Funny, one can undetectably "record" streaming audio off sites like Spotify at high bitrates using programs like Audio Hijack and have a high quality totally DRM free copy of basically any recorded music in an instant. Videos are fairly easy to get on torrents if you use unsecured wifis, like at internet cafes. And there are literally thousands of locker sites in Korea and Japan to stash files. So why do people care about shiat sites like Megaupload?

The studios are forcing me to download some movies. I want to watch them legitimately. I've been waiting patiently for them to be streamed on Netflix. But those bastards simply won't let Netflix stream them. They are DVD only. Here's a hint. The people who want to make illegal copies prefer to rent the DVD and rip it directly. It has better quality than capturing the streaming movie.

Here's a short list of some of the movies I've been waiting to watch: Inglorious Basterds, Idiocracy, Avatar. There's more, but those are what I can think of immediately. No, I won't buy them. I never buy movies that I have never seen. I buy movies that impress me enough to want to own so I can watch it at my convenience in the future.

So both the arguments for not streaming are not valid. It's not hurting their sales because I won't buy before I view. It's not preventing illegal copying because the people who copy use the DVD. So that leaves only one possible reason. The are farking morons.

Dired: But if you make it harder, even just a little bit harder, they lazy will find something else to do and the stupid will be easily caught.

Better yet, if you make downloading LEGIT copies of the movie easier and cheaper, just a little bit easier and cheaper, people with any sort of disposable income at all (read: most adults) will happily PAY YOU for your content and skip pirating altogether for that same reason - they're lazy.

Hordes of people pay for legitimate copies of songs now because you can buy them for 99 cents and fully own the things (no DRM). $20 or $15 for a CD full of songs no one wants just to get the single wasn't market-bearable prices, that was the problem.

Well, movies and TV face the same issues. Media doesn't have to be FREE. But it needs to be reasonably priced and easy to get (that means fark the market segmentation bullshiat too).

Lots of people sign up for Netflix and the like already - why? Because it's not too expensive for most normally employed people who watch a decent amount of movies, and it's EASY, there's no dealing with virus ridden skeevy websites constantly changing their name all the time or worrying if the movie you get will cut out in the middle.

Make some truly international version (or versions, but allowing people to sign up from any location) of that with wide catalogs and you're golden.

Antimatter: The problem is the internet generation has no morals or ethics, because they no they won't be caught. they have an entitlement complex about everything digital, and see no value in such items

No, the 'internet generation' has plenty of morals and ethics. They have shown they are prepared to pay, sometimes through the nose, for the promise of something in the future. Look at Minecraft and how well it sold during the Alpha funding period or Double Fine's recent Kickstarter for a point n' click as evidence of that.

What the internet generation won't accept is that crap like Transformers 2 (or indeed 3), G. I. Joe or a whole host of 'blockbuster' movies are worth $15 or more. They won't accept that half the pap the RIAA puts out as "quality music" was worth the bandwidth it cost to download let alone the 99c it cost to download. But when they find something they do like they are quite happy to pay for it.

They don't understand why they can't just roll up to a content buffet, hand over a reasonable amount of cash and watch what they want when they want on whatever device they choose to watch it on.

Any time copyright is infringed via the internet it is a failure in the business model of the media conglomerates

You may not like that but it's far more accurate than blasting anyone involved as having no morals or ethics. .

degenerate-afro: MacWizard: Saberus Terras: Hell, I wouldn't have been surprised if they reported incidents of piracy spiked after MegaUpload was shut down, as the internet community gave the US gov't a gargantuan collective middle finger.

What they did report (linked on the same page) is a totally decentralized "Unstoppable file-sharing network".

Facebook required? Umm.... yeah. Unstoppable.

I didn't assert the validity of it, just quoted the headline. Kazaa was decentralized -- and didn't require Facebook. It was not unstoppable, either.

MacWizard:
I didn't assert the validity of it, just quoted the headline. Kazaa was decentralized -- and didn't require Facebook. It was not unstoppable, either.

Erm... they might of sued the company in to oblivion, same with Limewire, but the underlying network is (or was) still functional. gNutella in the case of Limewire.

Not to mention WinMX/WinNY/Share...

Or speaking of "tha flea," we used to rent VHS videos of TV at the supermarket all the time, some guy would record all the TV to VHS from some huge dish (in the US, as the tapes were US-market) and rent the things for $2/week or so, all the markets had them. That converted over to DVD eventually, same story. Go to an ethnic market with shoppers from Country X background, rent tapes/DVDs of any TV you want from Country X. Obviously you need to speak the language of Country X.

Those services have fallen off (at least by me) now just because people can all DIY at home, but there's always been markets for "pirated TV" that people simply can't get otherwise due to location.

Dired: They have not, nor have they ever, attempted to "eliminate" piracy. That's impossible. Just like eliminating rape, car theft, jaywalking or anything else the government doesn't want people doing. But if you make it harder, even just a little bit harder, they lazy will find something else to do and the stupid will be easily caught. So you'll never catch the best, the true pros and the hardcore? So what? Catch just a few of those and people will start to get scared, and while they won't all jump ship, some will. That was never the point and never will be. It's about reduction, not elimination.

