Know Anyone Who Pirates Apple TV/iTunes Video?

[BoulderBum]

I read recently that the movie industry is reluctant to wholeheartedly embrace the Apple model of video (permanent download vs. streaming) because they worry if it's on a hard drive, it can be pirated.

This seems a bit silly to me, to be honest. If someone wanted to pirate a movie, they wouldn't spend the money on an iTunes copy, they'd just use BitTorrent.

Does anyone know of anyone who actually pirates iTunes content? Does anyone you know share their iTunes movies in an improper way? Are there even tools out there (no need to mention names) that can even accomplish removing the DRM?

I don't pirate content and the only people I know who do use BitTorrent, not iTunes. What is your experience?

 

[Michael CM1]

I seem to keep discovering that a lot of people have no second thoughts about renting a DVD and then copying it to keep. That's the biggest kind of piracy I see. I use HandBrake like a mofo, but it's all on stuff that I own. I sold someone I knew my old iPod, and this person used some software to just rip all the music off there. I figured maybe people had some concept of what stealing is, but I guess they don't consider it stealing if they don't have to hide something in baggy pants and sneak past a security guard.

All of this seems to back up my point of no matter what security/DRM you add to media, people will find a way to steal it if they want to. I've heard of BitTorrent for many years, but never even bothered to check it out. I think about how dumb I was in college to keep the Napsterized music as if I owned it. I'm pretty sure that most of my music is legit now, and I know Apple and Amazon thank me for it. If anybody who complains about the extreme DRM on new stuff like Blu-ray pirates other media, they should complain to the mirror.

 

[BoulderBum]

If anybody who complains about the extreme DRM on new stuff like Blu-ray pirates other media, they should complain to the mirror.

It's sort of a catch 22, though. I can see why companies want DRM because of pirates, but I also see how people would want to pirate with all the DRM in legal content.

I used to get all of my songs through Kazaa/Napster before record companies finally bought-in to digital downloads and offered me what I wanted. In doing so, they took away my reasons to get music illegally; I got song ownership without purchasing a whole album, availability of content and the convenience of downloads.

Now, instead of no money changing hands, record companies get paid for every song I download.

Apple takes a good, solid steps to getting the movie companies to come around, but they still keep causing trouble. New Macbooks can't output movies to TV's that don't follow a certain standard, you have annoying 30 day/24 hour restrictions on rentals, you have to wait a month to rent vs. buy, etc.

I don't download movies illegally (though I've ripped a few of my own), but I wish that the movie industry would make things less of a hassle to honest, paying customers.

The results of the survey were actually about what I expected. I don't think a lot of people are pirating iTunes content, they just pirate content elsewhere if that's what they're after.

 

[iParis]

Yes, me.
I do it all the time.
Well, I've recently slowed down because I ran out of space on my HD.
Getting a new computer and 1TB External HD so I'll be going at it again soon.

Reminds me of this thread.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/359495/

 

[TheCheapGeek]

Yes for TV Shows

I defiantly bit torrent tv shows. Anything that i can record on my dvr, I feel no problem about downloading. I feel this is no different than recording music off the radio. But for movies i will only download things that already own, such as old vhs tapes, or damaged dvd's.

 

[MacBoobsPro]

Because of iTunes I buy all my films from iTunes. I will admit I have downloaded the odd movie in the past via Torrents, but with iTunes its much easier, quicker, you know exactly what you are getting and you don't have to transcode. I have spent over £1000 on movies etc from iTunes. I would never of spent that much money on DVDs and music before. Infact I have just bought a 1TB drive to allow my already vast library to grow.

This is what the studios don't understand, because they are idiots.

I still think iTunes movies could be £1 or £2 cheaper to buy though. If they were I would buy a lot more.

 

[bbotte]

I just know a person that rips everything he gets from Blockbuster and Netflix, on his Mac Pro. So to me the iTunes excuse is stupid.

 

[Digitalflick]

I have spent over £1000 on movies etc from iTunes.

Could you then torrent a better quality copy(Blu-ray rip) if you have a legit copy from itunes?

 

[wbeasley]

DRM doesn't work

and finally some people are waking up to that fact in the music industry.

Availability is a much better way for them to make money. There is so much back catalogue stuff that is hard to find (in stores or online).

Torrents are currently a great way to find things you can't buy anymore (and no doubt a way many people are also finding things).

I rip my DVDs to put on my iPod but the other reason I do it is to have a copy that can play straight away on my DVD player WITHOUT ALL THE NON-SKIPABLE ADS. I hate sitting there with friends when all you want to see is the movie. You get the anti-piracy adverts (which all the pirates rip and remove anyway!) and sometimes overly long video menus and trailers for films you dont want to see. Just let me skip to the damn movie I rented or paid for!!!

