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from the why-have-one-cheap-service-with-everything-when-you-could-have-117? dept.
Eight individuals have been charged with an indictment by the United States for allegedly running two of the "largest unauthorized streaming services".
The federal grand jury that gave the indictment alleges that the two streaming services, Jetflicks and iStreamItAll (ISIA), caused copyright owners to lose millions of dollars.
Both services were used by tens of thousands of subscribers, and could be accessed online and on numerous systems including smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, video game consoles, digital media players, set-top boxes, and web browsers.
Jetflicks allegedly obtained infringing television programs from pirate websites -- such as The Pirate Bay, RARBG and Torrentz -- by using automated computer scripts, and then would provide the pirated content to subscribers soon after the shows were aired.
ISIA allegedly used many of the same automated tools that Jetflicks employed to locate, download, process, and store illegal content -- but ISIA also provided movies in addition to television programs -- to quickly make pirated content available to ISIA subscribers.
The two services allegedly reproduced tens of thousands of copyrighted television episodes and movies without authorization, the Justice Department said, and distributed the infringing programs to tens of thousands of paid subscribers located throughout the US and Canada.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by etherscythe on Thursday August 29 2019, @02:00AM (12 children)
I dunno. Maybe exorbitant pricing or exclusive affiliation deals with poor subscription services are what caused the owners to lose millions of dollars. If they had been conducting surveys of the users to determine if they would have paid for the content they consumed at the contractually agreed prices through "legitimate" sources, I feel like I would have heard about it, so I'm guessing no such thing ever took place.
And I say this as an aspiring copyright owner: you are not entitled to make money, you need a viable business model.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 29 2019, @02:12AM (7 children)
I say as a consumer, all I want is unlimited free entertainment without any advertising. Your business model is your problem and not mine, the market has spoken, and the market value for your content is zero.
(Score: 3, Informative) by etherscythe on Thursday August 29 2019, @02:23AM (4 children)
We are in agreement on basic points. Demand is obviously significant, but once the content is created its supply is virtually unlimited. You need to package it with something more scarce, like goodwill, to retain value. Suing your customers is not a good way to do that.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 29 2019, @02:29AM (3 children)
Copyright was created to grant you the legal right to sue those of your customers who willfully ignore the legal fiction of artificial scarcity. Good luck.
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Thursday August 29 2019, @12:30PM (2 children)
Sure. And it came from a place of scarcity being somewhat less than artificial; students of history may recall hearing that books were once transcribed by hand, and curses were written inside the covers to ward off potential thieves. Hardcover books meant to last are still a little pricey - we just haven't figured out how this all works now that you can have an entire movie library on a handheld device, because the market dynamic has definitely changed.
There's a non-zero chance that I will be peddling my own copyrighted material at some point, and on that day I intend to be associated with positive value-added packaging, rather than the you're-just-a-paycheck-to-me deal we've come to expect. I mean, just because it's possible to make every product you sell carry with it a whiff of feces (or threat of litigation) doesn't mean it's a good idea.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 29 2019, @12:57PM (1 child)
once the cost of copying something becomes negligible, people should be paid for generating the original copy, not for distributing the copies.
if I ever invent a car that costs 10 dollars to make, I have no problem with anyone using my plans, as long as they don't make a profit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 29 2019, @02:55PM
Not going to work. That first copy is way too expensive for that model. Even an unedited novella takes more than a month of effort to write. Then there's all the other work involved in editing and publishing the book.
This whole business of complaining about distribution is mostly a way of rationalizing piracy. Part of what drives people to write books for free is the hope of it becoming a best seller and making them rich.
Yes, the system needs to be fixed, but paying people to write books in this fashion isn't going to work. The system already advances most of the payments to cover the production, this just removed any hope of profit in the venture
(Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Thursday August 29 2019, @02:43AM (1 child)
Here's another thing. From what I can see, the streaming sites and addons mostly serve up 720p resolution content, maybe lower. And that's the resolution I'm targeting for watching video, 1080p or 4K being gratuitous.
The bitrate needed for 720p video got pretty low when H.265 landed. It's set to plummet again in a few years with AV1, AV2, and/or H.266 codecs.
At the same time, the cost of bandwidth for illicit streaming sites will decrease, and average bandwidth per home user will increase (relevant to BitTorrent).
So the cost of serving up free pirated entertainment will continue to drop over time, meaning costs could be covered even if a higher proportion of users block the ads. Even if U.S., Russia, China, et al. managed to crush all the streaming sites, you can just switch back to peer-to-peer. A worthless product that can be endlessly stolen will become even more worthless.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday August 29 2019, @03:27AM
Cheaper storage ($/TB) and better hardware also play a role. But I think those are the two main factors.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 29 2019, @02:35AM (3 children)
The free stuff mostly works.
The stuff I pay for typically comes burdened with terms, conditions, compliance verification, digital rights enforcement, and various marketing tracker add-ons. Pain in the ass. Couple that to if it stops working or it's inflexibility of use.
I feel like such a damm fool actually paying for this kind of frustration.
(Score: 3, Informative) by deimtee on Thursday August 29 2019, @03:07AM (1 child)
http://img.labnol.org/di/pirated-DVD-movie.png [labnol.org]
The methods have changed but the point remains.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 29 2019, @02:04PM
I take the compromise position - mostly because I'm a fucking moron. I buy the DVD or Blu Ray, rip, and reencode to H.265. Almost every gadget in the house has Kodi, and we watch it all that way. I buy some films new, most when they're in the bargain bin, thrift store, etc... 700 films and counting, plus a few seasons of shows. No commercials, no concurrent access restrictions.
I should switch to AV1, I'm just not sure if all of my gadgets can handle it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 29 2019, @08:45PM
In music, the stuff I pay for has no DRM. I buy file, I get file, I back up file. I never worry about the day when the streaming service is busted for piracy or goes bankrupt.
In video, the stuff I pay for has DVD protection. I buy DVD, I format shift DVD using software I have that is legal to own, I back up file. (Software authors might have something to worry about, I wouldn't know). Once in a blue moon I get a hankering for a new DVD, but most of the time I get used to paying $3.00 or less at pawn shops.
I hang on to DVD as a defense that nobody got robbed of anything because the distributor was paid and so (presumably) was the chain of people involved in its creation. I never worry about being busted by the IAAs. Not this year.
Doing it this way I feel I don't freeload. And I never worry about the day when RedYellowOrangeGreenVioletRay comes up with a new technical wrinkle. I'll worry about that when DVD's are no longer available because I don't care about HD video.
But I'm old. YMMV.