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If the super-rich don’t want to pay taxes, then why should I pay for subscriptions or watching movies?
“This show is not available in your country” is the one that pisses me off the most. The Internet connects the entire world and then we have unnecessary artificial barriers like georestriction for no reason. There’s foreign shows I’ve been wanting to watch but they’re not available on torrents and only on these georestricted platforms so I can’t even watch it even if I’m willing to pay (which I am for few films).
The Internet connects the entire world and then we have unnecessary artificial barriers like georestriction for no reason.
Lawyers negociate rights for media with every country. The reason is money.
its annoying but a carry over from film distribution rights that are negotiated. I agree these should have been updated by now , and region locks make no sense, unless a government is trying to control its people’s media.
What about using a VPN?
Idk if sites have ways to block that now
Even VPN isn’t enough. Ex. One time I wanted to watch a show that’s only available on Amazon Prime India according to justwatch. VPN isn’t enough because I’m using US-based Amazon account and I have to create an Amazon IN account per Amazon’s policies. And for that I need an India phone number for verification. So of course I don’t want to spend money on account setup especially since I don’t know if it’ll work. So I setup Azure VM based in India (in case they use location) but it still got stuck on the phone verification or puzzle loop so there’s nothing I can do unless I find a friend in India and use their account :(
And it wasn’t available on any piracy sites I’m guessing? Yeah that is rough. I know it took me quite some time to track down a copy of the movie Blueberry for similar reasons. (Weird French acid western)
yeah not available on any torrent sites. I checked all of the major ones through Jackett and it returned no results. If you’re curious, the name of the movie is “Kulkarni Chaukatla Deshpande”. There’s a couple movies like that that are available on Amazon Prime India but not on torrent trackers.
Damn I tried looking and for a second I thought I found a free online version for you, but it was actually just “Mrs. Deshpande”
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@7101334 @coolfission they do but they get circumvented fast.
The real way the gov/big tech (they are one and the same) will shut this down is by making vpns illegal, and making your ISP beholden to this law, and the next step is to make your OS verify who you are with Id or biometric. This means anyone using Linux or graphene os etc will be marked a criminal. All part of their plan.
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@7101334 there’s hope!
yeah and we’re already seeing that with how now you need an account with your personal information just to use software. And everything is requiring a phone number and SMS verification to setup. I miss the days when all I needed to create an account on major sites was an email and password.
One thing that I will enjoy with the slow demise of streaming is that the current generation will git gud at IT again. It’s kinda shocking, as an older millenial/xennial, how bad some of the Gen Z’s I work with are with basic IT tasks whereas X’s and M’s are fine with it as we’ve had to deal with Napster and Limewire
Hopefully some. The apathy is strong in this generation
For piracy I mostly go to those watch online sites with ad block and stuff turned on. I used to torrent but I don’t do that much anymore.
Same, but oh my god I miss WatchEpisodes. It would track what episodes you had actually watched already. I have a shit memory in some cases and an extra-shit memory when it comes to remembering which episode I watched last lol
I torrent because I care about quality. I can usually find 4K torrents of stuff I like.
Where are you finding torrents? Been a long time. Is piratebay still a thing?
TPB should be your last resort. If you dig around, you’ll find other sites which are far better.
Any suggestions? This is me digging around!
I recommend installing jackett: https://github.com/Jackett/Jackett
It’s a tool that searches major torrent sites at once and it integrates right into qbitorrent which simplifies things a lot.
Cough (ext) cough (.to)
TPB is good for more mainstream stuff like movies and such. Especially when you recognize the uploader. Downloaded the last two weeks of Last Week Tonight last night and they’re perfect quality.
Piratebay is still around, but it lacks good moderation. I’ve heard that it’s still fine to use for non-executable files such as media.
Yo ho ho. If purchase is not ownership, then piracy is not theft.
Add to this, “this service will only stream in 480p on Linux”
Disney is the ugliest offender. They demand their movies in non-standard encryption/decryption scheme that a browser does not support. We paid users can’t even watch in 480p without a Windows/Mac OS client.
Enshitification is the word
You’re not wrong.
Don’t torrent. You put yourself in danger. Get a good Usenet binary subscription.
You put yourself in danger.
LOL.
Torrented two videos yesterday.
Computer hasn’t caught fire yet.
Rookie numbers.
Huh. Says I haven’t downloaded anything. My VPN must be working.
Now you need to check if you put in your real IP or the VPN IP in the website.
Huh, it’s a different number ever time. My VPN must be working.
i2p facilitates anonymous torrenting over a darknet
Completely relatable. The prices keep going up with more and more restrictions while being enshittified with ads, tiered service, and paying twice to watch something - the streaming service fee and then a rental fee on top of that, for a movie that might be a decade or more old.
Arr…fuck that.
This is exactly why people fled cable. It was completely predictable the streaming services would enshittify just like cable.
The root of a huge percentage of humanity problems can be described by 1 single word - greed.
remember when you got pay tv BECAUSE there were no ads? those were the days.
It wasn’t that long ago.
The new one is: This streaming service is owned by one the most evil people on the planet, and it comes included with my phone plan, but I’m just going to pirate everything anyway, just because Fuck Them.
