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32% of All US Adults Watch Pirated Content (torrentfreak.com)

Nearly a third of all US adults admit to having downloaded or streamed pirated movies or TV-shows, a new survey has found. Even though many are aware that watching pirated content is not permitted, a large number of pirates are particularly hard to deter. According to a report from TorrentFreak: This is one of the main conclusions of research conducted by anti-piracy firm Irdeto, which works with prominent clients including Twentieth Century Fox and Starz. Through YouGov, the company conducted a representative survey of over 1,000 respondents which found that 32 percent of all US adults admit to streaming or downloading pirated video content. These self-confessed pirates are interested in a wide variety of video content. TV-shows and movies that still play in theaters are on the top of the list for many, with 24 percent each, but older movies, live sports and Netflix originals are mentioned as well. The data further show that the majority of US adults (69%) know that piracy is illegal. Interestingly, this also means that a large chunk of the population believes that they're doing nothing wrong.

257 comments

  1. most of those reasons have in common by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Most of those reasons for pirating are because they can't get the content very easily in a legal way. I guess most people are willing to pay, as long as it doesn't get too complicated.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    1. Re:most of those reasons have in common by houstonbofh · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Most of those reasons for pirating are because they can't get the content very easily in a legal way. I guess most people are willing to pay, as long as it doesn't get too complicated.

      I would rather pay in money than in time and frustration. I WILL NOT pay in both money and time/frustration.

    2. Re:most of those reasons have in common by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's BS. It might be true for a marginal number of shows and movies. But for the rest, the content quality is just too low to justify paying for it.

      You download stuff you want to test out.

    3. Re:most of those reasons have in common by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you use the internet then you have pirated content whether you knew it or not.

    4. Re:most of those reasons have in common by gfxguy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That's BS; most people pirate stuff because they don't want to pay, plain and simple, and for everyone that insists it's only to "try" content, and that they buy it if it's good, they represent a tiny fraction of people, and 99% of the ones claiming it are f#@kling liars.

      --
      Stupid sexy Flanders.
    5. Re:most of those reasons have in common by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I'm guilty of this. I pirate BBC iPlayer because there is no way to get, e.g., new Dr Who episodes short of buying a $50/month upgrade to my cable (currently broadband only) to get BBC America. And even if I were to do that I'd have to sit through about 30 minutes of commercials per episode that BBC America adds that I don't have to watch on iPlayer. (If I pay for BBC America, aren't I already paying to watch it, I need to pay twice with the commercials?). Yes, I could buy a Tivo too, further driving up the cost. $600 per year is just way more than I want to pay to watch one show.

      I have paid $15 for a month of HBO Online to watch Game of Thrones, after the whole season was available and I could semi-binge watch. Even then $15 is too much – IMO – for one month for one season of one show. If BBC iPlayer were to offer a commercial free subscription for $5 per month I'd do that in a heartbeat. I don't know that I'd do that for HBO, but I'd pay $5-10 for a season of Game of Thrones only. I honestly don't care about any of their other content.

    6. Re:most of those reasons have in common by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We refuse to pay a goddamn dime, ever, for anything other than our bandwidth and nodes.
      That's why we pirate and torrent all our personal collections of physical media over I2P.
      (And in some cases Tor+onioncat).
      Totally anonymous encrypted overlay networks ROCK!!!
      NO threat from MAFIAA ever.
      We do it because it's technically cool, and because MAFIAA model sucks, and because MAFIAA still makes far more than enough real world money to survive artistically to produce the content we share for free.
      We've got terabyte upon terabyte of raw lossless rips of bluray (sometimes compressed to dvd-9 admittedly for sanity), dvd-9 (raw vob rips), and cd (flac) on offer.
      People have physical netflix rentals going straight into their ripping drives and out onto the crypto networks.
      All you need is I2P / Tor and to setup an internal relay node on those networks so that you can give back some bandwidth and help the networks.
      Add your favorite torrent client and you're in.

    7. Re:most of those reasons have in common by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, and I would add that I pay – whatever it is, $18 per month? – for Netflix streaming and DVD. Splitting those in half, yeah, about $8-9 per month is my price point for unlimited streaming, and another $8-9 month for 3-5 DVDs per month.

    8. Re:most of those reasons have in common by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm perfectly willing to watch advertisement-embedded streams, knowing that that is one way the content can be legally provided. But too many studios don't seem to want to offer their archives as advertisement-embedded streams, thereby sowing the seeds for piracy. They reap what they sow, therefore.

    9. Re:most of those reasons have in common by MightyYar · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It's not so black and white. I'm an unabashed pirate, and cost is only one factor. When I was young, "free" was the main reason and I would jump through hoops if necessary. The primary reason for my piracy now is DRM and the lack of a centralized repository. Sorry, I'm not going to browse iTunes, Amazon, my cable box, Roku, Hulu, etc until I find the movie or TV show that I'm looking for when 99% of the time it is on usenet, ready to stream to any device that I own. If you want me as a customer, you need to be - at the minimum - as convenient as the free option. Easy search and no DRM are my prerequisites. Music is better - most of the big guys have abandoned DRM, and services like Spotify have made free and legit even more convenient than pirated.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    10. Re:most of those reasons have in common by PRMan · · Score: 1

      Not at all. It's just that some content is extremely difficult to get without paying 10× what it's worth.

      If you watch hockey, there are local games on Fox Sports (at least $100 per month) and national games on NBCSN, which is usually only available on a higher cable tier to the tune of $125+/month. But there's only ONE game per month on NBCSN. I'm not paying $25 to watch a single hockey game at home. That's ludicrous. And the other option is to get the NHL package and pay them directly. Oops, NBCSN games aren't on there unless you are overseas. And your local market is blocked too.

      So, the realistic options are:

      1. Pay for the NHL package and use a service to pretend to be overseas. See? I don't mind paying $20 a month for hockey (about 10 games). That's more than I pay for any other service as a cord-cutter. This is what I am actually doing right now. Plus I am paying $5 a month for a Smart DNS service.

      2. Watch for free on /r/NHLStreams.

      Piracy of one form or another are the only realistic options when a company prices their product out of the stratosphere. And, even though I have a "free" option, I choose to pay, because I do want to support it, but not get ripped off blind.

      --
      Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
    11. Re: most of those reasons have in common by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, I pirate because I dont want to pay anything.

    12. Re:most of those reasons have in common by amiga3D · · Score: 1

      They could learn a lot from Spotify. In fact if Netflix had a larger catalog I'd be very happy with that. To just browse and watch what I want when I want on whatever system or device I want would make me happy to pay up.

    13. Re:most of those reasons have in common by networkBoy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Most of those reasons for pirating are because they can't get the content very easily in a legal way. I guess most people are willing to pay, as long as it doesn't get too complicated.

      I would rather pay in money than in time and frustration. I WILL NOT pay in both money and time/frustration.

      This is the perfect summary.
      I *pay* for Netflix && Amazon Prime. I don't expect to see something in my streams when it's new to the theaters, or even when it first hits shelves on disk (though it'd be nice), but when I can't stream a 5yo movie/TV series then fuck it, off to usenet to pull down a copy.

      It really is that simple. I used to pirate piles of shit when I was younger, now it's not worth the hassle unless I really want to see it and my paid services don't make it available.

      --
      whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
    14. Re:most of those reasons have in common by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly what I was going to say.

      It's all the exclusive content. If I have a cable subscription and netflix and there's a single show exclusive to Amazon Prime I really want to watch, then of course I'm going to pirate it. And proudly rather than guiltily.

    15. Re:most of those reasons have in common by Jason1729 · · Score: 1

      So the quality is so low it's not worth a few dollars but it's worth hours of your life. I feel bad for you that your life is so bad you can value your time that low. If the content is that low quality, I'm not going to waste my time watching it.

      You download stuff that's not worth the effort to watch their way.

    16. Re:most of those reasons have in common by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm perfectly willing to watch advertisement-embedded streams, knowing that that is one way the content can be legally provided. But too many studios don't seem to want to offer their archives as advertisement-embedded streams, thereby sowing the seeds for piracy. They reap what they sow, therefore.

      what kind of fucking weird troll are you, advertising is not the answer... hasn't the internet taught you that?

    17. Re: most of those reasons have in common by dougdonovan · · Score: 0

      only 32% bean counters u get paid 2 much

    18. Re:most of those reasons have in common by Macdude · · Score: 1

      That's BS; most people pirate stuff because they don't want to pay, plain and simple,[...]

      That's true, and that's why services such as Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music Unlimited, Google Play Music, Pandora and others are never going to be popular or make any money...

      --
      "Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
    19. Re:most of those reasons have in common by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > That's BS; most people pirate stuff because they don't want to pay, plain and simple

      Yup. Because the content is free. it costs nothing to reproduce. it is a "fact", not a "work of art".

      fuck the rest of the noise.

    20. Re:most of those reasons have in common by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      If you have a decent understanding of Linux, it'll take you about a day to set up an OS instance (mine is built as a virtual-appliance type setup on top of VMware ESXi 6.5 using two Ubuntu Server instances) that has sickrage, rtorrent/rutorrent, couchpotato, and plex all stitched together on top of a ZFS filesystem on public trackers. It will take you longer to do so on private trackers which will allow you to have your shows within minutes of airing. (I joined some very big ones by entering first through W.CD which is now gone, and that took me about 6 months...not sure the best way to do it nowadays.)

      The nice thing about Plex is that its client software works on just about everything. Alternatively you can go with Kodi, but there's invariably much more work involved, especially if you want to stream from anywhere. Rtorrent/rutorrent is by far the hardest thing to set up and get working properly in this setup, but alternatively you can go with deluge. I started with deluge but had to switch to rtorrent/rutorrent because deluge just couldn't handle over 1,000 torrents simultaneously available for seeding (this is necessary if you want to be able to quickly get invites to good private trackers...I don't have anywhere near this number anymore; somewhere around 150 now.) Deluge may be better now as this was a while ago.

      Once it's set up, it's pretty much automatic. Sickrage is a pretty simple UI; just add your shows and it will very reliably grab them as they air. Just like a DVR only no commercials whatsoever, with a side benefit that your content can all be 1080p if you desire it, which not every cable company offers on every channel (Cox certainly doesn't; even premium channels are generally 720p.)

      If there was such thing as a streaming service that had no commercials and had all of the content I wanted, I'd probably do that instead, but such a thing straight up just doesn't exist. I was actually first motivated to do all of this because my cable company (Cox) DRM flagged all channels, so I was stuck with buggy, unreliable, and convoluted as fuck Windows Media Center with no ability to strip out commercials. After going so far as to try to petition the FCC and failing, piracy just made by far the most sense.

    21. Re:most of those reasons have in common by currently_awake · · Score: 1

      Restated as 32% of Americans admit they disagree with American copyright law. Passing laws that most people don't agree with causes the people to stop respecting all laws, leading to them not respecting the government. This is a road that eventually ends with the ruling class dying in a violent revolution.

    22. Re:most of those reasons have in common by currently_awake · · Score: 1

      1- People living outside the USA only get to legally watch a small percent of shows and movies. The studios simply won't offer them outside the US. 2-The studios want to offer shows via network TV, instead of on demand viewing. People don't want to wait.

    23. Re: most of those reasons have in common by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      not paying/stealing has nothing to do with copyright infringement.

    24. Re:most of those reasons have in common by tepples · · Score: 1

      (If I pay for BBC America, aren't I already paying to watch it, I need to pay twice with the commercials?)

