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fubo,

Remember, streaming only has a business model as long as it has a better user experience than piracy. That’s why iTunes took off in the era of Napster. When a streaming service’s user experience drops below that of digging up pirate treasure off a shitty ad-ridden torrent site, that service is not long for the world.

Weslee,

I cancelled Netflix and prime and went back to piracy a few months ago, it’s been a nice blast from the past

Lifecoach5000,

I’m about ready to do the same.

Weslee,

I bought a raspberry pi, a SATA SSD and usb adaptor, and installed Plex now I’m the new netflix for my family, they send me movies and shows they want to watch and I put them on there, then they connect to my server and watch

It’s been really good

LinkOpensChest_wav,
@LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

In addition to piracy, I’ve also been checking out DVDs from my local library. It’s kinda fun.

Surprised myself because I half expected I’d miss the convenience of Netflix, but I haven’t missed it even a little.

“Was I a good streaming platform?”

“No.”

electrogamerman,

I would change that to:

“Was I a good streaming platform?”

“Yes, during your first year. Then all companies went greedy monkey savage and ruined it”

Peaty,

The benefit of the library DVD is it takes away the “What will we watch tonight?” conversation. You’re going to watch the DVD.

AliasWyvernspur,
@AliasWyvernspur@lemmy.world avatar

It just switches the question to the library: “What will we borrow tonight?”

Source: experience from my Blockbuster days.

0110010001100010,
@0110010001100010@lemmy.world avatar

lol I remember those days. Standing there trying to decide what movie to rent. Good times…

RheingoldRiver,

We used to rent movies every weekend when I was a kid, and we supported our local video rental store instead of Blockbuster. It was so much fun to decide what to rent! The staff there always knew so much about movies too, and we'd follow their recs often. We watched a bunch of classics and silent films that there's no way would get visibility on streaming libraries today. I wish I'd kept a journal of all the movies we watched, I remember almost no titles now.

LinkOpensChest_wav,
@LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Checking one out is fun, too. It feels like an event vs. just watching anything out of boredom

Rozz,

Shows are harder to come by though

Peaty,

That depends on your library

epyon22,

It was nice when you could actually watch almost everything on it. Once everyone else started taking peices of the pie it just feels like cable with more hoops now

DoomsdaySprocket,

Every time I open a streaming service now, the things I want to watch are locked into an extra subscription. I generally end up just walking away rather than watching anything, and when I do dig around and find some thing else that is available on “my tier,” it absolutely wasn’t worth it.

Forget even piracy, I’m just not watching anything anymore. When streaming makes my chore list look more attractive, they’ve definitely fucked up.

seitanic,

The thing that sucks is that a lot of new stuff isn’t on physical media at all.

aesthelete,

It can be:

Step #1: download it (🏴‍☠️)

Step #2: burn it

Step #3: enjoy owning a more lasting copy for almost free

seitanic,

Well, yeah, but we were talking about going to the library.

LinkOpensChest_wav,
@LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I’m surprised what is, though. One of the movies I checked out was Knives Out.

freeman,

The only reason I keep Netflix is kids.

We don’t really watch it otherwise.

Even my in-laws are now pirates using hacked amazon fire sticks that are being hawked around their retirement community.

My mother in law is like “I get every streaming service and channel for 1 dollar a day, isn’t that great”.

I’m all “if it’s simple and works for you yeah, absolutely. “

LinkOpensChest_wav,
@LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I have a mini PC running Linux that connects to my TV via hdmi so we can watch anything!

freeman,

I have a mini-pc running a plex vm. And all the TVs are Rokus. So can watch anything, including live broadcast tv. And the roku is so simple kids can operate it, and do.

LinkOpensChest_wav,
@LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

I have a Roku too, which I mainly use for work trips.

What I did at home was get one of those cheap rechargeable wireless keyboards with trackpad for like $10 so that we can browse for what we want to watch from the sofa.

proudblond,

We’re about to cancel Netflix despite my kids’ protests and start rotating. My husband just wanted to watch the new Castlevania and then we’re cutting and running — for a while at least. It’ll end up on the rotation again at some point.

