> Piracy also threatens to damage our business, as its fundamental proposition to consumers is so compelling and difficult to compete against: virtually all content for free,” Netflix writes.
People emphasize the "free" part, but it really is the "all content" part that makes piracy wins.
Especially if you are not in the USA, often specific content isn't available at any price. Even if it is, its split across 5 billion different confusing services.
The killer feature of piracy is thar it just works, not that it is free.
Content being fragmented and constantly coming and going is a massive problem for users. Netflix used to be the go-to to find just about any given show or film, but has become a mystery box where the contents change on a near-daily basis. Piracy is reliable and simple instead, and works like Netflix used to: Just search up what you want to watch and you're golden. It has been and always will be a service problem.
Thank you for sharing that. I didn't make it to the end because I actually was laughing out loud so much that I was starting to hurt but those first 2 minutes were great.
Delayed availability also bolsters piracy. In the age of the internet, people don’t want to watch foreign shows weeks or months after they’ve aired in their country of origin, but within mere hours of original airing so they can ride the global wave of discussion after each episode.
A six month delay for example will completely miss the bulk of the show’s online relevance and even a week is enough to seriously dampen enthusiasm in the region. This isn’t the 90s or prior decades where viewers are entirely reliant on local licensees to know what’s available.
Studios, distributors, and streaming services are seriously shooting themselves in the foot by not pulling all stops to make sure all shows are simultaneously available worldwide.
Piracy also solves the opposite problem of "old" movies and TV shows disappearing from streaming services. Especially since many things are exclusive to streaming platforms with no physical release, after they're removed from a streaming service, piracy is the only way to view such stuff.
In addition, piracy ensures that the "original" version -- whether it was released on DVD, Blu-ray or streaming platform -- is "always" there (as long as someone is seeding). These days streaming services take down 50-year-old content because of racial prototypes or other politically incorrectly content given what (some) people believe in 2024, edit them or never put them on the shelve again. If all they do is to add "content advisory", consider yourself lucky.
This is one of the most stupid things that have happened.
I recently watched a 90s show that, because of the context and the country it was made, they used music with no regard for licensing issues. Essentially, no one would have expected or foreseen that it could run into legal issues at any point.
However, when they put it on netflix they changed the soundtrack for that reason.
Some kind soul uploaded the original versions to youtube.
There’s also cases where by far and away the best version of a given piece of media is the recording of an HDTV broadcast from somewhere in southeast Asia or something because the rightsholders never bothered to produce a physical release in anything better than VHS or badly mastered DVD.
Piracy works around negligence on the part of publishers like this.
Furthermore, some content that's available overseas is also censored in US releases. I'm sure your mind just jumped to interesting places, but let me bring you back by saying one of the worst offenders here is Bluey. A literal kids show; for kids. In Australia! It's not like it's even some huge cultural norm difference like Japan vs America, it's Australia!
There's an episode that's not shown on D+ at all where the dad pretends to be pregnant with the younger daughter and then enlists the help of their neighbor (who is only ever referred to as [neighbor child character]'s Dad") in delivering the "baby". Great episode. Gotta pirate it if you're in America though.
Also lots of weird dumb censorship in smaller ways. There's a roundabout discussion of a vasectomy happening in the "background" (it's the foreground but- look mate don't make me explain it) and Disney replaced what would've been a nice advertisement for the benefits of male contraceptive that many men are hesitant about with whats instead a barely coherent conversation about something trite.
And they censor a horse (an actual animal horse, no I don't know why the dogs are sentient while the horses are just animals) pooping at a state fair while the girls were just remarking how beautiful the horse is (and they run away giggling). Has Disney ever been to a state fair?
That type of censorship has always been a thing. Back in January 1992, the TNG episode "The High Ground" was not broadcast in the UK due to a line about how terrorists can win at their goals. Later broadcasts edited out the line, it wasn't until 2006 that you could see the unedited version.
> The killer feature of piracy is thar it just works, not that it is free
Especially as piracy has its own costs: VPN (French authorities do detect bittorrent), storage, some Jellyfin or Kodi host, some time to manage the whole *arr setup.
The moment legal access to a whole world's worth of movies becomes cheaper and easier than that, piracy becomes unattractive. That was the way Netflix was perceived in its golden age... No longer.
Right, it's not like piracy is literally free. There are still monetary costs, software maintenance work that needs to be done, and risks involved.
In that 'golden age' of Netflix, getting a Netflix subscription was a much better choice for loads of people. But now it seems to be swinging back the other way again. It's just so frustrating, because all these content owners actually had a good-enough solution to most piracy, and they ruined it with their own greed.
Important to know, authorities usually do not go after downloaders/consumers of piracy. But those who distribute it - but if you participate in bittorrent - you are distributing.
And it is really easy to track the IPs, as it is fundamentally part of how bittorrent works that everyone in the network has the IPs of the other participants. So a VPN is advisable.
There are websites you can go to and stream any tv show or movie for free in a couple of clicks. It's impossible to get cheaper and easier (ip law) than that.
