatever but with fewer (no?) viruses. :3
Yeah soulseek is amazing. You should check out nicotine+ if you’re using Linux. It’s a very nice frontend client using the same network.
I am using Linux, I’ll check it out!
No I’ve mostly just used jackett and qbt’s default searchers. I used to use tixati in the past and that was great, with share searching and text chat communities
Do yourself a huge favor and download Nicotine+ (which is a client for Soulseek, you can also use the official SoulseekQt I guess but it’s old and not as feature-rich). That and Spek to make sure you don’t get any fake bitrate files from people.
The only two real downsides to Soulseek, imo, are the fact that a lot of the chatrooms are basically unmoderated IRC (So many nazis to ignore. So many.), and the problem of fake bitrates. The huge upside is you can find pretty much any and everything on there if you wait for the right people to be online to share it. I’ve found quite a few rare albums and such that I couldn’t get from my usual gettin’ places.
The unmoderated chatrooms can be a bit crazy, but you are able to mute users which is nice. Also, it kinda reminds me of the olden days of the internet…I’m a millennial so it’s kinda nostalgic lol.
Tixati sounds just like Soulseek! I’ll look it up. Also yes, QBT’s search is amazing.
Some artists sell their music DRM free themselves, generally via their Merch Store.
Failing that, Qobuz has a store alongside their streaming subscription and I believe it’s DRM free.
Yo ho ho. If purchase is not ownership, then piracy is not theft.
“The content isn’t available in your region”
You have the content. I want to watch the content. But nooooo, I have to turn my VPN on and pretend I’m somewhere else, and you know I’m not really there because I can’t magically materialize half-way across the world in 1 minute.
So what’s the point? Just let me watch the damn content.I’m sure these region locks make a lot of sense for the suits when it comes to paying royalties and whatnot but as a consumer it’s infuriating. Archaic ass bullshit.
Its tied to royalties, which you mentioned, which are usually tied to archaic trade deals. The landscape may change after WW3 is done.
You’re optimistic
“The content isn’t available in your region”
“Please insert your testicles into the crushing receptacle and pay 14.99”
Zizek smiles
Yeah, the landscape sure will change. Literally.
and you know I’m not really there because I can’t magically materialize half-way across the world in 1 minute.
Don’t give them ideas
Wife and I live in Germany, but still have some streaming services from our home country in Eastern Europe.
We started a Scream movie marathon on the weekend to catch up on the series, before we watch the newest one in cinema.
We watched the first 2, and half of the 3rd on 28th February Saturday on one of the streaming platforms (SkyShowtime). The next morning (1st of March), the movies were not available anymore.
We finished 3 and watched 4 on Amazon Prime, but within that we had to start a separate subscription for horror movies.
5 was only available in German with no subtitles, so I had to search for another source. Ended up creating a Paramount+ account, downloaded the app, and watched the movie there.
Then back to Amazon Prime, where finished the 6th Scream movie, before heading to the local cinema.
This was the last straw, we decided to go back to sail the seas after a decade of streaming service subscription. Next weekend I will take some time to figure out the setup we need to make this happen safely, as a lot has changed since I left it behind.
If you want online streaming: fmhy
If you want torrenting, make sure to bind vpn to client
If you want media server, use jellyfin with arr stack
Happy sailing :)
What vpns allow peer to peer? I heard there was a push to prohibit that in many vpns
I use windscribe, I believe proton does if you pay, mullvad does I think, and I think most other VPNs do.
Yep. I pirated when I was young because doing things “proper” was more difficult. Then they started having reasonable fees for services that were easy to use without ads.
But now the prices are outrageous, the ads are back, and everything is so fragmented. Piracy is the better user experience again. I was about to set up a NAS and start sailing again, but now storage prices are jumping.
I may just start going outside.
What’s an “outside,” precious?
I think that’s where what they call “grass” is.
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Use Jellyfin. I have been running it since the middle of last year and it has been amazing and stable. Have fun.