If streaming services ever make us sign up for more than a month at a time, we’ll be hard-pressed to keep doing it the “right” way.

yeather,

This is a great time to teach your kids Internet piracy and internet safety at the same time! Don’t click the pictures of the nice lady and you get to watch your show lol

KnightontheSun,

“These hot babes are most certainly NOT in your area.”

I think this is an excellent notion and allows you to better shape their foray into the subject matter. They will be the cool kids, but you’d have to instill the “no talking about Usenet” type of rule. No boasting.

MTLion3,

I’m just always spooked by viruses and shit.

Weslee,

Use yts.mx, if you use any other site, try checking comments first if they have them, if not you can use torrent file viewer to check the download is actually a video file before downloading

Lastly you could try anti virus, but don’t rely on it to do your job for you, they can catch most but not always all viruses

seitanic,

You can’t get a virus from a video or music file. Viruses have to be executable.

dansity,

Paying 0.99 per song was how a better user experience? Music piracy was pretty big till Spotify. No service was even close before.

AnonTwo,

If you have the local MP3 file you can do just about anything you want with it. Use it in just about any device. Transfer it anywhere. And never lose it.

I have Mp3s that are over 20-30 years old and have never needed to get them again.

And yes I go to piracy almost immediately if I can't get a local file. Just because of how many different ways i've used them over the years.

KoboldCoterie,
@KoboldCoterie@pawb.social avatar

Because you were guaranteed that what you were downloading was what it said it was, and was high quality, and would have the correct tagging and album art and all of that.

It’s been shown repeatedly that a large part of piracy isn’t about cost, it’s about convenience. It was easier to pay $0.99 and get what you wanted when you wanted it, than download 8 files off of Napster and hope that one of them was actually a decent bitrate and was the song the title said it was.

Back when eMule was a thing, it was super common to spend an entire day downloading a 700MB video file at 5kb/s, only for it to be Fight Club instead of whatever you thought you were downloading. It’s the same thing with music.

dansity,

Music piracy was big till spotify apprared. iTunes had a limited selection, music remixes, small band stuff were not available. iTunes only had what Sony and some other music distributors supplied. I understand what you are saying but still, piracy was there and iTunes was not primary source. Spotify came and now music piracy is basically limited to high quality audio albums which is a niche market.

AliasWyvernspur,
@AliasWyvernspur@lemmy.world avatar

It’s been shown repeatedly that a large part of piracy isn’t about cost, it’s about convenience. It was easier to pay $0.99 and get what you wanted when you wanted it, than download 8 files off of Napster and hope that one of them was actually a decent bitrate and was the song the title said it was.

“We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate’s service is more valuable.”

-Gabe Newell

Sauce: web.archive.org/…/114391-Valves-Gabe-Newell-Says-…

AbidanYre,

Or, with Napster, the person you’re downloading from signs off when you’re 40% done with the download.

fubo,

Kazaa/Gnutella era: it says porn on the filename, but there’s no previews and it turns out to be CSAM. Thanks for the trauma, now I’m gonna run shred …

FlounderBasket,

Being able to easily purchase a single song from a reputable source in the comfort of your home instead of going out to physically buy an entire album and then rip it to your computer was a better user experience, yes. Most users are technologically illiterate, and trying to pirate stuff just lead to them getting viruses.

MamboGator,
@MamboGator@lemmy.world avatar

On top of what’s already been said about technological literacy and security, I’d like to add that I WANT to support the artists who make things I like but the companies selling their works tend to ruin the experience by trying to squeeze every dime out of you.

For the last decade or so, digital storefronts have provided a pretty good experience, but it’s starting to get a lot worse as the old companies go public and become beholden to shareholders, or as new companies enter the arena and split up what was once available all in one place.