Don't those have their own problems, though? Like their domain gets blocked, so you have to find it again. They video quality is just kinda ok, and if you want a copy to stream to your TV, it's either not possible, or won't look very good. Years ago my partner used to use some of these sites to watch some foreign-language shows that are just not possible to get in the US at all, and it just always seemed so sketchy and unreliable.
How do these sites fund themselves, anyway? Ads, I guess? Tho not sure what ad networks will show ads on sites that are 100% copyright infringement.
These sites might be advertising things that usual ad networks would prefer to stay away from, like online casinos. Moreover, in some countries, it might be explicitly forbidden to advertise gambling.
Not only free and all (most), but less hassle, too. A pirate doesn't need to worry about digital restrictions if they haven't upgraded their TV, HDMI cables, and streaming boxes, web broweswers, etc. to all support whatever BS the the big streaming providers are pushing.
Steam really did this for games for me and somehow hasn't stopped working for me yet. Maybe Netflix should ask themselves how Steam competes with bootlegs and what they might do like it.
My perception (maybe incorrect) is that it's harder to play online multi-player games using cracked copies of games without getting found out and banned. Also the risk of getting some malware with your cracked copy (single- or multi-player) is very real, something you don't really have to worry about with a video file.
Regardless of that, the model is just different: if I can pay Netflix $15/mo for unlimited access to their entire catalog -- and their catalog includes everything I want to watch -- then I'm not going to need to go elsewhere, and I'll be happy. If I do, those monthly subscription fees are going to start to add up and make me unhappy.
But Steam doesn't have a subscription service; you pay individually for each game, and there are pretty frequent sales and discounted bundles. If Steam doesn't have a game you want, you buy it from someone else that does have it, and your cost is essentially the same as it would have been if Steam did have it. (Some games do require a subscription, but that's also not really the same thing as Netflix.)
And the usage is just different, too: if you buy a game, you're probably going to play it for many tens or hundreds of hours, over months or maybe even years. For a movie or TV show, you're going to watch it once, most likely, and that's it. When you think about it, $60 (often less) for a game that you get years of enjoyment out of seems pretty reasonable. But then you look at Amazon Video, where you can rent or buy some titles, and the cost is going to be $3 for an hour or two of entertainment, if you're only renting. $3 bucks for two hours vs. $60 for hundreds of hours? No contest.
Not saying they are the same, no, but you seem to think it is so different that it's impossible for NF to have a business model without stamping out bootlegging?
If so, they're done for, because it's not going to be possible to do that.
But I think providing a product that desirable and easy to view might work and they're just not doing it and blaming evil-doers for their own failure as a business.
Super difficult to pirate multiplayer games, keep up with DLCs/patches and to keep the competitive aspect of some games (leaderboards, steam achievements).
The problem with Netflix is that many studios saw how profitable Netflix is and wanted their share, so they stopped licencing content to Netflix and opened their own services.
If that were the case, all games including AAA would be exclusively multiplayer. While there have been some MP-only games (because that's a good strategy to acquire users), that's not been the case. In fact, you can get MP on cracked games through steam by abusing the API.
GabeN was right, it's a service problem. Sure, when I was a teen I would crack all my games, but I had no money and was never going to be a paying costumer. Now that I have money I can spend, and since steam has acquired me as a user, if I want to buy a game I will check steam. I still crack some games because I do not have infinite money, but it's always because I checked the price and decided it was too much first.
I tried to watch Rick and Morty season 6 here in Australia, only to find that half of it was on one streaming service, a quarter on another, and the rest not available at all. They make it impractical to obtain legitimately and then complain when we pirate.
Possibly true today... was it true a month ago, or will it be true half a year later?
I see this contend constantly coming and going thing on Spotify also, and it really annoys me. (and no, I won't pay to google even if their crap is better, i'l rather buy CD-s and rent a warehouse for them, or pirate content)
Also for me it's far more customisable. Want to watch a video at 2x speed, want to add audio normalizer, want to tweak the gamma, etc. Yes vlc does all that and more. Their crummy app won't even play the video with proper scrubbing.
It's like the app vs browser thing for videos too, where you are restricted by the app's player vs using players like vlc that are just awesome!
To netflix's credit, i think they're aware of this. They're in the business of providing content in exchange for money. for the content that they actually own the rights to, they do let people watch it.
the problem is all the other rights holders, who seem to not want to let people watch their content in exchange for money.
Yeah, it does seem that the problem starts with the actual content owners who want to make bug money by selling exclusive licenses or running their own streaming service.
Netflix then gets stuck with no reasonable way to license all of the content.
I believe you are unfamiliar with the current state of piracy.
I'm not going to name the site, because I don't want to run afoul of any rules here... But this site is an even more streamlined experience than the legit sites. It has a searchable catalog that's just as high quality UX as netflix, and you just start watching instantly.
It literally just works.
That's the norm in the piracy world today, but some people are extra about things and set up automation to auto download local copies of things on a media server. There's a bit of initial setup overhead for this, but once it's done it's as convenient as it gets. You can subscribe to shows and they just show up on your media server as episodes are released.
