U.S. Internet Censorship bill (SOPA/PIPA)

[Arnock]

I used to torrent a lot of currently airing T.V. shows, with the justification that the networks weren't directly getting any profit from me viewing the shows on T.V. However, I've recently gotten an arbitron meter (sort of like a nielson box that you wear like a pager) So I've subscribed to hulu plus.

Unfortunately though, hulu's player seems to have been breaking a LOT lately, and it's getting frustrating enough that I might have to go back to pirating my shows, I just need to know whether the signal that's read by my meter is still in shows that have been recorded and uploaded to torrent trackers.


My music, on the other hand, is all bought on itunes, amazon, or ripped from physical CD's bought directly from the artist(s) where possible.

[Fetzie]

Same here Skye. IF there was an option to pay CBS/Fox/HBO/PBS to legally stream their series, or if I could use Netflix and pay with Paypal, I would gladly pay the 20 bucks a month or whatever. But I can't. This is why people pirate tv series. Because they can't watch them any other way. I could wait 3 years for Sat.1, RTL or ProSieben to pick up the new series of NCIS or How I met your mother, but then they go and dub it into german. And jokes don't translate.

I do not pirate music.

[theckhd]

Unfortunately though, hulu's player seems to have been breaking a LOT lately

Yes, it has. That's been really irritating.

[Brekkie]

Wow, I was kind of tentative about posting my story because I totally expected people to jump all over me and be like HOW COULD YOU PIRATE YOU ARE A HORRIBLE PERSON AND STEALING EVIL BAD RABBLE RABBLE

[Treck]

I cant remember last time i actually bought something instead of downloading it.
Trust me, if i had the money to, i would.
I dont even pay for my own wow subscription, as i "buy" gametime for gold.
Not to mention that while id really like to put my support to some awesome games that ive really liked, and some movies i really enjoy aswell, i wouldnt even have seen or played one tenth of them if i would have had to buy them.
And thats a huge part people are missing when they just go "omgomg pirating is bad must be punnished", the fact that 90% of the people who pirate stuff wouldnt have seen the movie anyway untill it was on TV for free or whatever anyway, sure "big" movies lose more with pirating, but honestly, can i cant say i feel bad about pirating movies that bring in multi million figures on its opening night.
Smaller companies get shitloads of prmotion when people download it free, and lots more people get to see their content.

I pay for my music, as its 100times easier to deal with new music etc with spotify (that im currently using) compared to before when downloading and then having to move around your music from one computer to another.
Same for Steam, ive payed for a few games on steam cuz they simply make my life easier with their services.
And ofc online subscription is hard to walk around, but then they made Diablo 3 free, so np

Pirating might be free, but its tons less work to actually buy the shit, especially downloadable services like Steam making everyones lives much easier.
If you get 10euro an hour from work, id gladly work 3-4 hours instead and buy a game i want than to download it and have to mess around with it, but i also wanna know its a game i WANT to have, and since all games doesnt do "demo's" anymore, its hard to know if its something you wanna play or not.
Play it, and see if you enjoy it, then buy it if you wanna support the product, if you dont enjoy it, they did a shitty job at giving you a good product and shouldnt get the money anyway.

[Flex]

Unfortunately though, hulu's player seems to have been breaking a LOT lately

Yes, it has. That's been really irritating.

I Hulu on my iPad 2 mirroring the screen to my Apple TV.

Apparently the Hulu app supports HDMI out but not AirPlay directly.

[Fivelives]

Hey Brekkie,

HOW COULD YOU PIRATE YOU ARE A HORRIBLE PERSON AND STEALING EVIL BAD RABBLE RABBLE

[Arnock]

Although not directly related to sopa/pipa, in a few days, jailbreaking a phone could become illegal again.


http://gizmodo.com/5879180/jailbreaking ... n-fight-it

[Klaudandus]

http://www.infowars.com/sopa-and-pipa-f ... oins-them/
http://www.pcworld.com/article/248525/s ... n_act.html

OPEN act could allow SOPA/PIPA to sneak into congress

[Fridmarr]

Treck, I'm thoroughly confused by your post. It starts with...

I cant remember last time i actually bought something instead of downloading it.
Trust me, if i had the money to, i would.
I dont even pay for my own wow subscription, as i "buy" gametime for gold.
Not to mention that while id really like to put my support to some awesome games that ive really liked, and some movies i really enjoy aswell, i wouldnt even have seen or played one tenth of them if i would have had to buy them.
And thats a huge part people are missing when they just go "omgomg pirating is bad must be punnished", the fact that 90% of the people who pirate stuff wouldnt have seen the movie anyway untill it was on TV for free or whatever anyway, sure "big" movies lose more with pirating, but honestly, can i cant say i feel bad about pirating movies that bring in multi million figures on its opening night.
Smaller companies get shitloads of prmotion when people download it free, and lots more people get to see their content.