Cyv_,
Cyv_ avatar

I don't even have to torrent, I have like 3 sites I can just go to, search for content on, and stream video from like a shittier netflix. Adblock keeps them relatively sane, and I sometimes have to try different server sources, but otherwise it works fine.

MonkderZweite,

Meanwhile *arr got off (user experience) and Netflix & co. are ad-ridden too.

metaStatic,

shitty ad-ridden torrent site

let me introduce you to usenet trackers

Bob_Robertson_IX,

That was my first thought too. A seedbox, Sonarr & Radarr and a Usenet site and I’ve got everything I need for $15/month.

orwellianlocksmith,

What is seedbix, sonarr &radarr?

Bob_Robertson_IX,

A seedbox is access to a server that someone else runs, and they typically have a policy of not asking too many questions, not keeping too many logs, and offer assistance in keeping things secure. It can be used for any number of things. I use mine to host bit torrent files and to run applications such as Sonarr & Radarr. These are open source apps that manage TV shows and movies.

netchami,

Just wanted to mention that torrentgalaxy.to, rutracker.org, 1337x.to and therarbg.com won’t ever remove anything from your library.

KpntAutismus, (edited )

and setting up a jellyfin server gives you a netflix-like interface. FOSS at its finest

smallaubergine,

Jellyfin is so good. I'm travelling internationally right now and it makes me smile that I can stream stuff from my home at any time. I'm gonna miss Netflix DVD because I would get Blu-rays and rip them to my media library

BaroqueInMind,
BaroqueInMind avatar

How did you set the whole thing up? Do you have a step by step that idiots can follow?

smallaubergine,

I set it up a while ago but if you search for guides I'm 100% sure you'll find them. I think jellyfin has their own guides. It gets a bit more complicated when you want to access it from outside your network. I use ddns (dynamic DNS) because my ISP doesn't give static addresses to residential customers. This allows me to have a hostname of xxxx.ddns.net. then I had to set up port forwarding on my router so that the jellyfin traffic is allowed through to my desktop that that is running jellyfin and has all my media. Internally on your LAN you'll need to have a static IP for your desktop too.

maxwisecracks,
@maxwisecracks@lemmy.world avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    KpntAutismus,

    👍

    antonim,

    They have removed a lot of empty disk space from my library :(

    bokudoku,

    and therarbg.com

    is that a continuation of the original or a new project?

    netchami,

    It’s a clone of the website which hosts the original database.

    blanketswithsmallpox,

    I found this which looks like they’re unrelated but in the rarbg spirit. Apparently one of the mods or admins responded in there.

    reddit.com/r/CrackWatch/s/eIFqbj6ahE

    reddit.com/r/trackers/s/zAS0oU56uG

    reddit.com/r/TheRarBg/s/fRpuJYxFS5

    tabular,
    @tabular@lemmy.world avatar

    They removed books from your Kindle in the past. Who could have seen this comming?

    01011,

    Came to make this exact point.

    charmed_electron,

    Yeah seriously. The day news of this broke, I switched my book library over to Calibre+DeDRM and put my device in airplane mode.

    yeather,

    Check out Libby by overdrive. E-book convenience and supports your local library.

    RobotToaster,
    @RobotToaster@mander.xyz avatar

    Literally 1984

    vector_zero,

    facepalm

    LinkOpensChest_wav,
    @LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    Companies issuing refunds in the form of gift cards is just straight-up insulting

    xtr0n,

    And is that amount of money enough to replace the item that’s been taken away? Like if the DVD were widely available at the same price at the time of the digital purchase, but you got the Amazon “purchase” instead (for convenience?) then what are the odds that you can still get the DVD for that price today?

    ericisshort,

    And it may be illegal in some states to not offer the customer an actual refund.

    MisterFrog,
    @MisterFrog@lemmy.world avatar

    Wait a minute, the US doesn’t have a blanket consumer law federally?

    This sounds like a pain.

    Federally this is against Australian Consumer Law. Didn’t offer the service you paid for? Better believe that’s a refund.