      Commercials are why cable costs $50 per month and not $200 per month.

    25. Re:most of those reasons have in common by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      That's BS; most people pirate stuff because they don't want to pay

      Oh but most people ARE paying. Between subscriptions, cable, licenses, blank media taxes, actual ticket sales etc we're paying a lot. Not only that but we're paying more than ever before with many such subscriptions rising at rates far higher than inflation for many years.

      And then when the studios pull some "we still don't make enough money" bullshit the camels back breaks.

      Some of us even pirate content we already own because we don't want to sit through fucking adverts on our blurays when our media centres can deliver a perfectly good downloaded file with significantly less hassle. Or that time I pirated Assassins Creed even though I had it because I was sick of being booted out of my game every time my internet connection blipped.

    26. Re:most of those reasons have in common by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's BS; most people pirate stuff because they don't want to pay, plain and simple, and for everyone that insists it's only to "try" content, and that they buy it if it's good, they represent a tiny fraction of people, and 99% of the ones claiming it are f#@kling liars.

      Good grief you're stupid, or trolling, or shilling, or whatever. What you wrote above is the most stupid thing I've read so far today. So, to paraphrase yourself: Your post was complete BS.

    27. Re:most of those reasons have in common by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are either incredibly dim witted or you work unwittingly for the MPAA.

      99% of what you wrote was made up and the tiny fraction that is your brain is f#@kling lying to you about what reality must be like.

      I used to watch movies and TV shows however I could before netflix, hulu, etc. When these services first came out I still watched some tv shows and movies however I could when they weren't available.

      What made me stop was that I'd seen all I wanted to, and truth told I keep amazon prime now because the free shipping is worth it and the few extra viewing titles are a bonus, and I keep netflix because the originals are better than the boring shit on TV these days.

      The only reason anyone I know keeps cable these days are for sports.

    28. Re:most of those reasons have in common by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bingo.

      Outside the US, piracy is often worse because
      - Content locked to the US (eg Hulu, Amazon)
      - Content agreement with local provider is asinine (eg requiring an $80 programming package to get, eg HBO in Canada)
      - Content was never sold in the country (eg DVD/BD) despite being produced in the country.

      To some extent, my extended family pirates content, willingly, because it's impossible or difficult to actually watch it legally. My dad can download 100GB of TV shows and movies and watch 2 hours a day for a month and be happy with that, where as my mom would rather watch the Food Network while sewing and that content isn't readily pirated.

      Me, on the other hand, I'm not willing to pirate shows that I can buy. It's just not worth the effort to me. I know how to get them, I just don't think it's worth the effort to. The kind of pirate content that ends up in my lap is the kind of content that is not sold or licensed here (eg Asian or European sources)

      Inside the US, a lot of piracy is inexcusable because you have Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon that cover 90% of the content people want to watch. What that doesn't cover are the specialty channels that people can't get due to cable bundling agreements (again, HBO), and the idiocy behind "The Hallmark Channel", "CBS All Access" and such where the content on these channels is rerun garbage except for whatever the new show is.

    29. Re:most of those reasons have in common by Nephandus · · Score: 1

      Cable tends to cost about $200 per month for a relatively basic package. Where you been the last couple decades?

      --
      "A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head."
    30. Re:most of those reasons have in common by flappinbooger · · Score: 1

      Most of those reasons for pirating are because they can't get the content very easily in a legal way. I guess most people are willing to pay, as long as it doesn't get too complicated.

      Here's another wrinkle that goes along with your point.

      I pay for Amazon Prime. Therefore I am allowed to watch The Grand Tour, Jeremy Clarkson's Top Gear "sequel."

      It works on my smart TV but I can NOT get it to play on my PC. Windows 10. Multiple browsers tried. WILL NOT PLAY. I log in, it says click here to play, will not play. Not bothering to figure it out.

      Now, a completely unrelated topic I would like to bring up is that apparently Grand Tour is very heavily pirated.

      --
      Flappinbooger isn't my real name
    31. Re:most of those reasons have in common by Geek_Cop · · Score: 1

      Exactly the scenario I find myself in over and over and over. I have a few easy sources and with experience it minimizes the frustration but damn, why can't there be ONE service that has EVERYTHING. I'd pay...for real.

    32. Re:most of those reasons have in common by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Once you have "enough" money, you don't pirate just to save a few bucks. Stupid labels not making more copies is sometimes reason to pirate, if you're into obscure content. (And the can't say you're taking money out of their pockets in this case, they're not offering the goods for any premium!)

      Another reason is the stupid things they do. I have no problem buying a legitimate copy of a movie from a store - I can afford all the movies I want.

      But when I put a movie in the player, I want to watch the movie immediately. Waiting for the player to slowly spin up and figure out there is now a disk inside is irritating - but one can always solve that by buying an expensive player that starts really fast.

      The killer is to then get a long sequence of animated studio logos, thx animation with sound, piracy warnings and worst of all - SEVERAL MOVIE TRAILERS I DID NOT WANT TO WATCH. Granted, a good player can skip most of this, but there is the hassle of skipping again and again. And usually, you can't skip the piracy warning.

      There are two ways around this:
      1. Use a linux, and use mplayer to play the biggest of the files which is always the movie proper. Stupid trailers & piracy warnings are shorter. The obvious disadvantage is having to use a linux computer for this, instead of the living room stereo system.
      2. Buy from chinese pirates. Them being cheaper is not important, them not bothering with trailers or piracy warnings is fantastic. The only downside is that they often mess up subtitles - and I like my subtitles. Piracy being illegal is not an interesting concern. I will happily buy movies unencumbered by trailers in front of the movie - from whoever provides.

    33. Re:most of those reasons have in common by houstonbofh · · Score: 1

      But setting up a good VPN so your do not get letters is a bit more trouble, and slows things down. Or a seedbox, which again adds complexity and trouble... I will pay to not have to mess with all that. If they had what I wanted... But when they make the paid service as much of a pain as the free service...

    34. Re:most of those reasons have in common by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Funny stuff. That's why cable companies are not monopolies in many areas and why they are all going out of business from lack of customers.

      You say it like you want to believe what they want you to believe. Next you will tell me that their long practice of forcing you to purchase a "basic package" is because government regulations make them provide basic news channels in case of emergencies.

    35. Re:most of those reasons have in common by epine · · Score: 1

      Restated as 32% of Americans admit they disagree with American copyright law. Passing laws that most people don't agree with causes the people to stop respecting all laws, leading to them not respecting the government. This is a road that eventually ends with the ruling class dying in a violent revolution.

      I ask you this: was less leadership ever required? Has a smaller, easier, less bitterly swallowed step ever been contemplated in the annals of the human condition?

      On the "eventually" question, do you think before or after the Second Coming? (Name your sect if you wish, bearing in mind that a diligent and exhaustive land-title-search on "eventually" will set you back a king's ransom.)

      In the 18th century, mathematicians such as Euler succeeded in summing some divergent series by stopping at the right moment; they did not much care whether a limit existed, as long as it could be calculated.

      Likewise, we are less concerned here with whether history repeats itself in practice, than whether we can by facile bloviation declaim it so.

    36. Re:most of those reasons have in common by Deliveranc3 · · Score: 1

      We need an institution to donate for the creation of new original content that is good art. I think a lot of pirates would donate to something that doesn't make bad artists millionaires.

    37. Re:most of those reasons have in common by tepples · · Score: 1

      Commercials are why expanded basic cable, without extra movie, sports, or family packages, costs $50 per month.

    38. Re:most of those reasons have in common by tepples · · Score: 1

      Cable companies are not monopolies for multichannel pay television except on the north face of a mountain, where Dish Network and DirecTV signals do not reach.

    39. Re:most of those reasons have in common by Some_Llama · · Score: 1

      "Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America.

      if you are going to quote someone, it is standard to provide ellipses when it is a partial quote, then people know there is more to the quote than just the words you decided to cut.

      example:

      "that's why im never going to be popular" - Macdude

    40. Re:most of those reasons have in common by Some_Llama · · Score: 1

      then neither is comcast internet a monopoly because you can get time warner instead.

      although they provide the same service options and charge the same exact price, they are technically not monopolies.

      i don't see what the difference is otherwise.

    41. Re:most of those reasons have in common by tepples · · Score: 1

      Satellite TV competes with cable TV, but satellite Internet doesn't compete with cable Internet because satellite Internet's monthly usage quotas are closer to those of cellular Internet than to those of cable Internet.

      Charter, Cox, and Comcast have an agreement not to attempt to compete in the same region. (As far as I'm aware, only people under NDA with one or more of these companies know to what extent this agreement is written.) Thus each cable company is effectively a monopoly for Internet faster than DSL in its geographic area unless there's a company offering fiber Internet.

  2. Old movies by psergiu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you download & watch an old and obscure movie - which is not available anywhere for sale or rental - is it still pirating when there's no possible loss to anyone ?

    Same question for old music, books, software ...

    --
    1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
    1. Re:Old movies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative
    2. Re:Old movies by phantomfive · · Score: 3, Informative

      is it still pirating when there's no possible loss to anyone ? Same question for old music, books, software ...

      The answer is yes, although only the rights-holder is able to sue you, and if they aren't around, then you can get away with it.

      Under copyright law (this is the way the law is written), not only do you have to pay for actual damages, you also have to pay for theoretical damages. So the copyright holder can say, "We weren't releasing it to increase demand at a later date, when we theoretically would release it. Your piracy robbed us of those theoretical potential profits."

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    3. Re:Old movies by fedos · · Score: 3, Funny
    4. Re:Old movies by GrumpySteen · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Okay. Here's a copy for sale on Amazon. Took about five seconds to find.

      You seem to have forgotten that the internet also doubles as the world's largest junk shop.

    5. Re:Old movies by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      Sounds the same as Weeping Angels to me.

      Don't blink.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    6. Re:Old movies by sims+2 · · Score: 1

      Thats cool me next! Where can I buy a copy of the 1995 "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes"?

      --
      Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
    7. Re:Old movies by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Couldn't you blink alternate eyes, always keeping at least one open?

      --
      I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    8. Re:Old movies by Anubis+IV · · Score: 3, Interesting

      In the pre-YouTube days, Red vs. Blue was available for free, but the only official point of distribution was the website for the guys that made it, and they limited which episodes were available at any given time so as to prevent people from killing their bandwidth by binge watching. Quite a few people thought they'd do the guys a favor and re-host the videos on their own sites or via P2P networks. After all, the guys were clearly having trouble bearing the cost of hosting videos that they were letting people watch for free, so taking some of the load off of them would be doing them a favor, right?

      The guys made it clear that they didn't want that done.

      Fast forward a few years, and those guys have built a media empire around the success of that and their subsequent video series. Their piddly operation has exploded to include dozens (hundreds?) of employees across the nation. They sell those episodes on DVD and Blu-ray, stream the episodes on YouTube and Netflix, sell shirts and other merchandise for them, and on and on. While it wouldn't have looked much like piracy to distribute those videos in the early days, given that they were already available for free and there were no obvious plans to monetize the videos, they understood that controlling distribution then would give them opportunities for monetizing the videos later, so even though they didn't have anything at the time, they still insisted on controlling distribution.

      Likewise, old videos that may seem abandoned may actually be about to get a remastered re-release or whatnot that the pirated copy would undercut. And old video games? I can't count the number of times that older games have gotten the "remastered in HD" treatment or have been repackaged for modern platforms when a new entry in the series comes out. As such, how are we to say when "there's no possible loss to anyone"?