But all of this actually just works. Right format is never an issue. To get it to the TV, I just use Plex. There’s even a smart TV app. I can also watch it on my smartphone. And download it if I know I won’t have network. Subtitles are often embedded directly in most downloads, and if not Plex always manages to find the correct ones from OpenSubtitles. These are non issues, most of the times.
I’ve been running Plex since probably 2010, maybe earlier. It just works… once you set it up… and until something needs to change. The concept of running a server is lost on most people. I’ve set it up for some others, and they don’t get it. They just plug a laptop into their TV or use AirPlay instead, because the idea of a server and client (in whatever terminology one wants to use) doesn’t really click. Most people aren’t a custom leaving their computer on all the time in the name of having a server running either.
There is also a matter of getting the content. If they are going to rip DVDs, now they have to use something like Handbrake. But that’s not all, they also need to spend time learning how Plex reads folder and file names to scan the media to lookup metadata. Doing that manually sucks, so then that might lead them to have to search for something like Filebot, where they need to use Filebot’s naming syntax to align its actions with what Plex wants. Then if they get a new computer, there is the issue of migration to the new system. I eventually got a NAS, which meant moving to Docker, which would be a whole new can of worms for them.
And all this just assumes it’s all on the local network. Plex might do some router magic today, I can’t remember, but for a long time I remember setting up port forwarding so I could get at my library from my phone.
I don’t think anything of most of this, and I assume you don’t either, but it’s a lot for someone who doesn’t have any kind of background in this stuff or interest in heading down a rabbit hole with it.
I’d also argue that as Plex became more platform agnostic with its web UI, it became harder for the average user to understand. The first versions, based on XBMC, were just apps. Stick out media in there and it plays it. Then they made PMS with the client/server architecture, but the server still had a really nice GUI on the Mac where things made sense. Now the server launches the browser when opened, so people kind of need to understand the idea that this server is hosting a website to manage the media, which is another layer for someone to get lost in. And now, I go to plex.tv, login there, and it loads the server running off my NAS, which will be even more confusing for people, especially if/when something goes wrong or isn’t working. They also need to keep up with the changes, not of just the UI they use, but the architecture of the backend, to some degree. It’s changed a lot over the years I’ve been using it.
As for subtitles. I typically trash them and don’t care, as 99.9% of the time I don’t want subtitles. But the 1 time I tried to download the subtitles and use them, it didn’t work and I gave up. I watched on a streaming service instead.
For me one of the biggest draws of file-sharing is that I find it so easy.
The streaming service way would involve finding where the show is, accounts, credentials, godawful UI, ads, spam, potential malware,+ many other constantly changing and evolving inconveniences.
File-sharing way is just so fast and easy to comprehend for me, search for the show on one site, pick the quality I want, download the files and then do whatever I want with them. Also it hasnt changed in decades.
There are a lot of websites for illegal streaming, it's plug and play, even easier to use than Netflix, and their catalog is very often up to date with what you can find on torrent trackers
Right, streaming can win on convenience but loses so hard on content that it has begun to cancel out any reason to use it. Netflix really was great back when it was just getting really popular and had both consistent content and a just-works video player, but to stay popular it needed to keep both, and it hasn't.
Piracy can do the other things you mentioned automatically by the way, but I agree that it's less "just-works" for the average person given the setup involved.
It could, but it does not. When you have to hunt for the content you want across a dozen different services you need to be subscribed to and / or that many apps, it’s not convenient.
Even being super basic and not at all in the scene, odds are the first or second piracy site you check has it, it won’t try to upsell you or give you some other content, and if it had the content at one point chances are it still does.
You're being downvoted but i think you have a point for non techies who want to watch things on their tv. Like i don't think my parents would be able to figure out how to pirate by themselves.
But the world is changing. Plenty of people watch primarily on their laptop or phone
Software has completely automated all of these steps. The only barrier is the initial set up, which a non-technical person can figure out over a weekend.
How could they commercialize it in ways they already haven't? There already exist good, free torrenting clients, and piracy is illegal. The most they could do is set up a subscription service for exclusive torrents which always have seeders, but that's already being done AFAIK, and it's illegal, so they can't really run ads on TV about it.
I find myself paying for an illegal IPTV service, just so I can watch soccer from my home country while living elsewhere. I'd genuinely prefer a legal, reasonably priced option, but the only alternatives are these expensive, big-name services that insist on a set-top box. So, reluctantly, the 'less legal' route ends up being the more practical service for me.
I think they emphasised the piracy is free part because otherwise the solution would be to fix their services, while if they point to piracy is compelling because is free and not because it doesn’t frustrate people, then the solution is in the hand of regulators
How dare you to be so exactly right. Those corp data-driven pms are destroying monopolies from inside with one-fits billion features, which is a perfect illustration of evolutionary self-regulation.
Protocols are the future of internet competition, not really products as knew it..
People emphasize the "free" part, but it really is the "all content" part that makes piracy wins.
Especially if you are not in the USA, often specific content isn't available at any price. Even if it is, its split across 5 billion different confusing services.
The killer feature of piracy is thar it just works, not that it is free.