They don't really care about piracy any more than the police care about stopping rapes or murders. This is about control and deciding who has the legitimate authority to enforce rules.
When the dust settles, the RIAA and MPAA want to have defacto control of the Internet and electronic media. They want to summon government authority at their whim to keep their sheep in line.

This is like the prosecutor who tries to push the maximum sentence for any crime so he can "send a message".
The message isn't "don't do this", it's "dont cross me cuz I have the authority to FARK your SHIAT up!".

Antimatter: The problem is the internet generation has no morals or ethics[...]

That's ok because the MPAA and RIAA (et al) have no morals at all either. DRM, Region Encoding, paying off congress and farking with the copyright laws yet again, the list goes on and on.

Then IF they decide to allow you to humbly queue up and purchase their offering they rape you on the price. Remember the DVD season bundles of X-Files, Star Trek, Dr Who, etc all for the low low price of $100 per farking season? fark T H A T !!!

Then you have the other side of the coin where something is produced somewhere OTHER then Region 1. If a distributor doesn't see enough profit to bring it to Region 1 then your happy ass has two choices: 1. Go without 2. Arrrrrrrrrr.

And just because...


/i do not believe in going without when I need not do so
//$60 for 12 24-minute episodes? How about NO? Does NO work for you?
///dinosaurs are suppose to go extinct... not get propped up by the government

DigitalCoffee: Remember the DVD season bundles of X-Files, Star Trek, Dr Who, etc all for the low low price of $100 per farking season? fark T H A T !!!

SRSLY. I have to laugh when I'm watching my (pirated!!) TV downloads, at the end of the episode they always have a little ad where characters from the show hold up either the DVD or else some ad for the "online streaming!!!" services where "you can watch this episode!" except of course I can't because I'm in the wrong country.

...though some of the pure streaming stuff now I CAN do legally, if we just ignore the fact that my computer isn't physically positioned where I claim it is. I'm accessing legal streams, I just used a fake ID to get into the theater. Meaning that technically I did pay to see the show, but I paid some random middleman rather than the TV station.

Piracy still happens, but access to third-party mod files to games are no longer available. Files that are not illegal or copyright violations due to fair use and the fact that they are useless unless a person has the proprietary game programming. And so I'm annoyed since I cannot play the Warhammer 40K mod for Operation Flashpoint Resistance because my hard-drive crashed a year ago.

scottydoesntknow: McManus_brothers: I'd like to thank all the asshats in this thread who insist on quoting Best in the World, thus making my blocking of his stupidity completely pointless.

Asshat? The only asshat here is the guy who doesn't realize there's a check box to block quotes of ignored users in their preferences.

Now go check your preferences so you stop looking like an asshat.

Man, that would mean admitting I'm wrong...and since this is Fark, that'll never happen, because no one is ever wrong on Fark.

10 bucks for an iTunes rental pre-screening of Tim and Eric Billion Dollar Movie.

Britney Spear's Speculum: 10 bucks for an iTunes rental pre-screening of Tim and Eric Billion Dollar Movie.

If you pirate/buy/accidentally glimpse that, you deserve to be sent to Guantanamo for the end of time. Or be forced to watch Tim and Eric. Equally as painful.

Best In The World: "To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a wilderness, they call it peace." - Tacitus


& that's just it homie. U'll neva stop it cuz it's like vapor. It comez in all forms. Since I was out tha crib ppl @ the flea market been sellin pirate VHS tapes of movies while they still in the theater. Then they sold DVDs. Actually, they still do & those Chinese ppl are ballin. They have 1 of the nicest tables @ tha flea & I kno cuz I work summers @ tha flea. For realz, if ur a Chinese immigrant u have 2 choices in New Jersey. Collect canz & return them in NYC (cuz we ain't got redemption in tha Jerz) or sell pirate DVDs. Let's do tha mathz:

1 can = 5 cents
1 DVD = $10 = 200 cans

U know how many goddamn cans a china man has 2 push across tha GW Bridge in order to make what he could sitting behind a table @ tha flea? Yo, & this is just physical items. I'm not even spitting on the internet business. Yo, trying 2 stop that iz like trying to build a dam in tha middle of tha Atlantic ocean.

if i get a hot chick who can rap, will you stand beside her and occasionally say something ?

i think you might be the next Die Antwoord with the right "polish"...

Antimatter: The problem is the internet generation has no morals or ethics, because they no they won't be caught. they have an entitlement complex about everything digital, and see no value in such items.

Eventually, this will lead to the death of the anonymous internet, once governments decide that's the only way to properly tract and detect cyber criminals.