    JezTorrent,

    Our government is trash, you see.

    Carter,

    £5.99 refund. Quite clearly not in the US.

    dansity,

    Sssh… Everyone lives in default country

    meco03211,

    Default country is best country.

    Cqrd,

    Religious figure bless default country.

    sp451,

    Default religious figure bless default country

    ChaoticEntropy,
    @ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk avatar

    Death to default country and its default god! Alternative god reigns supreme!

    pufferfischerpulver,

    All hail %DEFAULT_NOODLE!!

    dalekcaan,

    Take me down to %DEFAULT_CITY where the grass is %DEFAULT_COLOR and the girls are %DESCRIPTIVE_ADJECTIVE

    KSPAtlas,
    @KSPAtlas@sopuli.xyz avatar

    Take me down to null island where the grass is black and the girls are null

    bobs_monkey,

    TAKE… ME… %DEFAULT_LOCATION

    joelfromaus,
    @joelfromaus@aussie.zone avatar

    Sweet home %DEFAULT_CITY, where the skies are so %DEFAULT_COLOUR

    na_th_an,

    A gift card is not a refund.

    PeachMan,
    @PeachMan@lemmy.world avatar

    TBH I would expect stronger consumer protections in the UK…but I definitely don’t know about this type of refund specifically.

    HonoraryMancunian,

    The UK, for all its problems, does typically have some of the best consumer protections in the world. I can see Amazon being forced to overturn this if there’s enough uproar (which there might not be tbf, seeing as they gave extra credit as compo).

    NeverNudeNo13,

    Many countries other than the US are comprised of a federation of states. And also those that aren’t are generally considered nation states or sovereign states, which are still definitively states. The United States of America do not have an exclusive right on statehood.

    Plus even though it may be implied that the original replier intended the context to mean the United States of America… it is a valid response with further implication that one should check their local jurisdiction’s laws if they were so inclined to do so.

    odium,

    I know they probably actually meant the States of the US, but…

    They did say states with a lowercase s. ‘States’ = regions within a country, ‘states’ = can mean countries. Technically they aren’t defaulting to the US.

    looeee,

    £ is from a country that does not have states

    Krzd,
    @Krzd@lemmy.world avatar

    country = states != States

    VonReposti,

    Technically no. Greenland is a country but not a state. It has a sovereign government but is not represented directly internationally. It is part of the Kingdom of Denmark which is a state but not a country. Then there is Denmark proper which is also a country but not a state.

    weedazz,

    I had no idea about any of this, thanks! Never thought a thread about prime video would teach me world geography lol

    ahnesampo,

    Next step: there’s a good argument to be made that the United States is not a nation. tldr: a nation is a group of people sharing ethnicity, language, culture. The United States is a country united by an idea, not an ethnicity.

    AliLunaCat,

    Like the person you’re replying to said, some people use state and country as synonyms sometimes

    jedi_hamster,

    deleted_by_moderator

    •
    MyNotPublicAccount,

    deleted_by_author

    •
    Telodzrum,

    Yup the term state to refer to a nation or sovereign territory is an American thing, for sure dude.

    aBundleOfFerrets,

    By suggesting that English is only spoken widely in the US, you yourself are engaging in US-Defaultism! Checkmate, citizen of !

    zaph,

    Amazon is from a country that does.

    roofuskit,

    But it IS a state. Sorry if you’re not a native English speaker but just because your vocabulary is lacking doesn’t mean they are wrong.

    snail_hatan,

    https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/5c7a9d27-b6c5-46fb-a9f2-30c74153fb6f.jpeg

    echo64,

    Yeah that’ll happen for anything streamed and licensed.

    If you want to own something, you need to own it physically. Buy an actual disk. People won’t and I’ll be surprised if they are still making blurays at all in ten years but that’s the only way you can actually buy media now.

    BolexForSoup,
    BolexForSoup avatar

    If you want to own something, you need to own it physically.