If music and videos are available at the right place and price, most people are going to do the right thing. The younger gen really do seem to think it should all be free - no wonder the industry keeps churning out the "by the numbers" R&B (the original R&B people must be spinning in the graves that the term covers this style of music!). It's cheap and easy to create and keeps the kids occupied downloading it.

What surprises me is record companies haven't found a way to spoil torrents. Upload a copy that's not legit and cause it to skip and distort. Surely that wouldn't be hard and would solve their copying issues...

 

[mavis]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G (white): Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5G77 Safari/525.20)

I have spent over £1000 on movies etc from iTunes.

Could you then torrent a better quality copy(Blu-ray rip) if you have a legit copy from itunes?

Sure. You own the movie, after all.

Personally, I don't bother with iTunes for movies anymore. I used to, but they're not HD, don't have at least DD5.1, and here's the kicker: since my AppleTV consistently refuses to sync with iTunes after my iMac wakes, I have to restart iTunes to get it recognized. Unfortunately, when I re-launch iTunes, the ATV starts syncing immediately, before iTunes has a chance to connect with the iTMS. So, all of my iTunes-purchased movies are automatically deleted from the ATV (not authorized) and then re-synced. EVERY TIME.

A much more reliable, faster method (which also happens to perfectly solve all of the issues above) is to grab 1080p BR rips from GigaNews, convert in HandBrake, and sync. Much cheaper, too. But that's not why I do it. I do it because the iWay sucks. Maybe one day it'll work well, but in the meantime, pirating is the only way to go. (and I'm slowly replacing all of my iTMS content with HD stuff - I'm down to just eight DRM movies. Yay!)

 

[Jeff Hall]

The biggest downside I see to the copying of DVDs you rent is the time it takes to rip, encode, tag, and import to your library.

I don't rent or buy anything from the iTunes store because it is not cost effective. I am an avid Netflix subscriber (3 at a time blu-ray) and I watch quite a bit instantly via my Xbox 360. Recently netflix became available through Boxee, so you can do the same with your AppleTV.

Apple needs a competitive business model to match what Netflix has to get me to spend my money elsewhere. The only leg up iTunes has over Netflix instant downloads (as of today) is that the movies are higher quality (picture wise) and support 5.1 surround. However, there are about 12x as many movies to choose from with Netflix.

I'm sure Apple is taking its time analyzing the markets and determining how best to work with the studios. Until they have their answer, I don't see much changing with the AppleTV.

But anyway, it's a pain for me to pirate movies simply because I'm a busy person; Netflix gives me everything I need and I'm happy to pay for it.

 

[mavis]

What surprises me is record companies haven't found a way to spoil torrents. Upload a copy that's not legit and cause it to skip and distort. Surely that wouldn't be hard and would solve their copying issues...

They used to do that with Napster/Kazaa. But it doesn't work with torrents as all BT clients do error-checking on incoming data. And if the original torrent is corrupt, people will notice immediately, no one will download it, and that's it.

 

[Dejavu]

As long as there is DRM on overpriced movies, I would rather download illegally from BitTorrent.

 

[filmguy15]

It's true, many people I know turn to bittorrent, not because they like stealing, but because the DRMed content makes it incredibly difficult for honest people to get the content they want. If they would just eliminate this aspect, I know hundreds of people who would turn around and buy legitimately. Too bad the record companies/studios may never come around...

 

[northy124]

I strip the DRM of the HD TV Shows and encode to a smaller size (m-HD/m-BD) with the same quality

I download the odd HD Film and HD Music nothing big though.

 

[BoulderBum]

Apple needs a competitive business model to match what Netflix has to get me to spend my money elsewhere. The only leg up iTunes has over Netflix instant downloads (as of today) is that the movies are higher quality (picture wise) and support 5.1 surround. However, there are about 12x as many movies to choose from with Netflix.

The thing about Netflix is that the on-demand movie selection isn't very good and doesn't feature new releases. I think Apple has a leg up on them, there.

I personally cancelled my Netflix subscription after purchasing an Apple TV because I thought maintaining a queue and waiting for movies to arrive in the mail is too much time/energy.

I want to sit on my couch on a whim, push a button and start watching.

 

[BoulderBum]

I think streaming will eventually replace downloading (as it should)

IMO, downloading is the superior approach, though both are complimentary. This Thanksgiving, we had to find a way to keep my hyperactive toddler pacified during a two-hour flight. Our solution? Load Wall-E onto the iPhone and play it on the way.

It worked like a charm and did it all even without internet or even cellular connectivity (as required by the airline/FAA)!

When we got to the in-laws after the plane ride, we hooked my iPhone up to the TV via the Apple cables and watched "You Don't Mess With the Zohan", which we rented and loaded onto the device before we left the house.

Afterward, we tried watching a few podcasts and other streaming content and it kept skipping and crashing when the internet connection slowed up.