    9. Re:Old movies by bob4u2c · · Score: 2

      Or a copy of the 1946 Song of the South?

    10. Re:Old movies by ChromeAeonium · · Score: 2

      Forget obscure, old is enough. Copyright should exist as a means of supporting creative works, not a way for large media corporations to sit on something in perpetuity and collect revenue with the only expense being 'investments' in congress to extend copyright.

      I'm more than willing to pay for something new because that supports the production of creative works I like enough to give time and money to. Music, movies, books, video games, sure, I will and do buy them. But there's are many things out there that are several decades old and should have fallen into the public domain years ago, and for those I feel no such moral obligation. If the media companies want to avoid piracy, they've got options. I pay for Netflix, I pay for Amazon Prime, there's plenty of options for them to get a piece of the pie even with things that really should be free anyway. If they can't play nice and want to prove just how greedy they are, screw 'em.

    11. Re:Old movies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I want a copy of the Made-for-Tv movie Plymouth. There is a 7 part copy on youtube, but its missing like a crucial 8 minutes. Was a pretty interesting take on working and living in space.

    12. Re:Old movies by Master+Moose · · Score: 1

      There was a 1995 remake or was that a typo? (Not being a smartarse, honestly curious)

      --
      . . .gone when the morning comes
    13. Re:Old movies by number6x · · Score: 2

      A 1995 remake with Kirk Cameron and Dan Castellaneta!

      If ever a movie never needed to be remade, it was this one.

    14. Re:Old movies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You could have bought a PAL VHS of Song of the South from amazon.co.uk back in the 90s. Like I did.

      I paid for a crappy conversion to NTSC VHS by a local shop that deals in converted Bollywood movies for the Indian community here.

      Later on a coworker who lives in Europe very kindly agreed to take it home and do a better quality conversion to NTSC VHS and DVD for me on his multi-mode VHS/DVD-writer deck. (I have no doubt he made a copy of it for himself.

      Disney has, I believe, said they will never release that movie in the US. And they don't show any signs of releasing it again in the UK on DVD or Blu-Ray. I guess I'm not surprised.

    15. Re:Old movies by sit1963nz · · Score: 1

      Part of the problem is the ever extending copyright on everything. If copyright was to enable the creator of content make a living while they created new material, then copyright should end when the creator is dead. Copyright should be limited to 20 years or the death of the creator, which ever comes first. Far more financial investment goes into Patents (in general), yet they only get 7 years exclusive use. We have Netflix which we occasionally binge watch on, linear TV is for the "news" (and that pretty poor) and then it either get used for Netflix or gets turned off. As for "reality TV", because of their continuous repeating of what happened at the start, a 30 minute program could be condensed down to about 10 minutes, apart from the fact most reality TV is aimed at an intellectually impaired goat. So in the last 12 months, my reading of books has gone up significantly

    16. Re:Old movies by darthsilun · · Score: 1

      Speaking of old Disney movies, how about "Scarecrow of Romney Marsh" ? (a.k.a. "Alias Dr. Syn" or something like that.)

    17. Re:Old movies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My mistake. In the early 2000s. And there's a used copy (PAL VHS) available on amazon.co.uk right now.

    18. Re:Old movies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I want a copy of the Made-for-Tv movie Plymouth. There is a 7 part copy on youtube, but its missing like a crucial 8 minutes. Was a pretty interesting take on working and living in space.

      There's a SD, Xvid-encoded version on PTP...

    19. Re:Old movies by number6x · · Score: 1

      While the "Don't Blink" epsode is among my favorite of the new series, the weeping angels always bother my physics pedantic nature.

      Begin Rant...

      First, Dr. Who talks a little quantum mechanics mumbo-jumbo to invoke the 'observation' aspect of the weeping angels, but the 'observation' of quantum mechanics includes interacting with other particles, not just eyeballs looking at something. Every air molecule bouncing off of a weeping angel is 'observing' them. Even if it is just 'eyeballs' and other living things looking at them, how many insects and microscopic creatures with light sensitive patches are looking at them at any time? Any weeping angel on the Earth's surface would be locked 100% of the time, unless you put them in a perfectly dark room, evacuated all of the air and somehow got them to magically float (without using any kind of force to do so) so they weren't touching the floor. Oh, cancel out the Earth's magnetic field as well. The particles the angels are made of would 'feel' that and that would lock them.

      Second, they send people back in time to 'feed' off the energy collected in doing so. I know time travel isn't really possible, other than the way we currently move from second to second as the normal flow of time, but what the angels do to 'feed' just bugs me! Time flows forward naturally, like a ball rolls down hill in a gravity field. Things go from the high energy state to the low energy state (if there is a differential that overcomes any barrier). So time 'flowing' to the future is like water flowing down hill. Moving water back up hill means putting energy into it. If the angels send someone back in time, they have to expend a bunch of energy to do it. If you want to move them forward, at a rate faster than normal, you have to expend a bunch of energy to do it. The best you can do is nothing and put no energy in and get no energy out.

      OK. I know. It's science fiction, as good as the episode is I've always grumbled a little at the fast and loose attitude toward reality.

      How about an episode where an absorberloff absorbs an angel? Mayhem and hilarity follow? No need for Dr. who, have it star Marc Warren, Carey Mulligan and Lucy Gaskell! Pope, Sparrow and Nightingale.

      Sorry for the rant.

    20. Re:Old movies by avandesande · · Score: 1

      As you well know, the angel feed off of someone's timeline potential. I would assume that being observed by something with a good amount of timeline potential is what causes them to freeze.

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
    21. Re:Old movies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As much fun as Dr. Who is, it lives under fantasy, maybe science fantasy, but not science fiction.

    22. Re:Old movies by TheCarp · · Score: 2

      I love Dr Who but I had to come to terms with the fact that it is not really science fiction so much as science fiction themed fantasy. It is well written fantasy and it plays at being science fiction but, they really just do whatever.

      In fact, we are not alone, I recently found a rant that sums it up well; I still watch the show but, its a good steady fuck buddy, not really relationship material: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

      --
      "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
    23. Re:Old movies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The real interesting question is: did the Red vs. Blue series take off and become successful despite or because of the re-hosting?

    24. Re:Old movies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If it's all based on theoreticals then surely you could counter their theoretical with another in which your actions through P2P increased awareness of this old film creating a ripe market for xmas stocking DVDs or some BS. Fight BS with BS!

    25. Re:Old movies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dr. Who is an entertaining show, but it's so incredibly hand-wavy and ridiculous that complaining about any specific thing is just silly.

    26. Re:Old movies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, because if you weren't able to watch that movie, you might pay to watch another movie.

    27. Re:Old movies by currently_awake · · Score: 1

      DR Who is Science Fantasy, not Science Fiction. In Science Fiction you have laws of physics that you follow, and things are supposed to happen logically. In Science Fantasy the author decides what they want to happen, then make up a "Sciency" excuse for it. Things like you can zip to anywhere and anywhen, but you can't pack an advanced first aid kit that fits in your pocket.

    28. Re:Old movies by tepples · · Score: 1

      But now that What is gone, it appears to have become nearly impossible to get into PTP.

    29. Re:Old movies by Cinnamon+Beige · · Score: 1

      There's some pretty famous games that almost certainly only got that rerelease because people kept passing around copies--some of them pirated simply because of how rare the game and/or functional consoles to play it on are--and believe me, any "remastered in HD" treatment for a game that's worth paying a cent for is going to include fixes of bad bugs and quite a few have the remaster announced well ahead of time. A couple I'm waiting to see are promising to do things like get stuff they ran out of time for originally finally in the game--in some cases this means plot holes get properly closed.

      There's a whole bunch of IP out there whose rights are tangled in so much red tape that nobody's actually too certain who actually has the right to do something like shove, say, a half-assed transfer or a dump wrapped in an emulator out the door, never mind a "remastered in HD" sort of endeavor. Orphaned works and works that are effectively orphaned are a problem for a reason--and one major improvement to copyright law would be simply to make it so title must be maintained clearly and failure to do so is taken as implicitly releasing it into the public domain.

      With your example? It'd have been child's play to ask them directly if they wanted that rehosting set up for them, and I suspect quite easy to throw money at them to obtain copies.

      The problem here, however, is that we've got a decent amount of stuff where it's not that easy: where the owners are MIA or unidentifiable.

    30. Re:Old movies by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      If it's all based on theoreticals then surely you could counter their theoretical with another

      No, it doesn't work that way, because the law states which things can be hypothesized about. You get to count theoretical damages, you don't get to count theoretical benefits (although if you could actually prove that you caused more people to pay money to the owner, that could help your case).

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    31. Re:Old movies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fast forward a few years, and those guys have built a media empire around the success of that and their subsequent video series. Their piddly operation has exploded to include dozens (hundreds?) of employees across the nation. They sell those episodes on DVD and Blu-ray, stream the episodes on YouTube and Netflix, sell shirts and other merchandise for them, and on and on. While it wouldn't have looked much like piracy to distribute those videos in the early days, given that they were already available for free and there were no obvious plans to monetize the videos, they understood that controlling distribution then would give them opportunities for monetizing the videos later, so even though they didn't have anything at the time, they still insisted on controlling distribution.

      You're kidding, right? Have you met RoosterTeeth?

    32. Re:Old movies by dryeo · · Score: 1

      If copyright was to enable the creator of content make a living while they created new material, then copyright should end when the creator is dead.

      Creators can have dependents, new debts etc. Writer writes a bestseller, royalty checks are coming in, movie deal in the process of being signed. Writer buys house and has a child. Writer dies. Why shouldn't the child get the benefits of the movie deal and the royalties for the remaining 19 odd yrs?
      There's even been cases of people who know they're dieing to create a work to look after their dependents. As copyright is to encourage the creation of works, that creator wouldn't bother creating the work. 20 odd years is long enough for the dependents to get on their feet.
      If I died tomorrow, my wife would get the pay that is owed to me and my business to sell or maintain, why should it be different for creators who are similarly self-employed?

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
    33. Re:Old movies by colinwb · · Score: 2

      "There's even been cases of people who know they're dying to create a work to look after their dependents."
      --An example is the "Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S Grant", which I highly recommend, not only for their content, but because Grant was a good writer:

      The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant is an autobiography by Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th President of the United States, focused mainly on his military career during the Mexican-American War and the American Civil War. Written as Grant was dying of cancer in 1885, the two-volume set was published by Mark Twain shortly after Grant's death.

      Twain created a unique marketing system designed to reach millions of veterans with a patriotic appeal just as Grant's death was being mourned. Ten thousand agents canvassed the North, following a script Twain had devised; many were themselves veterans who dressed in their old uniforms. They sold 350,000 two-volume sets at prices from $3.50 to $12 (depending on the binding). Each copy contained what looked like a handwritten note from Grant himself. In the end, Grant's widow Julia received about $450,000, suggesting a gross royalty before expenses of about 30%.
      ...
      After finishing his second term in office in 1877, Grant and his wife Julia took a trip around the world which left him short on money. Nearly 60, the ex-president looked for something to engage his time. ... Grant moved to New York City to go into business with his son, Ulysses S. Grant, Jr., and a young investor, Ferdinand Ward, described by his great-grandson Geoffrey Ward as "a very plausible, charming, unobtrusive, slender person with a genius for finding older people and pleasing them, which he learned early on." The firm of Grant & Ward did well at first, bolstered by Ward's skills and Grant's name. ... But Grant was largely disengaged from the company's business, often signing papers without reading them. This proved disastrous, as Ward had used the firm as a Ponzi scheme, taking investors' money and spending it on personal items, including a mansion in Connecticut and a brownstone in New York City. Grant & Ward failed in May 1884, leaving Grant penniless.

