ATV and piracy

[DrEnalg]

I gotta admit - I love my ATV2G and just from a geek perspective I'm really psyched by the JB and modding I've accomplished with it so far. I've installed Grooveshark, XBMC, and a variety of plugins including Icefilms, FastpassTV, and Navi-x.

I will admit I've done a lot of not legit d/ls in my time , mostly music (I still have a lot of stuff from my Napster days). But I think I'm gonna be deleting the Icefilms and FastpassTV plugins, and just restricting myself to the Navi-x site scrapers.

Piracy has just become too easy. And I have two small children at home. I can see myself really getting used to having access to any movie or TV show anytime I want, for free. What will I tell my kids when they're older? That's whats giving me pause... So, I guess I'll keep my mp3s, but I'm getting out of the easy piracy biz otherwise.

Trust me, I don't shed much of a tear or get royally outraged when It comes to ppl d/l movies or music w/out paying for it. These companies are greedy ********rs and I'm not bothered. However, I can't stop thinking about what I'll have to tell my kids in a few years if I keep this up.

Anyways, feel free to discuss.

 

[blevins321]

Lol. Yeah, it's one of those things that you don't feel bad about when you're enjoying the film. Yet you still feel guilty that you're getting something for nothing that cost the maker millions.

Still, when you see a BlueRay at Best Buy for $35 for a single movie, the guilt is temporarily veiled until after the torrent is complete. The studios need to understand supply and demand much better. Stop increasing the prices of movies on DVD/BR and more people will be able to afford them.

Another side argument is a studio making a movie 3D by having one scene with a bug flying at your face just to be able to charge the up-to-50% surcharge on top of your ticket price. That's an argument for a different day though.

 

[DrEnalg]

Lol. Yeah, it's one of those things that you don't feel bad about when you're enjoying the film. Yet you still feel guilty that you're getting something for nothing that cost the maker millions.

Still, when you see a BlueRay at Best Buy for $35 for a single movie, the guilt is temporarily veiled until after the torrent is complete. The studios need to understand supply and demand much better. Stop increasing the prices of movies on DVD/BR and more people will be able to afford them.

Another side argument is a studio making a movie 3D by having one scene with a bug flying at your face just to be able to charge the up-to-50% surcharge on top of your ticket price. That's an argument for a different day though.

The movie and music studios should really look themselves in the mirror when it comes to the widespread proliferation of piracy out there. And they are greedy and grasping, and totally hostile to any reasonable conception of "fair use" and the public domain.

That said, I think this is more about what I tell my kids when they get old enough to ask....

 

[blevins321]

The movie and music studios should really look themselves in the mirror when it comes to the widespread proliferation of piracy out there. And they are greedy and grasping, and totally hostile to any reasonable conception of "fair use" and the public domain.

That said, I think this is more about what I tell my kids when they get old enough to ask....

Perfect opportunity to explain the mantra of "some rules are meant to be broken"

 

[Consultant]

Might want to look into Netflix subscription.

 

[spacepower7]

I see this as historical mis-pricing by the entertainment industry.

Back in the early and mid 80's, the industry tried to fight VHS and BetaMax. Then they sold their movies to video rental stores for $80-120 per VHS tape. If you lost or broke your rental, you had to pay the rental store full price for a replacement.

The first thing my mother did, was borrow my grandpa's VHS, buy blank tapes, and rent a bunch of kids movies and dub them. $9 in rentals plus about $8 per blank cassette, SLP mode put 3 movies per cassette at poor quality.

So $17 or $240+ made it a very easy choice in the 80's.

I think the industry should just charge $1 per viewing and then we don't have to own anything. Netflix has the right idea.

I'm not paying $10-20 for a digital copy that is locked to my iTunes account, which means I can't loan the movie to friends or family.

 

[b-rad g]

I'm not paying $10-20 for a digital copy that is locked to my iTunes account, which means I can't loan the movie to friends or family.

Why not just get the actual movie file from iTunes folder and put it on usb drive and loan it to your friends that way. Or if they have to have it in disc form then just burn it to one.

 

[blevins321]

Why not just get the actual movie file from iTunes folder and put it on usb drive and loan it to your friends that way. Or if they have to have it in disc form then just burn it to one.

Because movies/tv shows from the iTunes store are still encrypted to an iTunes account. You're limited to 5 computer activations.