That is all of them though
Nah, the Ellisons are a special kind of Evil.
Tbh I thought you were referring to Amazon but yeah the Ellisons are cartoonishly evil.
People who assume that anyone speaking in another language is speaking disparaging about them:
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Why would you assume that they are speaking poorly of you? I live my life so people are most likely to say something nice about me. What are you up to, that you assume they’d be criticizing you?
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Why would you assume that they are speaking about you at all? You might be the center of your own universe, but I assure you, you aren’t the center of theirs.
Nah, the Ellison’s are a special kind of Evil.
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Do what you want, cuz a pirate is free
You ARRRR a pirate!
the fact that Gabe said “piracy is a service problem” fifteen fucking years ago, and none of these fuckwits in content distribution have learned this at all is a source of continuous astonishment to me.
I havent pirated a single game since i installed steam 20 years ago
There was a short period of time where netflix was good enough so i didnt pirate movies or tv shows either
It’s 100% a service problem
Same story here.
Loved Netflix at first. I used to pirate a lot of tb shows and movies and then completely stopped once Netflix became decent.
Then they turned to shit and I’m back to pirating.
But not only that, I’m actually PAYING to pirate content because its a service that just combines all content from Netflix, Disney, apple, etc into one singular app that you can stream from any android device with the app.
It can have pretty shit quality sometimes, but at least I can watch it.
I will pay for shit if it’s easy access.
Fuck Netflix, Amazon, apple, Disney, etc. greedy fucks.
The funny thing is, i actually have legit access to some paid streaming services. But because i refuse to download their app or connect my tv to the internet, i’m limited to 720p in the browser…
So i just pirate the shit anyway
What do you use?
Not OP but I use IPTV. Roughly $150 for 6 months. I have over 9000 live channels and access to roughly 52000 movies, including movies that hit theatres maybe a couple weeks later.
The last game I pirated was Driver: San Francisco a couple years ago, because you couldn’t (still can’t? maybe?) buy it anywhere except for like, second-hand physical media, and I am not going through that hassle. I can’t even remember the game I last pirated before that (Probably Sims 4, because fuck EA and fuck that laundry list of DLC – but I can’t be sure).
Music, movies, and TV shows, though? Oh yeah, baby, that’s a weekly activity now. Netflix I dumped many years ago when the fracturing of content to twenty different streaming services happened, and Spotify I dumped just this last year for a few different reasons (the CEO donating to AI weapons programs, introducing a fuckass AI DJ, ICE ads, getting fed up with songs I either can’t find or can find but aren’t available in my region, or could listen to and enjoyed and then having them suddenly become unavailable, etc…)
I’m sure, someday, Steam will enshittify. Probably shortly after Gabe dies – and it will be a dark day for me and millions of gamers worldwide. But for now, I’m more than happy to let Gabe empty my wallet with sales and convenience, because the gettin’s been good for a couple decades and will likely remain so for another couple. I can’t say the same for music, movies, and TV; I don’t know if I’ll ever end up paying for them again unless the distributors involved sort their shit out.
At least, Steam has some pretty good followers should they enshittify. Gog, humblebundle and epic are all poised to take over should steam shit the bed.
They aren’t quite there yet, but at least you don’t need a subscription for any of them and can just add them to a unifying launcher like heroic etc.
I get stuff on Gog sometimes. They do some things right (no need for a client, no DRM stance, good compatibility support, chasing down lost rights for old games).
But unfortunately they can never get more than scraps from the big publishers because those will never agree to release their newer games without DRM.
And let’s be clear, I wouldn’t want them to go back on this, but that will make it hard for them to compete.
Interestingly, at the beginning everything on Humble was offering DRM-free options too. And then after a while they gave us some bullshit about their policy not being “DRM-free” but “DRM-agnostic”, which means, publisher can choose whether to use no DRM, or DRMs. Such a strong policy, thank you Humble.
I think a bronze lining to WW3 or a 2nd American Civil War, is that DRM-free and telemetry-free media would become very popular. Troops need their entertainment without comms, and civvies might have constant internet shortages. Thus, the markets would have to adapt to that reality.
Humble Bundle already enshittified, and Epic was evil to begin with.
epic
Lol at including the pre-enshittified store
The only games I pirate are those that either :
_ are completely abandoned by their publishers and literally unavailable through other means
_ are stuff I already bought long ago and this is the most convenient way to get them to run (I have occasionally bought games again if it was cheap and convenient)
_ have turned to such shitty business models I don’t want to give a cent to the publishers (and I almost don’t even do that one anymore since usually they’ve found a dozen more ways to turn the game to shit anyway).
So yeah. Totally agree with the service problem.
There is a lot of SEGA product that I would buy, if it was DRM-free. Shin Megami Tensei, Sonic Origins, and more. I don’t let DRM and rootkits onto my PC, so I either pirate that stuff or just engage with someone else’s product. Either way, SEGA has lost hundreds of dollars.
There was also a brief period when spotify was good enough.
Same for me with Steam. I used to pirate everything gaming and only once I got Steam and a steady job, pirating stopped.
