Just about every single digital service anymore that isn’t involved in piracy has definitely forgotten the silver rule:
To stop piracy more effectively, you need to be more convenient than the pirates.
Is it more convenient to pay whatever the price is for the individual sports subscriptions/packages/whatever, or is it more convenient to go to a single site to stream the games you want for free?
It’s why Netflix, in the early days of their streaming platform, helped curb piracy by a sizeable amount. You could watch what you wanted when you wanted all on a single application/website without worrying about potentially downloading an infected file or worrying about ads.
And Steam for games. Gabe Newell himself said “Piracy is not a pricing issue. It’s a service issue. The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting anti-piracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates.”
I like to watch hockey, but I’ve tried using the legit streaming sites. Usually, first I can’t find the damn game in their mishmash of content. Then when I find it, 80% of the time it never loads. It just sits there spinning. I can go to a pirate stream and start watching there, while the official one is still spinning. So I close the official one and watch the pirate stream.
Only reason I stopped pirating hockey streams was because I was able to piggy back on my in laws shaw cable account to access sportsnet live. If I didn’t have access to that I would 100% pirate because just getting a legit sportsnet live account without a cable subscription doesn’t even give me access to my local teams games without also using a VPN. Fuck them and their bullshit blackouts.
This. I literally pay for MLB.tv. Then they started blacking out the games even though I’m 400 miles away from the stadium. I start using a VPN, which works for a while, then it doesn’t. So I stop paying and pirate. They don’t want my money I guess
And we can totally trust them to never abuse this power or falsely accuse a legal site of infringement over materials they don’t even own, right? riiiiiiiiiiiiight
(Looking at you, RIAA and MPAA… Can you see my sarcasm from there?)
Screw them, people use these sites because they do blackouts and regional deals and other nonsense then expect you to buy an expensive plus or ultra subscription or PPV.
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