    Minor sticking point: it's still a "limited license." You don't really "own" anything and if that physical copy is damaged or destroyed you're just SOL.

    Streaming, digital, physical, everything has a drawback! Backups are your friend.

    echo64,

    Yes, you don’t own the copyright. You do own the physical disk, and you also have a right to backup a personal copy.

    It’s not a sticking point, it’s a feature. Take care of your shit just like all your other shit. No one says it’s a sticking point to say that a kettle you buy could break, that’s just normal part of ownership of a thing.

    BolexForSoup,
    BolexForSoup avatar

    Feature, sticking point, call it what you want. I’m just saying there’s nuance to it.

    BraveSirZaphod,
    BraveSirZaphod avatar

    I'm actually still kinda surprised about this. My understanding is that the licenses from rights holders to streaming platforms generally included an indefinite right to stream to people who'd purchased content, even if they may not offer it for continued purchase or as part of the general included streaming library.

    TheEntity,

    That's definitely how it works with games on Steam or GOG.

    BolexForSoup,
    BolexForSoup avatar

    Unless you bought after-market keys like on G2A and it turned out to be stolen/keygen'd. Valve will remove your game if your key is found to be stolen (whether you knew it or not). I imagine you know this but just felt it bore mentioning.

    TheEntity,

    Good point, yes, that's an exception. A justified one if you'd ask me but I guess YMMV.

    AliasWyvernspur,
    @AliasWyvernspur@lemmy.world avatar

    iTunes as well. There are a few things I can still stream that are no longer sold.

    CorrodedCranium,
    @CorrodedCranium@leminal.space avatar

    You can read the subscriber agreement here but I’m pretty sure that’s not the case with Steam.

    TheEntity,

    I have dozens of games in my library that are no longer available to purchase. Often these are games with expired music copyright, though some just removed the music in an update instead. I don't remember a single withdrawn game that would get removed from my library.

    CorrodedCranium, (edited )
    @CorrodedCranium@leminal.space avatar

    My point was it’s likely within Steam’s rights and terms and conditions. If they needed to or wanted to they likely could remove a game from someone’s library but they likely know the overwhelming backlash that they would face.

    For example games like Rimworld and Disco Elysium were, at a time, banned in Australia. I don’t believe they were removed from online storefronts but if there was ever enough legal pressure maybe something could have happened. There is a Steam Support page for regional restrictions but it doesn’t mention anything in regards to accessing games that have become banned in your country, contained malicious code, or somehow were infringing on copyrighted materials.

    I think Codename: Gordon and Order of War were removed. I could be mistaken though.

    On a sidenote I imagine removing Steam’s DRM using a Steam emulator is in some ways against their terms and conditions. Even though there are some DRM free games on Steam like the original Fallout if I am remembering correctly.

    Edit: In regards to my last point I think this is the section from the subscriber agreement that may involve Steam emulators

    “… host or provide matchmaking services for the Content and Services or emulate or redirect the communication protocols used by Valve in any network feature of the Content and Services, through protocol emulation, tunneling, modifying or adding components to the Content and Services …”

    TheEntity,

    Yes, I believe you're correct in terms of them being within their rights to do so. I'm just not aware of them ever actually pulling this trigger, but they technically can.

    CorrodedCranium,
    @CorrodedCranium@leminal.space avatar

    Yeah. Reminds of when they changes the user agreement to prevent class action lawsuits.

    Unless there’s a major shift at Valve I couldn’t see it happening anytime soon. My fear would be once it happens once that it would become more common.

    echo64,

    Streaming isn’t the same as downloading. It has different rights and with movies it’s especially complicated. The rights to a movie can literally be so complicated that no one knows who owns it.

    p5f20w18k,
    @p5f20w18k@lemmy.world avatar

    Piracy is always the answer

    atrielienz, (edited )

    They’ve done this previously with books, music, and other media purchased through them and they aren’t alone. Apple and Google have also been on the hook for this. This usually happens when they lose the right to sell some form of media (they make deals with record labels, artists, movie companies, publishers etc to license the right to sell that media for the purpose of streaming). You’re buying the right to stream/enjoy that media indefinitely (until they lose the rights to sell it to you and then they have to remove it from their library of streamable media). You can absolutely download that media and keep it somewhere not connected to the internet. But they can absolutely remove it.