      That fall, the former president was diagnosed with terminal throat cancer. Facing his mortality, Grant struck a publishing deal with his friend Mark Twain and began working on his memoirs, hoping they would provide for his family after his death. ... Grant suffered greatly in his final year. He was in constant pain from his illness and sometimes had the feeling he was choking. Despite his condition, he wrote at a furious pace, sometimes finishing 25 to 50 pages a day. In June 1885, as the cancer spread through his body, the family moved to Mount MacGregor, New York, to make Grant more comfortable. Propped up on chairs, and too weak to walk, Grant worked to finish the book. Friends, admirers and even a few former Confederate opponents made their way to Mount MacGregor to pay their respects. Grant finished the manuscript on July 18; he died five days later.
      ...

    34. Re:Old movies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thanks, I just downloaded a copy of it thanks to VideoLan!

    35. Re:Old movies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In the spirit of good-natured nerd debate over fiction, I have some disagreements.

      While the Doctor did describe them as "quantum locked", he's a Timelord. What he means by that may only have the slightest connection to our understanding of quantum physics. For all we know, he's describing something completely alien to our understanding, but the Tardis' omnipresent translation turned it into that so you'd think 'observer effect' and it sort of made as much sense to you as it could. I have no problem with the idea that the angel's physical state can be influenced by the active recognition of a conscious observer. After all, psychic phenomena is relatively common in the Whoniverse, so there' s a lot of potential for consciousness to affect reality. And although it came later in The End of Time, it's strongly implied that the Angels were made by Rassilon. The ability to engineer a lifeform with such a strange quirk should be well within the wheelhouse of the ur-Timelord.

      I've always grumbled a little at the fast and loose attitude toward reality.

      That's sort of a subtle underlying theme of the entire new series. It's frequently hinted at that reality is both dramatically more and less complicated than humanity's current understanding of it (think of that entire "wibbly-wobbly" speech). Aliens regularly do things that break our understanding of physics like an eggshell under a sledgehammer. Things that we would think should be possible once we adopt a more permissive perspective turn out to actually be literally impossible. Even then, some things the Doctor, an X-hundred year-old hyper-intelligent alien, thinks are impossible turn around and happen. Reality is not as rigid and rule-abiding as we seem to believe. While this is admittedly more likely to stem from a disregard for continuity and plot-ex-machina along with maybe a sprinkle of laziness, I prefer to think of it as subtle commentary on the hubris inherent in believing we understand everything exactly.

      Personally, while I think there are plenty of ridiculous things in Doctor Who to complain about (The tardis literally blows up the entire universe in 'The Pandorica Opens'. I mean, seriously?), I think the angels are among the least of it's sins.

    36. Re:Old movies by Deliveranc3 · · Score: 1

      It's so broad it's laughable, even if you quote a movie or think about a movie you theoretically owe someone. More people would pirate if they understood the law.

  3. 69% know that piracy is illegal ? by PIBM · · Score: 2

    I do believe that watching something you are not entitled to might be listed under copyright infrigement, but if you streamed a pirated video, you yourself didn't commit something illegal if my understanding is good (at least in Canada). So, 69% are wrong ?

    1. Re:69% know that piracy is illegal ? by alexo · · Score: 1

      20 years is still too long. With current means of distribution, 5 should be tops.

    2. Re:69% know that piracy is illegal ? by wvmarle · · Score: 1

      In many countries, only the uploading (distribution) part is illegal indeed, not the downloading/streaming part. Depending on the exact wording, it may even be legal to download stuff and keep copies without license.

      From a legal perspective, bittorrent is a problem as it automatically uploads as you download, or at the very best offers to upload - in case there are only seeders, no other leechers or none that are interested in your downloaded parts. This is in most countries a breach of copyright.

    3. Re:69% know that piracy is illegal ? by wvmarle · · Score: 1

      What do "current means of distribution" have to do with that?

    4. Re:69% know that piracy is illegal ? by alexo · · Score: 1

      Online services make distribution instantaneous, advertisement cheap and printing/stocking expenses optional.

    5. Re:69% know that piracy is illegal ? by wvmarle · · Score: 1

      That doesn't answer the question. Why would that cheap (online) distribution be a reason to limit copyright to a mere five years?

    6. Re:69% know that piracy is illegal ? by alexo · · Score: 1

      The real question is why have long copyright terms at all?

      Enforcing artificial scarcity on ideas and treating them as "property", especially for long periods of time, should only be done if the end result is beneficial to society as a whole, rather than to a few powerful lobbies. And I have not seen anything that suggests that it is the case.

      I am aware of one attempt to empirically establish the optimal copyright term, and the conclusion was around 15 years. You are welcome to read the papers and state any disagreement that you have with them.

      https://web.archive.org/web/20...
      https://web.archive.org/web/20...

    7. Re:69% know that piracy is illegal ? by wvmarle · · Score: 1

      You still don't answer the question. You don't even try to. It seems to me you don't have an answer.

    8. Re:69% know that piracy is illegal ? by alexo · · Score: 1

      Alright, I will spell it out for you.

      One of the excuses for copyright was that the author, having made a significant investment to create and distribute their work, need to be able to recoup their costs (and hopefully make a profit). Those sunk costs have plummeted.

      But the main reason, which you don't seem to view as an answer, is that the current copyright terms do nothing except lock down culture and impoverish the public domain.

      Now it's your turn to answer my question: how is life + 70 better for society than 15 years?

  4. Another statistic by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

    95% of all U.S.A. adults watch pirate content, featuring Johnny Depp.

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  5. MotoGP on BT Sport, Dakar on Eurosport... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hey, I *tried* to subscribe, they said I needed a UK address.

    Fine. Yoink.

    1. Re: MotoGP on BT Sport, Dakar on Eurosport... by ememisya · · Score: 1

      If you torrent you have probably participated in a DDoS attack. This is a bit like getting free stuff in a shady venue so long as you do them a "favor". I don't like my friend, I get his public IP, list the hottest movie from his/her IP, bluray quality. Meanwhile they are at home thinking why is my Internet not working?

    2. Re: MotoGP on BT Sport, Dakar on Eurosport... by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 1

      Um, no, that's not how it works. Your "friend" would have to actually be seeding said torrent, like in some program. You can't just "list" something, that's not how the protocol works. You MIGHT be able to sit outside near enough to your "friends" house to get on their wifi, assuming that's open, and then seed out torrents off a laptop or something...at least until they notice you sitting there for hours on end. Even then, your probably not going to be able to get enough signal to use up their entire pipe.

  6. Absolutely. I never give it a second thought by JudgeFurious · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I pay for a lot of content through Dish, Netflix, iTunes, etc but if there's something I can't find there (and it happens more than I would have thought possible) then I don't even hesitate. It's 2017 and I want everything ever made and I want it at the click of a mouse or press of a button on my remote. I understand that it isn't something I'm in any way entitled to but that's how the world works a lot of the time now. Sorry.

    --
    Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
    1. Re:Absolutely. I never give it a second thought by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I pay for a lot of content through Dish, Netflix, iTunes, etc but if there's something I can't find there (and it happens more than I would have thought possible) then I don't even hesitate. It's 2017 and I want everything ever made and I want it at the click of a mouse or press of a button on my remote. I understand that it isn't something I'm in any way entitled to but that's how the world works a lot of the time now. Sorry.

      Assuming providers should deliver everything ever made is akin to assuming women should deliver every sexual perversion you want.

      The world, nor the internet works that way. That shit exists only in your fucking delusional mind that has been twisted with entitlement. Sorry.

    2. Re:Absolutely. I never give it a second thought by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

      if there's something I can't find there (and it happens more than I would have thought possible)

      Mostly due to geo-filtering.

      --
      Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
    3. Re:Absolutely. I never give it a second thought by amiga3D · · Score: 1

      What? I can't have every sexual perversion I want? What the fuck!

    4. Re:Absolutely. I never give it a second thought by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      is akin to assuming women should deliver every sexual perversion you want.

      No. It's akin to women being available to deliver every sexual perversion you want.

      And that is something that most definitely is available.

    5. Re:Absolutely. I never give it a second thought by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure you can. The more perverse, the more money it will cost though. I'm pretty sure you can find some woman willing to trade one for the other.

  7. What? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "watching pirated content is not permitted" ?

  8. It's not illegal to "watch pirated content" by MrNJ · · Score: 2

    It's only illegal to make copies of copyrighted content without license. So torrenting = illegal. Streaming = legal.

    --
    I don't respond to or upvote ACs
    1. Re: It's not illegal to "watch pirated content" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You mean watching said contains while your device is making a copy from remote server?

    2. Re: It's not illegal to "watch pirated content" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or while it's streaming via torrent?

    3. Re:It's not illegal to "watch pirated content" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In order to work, streaming must create a local copy of the content, at least in memory. You are avoiding detection (nor do they likely care if you're not distributing copies) but you are still violating the law.

    4. Re:It's not illegal to "watch pirated content" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A friend can make a copy and lend to you its not really infringing copyright

    5. Re:It's not illegal to "watch pirated content" by mattyj · · Score: 2

      You're out of your mind and spreading fallacies.

      Subscribing to Netflix, say, gives you a license to stream content from them, sometimes locked to a region. It's illegal to, say, use a VPN to pretend you're in Canada to stream content. Or to share your HBONow login with 100 people.

      As others have mentioned, for most of us it's a question of convenience. There will be those that steal just to steal, but there's absolutely no reason why I should have to subscribe to a cable package to watch the Golden Globes when I have DirecTVNow or Sling or any myriad of streaming services that carry NBC. That's just stupid.

    6. Re: It's not illegal to "watch pirated content" by omnichad · · Score: 1

      While making a copy in RAM, which has only been deemed legal when required for playback of legal content.

    7. Re:It's not illegal to "watch pirated content" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Carefull. "make copies" could also be applied to things like an internet-proxy at the providers edge, or your browser cache. In fact, the European Section of the MAFIAA.org briefly tried to get the EU to declare caches as copies that have to be paid for...

    8. Re:It's not illegal to "watch pirated content" by MrNJ · · Score: 1

      The copy is being created by the server, not by you. Client receives the copy, displays it and discards. Client does not make any additional copies. If it did as with torrents, that would be illegal.

      --
      I don't respond to or upvote ACs
    9. Re:It's not illegal to "watch pirated content" by MrNJ · · Score: 2

      Your examples are all violations of the CFAA. While illegal, they have nothing to do with "pirated content" or "copyright infringement"

      --
      I don't respond to or upvote ACs
    10. Re:It's not illegal to "watch pirated content" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Absolutely false. And if caught you will likely be prosecuted.

    11. Re: It's not illegal to "watch pirated content" by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      While making a copy in RAM, which has only been deemed legal when required for playback of legal content.

      So then it should be okay if I don't do any buffering, right?

    12. Re: It's not illegal to "watch pirated content" by omnichad · · Score: 1

      You don't have to decode the video and your GPU doesn't have a framebuffer?

    13. Re: It's not illegal to "watch pirated content" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In many countries download is legal, but uploading is not, so that's why.
      I don't know how that works in the US though.

    14. Re:It's not illegal to "watch pirated content" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So what magical video streaming standard are you using that apparently works without compression or deltas (e.g. H.264 with P-frames and B-frames)?