As for media, nop. Pirating never really stopped. When using Netflix is much more annoying than using myflixerz.to, you wont be coming back to pay for a service that is fundamentally crap.
In the grand scheme of things, they don’t really care about piracy.
Yes, they could greatly reduce piracy by making their service affordable, available, and convenient … but they would lose more profits from doing that than they currently do from piracy. They know enshittifying their service will result in increased piracy … but they also know that it will result in extracting increased money from the people who do pay. And, overall, their profits are still higher despite the higher piracy levels.
(Heck, in some ways piracy has been shown to be overall beneficial. To some degree, it’s free advertising, helping media spread through word of mouth. And maybe while they missed out on a media sale or subscription, they still end up making money from that pirate with a merchandise sale or something.)
For anyone who hasn’t seen the clip OP is referencing: https://youtu.be/EQweFurRz4g
Yeah, I agree it still is. Like I am not going to subscribe for $10+ a month for a single show on a single streaming service. I need at least 3 for about $6 for it to even seem reasonable at a minimum. Like if the more streaming services were more like Movies Anywhere, I would love that. Like this service works better for me, I will give them my money type shit.
The recording industry did.
Who pirates music anymore. Everyone has one of the streaming services for it, because they all have functionally all of the music. There’s no exclusive releases on one platform or another.
Well, maybe there is, I haven’t looked in a while. Maybe they’re enshitifying that too.
Somehow the TV/movie shit heads can’t figure the same thing out.
I assure you, the enshittification of music streaming services is already here. Even before Spotify went completely to shit there were some things that just couldn’t be found on the platform, and others still that I used to listen to suddenly becoming unavailable.
I, and a lot of other people, pirate music now because (among other reasons) having a hard drive full of MP3s or FLACs is something no corporation can arbitrarily decide to take away from you at any time.
Everyone has one of the streaming services
Yeah, I use Navidrome server. You can even host it on your phone in Termux (assumes Android). And I mean, in the easiest damn way possible.
apt install navidrome, and runnavidrome. Though I recommend checking out the config options.
At least the Address option, Android has no firewall.
Wife and I live in Germany, but still have some streaming services from our home country in Eastern Europe.
We started a Scream movie marathon on the weekend to catch up on the series, before we watch the newest one in cinema.
We watched the first 2, and half of the 3rd on 28th February Saturday on one of the streaming platforms (SkyShowtime). The next morning (1st of March), the movies were not available anymore.
We finished 3 and watched 4 on Amazon Prime, but within that we had to start a separate subscription for horror movies.
5 was only available in German with no subtitles, so I had to search for another source. Ended up creating a Paramount+ account, downloaded the app, and watched the movie there.
Then back to Amazon Prime, where finished the 6th Scream movie, before heading to the local cinema.
This was the last straw, we decided to go back to sail the seas after a decade of streaming service subscription. Next weekend I will take some time to figure out the setup we need to make this happen safely, as a lot has changed since I left it behind.
You’re in for a treat. The landscape and software to self host is so good now.
If you want online streaming: fmhy
If you want torrenting, make sure to bind vpn to client
If you want media server, use jellyfin with arr stack
Happy sailing :)
What vpns allow peer to peer? I heard there was a push to prohibit that in many vpns
I use windscribe, I believe proton does if you pay, mullvad does I think, and I think most other VPNs do.
Use Jellyfin. I have been running it since the middle of last year and it has been amazing and stable. Have fun.
Yep. I pirated when I was young because doing things “proper” was more difficult. Then they started having reasonable fees for services that were easy to use without ads.
But now the prices are outrageous, the ads are back, and everything is so fragmented. Piracy is the better user experience again. I was about to set up a NAS and start sailing again, but now storage prices are jumping.
I may just start going outside.
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What’s an “outside,” precious?
I think that’s where what they call “grass” is.
I will take some rime
Hopefully without too many albatrosses
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rime_of_the_Ancient_Mariner
I think you meant: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T1P3HDSVogg
Yarrlist, cast from PC to tv if available. Or get a browser plugin and download it from the site if you don’t want to go full pirate.
Arrrrr, shipmate! Welcome back to the cove!
“The content isn’t available in your region”
You have the content. I want to watch the content. But nooooo, I have to turn my VPN on and pretend I’m somewhere else, and you know I’m not really there because I can’t magically materialize half-way across the world in 1 minute.
So what’s the point? Just let me watch the damn content.I’m sure these region locks make a lot of sense for the suits when it comes to paying royalties and whatnot but as a consumer it’s infuriating. Archaic ass bullshit.
and you know I’m not really there because I can’t magically materialize half-way across the world in 1 minute.
Don’t give them ideas
Its tied to royalties, which you mentioned, which are usually tied to archaic trade deals. The landscape may change after WW3 is done.
You’re optimistic
“The content isn’t available in your region”
“Please insert your testicles into the crushing receptacle and pay 14.99”
Zizek smiles
Yeah, the landscape sure will change. Literally.
I turn full pirate at the first stage already. I despise ads so much.
I either pay a service for not having ads or I do not pay it and watch them for free on other platforms in exchange for the content.
Me too. Ads are like homeless man crotch in my face.
I feel like there’s a story here