To this I say boo fucking who. I realize we're dealing with shades of gray, but not being able to afford something just doesn't really qualify as a reason to pirate it. Particularly given the amount of time you talk about playing just WoW (never mind all this other stuff) and my initial reaction is to get a freaking job, and stop with all that justification nonsense. It's one thing to be willing, able, and even attempt to pay, but no one will take your money, but just saying "well I can't afford that so I'll pirate it", to me is totally different and not cool.

But then you say...

Pirating might be free, but its tons less work to actually buy the shit, especially downloadable services like Steam making everyones lives much easier.
If you get 10euro an hour from work, id gladly work 3-4 hours instead and buy a game i want than to download it and have to mess around with it, but i also wanna know its a game i WANT to have, and since all games doesnt do "demo's" anymore, its hard to know if its something you wanna play or not.
Play it, and see if you enjoy it, then buy it if you wanna support the product, if you dont enjoy it, they did a shitty job at giving you a good product and shouldnt get the money anyway.

Well OK, if you are talking about working a few hours to pay for a game you tried and liked or stop playing it if it sucks, that's fine, but it totally doesn't jive with the first part, thus my confusion.

[Skye1013]

http://www.infowars.com/sopa-and-pipa-fully-alive-and-a-new-bill-joins-them/
http://www.pcworld.com/article/248525/s ... n_act.html

OPEN act could allow SOPA/PIPA to sneak into congress

I am saddened to learn that a Republican from Texas is the one pushing the hardest to try and get these things through... I've been gradually leaning away from the Republican party anyway, as the years go by, but this doesn't help their case any.

[Treck]

To this I say boo fucking who. I realize we're dealing with shades of gray, but not being able to afford something just doesn't really qualify as a reason to pirate it. Particularly given the amount of time you talk about playing just WoW (never mind all this other stuff) and my initial reaction is to get a freaking job, and stop with all that justification nonsense. It's one thing to be willing, able, and even attempt to pay, but no one will take your money, but just saying "well I can't afford that so I'll pirate it", to me is totally different and not cool.

I might have been a bit unclear, its not that i have no money at all and cant afford anything thus i pirate.
Its more that i dont have infinite money to spend on any crappy game i likely wont end up spending much time on anyway.

How much do i really talk about the time i spend in wow?
During progress yes, these days tho i raid 4 hours a week, and sit afk in wow when im at my computer like if it was msn/skype, i barely "play" wow anymore except that.
And i do have a job (I dont know how many times ive mentioned that i could barely even attend dragonsoul progress cuz of it).
I spend 11hours a day attending work cuz i have to travel and shit, still doesnt mean im willing to put out money for a game i only might enjoy, and if i do enjoy it I do support it.
Movies is a whole other story, and series are just hard to actually watch legitimately.

[Passionario]

I love BBC because everything they show on TV they also show on their BBC iPlayer, in high definition.

Not available outside UK, unfortunately.

[Fivelives]

I love BBC because everything they show on TV they also show on their BBC iPlayer, in high definition.

Not available outside UK, unfortunately.

I can't help but wonder how much piracy would decrease if they'd just get rid of the stupid restrictions and gave access to everyone, rather than restricting it by country.

[KysenMurrin]

It'd be nice to see, but as far as the BBC is concerned you're not likely to see it offering the iPlayer outside the UK unless they stop funding it through TV licence fees.

The other, ad-funded, channels could probably pull it off, though, if there was an overhaul of how international rights to TV shows are handled.

[Darielle]

To this I say boo fucking who. I realize we're dealing with shades of gray, but not being able to afford something just doesn't really qualify as a reason to pirate it. Particularly given the amount of time you talk about playing just WoW (never mind all this other stuff) and my initial reaction is to get a freaking job, and stop with all that justification nonsense. It's one thing to be willing, able, and even attempt to pay, but no one will take your money, but just saying "well I can't afford that so I'll pirate it", to me is totally different and not cool.

A Music CD sells in NZ for $30 to $40. Just buying one band's albums would cost someone a couple hundred dollars.

It's not a huge surprise that basically everyone I know in NZ just downloads music instead of paying for it - they'd rather download the music and then buy T-shirt or two or go to a Concert. Or they'll wind up downloading the earlier albums and buy the new album when it comes out.

If it wasn't marked up horribly just because it's being sold down here - people would pay retail value. Because it's marked up that badly - people can't afford it and pirate it.