    15. Re: It's not illegal to "watch pirated content" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      a copyright is not a right to a peice of property you can't steal a copyrighted work.

    16. Re: It's not illegal to "watch pirated content" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Torrents also receive a copy from remote machine. The difference is how long before local machines discards it. Well, and torrents can make and distribute a copy, but it can be prevented.

    17. Re: It's not illegal to "watch pirated content" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The definition of "legal content" is "content that is being provided to you by someone licensed to do so".

      How can a person reliably know whether the content they are watching (wherever it is coming from) is being provided by someone licensed to do so? They can't.

      Also, copyright infringement is not about "making copies", it is about "providing copies" (making the works of other available without a license to do so).

      If reality was as you put it, you couldn't even browse the web legally, since every time you access *any* website, you are potentially accessing copyrighted information and you have no way of knowing whether the person running the web server in question has the necessary licenses to do so.

    18. Re: It's not illegal to "watch pirated content" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No real need for a "framebuffer" if you have a crt. decode & modulate the electron ray sweeps the screen.

      Want to be more modern than CRT? Decode video a pixel at a time, illuminating one LED at a time in a matrix. Still no framebuffer.

    19. Re:It's not illegal to "watch pirated content" by wvmarle · · Score: 1

      It's illegal to, say, use a VPN to pretend you're in Canada to stream content

      Is it? Under whose/which law? Your local law, Canadian law or that of the country where the streaming service originates?

    20. Re: It's not illegal to "watch pirated content" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't have to decode the video and your GPU doesn't have a framebuffer?

      Who needs a framebuffer? CRT TV did not. Video was decoded a pixel at a time, and used to modulate a ray of electrons sweeping across the screen. No framebuffer here.

      If you want to be more modern than CRT, decode a pixel at a time and modulate a trio of lasers sweeping across a big screen - or light up LEDs one at a time in a matrix. No framebuffer needed.

  9. Admission by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    * 32% of US adults *admit* to watching pirated content.

    1. Re:Admission by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      32% is about right for me... if you rule out my pr0nz consumption!

    2. Re:Admission by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The statistic is almost meaningless.

      How many adults have ever shoplifted something? Once is the same as a repeat offender on such a question, while in reality they aren't nearly the same. I mean, I stole a candy bar from a store when I was like 7 years old, and I would raise my hand. Far too many stories have meaningless statistics involved.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    3. Re:Admission by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      Then it goes up to 69%, right?

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    4. Re:Admission by wvmarle · · Score: 1

      The statistic is almost meaningless.

      And a very low number, especially when following through on your argument.

    5. Re:Admission by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Does putting something in the cart and forgetting to pay on the way out count?

  10. ever think why by luther349 · · Score: 1

    lets see pay tv prices have gotten so insane people are turning to the internet. wile stuff like netflicks and hulu have improved the ways to get content without pirating there library is still limited. its the content providers death grip that causes mass piracy.

    1. Re:ever think why by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 2

      There is no "mass piracy" going on. There are pirates who won't pay for anything, because they thing they are awesome and don't have to be functioning members of society, because they think they are better than all those "idiots" (everyone else). I know of a guy that pirates movies he never watches, because he thinks it is cool. He has thousands of movies in his "collection", more than any human could watch in a lifetime. He is a mass offender.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    2. Re: ever think why by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Do I know you?

    3. Re:ever think why by Wycliffe · · Score: 1

      There is no "mass piracy" going on.

      I know of a guy that pirates movies he never watches, because he thinks it is cool. He has thousands of movies in his "collection", more than any human could watch in a lifetime. He is a mass offender.

      There is a difference between mass piracy and a mass offender. I do believe mass piracy is going on but it's only because of a few mass offenders. My kids (9 and 11) have even learned that typing "[movie name] full movie" or "[show name] season X episode X" in google usually returns several listing where you can stream whatever movie or show they want. They can even tell you which websites are good and which websites don't work before even clicking on the links and if nothing does turn up in google they go directly to the websites they know are good and search there. Youtube and google are probably the worst mass offenders. Even though they don't host the content themself, they make it easy enough for kids to find them. Now my kids know several websites to go to but they would have had a much harder time finding them in the first place if it wasn't for google and until google stops listing them you are just playing whack a mole. If google delisted them, you would still be playing whackamole but it would be much harder for the general public to find the sites to begin with.

    4. Re:ever think why by fuzznutz · · Score: 1

      I have a 14 year old kid and he can find any movie you can name to stream within a minute or too. I challenged him one day and he surprised me at his success. He says the kids all watch them in study hall. Google or not, once one kid in a public school knows the secret sites, they all know them.

    5. Re:ever think why by fuzznutz · · Score: 1

      There is no "mass piracy" going on. There are pirates who won't pay for anything, because they thing they are awesome and don't have to be functioning members of society, because they think they are better than all those "idiots" (everyone else). I know of a guy that pirates movies he never watches, because he thinks it is cool. He has thousands of movies in his "collection", more than any human could watch in a lifetime. He is a mass offender.

      I assume from the tone of your post that you have contempt for this individual. I'm just curious as to the degree of harm this "mass offender" is doing society or the creators of these works? He copies but does not watch and would never pay for anything. How is the net effect any different than a different individual who does not watch or copy anything? I know someone who hasn't been to a theater in years and does not buy or rent DVDs. He just doesn't care about movies.

      I suspect that a lot of people just harbor unfocused anger that pirates just don't play by their rules.

  11. Time/Format Shifting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I wonder how many of these "pirates" can rightly explain their actions as just time/format shifting? For example, I pay for cable/Netflix/Amazon Prime. Yes, technically were I to pirate content available on one of those three services, it might be legally wrong, but is it morally wrong?

    1. Re:Time/Format Shifting by omnichad · · Score: 2

      Or downloading a show that failed to record because it was pre-empted by sports (or damaged by poor reception).

    2. Re:Time/Format Shifting by sims+2 · · Score: 1

      I was recording die hard 2 on broadcast TV years ago It was preempted by severe weather about half way through and they stayed on the weather radar for the rest of the movie.

      I didn't see rest of that movie until I found it on for sale on VHS for a few dollars about 7 or 8 years later.

      --
      Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
    3. Re:Time/Format Shifting by omnichad · · Score: 1

      Digital OTA TV has subchannels now. I don't know why they can't just have a crawl that says "Severe Weather Alert....Tune in to 5.2 for live coverage" and let them pre-empt their cheap filler programming instead of prime time content.

    4. Re:Time/Format Shifting by sims+2 · · Score: 1

      This was way before digital tv.
      I have actually seen our local weather stations do that before.

      --
      Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
    5. Re:Time/Format Shifting by omnichad · · Score: 1

      I'm aware of your timeline on that story - but none around here seem to do that even now. And "MeTV" never gets pre-empted. Seems like a complete waste of resources.

    6. Re:Time/Format Shifting by sims+2 · · Score: 1

      Oh I just got MeTV here about 2 weeks ago haven't watched anything on it yet I just noticed its been added to the channel list

      I haven't seen them do it in long time but IIRC only one of the 3 stations with weather I can pickup ever did it.

      Anyone know why PBS stations don't carry any severe weather alerts?

      --
      Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
    7. Re:Time/Format Shifting by omnichad · · Score: 1

      Anyone know why PBS stations don't carry any severe weather alerts?

      I doubt they have anyone present to put them on. Putting every EAS alert into a crawl automatically might be overkill - especially a 3-day long ice storm warning (like I had last weekend). Since mobile phones receive most of these alerts, the importance is a lot lower than it used to be anyway.

  12. Twist by Punko · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Interestingly, this also means that a large chunk of the population believes that they're doing nothing wrong.

    No, I'd say this means that a large chunk of the population believe that the value of the product (content) offered plus the probable cost to acquire the content is less than the sale price. People who watch pirated content are aware that what they are doing is not 100% clean. Most will shrug when asked if what they are doing is legal.

    Unless the sale price drops or the probable cost to acquire the content rises, the value of the product (content) must increase to decrease pirating.

    So, if you don't want to decrease the price point, and you can't think of an economical way to increase the probable cost to acquire the content, then you have to increase the value of the product. How can you increase its value? Well, for one, make it as easy as possible to get a copy of the content legally, and make that product as easy to use (for all values of use) as the pirated version.

    However, content owners will simply view the equation as a need to come up with a cheap way to make the probable cost of acquiring the content alternately more expensive. Through higher rates of fining, or higher fines, or making piracy more difficult to achieve.
    Changing the usability of the content or decreasing the price point are things the studios simply won't consider.

    --
    If only we could fall into a woman's arms without falling into her hands
    1. Re: Twist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Read the summary again. It said that 69% know it's illegal, meaning 31% (the large chunk) don't know it's illegal. Your attempt to explain cost vs value has no bearing on this statement that you just tried to refute.

    2. Re:Twist by dcollins117 · · Score: 1

      Interestingly, this also means that a large chunk of the population believes that they're doing nothing wrong.

      I'm not doing anything wrong. The law is wrong. Geo restrictions are wrong. DRM is wrong.

      Someone is trying to convince me that watching a show on TV is OK, but watching it on my computer is not OK. Borrowing a book from the library or sharing a book with friends is "right" but reading and sharing a book on my computer is "wrong." I don't concur.

  13. hmm by fishscene · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When a third of your population admit to doing something illegal, maybe it's time to revisit the laws surrounding the legality of it - especially if it isn't a safety issue.

    1. Re:hmm by omnichad · · Score: 1

      Maybe it's just time to re-evaluate your pricing. Piracy is not without risk, and if avoiding risk was cheap, few would do it.

    2. Re:hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Many people are saying the same about illegal immigration. The hordes of undocumented workers coming across the border wouldn't stay if they couldn't get jobs.

  14. shiver me timbers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yarr me hearties! Set the torrents and stuns'ls!

  15. Don't ask, don't tell by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    32% 'admit' to watching pirated content. The other 68% just do it and don't tell...

  16. Sampling Bias by medv4380 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sorry but the survey only lists that it was an online survey. How was this sample selected, and where if the response rate? Since I see no delineation between Sample Size and Completes I assume this was just a meaningless web survey that wasted their time weighting data that has no meaning because it's missing critical data points. This is how the media got deluded into believing Hillary was destined to win VS Trump. Honestly, if you're going to include a methods section then give me a bit more meat.

    1. Re:Sampling Bias by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is how the media got deluded into believing Hillary was destined to win VS Trump.

      She did outperform him, only the vagaries of an arcane system allowed Trump to claim any kind of victory.

      And the fact is, in Wisconsin, Trump underperformed Kerry in 2004. By a considerable margin. Kerry, the loser in 2004.

      How the fuck did that happen?

      Anyway, let's not pretend the actual election polling was like this nonsense out of Cosmopolitan. The Media was much more guarded than Mr. "I won in a landslide of a negative margin in raw votes!" so you know who you should be snarking at, if you had some sense.

    2. Re:Sampling Bias by ravenshrike · · Score: 1

      Arcane? If anything more complicated than 2+2=4 is arcane to you your life must be a sad one indeed.

    3. Re:Sampling Bias by Mr.+Jackson · · Score: 1

      I also questioned the survey just because I thought the number was high. I'd bet a third of the adults I know don't know what a torrent is.

    4. Re:Sampling Bias by medv4380 · · Score: 1

      The Media was much more guarded than Mr. "I won in a landslide of a negative margin in raw votes!" so you know who you should be snarking at, if you had some sense.