Streaming has its place, mind you, but its place is in content you don't want to watch more than once when you're near a stable connection with ample bandwidth. Downloading means you can re-watch content without exausting your internet bandwidth quota, easily keep your place for multiple items, and watch in places you wouldn't have good connectivity otherwise (as in an airplane or a road trip through the forest or on a train ride through a tunnel).

 

[QueenZ]

Unfortunately i do and thankfully it's not me I don't really like that kind of stuff..

 

[italiano40]

i think that bittorrent isn't stealing because i can just go stream any of this content for free in legal places, bittorrent just helps put that data on my computer so if i am not connected to the internet or i have a mp3 player i can use that content

 

[MacinJosh]

It's annoying how most people on this forum assume that everyone lives in a country where there is movie and TV-show content in the iTunes Store, or even have an iTunes Store. Some people are forced to get their movies and TV-shows elsewhere.

I'm also dumbfounded by how some people on this thread justify and reason their actions. If you bought an iTunes copy of a movie, it doesn't mean you own a blu-ray version of it that you can download or rip. Using bittorrent to get illegal copies is stealing no matter how you look at it, lol.

Joshua.

 

[Jiff Lemon]

Going slightly off topic for a moment, I'm still very much a "hardware" person; Currently own around 500 DVDs, none of them ripped. However, with BD apparently winning the format war its now an interesting time.

For me, the format war is only just begining - it was never between BD and HDDVD, but between online and offline media.

I do like the idea of owning a large NAS box with all my content ripped,catlogued nicely and stripped of those annoying adverts (reminding me that dispite going out and buying the damn disc, we're going to force you to watch this advert telling you how "piracy funds terrorism").

Now I could do that with my current DVD collection. The media companies would much prefer me to rebuy my entire collection on BD. Not a chance.

What I'd love, would be to buy my High Def content online. Stream it if I want it right now, or download it to my NAS (where I can do what the hell I like with it - Move it to my Ipod ect). If my NAS blows up, it doesn't matter - My content is "online", I could redownload (yes, it'd take some time, but look how much connectivity has increased in the last 5 years!). Thats almost I-tunes I know.

The killer part? Imagine if HD-TV2 comes out, with even better resolution and sound. What if the online people offered me the new HD2 version for a nominal fee - Would I then be tempted to have my entire library in the newer format? Hell yes.

 

[nplima]

I pick the first option. That is because I don't know who is profitting from unauthorized mass copying of copyrighted stuff. There is so much not-for-profit copying and sharing that I don't know how it's still possible to profit from this activity. And that's not even going into the discussion that "piracy" is a term picked by the industry just to make copyright infringement sound more damaging that it actually is.

On a personal level, I don't go out of my way to reduce the business I give to the Music and Film Industry Associations (MAFIA) but I am also not keen on buying stuff that I can get with a better price/features than the current offer.
ie:
- no blueray untill I can rip it to a hard disk and play on VLC (like I can with DVDs, legally or not)
- no MP3 dowloads, paid or unpaid. I'll pay to watch an artist perform, but I am not too keen on paying for music as a product when the same music is offered on the radio as free promotion for a product (album)
- I go to the cinema without a handycam but I am actively getting there later and later to walk in just before the actual film starts.

 

[hitekalex]

It's annoying how most people on this forum assume that everyone lives in a country where there is movie and TV-show content in the iTunes Store, or even have an iTunes Store.

[...]

If you bought an iTunes copy of a movie, it doesn't mean you own a blu-ray version of it that you can download or rip. Using bittorrent to get illegal copies is stealing no matter how you look at it, lol.

Joshua.

I find it equally annoying how some people (you) are assuming that ripping DVDs or downloading content off P2P networks is automatically "illegal" and "equals stealing" in all countries. DMCA doesn't extend outside the US, and distributing broadcast TV content over bittorrent is perfectly legal in a lot of countries as well.

I just wish people on forums like this would stop acting as "armchair lawyers" and stuck to the technology topics vs offering their unqualified legal opinions..

 

[MacinJosh]

I find it equally annoying how some people (you) are assuming that ripping DVDs or downloading content off P2P networks is automatically "illegal" and "equals stealing" in all countries. DMCA doesn't extend outside the US, and distributing broadcast TV content over bittorrent is perfectly legal in a lot of countries as well.

I just wish people on forums like this would stop acting as "armchair lawyers" and stuck to the technology topics vs offering their unqualified legal opinions..

Now hold on just a minute. Show me where I specified what was legal or not. Where did I assume that every P2P content is illegal? I didn't, so get off my back.

I just wish people would read these posts with more care to avoid any misunderstandings and confusion...

 

[northy124]

It doesn't mean you own a blu-ray version of it that you can download or rip. Using bittorrent to get illegal copies is stealing no matter how you look at it, lol.

Actually in many countries outside of the US you can legally download a rip of a film that you already own, The DMCA crap doesn't apply to anywhere else outside of North America (I think).

BTW I agree with hitekalex.