[halabar]

To this I say boo fucking who. I realize we're dealing with shades of gray, but not being able to afford something just doesn't really qualify as a reason to pirate it. Particularly given the amount of time you talk about playing just WoW (never mind all this other stuff) and my initial reaction is to get a freaking job, and stop with all that justification nonsense. It's one thing to be willing, able, and even attempt to pay, but no one will take your money, but just saying "well I can't afford that so I'll pirate it", to me is totally different and not cool.

A Music CD sells in NZ for $30 to $40. Just buying one band's albums would cost someone a couple hundred dollars.

It's not a huge surprise that basically everyone I know in NZ just downloads music instead of paying for it - they'd rather download the music and then buy T-shirt or two or go to a Concert. Or they'll wind up downloading the earlier albums and buy the new album when it comes out.

If it wasn't marked up horribly just because it's being sold down here - people would pay retail value. Because it's marked up that badly - people can't afford it and pirate it.

So because you can't afford that car, jacket, or watch, that justifies your stealing it?

I call major BS here.

People show a vast willingness to steal virtual goods because they are virtual. Software, music, photos, movies, it doesn't matter. They justify it because those evil corporations are "rich".

Yeah....

Even if a CD's worth of music would cost $2.50, people would still steal if it's online, because virtual goods should be "free" in their minds. That's what this really is about.

[Koatanga]

To be fair, people in NZ don't think about it being free becasue we have no unrestricted unlimited broadband plans down here. We pay for our bandwidth. Granted, it's not that much per song or per album, but it's certainly not free.

I don't generally buy CDs. I do buy music on iTunes. CDs are absurdly expensive down here.

I look forward to the days when you can walk into a music store and download your purchases onto a memory stick. I don't see any reason for CDs to exist, with their jewel cases and pamphlets and printing and production costs.

Having said that, I can pay $30 for a CD, or $22 do download the same album from iTunes. If the justification for why CDs are so expensive in NZ is the transportation, one has to wonder why there is only a $6 difference between the CD and the download. I suspect the online prices are compensating for an expected amount of sales lost to piracy.

[halabar]

To be fair, people in NZ don't think about it being free becasue we have no unrestricted unlimited broadband plans down here. We pay for our bandwidth. Granted, it's not that much per song or per album, but it's certainly not free.

I don't generally buy CDs. I do buy music on iTunes. CDs are absurdly expensive down here.

I look forward to the days when you can walk into a music store and download your purchases onto a memory stick. I don't see any reason for CDs to exist, with their jewel cases and pamphlets and printing and production costs.

Having said that, I can pay $30 for a CD, or $22 do download the same album from iTunes. If the justification for why CDs are so expensive in NZ is the transportation, one has to wonder why there is only a $6 difference between the CD and the download. I suspect the online prices are compensating for an expected amount of sales lost to piracy.

I don't dispute that music seems overpriced. The iTunes CD is priced where it is due to demands by the music labels. At the same time, there is a lot of overhead in the music industry.

What would be interesting to see is what would happen if a new music label started up, offering only digital distribution of music. I wonder what their overhead structure would be in that case, and if music prices would then be "reasonable".

Problem is that still won't stop piracy.

[Fivelives]

When iTunes was first released, Jobs said "$.99 per track. Period."

We saw how long that lasted. I've seen tracks go on iTunes for $1.99 and up.

[Digren]

I love BBC because everything they show on TV they also show on their BBC iPlayer, in high definition.

Not available outside UK, unfortunately.

I can't help but wonder how much piracy would decrease if they'd just get rid of the stupid restrictions and gave access to everyone, rather than restricting it by country.

IIRC ESPN is one of the most expensive cable networks, with every cable/dish subscriber who gets ESPN paying $3 from their monthly bill directly to Disney.

Thus, I have to assume that BBC America is less than that. Let's say $2 a month, plus the revenue from my eyeballs catching quarter-second glimpses of their commercials as I skip over them.

I would *happily* pay $3 a month more on my Netflix streaming subscription to be able to stream BBC America content the day it airs. Wouldn't that be awesome? And they can embed commercials in it too if they must; the time to rebuffer the stream would mean that I wouldn't bother skipping one 30 second commercial most of the time.

For a while I had a higher tier of dish tv just for BBC America. If I could drop that and save ~$10/month I'd happily give a chunk of that directly to the BBC.

[Digren]

When iTunes was first released, Jobs said "$.99 per track. Period."

We saw how long that lasted. I've seen tracks go on iTunes for $1.99 and up.