      Guarded? The media was so "Guarded" that it was in tears, and shock by 9 PM. They all failed to read the stats correctly. Most polling had both of them well within the Margin of Error. The State polling was so bad that you were dealing with 5+ MOE being treated as if it had 1 point MOE with a 5 point lead which in fact they were all within the MOE and far too close to estimate states going to Hillary with their "Blue Wall" nonsense. They'd honestly convinced themselves by election night that it was impossible for any Republican to ever win again. Then you had the flood of bad polling. NBC believed that their Survey Monkey Poll was somehow newsworthy with a 1 percent MOE totally ignoring Selection and Mode Bias.

  17. Movie studies don't look at it that way. by fedos · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They believe that by pirating an old movie that they refuse to make available on DVD or streaming, you're not paying to watch the latest Transformers flick.

    1. Re:Movie studies don't look at it that way. by LinuxIsGarbage · · Score: 2

      They believe that by pirating an old movie that they refuse to make available on DVD or streaming, you're not paying to watch the latest Transformers flick.

      Which is why copyright terms should be similar to patents. After 20 years you've made your money, now focus on new content.

    2. Re:Movie studies don't look at it that way. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wish I could work every 20th year.
      I would probably work for 5 years straight and then retire.

    3. Re:Movie studies don't look at it that way. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think I need to start pirating more old movies, then...

  18. Forgot the second part of the study by Overzeetop · · Score: 5, Funny

    68% of US adults lie about watching pirated content.

    --
    Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
    1. Re:Forgot the second part of the study by omnichad · · Score: 1

      You overestimate the number of tech savvy octogenarians.

    2. Re:Forgot the second part of the study by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      68% of Americans are bad at the internet.

    3. Re:Forgot the second part of the study by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm tech savvy and I don't watch pirated content.

    4. Re:Forgot the second part of the study by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      68% of US adults lie about watching pirated content.

      They forgot to count porn.

  19. This Is Awful. I'm Embarrased As An American. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Come on 68%, get with the program!

  20. No statisticians in journalism by Troed · · Score: 2

    "Through YouGov, the company conducted a representative survey of over 1,000 respondents" ... no, on two accounts. 1) Self-selected survey (YouGov) and 2) 1000 respondents aren't statistically representative for the US population

    1. Re:No statisticians in journalism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People are also ignoring the 'pirate OR stream content' by lumping the two together in one survey it's easy to say "look at all the pirates!!!" when it could just mostly be people using an online streaming service.

    2. Re:No statisticians in journalism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      2) 1000 respondents aren't statistically representative for the US population

      lol, funny little boy =) watch out we have a make pretend stat master here

    3. Re:No statisticians in journalism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Through YouGov, the company conducted a representative survey of over 1,000 respondents" ... no, on two accounts. 1) Self-selected survey (YouGov) and 2) 1000 respondents aren't statistically representative for the US population

      It's worse than that, actually. From a social science perspective, it's really hard to get good results from a survey, even if you can somehow address the issue of getting a representative population sample (which is a very hard problem in itself).

      Usually it takes decades of work to develop a survey. Natural languages are ambiguous (as most experienced software developers know from reading specifications), and a survey is a natural language tool. You have to spend an enormous amount of time trying different versions of questions to avoid problems with how the question are worded. Also you have to come up with different ways of making the same measurement, then subject your work to peer review.

      In short, science is all about measurement - and those measurements tend to be very difficult in the social sciences, in part because they tend to be very young sciences, and in part because the problems are hard.

      So, yes, from a scientist's perspective the claims made about this "survey" are nothing but propaganda from two companies with strong conflicts of interest.

      Unfortunately, there's a lot of that going on these days. Marketing firms do a lot of hand-waving to hide the difficulties of making measurements, and try to create the illusion of legitimacy for their "work". Every high school student should get a couple years of exposure to the social sciences to help counter this kind of thing.

    4. Re:No statisticians in journalism by Deliveranc3 · · Score: 1

      Any truly random sample is statistically representative. As the sample grows larger the accuracy will increase as well.

  21. Not permitted by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't use that kind of language. In a free country, things aren't forbidden unless they are permitted. Watching things isn't "not permitted". No, it's not forbidden either. Very few things exist that you are forbidden from watching.

  22. Content manipulation is an issue by Tyr07 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's not like all shows are available at a price and you just refused to pay it.

    Content is often...
    Old so not available
    Not available in /your country/
    Not available when you want to watch it
    Has commercials
    Better quality elsewhere, ability to pause play rewinid at your leisure.

    Basically as usual, pirated content has the better product, even if you had to "pay" for it.

    Stop restricting content by country
    Stop restricting content to try and force people to accept certain content.

    Oh yeah, they do it, fyi, deliberately pull other popular content from access just to get people watching their "new" show. It's like products, installing updates or things that cause it to run worse but it's a "security update" until they tell you to buy a newer, faster shinier product.

    They keep trying to section off markets to milk the most of it etc. If instead, part of harmonization the entire world, allowed content to be accessible on a global level with specific standards for quality control, performance and user interfaces (As every company wants a piece of the pie) you would have a lot less people pirating.

    I don't even watch netflix anymore because I've already seen anything good and their library is started to suck ass. I only keep it since a family member watches it still.

    Pirates have global access to high quality on demand content of their choosing, free for the most part no less.
    Your expensive services are terrible and don't even come close.

    There's a lot of content I'd like to watch and would pay for access to watch it, but I can't, then you whine and complain because I'm not buying the products you want me to.

    1. Re:Content manipulation is an issue by sims+2 · · Score: 1

      I would love to be able to download digital copies of movies i've purchased.

      I mean seriously they often cost more than buying a physical copy that includes a digital copy what's the problem with letting me make my own dvds?

      I can do it with music why not movies?

      --
      Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
    2. Re:Content manipulation is an issue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you purchased the right to watch the movie. You used to have the right to make a working copy. If you don't have that right, the system probably isn't legitimate anyway.

    3. Re:Content manipulation is an issue by avandesande · · Score: 1

      It would be cool if movies (after some period of time like a year) went to a music-royalty type arrangement where anyone could broadcast as long as royalties are paid.

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
    4. Re:Content manipulation is an issue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What really pisses me off is every month how they advertise all the 'new' content on Netflix/Amazon/Hulu and it's the same things that were on there 3 months ago they took off. I don't know how many times I've gone looking for a movie on Netflix (or started it) and it's suddenly gone.
      THAT is what drives me to piratebay.

  23. I prefer rights-holders to lose money. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wont pay for a polluted product. Ever.

    Piracy at least provides the option for the content as intended creatively; rather than bundled, marketed, and upsold.

    I don't even care to pirate because it takes more time than its worth, but I do vocally oppose DRM in all its forms. DRM is just another branch of the pseudosecurity industry. There wont ever be a secure computer. Ever.

    Can we deflate the adjusted legal claims for distribution costs/revenue since the consumers paid for their own internet access?

    Too much shit is wrong with the "legitimate" marketplace, and the free market is literally winning right now. I support that. I hope that rights-holders lose money so that price (different from cost) reflect actual value, not speculative.

    Fun thing is im also fine with batch purchasing items of identified value (gifts etc). So once I know a film, or show, or song, or program, is worth it, everyone I love is getting a copy too.

    Fix the greed and we pay. Choke consumers using a monopoly and you choke yourself to death.

  24. Seems high... by Carcass666 · · Score: 1

    Ok, I'm going to go Ad Hominen here and call B.S. I posit that the 32% number is inflated, it's referenced on a site that makes money from torrents (many of which are indeed pirated content), from a survey published by an anti-pirating firm, which makes money "fighting piracy".

    I mean, come on, one third? Where did they take this survey, the California bay area? Austin? I am reasonable sure the majority of people in my neighborhood here in science-hating Texas have no idea how to set up their routers to allow torrent uploads and avoid leeching limitations. Netflix, Redbox, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Vudu, video on demand... there are just too many inexpensive ways to watch almost anything you would want to see without dealing with Torrents. Yes, we on Slashdot may use torrenting to get to anime and other foreign content we can't get legally in the US, but we are outliers.

    1. Re:Seems high... by Wycliffe · · Score: 2

      I am reasonable sure the majority of people in my neighborhood here in science-hating Texas have no idea how to set up their routers to allow torrent uploads and avoid leeching limitations.

      Who said anything about torrents? My kids (9 and 11) know how to type "[movie name] full movie" and "[show name] season X episode X" into google and start streaming a show in seconds. If they have figured this out then most adults have likely figured it out too.

  25. 32% - why so low? by petes_PoV · · Score: 1

    This is one of the main conclusions of research conducted by anti-piracy firm Irdeto

    I would have thought that a far higher (almost 100%) of the population would have viewed some pirated material, at least once in their lives.

    But if the "survey" came out with a figure even close to 50%, it would be shooting itself in the foot by showing that the behaviour was not considered immoral by such a large proportion of the population that to make it illegal was questionable. And once the "everybody does it" card is played, it becomes impossible for the courts to prosecute, since no jury could, statistically, find against a defendant.

    --
    politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
  26. That's not what that word means by drew_kime · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The data further show that the majority of US adults (69%) know that piracy is illegal. Interestingly, this also means that a large chunk of the population believes that they're doing nothing wrong.

    No. That means 31% of the population doesn't know the law, which is a little hard to believe.

    Knowing that it's illegal and believing that you're doing something wrong are completely different issues.

    --
    Nope, no sig
    1. Re:That's not what that word means by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      32% watch pirated content and 31% are unaware that it is illegal. That could imply that 1% are knowingly breaking the law by watching pirated content. They confounded the data, though so it is hard to tell.

  27. You can't stop the signal, Mal. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've said it before, I'll say it again, and I'll keep saying it: There's always going to be some pirating, and the more stupidly expensive content is, and the more difficult you make it to get it onto devices you want to use the content on, and the more of a pain in the ass content creators/providers are about it, the more people are just going to download what they want to watch -- especially if it's something you're going to watch once -- and content creators/providers should just STFU and accept that's the way things are. There will always be people who will pay, too, so no wories there. But the tighter you squeeze your fist, the more dollars slip through your fingers.

  28. It's universal by sjames · · Score: 1

    It's time to face up to it, most people don't see copyright infringement as being all that serious. That includes the big copyright advocates that get caught with infringing material on their websites or who never quite get around to paying the artists their royalties, or who claim copyright on things that expired years ago. Right down to agencies who collect "for" artists who never agreed to their representation and who never see a check for the amount collected.

    Meanwhile, it can't be THAT big of a problem. The various media companies make more money every year.

  29. Let's put it this way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If HBO put WestWorld on Netflix, or Hulu, or Amazon (prime where I don't have to pay extra for a subscription) - all services I pay for - then I would have been happy to go through the normal channels, and they would have gotten something for it. They refused, I downloaded it.

  30. DRM, Playback restrictions and life make pirates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Simple... if you don't want people to pirate, make sure every potential platform is supported. Example, I can't get amazon video on my phone without installing it from their app store instead of google play. Next, once you offer media for sale, you can't just remove it because its old. I bought several tv series that are just gone. After you get that right, I don't want to submit my computer to an anal inspection just to play video. Give me my video stream without the thousand trackers gathering information about me.

    Once you complete those 3 tasks, i'll consider becoming a normal paying consumer again.

  31. I'll admit it by trailerparkcassanova · · Score: 1

    I watched The Spanish Main.