 

[johnnj]

Maybe by the time your kids are of the age to be discussing this subject the motion picture industry will get their heads out of their lower GI tracts and publish digital media in a way that's affordable and portable.

Unlikely, though.

Maybe the point will be moot. If they continue making movies of the caliber they have been, free will be the only price most people will be willing to pay.

 

[BeachChair]

I've gotten out of the music piracy business. I'd like to get out of movie and TV show piracy, but the non-piracy offerings are just so weak.

 

[Nightarchaon]

Because movies/tv shows from the iTunes store are still encrypted to an iTunes account. You're limited to 5 computer activations.

He hasnt used that quota up , he hasnt got enough friends + Computers total to hit the 5 activation limit

 

[Mr-Kerrse]

I don't feel guilty in the slightest, the price of renting & buying from itunes is ludicrous. Why does it cost the same price to rent & buy films as it did DVD's when there is no actually manafacturing costs as such.

Lower the price then i would possibly feel guilty

 

[Sparky9292]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8H7 Safari/6533.18.5)

Netflix + Hulu

 

[DrEnalg]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8H7 Safari/6533.18.5)

Netflix + Hulu

Agreed. But we're poor - we can't stomach 7.99 extra per month. Hulu, yes, I'd love it if we could get it.

As an aside, I was examining the Navi-X site scrapers a little more closely and even those aren't completely legit, most likely - the Navi-X people set their scrapers to retrieve content from VeeHD, a DivX site, clearly a lot of content is probably posted without proper permission at those places.

But ******* it. As far as I'm concerned, as long as I'm viewing stuff from sites that have a responsive DMCA takedown policy (like YouTube), I'm not going to worry about it.

 

[Che Castro]

Im not ashamed at all

 

[nwcs]

Wow, not sure what to make of all this rationalization of illegal behavior here. Does it matter if the price seems too high? No. Are the businesses trying to make money? Yes. Are the businesses doing anything illegal? No. Is it illegal to steal? Yes.

I think a lot of people think it's OK to steal movies and music because of some contrived rationalization. But I wonder what those same people would think or feel if their work or money was stolen from them using the same rationalization. And teaching children that stealing is OK so long as it's a large faceless corporation seems downright chilling to me.

No matter what post-modern feel-good bull-crap teachings say, right is right and wrong is wrong.

 

[Phil A.]

Wow, not sure what to make of all this rationalization of illegal behavior here. Does it matter if the price seems too high? No. Are the businesses trying to make money? Yes. Are the businesses doing anything illegal? No. Is it illegal to steal? Yes.

I think a lot of people think it's OK to steal movies and music because of some contrived rationalization. But I wonder what those same people would think or feel if their work or money was stolen from them using the same rationalization. And teaching children that stealing is OK so long as it's a large faceless corporation seems downright chilling to me.

No matter what post-modern feel-good bull-crap teachings say, right is right and wrong is wrong.

I couldn't agree more. I really don't understand the "It's too expensive so I won't pay for it, but I'll watch it anyway" mentality. If I think something's too expensive, then I pass it by, I don't view it as justification that I can take it for nothing.

If people want to pirate stuff, then that's between them and their conscience, but I wish they wouldn't try and justify it as some great moral stand against corporate greed: IMO, what's behind it is personal greed

 

[DrEnalg]

I couldn't agree more. I really don't understand the "It's too expensive so I won't pay for it, but I'll watch it anyway" mentality. If I think something's too expensive, then I pass it by, I don't view it as justification that I can take it for nothing.

If people want to pirate stuff, then that's between them and their conscience, but I wish they wouldn't try and justify it as some great moral stand against corporate greed: IMO, what's behind it is personal greed

The "justifications" you're referring to are best categorized as (in some cases, pretty compelling) explanations, but yes, certainly *not* excuses from a moral standpoint.

Again, my main motivation is setting a better example for the kiddies. I don't want them growing up being illegal downloaders, just because their Daddy does it, hence my struggle with all this stuff I've recently discovered is available on XBMC.

Growing up to become YouTube addicts, Crackle Video junkies and the like? I can live with that....

 

[Mr-Kerrse]

I couldn't agree more. I really don't understand the "It's too expensive so I won't pay for it, but I'll watch it anyway" mentality. If I think something's too expensive, then I pass it by, I don't view it as justification that I can take it for nothing.

If people want to pirate stuff, then that's between them and their conscience, but I wish they wouldn't try and justify it as some great moral stand against corporate greed: IMO, what's behind it is personal greed

I'm not trying to justify it, just stating a point. I don't feel guilty in the slightest. It's actually no different to borrowing a DVD from a friend & watching it.