I will take some rime
Hopefully without too many albatrosses
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rime_of_the_Ancient_Mariner
I think you meant: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T1P3HDSVogg
Yarrlist, cast from PC to tv if available. Or get a browser plugin and download it from the site if you don’t want to go full pirate.
Arrrrr, shipmate! Welcome back to the cove!
You’re in for a treat. The landscape and software to self host is so good now.
Completely relatable. The prices keep going up with more and more restrictions while being enshittified with ads, tiered service, and paying twice to watch something - the streaming service fee and then a rental fee on top of that, for a movie that might be a decade or more old.
Arr…fuck that.
This is exactly why people fled cable. It was completely predictable the streaming services would enshittify just like cable.
The root of a huge percentage of humanity problems can be described by 1 single word - greed.
remember when you got pay tv BECAUSE there were no ads? those were the days.
It wasn’t that long ago.
I turn full pirate at the first stage already. I despise ads so much.
I either pay a service for not having ads or I do not pay it and watch them for free on other platforms in exchange for the content.
Me too. Ads are like homeless man crotch in my face.
I feel like there’s a story here
Enshitification is the word
You’re not wrong.
Add to this, “this service will only stream in 480p on Linux”
Disney is the ugliest offender. They demand their movies in non-standard encryption/decryption scheme that a browser does not support. We paid users can’t even watch in 480p without a Windows/Mac OS client.
The new one is: This streaming service is owned by one the most evil people on the planet, and it comes included with my phone plan, but I’m just going to pirate everything anyway, just because Fuck Them.
That is all of them though
Nah, the Ellisons are a special kind of Evil.
Tbh I thought you were referring to Amazon but yeah the Ellisons are cartoonishly evil.
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Okay I gotta disagree partially on the third panel. I’d much rather have the option of purchasing individual movies or shows than having a subscription. Like, imagine we had Steam but instead of games, it was shows and movies? That’d be great. Imagine the sales! PatientWatchers amirite?
Unfortunately it’s rarely possible to actually purchase, and definitely not without any DRM. So the third panel should really say “This show is not available for purchase” or only mention renting or specify that it’s with loads of DRM or whatever.
Except after you rent/buy the video, you can only watch it as long as you pay for the subscription service you bought it from.
That’s not what buying means or at least not the “buying” I am talking about. I mean I give some amount of money and I receive a download of the purchased material, free of DRM. There is no subscription involved. Like Steam (with no DRM) or GoG, but for movies and shows instead of games.
Music went through this many years ago.
iTunes would have drm’d music files. Amazon too, I think.
Then at some point it all became sane and I could buy an MP3 and download it.
Steam provides licenses, you don’t own the software. If your account is banned, you lose it all. Death? You guessed it, lost access (officially).
That’s why I said without DRM. Some games on steam don’t have DRM, as far as I understand. Otherwise GoG.
If it is anything like Steam, then you keep this media available to redownload as long as you wan. Same as Steam games that got delisted are still downloadable and playable.
Most streaming services are nothing like Steam. “Your” stuff can disappear with no notice and no ability to watch it even if you have it “downloaded” due to layers of DRM.
“purchasing” media you mean.
Unless they let you download the file without DRM, you’re just renting the video with extra steps. We have seen many times that “purchased” videos from digital vendors gets revoked and the “purchase” is gone.
Agreed, isn’t that what I just said? 😅
Yeah, I didn’t get to that point in your comment before I replied…
I too, want to own my digital stuff. My physical shelves can be better used as soda racks and storing food.
Do what you want, cuz a pirate is free
You ARRRR a pirate!
In instances where there is no legal way to watch something piracy hurts nobody as the company would not have made money from me anyway. It doesn’t even hurt the artists, the refusal of the distributer to offer content worldwide is the real scandal that everyone in the creative industry should tackle.
I mean I’d say it helps the artists as they unironically get exposure from people they otherwise wouldn’t have.
One thing that I will enjoy with the slow demise of streaming is that the current generation will git gud at IT again. It’s kinda shocking, as an older millenial/xennial, how bad some of the Gen Z’s I work with are with basic IT tasks whereas X’s and M’s are fine with it as we’ve had to deal with Napster and Limewire
Hopefully some. The apathy is strong in this generation
The difference between 20 years ago and now is companies have been slowly setting up all the dominoes to make piracy nearly impossible in the near future. I don’t think people are aware of how screwed we really are.