  32. I download illegally because most entertainment is by DatbeDank · · Score: 1

    Most cinema is utter crap these days. I've lost count how many times i've been burned by a crappy movie and 30$ tickets (2 tickets) for the priviledge of sitting in a disgusting cinema with speakers turned too high.

    I pay for Netflix and Amazon Prime. That has been surprisingly worth it. Media costs too much. Lower the price, make it easy to get (I want cinema releases in my home damn it), and i'll be all over it.

    It's hard to feel guilty downloading a movie illegally. Those in hollywood are disconnected from realty.

  33. 100% of coporations have stolen public culture... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... via bribes and owning the govs of the world.

    Copyright fucking the public over the last 200 years

  34. So the same as speeding? by OrangeTide · · Score: 2

    A similar number of adults admit to speeding. If caught they can get a small fine and a temporary increase in their insurance premiums.

    Where as piracy you can be sued into bankruptcy and potentially imprisoned with other horrible criminals.

    Yet only one of these activities risks human life.

    --
    “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    1. Re:So the same as speeding? by sconeu · · Score: 1

      Please. Corporate profits are MUCH MUCH MORE IMPORTANT than mere human life!

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    2. Re:So the same as speeding? by OrangeTide · · Score: 1

      Agreed. It's what makes America great, again.

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
  35. One "Pirate's" Take On It by dave562 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have a full cable package from Frontier. We get most of the premium channels including HBO, Showtime and Starz. My wife purchases way more DVDs and Blu-ray discs than I want her to. We also go to the theater from time to time to watch movies.

    I am not willing to pay for the same content over, and over and over again. I am especially unwilling to continue to pay for content due to wear and tear. For example, my wife has watched Friends and Sex in the City so many times that some of the discs skip or are even completely unwatchable. I have zero qualms with pulling down a torrent of those shows and storing them on the NAS so that she can watch them.

    Another example is with HBO content. I am on the west coast. I watched Game of Thrones and Westworld on east coast time plus about 30 minutes. It was more convenient for me torrent a 1080p rip, than to wait until HBO decided it was time for my part of the country to be "allowed" to watch it.

    Am I 'stealing' from HBO? Am I 'stealing' from the DVD / blu-ray producer?

    I worked in Hollywood for a while. I understand that all of the below the line people have to eat and deserve to make a living wage. I do not endorse out and out, wholesale piracy. Just because "the studios" are turning a profit does not mean that everyone involved in getting content onto the screen is rolling in dough. Most of them are just regular Joe and Jane Doe's, putting in their hours and trying to put food on the table.

    On the other hand, I am okay with preserving content that I paid for. Just because I have the technical capability of doing so should not make it wrong. In my eyes, it is no more wrong than a mechanic fixing their own vehicle. Are they 'stealing' from the dealership service departments? They have to buy their tools and parts. I have to buy my computers and storage medium.

    1. Re:One "Pirate's" Take On It by darthsilun · · Score: 1

      ... My wife purchases way more DVDs and Blu-ray discs than I want her to. ....

      I am not willing to pay for the same content over, and over and over again. I am especially unwilling to continue to pay for content due to wear and tear. For example, my wife has watched Friends and Sex in the City so many times that some of the discs skip or are even completely unwatchable. I have zero qualms with pulling down a torrent of those shows and storing them on the NAS so that she can watch them.

      IANAL, but as I understand it, this is not piracy and you're completely in the clear doing this. (As long as you can show the original discs that you bought, should it ever come to that.)

    2. Re:One "Pirate's" Take On It by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All that stuff will fall into public domain eventually.
      I just pirate it now so I don't have to wait around for whenever that happens.
      Why wait some unknown ever increasing number of years?
      In fact, why respect copyright at all if the rights holders don't even have the decency to let it eventually fall into public domain.
      No, fuck all of them. I don't feel bad about piracy at all.

    3. Re:One "Pirate's" Take On It by WolfgangVL · · Score: 2

      DMCA says that if there is any kind of copy protection, you are not allowed to break it. Period. Full stop.

      Exemptions ave been made, but (correct me if I'm wrong) breaking DVD/blu-ray/Cable-box encryption is *not* one them. This is why the Slysoft suite of ripping tools went away. They made it too easy. Grandma could do it. They made a lot of money because it was easy and attractive, and they got shut down for it.

      When format shifting is made illegal, only pirates will format shift.
         

      --
      You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
    4. Re:One "Pirate's" Take On It by darthsilun · · Score: 1

      It might be good if you read the parent post. He does not mention breaking encryption or copy protection. He says if the disc becomes unplayable he downloads a copy from the Internet.

    5. Re:One "Pirate's" Take On It by wvmarle · · Score: 1

      Just wondering, does your wife do anything but buying and watching movies and other TV content?

    6. Re:One "Pirate's" Take On It by dave562 · · Score: 1

      You mean other than raising the kid, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, shopping, exercising, and hanging out with her friends?

      I guess we find time to have sex every once in awhile.

  36. watching pirated content is not permitted? by michaelmalak · · Score: 2

    In the U.S., I thought it was only those who share who have been prosecuted or sued, not those who merely download -- due in part to the Betamax decision.

    1. Re:watching pirated content is not permitted? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This. Since when is it piracy to watch a video on youtube that may or may not have been legally uploaded?

  37. Criminal law should not be used to shape society by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The application of criminal law is a bomb in most people's lives. Fines for pirating have been leveed in some places as high as $5K per movie watched. This can be devastating to your average income individual.

    Criminal law is meant to punish acts that a large majority would consider criminal. For felonies, it should shock the conscious of all but about 2%. For misdemeanours, it is more like 90% plus should consider it "wrong".

    We need to stop creating laws to enforce a view that has not been decided by society. They should only come into play when the decision has been made by a high super majority.

  38. Watch in Theater, then download by neoRUR · · Score: 1

    So if you go to a movie in a Theater, say you pay for 2 people and popcorn and all of that. about $60 these day. Then when the move comes out instead of paying for it again..you just download it, is that still piracy? and I spend alot on going to movies mind you, like twice a week, to support the kinds of movies I would like to keep seeing.

    1. Re:Watch in Theater, then download by darthsilun · · Score: 1

      Wow, where do you live that a admission for two and popcorn costs $60? Around here I can do that for $30-35, sometimes a bit more and less if we go to a matinee. Adding a couple of beers adds antother $10-12. (Here = big city on the east coast USA.)

    2. Re:Watch in Theater, then download by tepples · · Score: 1

      How much do the services of a sitter cost?

  39. Mel Brooks anyone? by cyberzephyr · · Score: 1

    "I do it you do it and we'll all do it again"!

    --
    I'm here for the experience, not the Hyperbole.
  40. They need to start selling thier product by jediborg · · Score: 1
    There are so very many movies that you just cannot acquire legally in digital form. I'm done with DVD's, and my PC doesn't have a blu ray player, so if its not available on a streaming site, i'm gonna pirate! You know what i want? I want to be able to go to sonypictures.com or disney.com and see a list of every movie that studio has ever produced. Let me download an .avi or .mpeg version of that movie for $5-$20 depending on the movies resolution/release date. Oh and if DRM is involved then the deal is off the table. No DRM, just a plane jane movie file i can play with VLC.

    No studios are doing this currently, even though they would MAKE SO MUCH MONEY HAND OVER FIST if they did. Instead they continue to try their region locking and limited releases and think we are going to feel sad for them for loosing some money to pirating.

    Stop complaining, either sell your goods or get outta town.

  41. Re:I download illegally because most entertainment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Without reading anything else from you or knowing anything else about you, I can see you're one of those people who is never happy with anything except complaining about everything, nothing is ever any good so far as you're concerned, and you drive people away with your piss and vinegar. Just STFU and learn to enjoy something other than whining and bitching about everything.

  42. Re:I download illegally because most entertainment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Most cinema is utter crap these days.

    And yet you still watch it all.

  43. Hard to believe by tchdab1 · · Score: 1

    I'd like to see those questions and responses, because 32% of all the adults I know find it hard to just get online - they wouldn't even try to download pirated content. Given this "statistic" was created by a group that would benefit from the a wildly inflated perception of the quantity of piracy, I'll take it with a grain of salt.
    And by the way, only 69% of people know that piracy is illegal? Do they even understand the definition of piracy?

  44. Bullshit by Nunya666 · · Score: 1

    32% of the people who were surveyed admit to watching pirated content.

    That says nothing about those who lied to the surveyors, nor does it say anything about the millions of law-abiding citizens that were not surveyed.

  45. I'm seeing more of this lately... by MMC+Monster · · Score: 2

    At the hospital I work at, I've noticed that a lot more people are watching pirated content. It's no where near the 32% mentioned in the summary, but certainly a much larger percentage than 5 years ago. I basically find out as we discuss various old movies and give each other suggestions on what to watch.

    The interesting thing is how these people are getting the movies. It seems that they're getting 'hot boxes', which are apparently copies of Kodi with a set of streaming plugins to pirate sites. These guys (and girls) are not particularly tech-oriented. All they know is that the movies are streamed from pirate websites.

    How these people don't get caught is beyond me. But none of them are concerned with the legality of it.

    --
    Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
    1. Re:I'm seeing more of this lately... by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 1

      One, streaming isn't as illegal as torrenting, since the end-user isn't distributing it. So their less of a target. Two, by using Kodi you are avoiding the actual site's pages themselves. And, with Kodi, your rarely streaming for long from the same source, so it's harder to track and even harder to prosecute. And at a place like a hospital, it would be pretty difficult for the RIAA / MPAA to bring a suit against them, as they would have to somehow force a hospital to hand over their internal DHCP / DNS records to even get a MAC address...and by then whomever it is is probably long gone from the hospital and would be impossible to find.

      Kodi users aren't easy targets for "john doe" blanket lawsuits, so no one chases them. Now, the actual front-end sites like Primewire DO get chased down, but they don't keep logs nor host actual infringing content...

  46. Let's be real. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The industry has brainwashed you into thinking it's stealing to enjoy content. That isn't the case. It's not stealing, it's enjoying.

    They've raped artists and studios for so long, it's about time they collapse. We already know that if they fail, others will make more content.

    Stop feeding the sheep.

  47. I've been on slashdot too long... by rnmartinez · · Score: 1

    I read this as 32% of people admit to watching pirated adult content and I thought only 32%?

  48. Crocodile tears. by WolfgangVL · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Weekly stories of woh coming from the big studios, as they annually report profits in the BILLIONS. Then they expect Joe-citizen to pony up and hour or more worth income every time they decide to watch their legally licensed content on a different device? Cry me a river.

    Its funny, when you make laws that are so slanted, so in favor of the few, and so at the expense of the many, people just decide not to respect those laws. Then when you try to enforce these laws, people don't respect the enforcer. When you finally find a way to enforce these laws, people lose even more respect for the law, the enforcer, the body that stands to profit from the laws, the government that allowed it in the first place, and worst of all, people lose respect for the rule of law all together.

    We all choose to play by this rule-set (copyright). If the game is rigged (DRM, region locking, no content shifting), we stop playing (piracy) and lose respect for the rules that we stopped playing by (copyright law) and the other players (rights-holders) and the stupid rules that we decided not to play with in first place. (copyright in general)

    When first implemented, it was a good system... it fostered creation, paid out to the creators and generally was a pretty excepted way of doing things.
    Over the years however, its been perverted to serve the opposite of what it was made to do, Copyright stifles creativity with the constant bogus takedown letters and violation notices, costs creators money defending original ideas, and allows studios to retain ownership of whole swaths of culture that should rightfully have fallen into public hands LONG AGO. Copyright is broken as it is now, and needs to be dialed back to reality. Once the laws are once again SANE, huge portions of the population will begin to respect it once again.