But he had to compromise on the DRM or get sued. So he compromised and included DRM. Then, later, when the labels tried to demand higher costs for their latest hyped-up auto-tuned artists, he came back and said "Okay, but you gotta drop the DRM". And they did.

Overall I'm happy now with variable pricing and no DRM. It was an awful hassle to have to burn every song to CD then rip it again and compress as an extra-high bitrate MP3 just so I could archive a non-DRM version. Besides I tend to buy now from Amazon anyway since I chose long ago to standardize on MP3 for archiving over other formats.

[Digren]

What would be interesting to see is what would happen if a new music label started up, offering only digital distribution of music. I wonder what their overhead structure would be in that case, and if music prices would then be "reasonable".

Problem is that still won't stop piracy.

http://magnatune.com/

They used to be "pay what you want" for downloaded albums. Now it seems they are subscription only, but while subscribed you can still download as much as you want permanently. And they "work directly with artists, not major labels" which sort of makes them a label, sort of.

In truth I think the future of music doesn't involve the archaic term "music label" so it's easier to think of them more as marketers and distributors of the artists' music.

[Darielle]

So because you can't afford that car, jacket, or watch, that justifies your stealing it?

I call major BS here.

People show a vast willingness to steal virtual goods because they are virtual. Software, music, photos, movies, it doesn't matter. They justify it because those evil corporations are "rich".

Yeah....

Even if a CD's worth of music would cost $2.50, people would still steal if it's online, because virtual goods should be "free" in their minds. That's what this really is about.

They don't SELL the music here in the shelves to begin with. I downloaded the albums. I then paid an extra $30 shipping cost to get a T-Shirt shipped over here. I'll go attend a concert even if I have to pay a couple hundred in airfare just to get to the thing.

If a CD's worth of music cost $2.50, some people would absolutely still download it, but people who genuinely support the band will not. Plenty of people here download a movie when it comes out and then go buy the DVD later just to have the genuine copy, because paying $20 to watch the movie at the theatre is silly. people download the newest seasons of X because there is no available means to procure "the latest season" without downloading it, and I'm sure that's also true of people in other areas.

Electronics in general are horrendously overpriced. Back in the day when the exchange rate was worse, WoW selling in the US for $49.99 sold for $99.99 here. Nowadays a game that sells for $40 in the US sells here for $108 or $120 or some arbitrary amount of markup to buy it at EB. People are milking the cost of making a CD/DVD and a dying marking system for as much money as they can, and it's partially responsible for why consumers are happy to not pay the price.

[halabar]

So because you can't afford that car, jacket, or watch, that justifies your stealing it?

I call major BS here.

People show a vast willingness to steal virtual goods because they are virtual. Software, music, photos, movies, it doesn't matter. They justify it because those evil corporations are "rich".

Yeah....

Even if a CD's worth of music would cost $2.50, people would still steal if it's online, because virtual goods should be "free" in their minds. That's what this really is about.

They don't SELL the music here in the shelves to begin with. I downloaded the albums. I then paid an extra $30 shipping cost to get a T-Shirt shipped over here. I'll go attend a concert even if I have to pay a couple hundred in airfare just to get to the thing.

If a CD's worth of music cost $2.50, some people would absolutely still download it, but people who genuinely support the band will not. Plenty of people here download a movie when it comes out and then go buy the DVD later just to have the genuine copy, because paying $20 to watch the movie at the theatre is silly. people download the newest seasons of X because there is no available means to procure "the latest season" without downloading it, and I'm sure that's also true of people in other areas.

Electronics in general are horrendously overpriced. Back in the day when the exchange rate was worse, WoW selling in the US for $49.99 sold for $99.99 here. Nowadays a game that sells for $40 in the US sells here for $108 or $120 or some arbitrary amount of markup to buy it at EB. People are milking the cost of making a CD/DVD and a dying marking system for as much money as they can, and it's partially responsible for why consumers are happy to not pay the price.

So what you are saying is that software (and music) is terribly overpriced, and it's being run like a cartel, with insanely high profit margins. Kinda like diamonds. Do you steal those too? If diamonds were run by supply-and-demand, other gemstones would be far far more valuable, as the supply of diamonds sitting in vaults is a lot higher.

I don't disagree that the distributors (and likely your government) are milking digital goods, software, and music for lining their pockets. But that still doesn't justify theft.

I'm trying to get into stock photography. Someone stealing one of my images "because they can't afford it" doesn't fly. If you can't afford the price, find one you can afford.

The reality here is that while the distribution models are outdated, theft won't change them. The only thing that will change them is independent producers using a new model. But, a funny thing... independent bands still sell their music on iTunes for the same $.99.