Make it impossible how? I’ve been hearing similar claims for about three decades but have yet to see anything definitive happen.
With the proliferation of age checks, we’re only a couple steps away from “age checks aren’t sufficient to protect our children. We need ISP level whitelisting of sites that obey the law.”
And then if VPNs manage to get around that with any reliability? Well, be ready for the hardware you need to take advantage of it to double every couple of years while the component supply is strangled to death.
Also, moves now to give OPERATING SYSTEM level “age verification” to any site that asks, which will ABSOLUTELY not be done to identify individuals. No sir. Not at all.
The past 30 years have been DRM. The next 30 are gonna be “You can’t access the tools you need to even think about it anymore.”
We’ll be trading them drives then, yarrrr.
Piracy was a thing before the internet and it will be the thing after the internet.
Is that a thing an ISP can do? Sure DNS query’s to the ISPs DNS can be (and already are) filtered. But an IP level whitelist of every website in existence is a huge endeavor (with dynamic DNS), needing to check every IP in existence for compliance
of course technofascist bloatligarchs want, above all else, a) to control/surveil everyone that isn’t themselves; and b) to exploit them to the maximum extent possible for profit
the graph of progress they’ve made in those areas since the WWW was invented is all line go up. the internet we grew up with is dying. being killed actually, step by step. it was fun while it lasted
“protect the children” LOL what a fucking joke. more like “how can we make it so these future consumers just can’t live without instatwittokbookcord?”
Russia has been trying to make a whitelisted internet for over a decade. It’s still easy to get around their blocks with obfuscated VPNs etc, even my parents can do it. It’s really really difficult to implement this kind of blocks without breaking everything. It’s possible to access the outside net even from China if you know what you’re doing. Worst-case scenario, your local mesh network nerds will hook more and more people up to the network, eventually the town-local movie sharing groups will come back like in the good old days. And even if they shut all that down, movie swapping groups will pop up in big cities - piracy existed long before the internet, after all.
As for the hardware, well, yes, that’s a concern on some level. But then again you can still play DVD-quality movies on 20 year old potatoes with Linux, and DVD-quality is quite watchable if you aren’t too snobby about it. There’s a lot of old computing hardware around, even if no new computers are produced starting now we will be fine for a while just with second-hand parts and dumpster diving. Perhaps the biggest concern for video content specifically is storage, which has a more limited lifetime and is also getting very difficult to find new, but if you’re only aiming at DVD-quality, a few dozen TBs will give you something to watch for the rest of your life.
@balsoft @mycodesucks the biggest issue is that only mega nerds care about this. Your average google using, Netflix subscribing, smart TV using person has zero clue how to do anything else.
Again, if internet censorship in Russia has taught me anything is that people can learn this stuff pretty quickly. My 80+ grandma knows how to set up and use a VPN on her android phone.
What? It’s easier than ever!
Impossible how?! There are easy free streaming sites out there, granted do not enter without Adblock on full. Shit, there’s a site that aggregates the free streaming sites and keeps an active list. And then the ever more concise solutions that programmatically download in the background, many of them end in ‘arr’, all from torrents and newsgroups.
Never underestimate motivated humans.
For as long as video is distributed (digital or physical) there will be someone that will pirate it. Kids used to sell bootleg movies on VHS, later on VCD’s, and finally DVD’s, where I lived.
There is no possible way that digital piracy can be stopped. This slippery slope, leading all the way to only being able to access whitelisted websites, is not based in reality. The fascists will try anything they can to control speech at that level, but the people are crafty. We’ll find ways around everything they try to throw at us. Attempting to lock the internet down to that extent will unite all sorts of very smart people.
In Australia, a company can only sue an Australian for piracy for the value of buying or renting the media they pirated.
Company: “We’re suing you to piracy!”
Aussie: “Here’s $20, now fuck off.”
It’s just not worth it for these big companies to peruse us.