No ... the problem is that old market ideas don't work with this model.

haha screw the haters i think best in the world is hilarious

chewy milk: haha screw the haters i think best in the world is hilarious

this..so much....refreshing to see on here...

here's why:

jimmy two brain cells gets on the fark, blathers on about nothing, but his punctuation and grammar are fine...but he talks nonsense..slips right by...unless someone trolls/flames it

best in the world gets on here , farks in his his regional vernacular (albeit a hoax or not) and makes more sense than the jimmy too few brain cells.

then the entitled whiners get on and ...whine..like ..entitled whiners do..with the worn and tired "damn you for quoting him" crap...."what am i reading!!??!" gif...

so from your fans BITW, keep up the good work.

this place needs more best in the world

you know...these movie and record companies have been stealing revenues from the people who create, make, work in and around the creation of the "product" for years.

artists, craftspeople etc...

Lucas telling David Prowse that Star Wars never "recouped" is a fantastic example...

Link (new window)

the recording artists ripped off are too many to count.

both businesses are run largely by crooks and thieves with connections to the mob families via booze, bootlegging, hedge funds, venture capitol or parented by larger legislated big crime..err..corporations...

so...by adopting a properly accountable "product to purchaser" model, they can't rig the game any more. they can't skim. they can't screw the artist. they can't price fix.

another fine example was a record company that bought up its own crap so it went "gold" on the charts and then down sold it to retailers at a loss so they could write it all off against a seller that they might have to pay tax on...

it went from one warehouse to another. who paid for that? the artists did. "we went gold, how come we are broke?"

that's just one example of the depth that is missing from the "property" component of these discussions...

the big dinosaurs are smelling the spark plugs and trying to get a quick cash grab in before it's totally gone. the 360 deals, the comcast deals etc...live nation etc etc...


the pea is still there..it's just under a different cup.

again, this is more about domestic surveillance without a court order than it is about illegal downloading... read up..it's all out there...

on the internet.....


CARRIER LOS..........

UnspokenVoice: Let it first be said that I pirate like a mofo.

Now...

If you keep stealing (you're depriving them of potential, a viable business asset and taking their intellectual property - even if only a copy and not depriving them of the original so don't quibble the language, man up and admit it) they get mad. It only stands to reason.

Meh... I can afford to buy stuff. Screw 'em. Pirating is easier and I'm lazy these days and not very bright.

shaaadup

chewy milk: haha screw the haters i think best in the world is hilarious

I'm impressed with the amount of
time it would take someone smart enough to fake those posts to construct those posts. Based on the volume of spam, they not only do it well, they do it frequently. It's a conundrum of stupidity wrapped in a layer of sock genius I've never seen.

Based on the name, I'm guessing a CM Punk fan, inspired by the fWc stylings of a poster like smiths, but not smiths.

Vey entertaining, none the less.

Megavideo got shut down but Kim dotcom is in jail. I call it a wash.

Mega upload. Whatever. There all crooks

arresting al capone didn't stop crime, so he should not have been sent up.

arresting jeffrey dahmer didn't stop the rape of young boys OR murder, so it was foolish to send him to prison. not sure what subby's point is here...

That's funny because I don't remember hearing anyone say that because one site got shut down that suddenly all piracy was supposed to stop. However that doesn't mean it shouldn't have been done.

proteus_b: arresting al capone didn't stop crime, so he should not have been sent up.

arresting jeffrey dahmer didn't stop the rape of young boys OR murder, so it was foolish to send him to prison. not sure what subby's point is here...

Capone was arrested for tax evasion.
Sending people to jail on false pretenses is ok with you?

/because Gitmo is full of undesirables who were simply labeled "terrorist" and left to rot.

I wonder how long it'll take before Google, Apple and the like decide enough is enough and start commissioning their own content?

Kindle and iBooks (amongst others) dropped the barrier for publishing a book through the floor, tools are being constantly refined. The various app stores did the exact same with game publishing (hello one man bands, welcome back).

Exactly how much is a Workstation grade machine, some cameras, a copy of Avid/Premiere again? Plenty of people making content.

It's interesting to see the overall vibe of this thread now... if this same thing had happened 2 or more years ago, folks who would proudly state when the last time they ever spent a dime on music / software would be outraged at the closure.

Is the mindset of "it's OK to pirate stuff" slowly going away or something?

itazurakko: Better yet, if you make downloading LEGIT copies of the movie easier and cheaper, just a little bit easier and cheaper, people with any sort of disposable income at all (read: most adults) will happily PAY YOU for your content and skip pirating altogether for that same reason - they're lazy.

Hordes of people pay for legitimate copies of songs now because you can buy them for 99 cents and fully own the things (no DRM). $20 or $15 for a CD full of songs no one wants just to get the single wasn't market-bearable prices, that was the problem.

Well, movies and TV face the same issues. Media doesn't have to be FREE. But it needs to be reasonably priced and easy to get (that means fark the market segmentation bullshiat too).*snip*

I believe Louie CK recently proved your point Link (new window) I hope we start seeing much more artist direct to viewer content. Also, I just started watching the NetFlix exclusive Lilyhammer, Link (new window) and if NetFlix keeps making their own quality programing, we may see many changes in how content is delivered and valued in the future.