Have you never borrowed a DVD? I delete the films after watching them so technically i have returned it ( if it was in physical form)

 

[handsome pete]

I'm not trying to justify it, just stating a point. I don't feel guilty in the slightest. It's actually no different to borrowing a DVD from a friend & watching it.

Have you never borrowed a DVD? I delete the films after watching them so technically i have returned it ( if it was in physical form)

How is that not justifying it?

Also, it's completely different than borrowing a dvd from a friend.

 

[dizzy130]

My feeling is that the movie industry needs the same kick Napster gave the music industry. So I will illegally stream movies that are not available to rent/buy on iTunes/Netflix but I won't use illegal methods to get a movie for free I could otherwise pay get digitally. I did the same with music...I didn't use Napster to avoid paying for anything it was possible to get through iTunes, and now that everything's available online I'd never use it.

For example, I bought the Lord Of The Rongs movies that are available on iTunes for $10 apiece. But I have no moral qualms about streaming animated Disney movies when the only way to get them new legally is a $30 Blue Ray. I don't have a Blue Ray player and I'm not buying one, and they refuse to sell me their movies through iTunes.

If Napster had never existed, I don't believe the music industry would have played ball with Apple on iTunes. Eventually the movie industry will wake up and smell the digital age. Is this justifying? Yeah, probably. But the industry needs to get it's act together...two of the Lord Of The Rings are available on iTunes and one on Netflix Instant. That's just one example, but it's ridiculous.

 

[DrEnalg]

Well, one thing is for sure - ATV2 with XBMC installed is a supercharged movie and tv piracy machine.

 

[Che Castro]

Well, one thing is for sure - ATV2 with XBMC installed is a supercharged movie and tv piracy machine.

In the words of the late macho man

"ooh yeah "

RIP

 

[Phantom Gremlin]

I think the industry should just charge $1 per viewing and then we don't have to own anything. Netflix has the right idea.

I think that's exactly what will eventually happen for quite a lot of content. But it will be a long and painful process to get there, because the economics don't really make sense from the studios perspective. E.g. if they drop the cost of a movie from $10 or $20 (on DVD or Blu-ray) to $1, they won't get 10x as many people paying to view it.

I'm not paying $10-20 for a digital copy that is locked to my iTunes account, which means I can't loan the movie to friends or family.

Neither am I. That's why I refuse to buy anything from iTunes that has DRM. Which means that I didn't buy a single song until they dropped DRM, now I buy for myself and for my kids. I'm voting with my dollars.

Along that vein, I've bought some music videos from iTunes. They're pricey, $2 each, but they're not DRMed, which means I can use e.g. VLC to play them. I know I'm not locked in to Apple's ecosystem. If you're interested in 40 or 50 y/o musical performances, search for "Ed Sullivan Show" in iTunes. Lots of good performers appeared on that show.

 

[eTip]

I don't lose a wink of sleep over streaming content from Icefilms etc. In fact, it kind of gives me a warm fuzzy feeling. I live my life by the Golden Rule when it comes to people. I wouldn't steal from or harm a friend or a stranger that has done me no harm. Megacorporations are not people. Call me a thief, call it stealing if you like (just labels and name calling to me) - that's not going to cause me to lose any sleep either. What I have often found is that the people that are the first to call someone out for crossing some moral line have crossed lines themselves that I would never cross. Maybe you haven't. Good for you.

For those of you that won't stream or torrent - do you rip your dvd's? Last I checked, that's still illegal as well. Careful defending the practice - you start sounding like ONE OF US. Some people like to say that since Torrenting etc. is the same as stealing. So, let's say it is. Where does it fall on your moral scale? And would you say ALL stealing is illegal therefore immoral? Ever taken a pen or post-it or anything else home from work - either accidentally or on purpose? How about breaking the speed limit or rolling through a stop sign? Again, go right ahead and say "that's not the same thing" but again you start sounding a lot like us "pirates". It's a generalization of course, but amongst the people I know well I have often found it to be the case that so-called pirates are very often more honest and trustworthy than the general public. Heck, they don't even lie about illegally downloading.

And NO I don't think it's stealing to stream or torrent content I was never going to buy but it still doesn't hurt my feelings if you call me a thief. If it helps YOU sleep better, go right ahead. I am all about helping out my fellow humans.