    The one exception used to be Google Play Music. Their terms were such that you actually owned the music you purchased. I assume that’s part of the reason they sunsetted that app and their music selling altogether. The cost was too high vs the number of paid users.

    Apple has also done this and it was a big deal because they didn’t notify customers at all at the time.

    Edit: I’m gonna add that this licensing agreement is similar to the one made when we bought physical media from retail stores. They have the right to sell it until their licensing agreement runs out. When or if it runs out they send back their remaining inventory and proof that they sold everything else. And the only reason a company isn’t requesting that media back in this event is because it’s cost prohibitive for them.

    FartsWithAnAccent,
    @FartsWithAnAccent@lemmy.world avatar

    “your” library

    m3t00,
    @m3t00@lemmy.world avatar

    download files and store elsewhere. music mp3s anyway. never tried their vids. mostly crap

    utopiah,

    shocked Pikachu face

    Did customers really forgot the ebook 1984 event or assume they’d “just” get “better”?

    Honestly kind of deserved, don’t buy from Amazon! Wondering why? Read Chokepoint capitalism but TLDR their business model is monopoly and monopsony. They’re terrible.

    mechoman444,

    Arrrr maty!

    A2PKXG,

    Ianal, but I assume they might get into trouble for the use of words like buy and own, if this is how they treat the purchases.

    Car,

    You’ll buy a limited license to access content (Top Gun) which is owned by a publishing entity (Paramount) and which will be served through an intermediary (Amazon Prime Video) and delivered from a content network (Akamai) and you’ll like it!

    Mr_nutter_butter,
    @Mr_nutter_butter@lemmy.world avatar

    It’s just a long term licence to watch it

    UnderpantsWeevil,
    @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

    Strictly speaking, so is a DVD or other physical media, per the EULA they flash across the screen for half a second before starting the show and therefore makes it legally binding.

    The big difference is that nobody’s running around trying to claw back DVDs. Whereas, with Amazon, its trivially easy to just click “Remove License” from the repository and snatch back an arbitrary number of licenses. Purely a question of convenience.

    Of course, if you have a… uh… backup copy stored conveniently on a PLEX server, then they can’t claw that back either.

    Mr_nutter_butter,
    @Mr_nutter_butter@lemmy.world avatar

    They did try to do expiring dvds thank god it didn’t work

    RoseRose56,
    @RoseRose56@lemmy.world avatar

    As I said(probably) in another post, you own nothing since you sing up and accept the terms. They can change the terms when ever they want, they can remove videos when ever they want or the rights for a movie or series end. If you want to have something, find a provider that sells and lets download files, so you don’t lose what you buy.

    A2PKXG,

    At least in Germany there are Limits to t&c’s. To put it simply, there musn’t be any ugly surprises.

    The merchant retroactively cancelling your purchases would be an ugly surprise of that nature.

    stealthnerd,

    When you buy something from a streaming service you’re only buying the right to stream it, nothing more.

    You can’t compare it to owning physical media because there are ongoing costs involved for Amazon to host it and ever changing contracts with media companies outlining what they are allowed to host.

    Lordgeoffery,
    @Lordgeoffery@lemmy.world avatar

    Then what do you call a video rental?

    Stabbitha,

    …A temporary right to stream? What even is the point of this question that’s asked as some sort of gotcha?

    Lordgeoffery,
    @Lordgeoffery@lemmy.world avatar

    What’s it to you?

    Stabbitha,

    Thanks for the reply, I kinda wanted to downvote you again.

    Lordgeoffery,
    @Lordgeoffery@lemmy.world avatar

    Ouch! My feelings are hurt… Lol don’t. Be a turd plz

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