    Don't even get me started on the double-dipping force feeding of commercials to consumers who've already paid (to much) for the programming on whatever format they are getting it on.....

    --
    You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
    1. Re:Crocodile tears. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Copyright has become a bad system because the concept of public domain has been bought and sold away from the public. Without PD copyright is too one-sided to be fair or usefull.

    2. Re:Crocodile tears. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Until Mickey Mouse becomes public domain, i will never feel the slightest twinge of guilt about pirating anything & everything i can.

      As far as im concerned all copyright became null and void the day public domain was abolished.

  49. So we don't want to buy eh?? LIARS!! by Neuronwelder · · Score: 1

    Try to find the 52 episodes of Jimmy 2 Shoes and you wont. The closest you can get is a few episodes offered by Walmart.

  50. In other news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    68% of US peeps lied in a survey.

  51. Free and legal stuff is problematic too... by hackwrench · · Score: 2

    I acquired a lot of free ebooks from Amazon, but guess what? They don't remove them from the lists or filter them out so I stop dealing with Amazon altogether unless I know specifically what I am looking for. They have no ability to exclude what you've already gotten from them at any price point. All of the systems seem to have this problem, though. I can't begin to talk about how many Steam games I have bought only for them to clutter my searches.

  52. Re:The computer who wore tennis shoes by hackwrench · · Score: 1

    Of course, the story as it was written never needed to be made in the first place. A story of someone getting computer-like recall abilities could be done, but the original and remake were horrible on how the person supposedly acquired them in the first place then got them taken away.

  53. Time doesn't flow by hackwrench · · Score: 1

    Time is what stuff flows in. Time merely gets curved. Or rather spacetime. Time isn't one dimension. In sending someone back to the past depending on the lay of the land, either an alternative timeline gets created, information gets sent back to the past as in the DVD storyline, or a collapse of sorts happens when a paradox gets created, like in Angels in Manhattan. And that isn't the half of what can happen to the timeplane. What really bugs me is when time-travellers think they can reset reality to an original timeline like "Legends of Tomorrow" and "The Flash" and that other apparently non-DC Comic time-travel story, seem intent on doing. "Frequncy" gives me less problems, but with people in that reality having a hard time with the concept of information getting passed backwards and forwards in time and thus less people being allowed to be in on the secret, I don't like that aspect of it. "7 Days" was pretty good, though they didn't explain much. "Quantum Leap" gives me issues, however. "Back To The Future" just gives one of many ways time travel can break down, more than one, actually, but they focus on a handful of outcomes as one.

  54. Doctor Who actually deals better with time by hackwrench · · Score: 1

    Doctor Who actually deals better with the possible outcomes of time travel than most. Because it treats areas of space time as places in which stuff happens and events reflow around them accordingly, it considers time as having at least a two dimensional component. The talk that an "antimatter" place is filled with unpeople, doing unthings, does not appear to address antimatter as the things antimatter currently refers to, but it still describes a possible reality where a region of space connected to ours behaves in a manner where the denizens behave in that manner when it comes to how the two spaces generally interact with each other. Then there's negative space, a space that helps Doctor Who explain the possibility of devices that can read "normal" space as positive coordinates and still relay information about that space despite being in negative space. Doctor Who goes to greater effort than Star Wars to describe the physics of the reality it exists in. I find it disappointing that the Master "went mad", especially since little has stepped up to field his old worldview that the universe does better with a strong hand at the helm. The Shadow Proclamation has done some of this. The Silence seems more interested in the notion that The Doctor causes more problems than he solves.

  55. Torrents: Where did you get that idea? by hackwrench · · Score: 1

    To the best of my knowledge, that's not how torrenting works. Where did you get that idea. I'm not sure how trackerless torrents work though. From my understanding, most torrents contain a list of trackers that people can go to to get a list of IP addresses that have told the tracker they have parts of the file. You could specify your friend as a tracker, but then the file would quickly get reported as bad.

    1. Re: Torrents: Where did you get that idea? by ememisya · · Score: 1

      Informative sir.

  56. Temporal aliasing by hackwrench · · Score: 1

    At any given point in time, the equipment in question contains an infinitesimal amount of the copyrighted work in question.

  57. Re:Admission, or even awareness by hackwrench · · Score: 1

    I'm not entirely certain how aware my mom is that some of the stuff I get for her to watch is "pirated".

  58. Re:Functioning members of society, definition by hackwrench · · Score: 1

    Just what is your definition of "Functioning member of society" and what about what you have said makes your guy not one? I am less of a functioning member of society than some by virtue of needing to be on disability and being unable to get hired to do anything and not being able to drive, but still, I try to contribute to society and that's really the important part in my book, but then my book isn't of any importance to you because I am, no doubt, not a functioning member of society, in yours.

  59. that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    seems a little high is that prevelent

  60. I'd pay by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 1

    to watch a movie still in the theater, maybe up to double the local ticket prices. I don't really like going to the theater, standing in line, missing parts if I need to use the bathroom, etc. But instead, I watch a "cam" for free, even though they usually are horrid it's better than my local theaters.

  61. Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea by tepples · · Score: 1

    Now find a lawfully made copy of the TV series Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea playable in the United States. This was the English language dub of Les mondes engloutis, and it aired on Nickelodeon in the mid-1980s.

  62. E/I preemption by tepples · · Score: 1

    For every subchannel that a U.S. broadcaster offers, the FCC requires the broadcaster to broadcast three hours of educational and informative (E/I) programming for children on that subchannel during hours when children are likely to be watching. This is why even a 24-hour weather radar subchannel will cut to some syndicated E/I show like Jack Hanna's Animal Adventures a few times a week. The cost of syndicating this programming encourages broadcasters to end unpopular subchannels.

  63. MP3.com by tepples · · Score: 1

    And that too is infringement, per the ruling in UMG Recordings v. MP3.com.

  64. nothing wrong by frovingslosh · · Score: 2

    a large chunk of the population believes that they're doing nothing wrong

    When the piracy is against someone like Disney who swears that they will continue to buy as many lawmakers as it takes to subvert the public domain clause of the Constitution and have already done so, then I have to agree with the pirates. I also have a gripe with studios like Miramax who release lower than DVD quality on BlueRay and then try to sell the consumer a better quality release later (but continue to press and sell the poor quality BlueRay discs as well). See the Stargate BlueRay release as just one of many examples. Legally the pirates may have done something wrong, but morally the studios are the bigger pirates.

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
  65. I am really old and I really don't get it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What gives people the idea that they have a right to consume content that they haven't paid for? Just because the content costs too much, or you can't pay for it in the way you want, or it isn't bundled (or unbundled) in the way you'd like, or you think the actors or producers or studios are too , how does it follow that stealing content is OK?

    BTW, feel free to ride play on my lawn anytime.

  66. Fuck you Miranda Lambert by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You know what makes people download music and movies from pirate websites? I paid full price for a worthless Miranda Lambert music CD that had maybe one good song on it. I ripped it into my iTunes and then completely forgot about it.

      I will readily admit to downloading pirated and hacked college textbooks in PDF format. That was all I ever downloaded, and I'm such a worthless shmuck that I actually bought the hardcover versions of my textbooks. I just wanted to be able to access the e-book version, which I couldn't afford when I was a college student.

      I never downloaded music or movies, and I'm considered to be a leech in the pirate world because I don't share any uploads of data. I have all of those settings turned off. All I wanted was to download what I needed when I was still in school.

      So I get an email nastygram as well as a postal letter from my cable internet company, accusing me of illegally downloading/sharing that fucking Miranda Lambert worthless music CD. Nobody else had access to my Internet connection or my computers. I paid full price for that worthless music CD.

      This is what turns paying fans into pirate downloaders. I have since downloaded every fucking worthless Miranda Lambert CD that I could find online at pirate websites.

  67. I'm in the clueless 60% by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How do I even do this? I tried using TOR once. It took forever, I had to contribute, and half of the files weren't what they claimed they were.

  68. It's the studios own fault by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Every studio and content provider wants their own streaming service showing their own material, so there is no one stop site for watching everything. Then sites like Netflix cuts the number of movies available each month. They are all to greedy to get together and offer a majority of their library, on one site for a reasonable price. You can goto the piratebay (so I've heard) and download thousands of tv shows and movies in various formats (from HD, 3D and 4K to small file sizes optimized for phone and tablets) and it works forever. No buffering, it won't expire for viewing on Feb 1st, it's not limited to viewing on 2 devices, no bandwidth usage after the initial download.

  69. That doesn't make sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Something being illegal does not mean it is wrong. I know piracy is illegal. I also don't think it is wrong.

    Was smoking pot in Colorado on Dec 9, 2012 at 11:59 pm wrong? And then suddenly right at midnight?

    Never equate illegal with being wrong by default. Most of the laws on the books aren't things that are naturally wrong, they're just there as revenue generators (eg: 56 mph in a 55 mph zone).

  70. 32 % -- it's a pretty small number by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    32% should be okay with the humanity..

  71. People buy if the price is right by Rexdude · · Score: 1

    I've always pirated movies and TV shows since they're not available in India, but recently Amazon Prime Video launched here - for the equivalent of $7 per year, you get access to their library, plus they've added a whole lot of Bollywood and Indian TV shows to gain popularity, so trying it out was a no brainer.

    --
    "..One hosts to look them up, one DNS to find them, and in the darkness BIND them."
  72. They want to have their cake, and to eat it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think for many people, consuming entertainment media is not optional. I think this comes down to the degree of advertising and wide spread acceptance of the media. In many social environments, you would struggle to maintain social ties if you weren't able to consume it. The problem is that after creating this environment where it isn't optional, as everyone else here says, the combination of high price and inconvenience makes it unpalatable for many and they turn to piracy. I would go a step further and say that in an attempt to crate the perfect sales environment for their product, the producers of this media have actually created an environment in which this can only ever be the case. Its become so close to a basic necessity that the luxury value is lost entirely and now it has to be nearly free, easily available and of reasonably high quality before most people will watch it.

  73. nothing wrong... by l3v1 · · Score: 1

    "a large chunk of the population believes that they're doing nothing wrong"

    No, it means that a very large chunk of the population has a different opinion about digital content consumption.Not easily dismissed.

    However: "a representative survey of over 1,000 respondents" - Now, forget everything above, this whole thing is just another joke. A representative survey.

    Funny.

    --
    I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
  74. I feel better by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I haven't been part of this group for a few years now thanks to netflix and amazon.

  75. Ahsapcit.Gen.Tr by ahsapcit · · Score: 0

    Ahşap Çit, yaşam alanlarınızı ahşabın doğası ile buluşturuyor. Ahşap çit kurulduğu günden bu yana sadece dış cephe, ahşap ürünleri üzerine uygulamalar geliştirmektedir. Bugüne kadar birçok kamelya, veranda, pergola, kış bahçesi, ahşap ev, saksı, çocuk oyun grupları? uygulamaları yapmıştır. Fotoğraflarımızda gerçekleştirdiğimiz projelerin bazılarının görsellerini bulabilirsiniz. Ahşap Çit kalite ve güvenliği ön planda tutarak, uygun fiyatlı ahşap ürünler imalatı yapmaktadır. Ahşap çit markasını değerli kılmak ve müşterilerimizin memnun kalmasını sağlamak için her zaman kalite ve dayanıklılığa önem vermekteyiz. Bu sebeple her zaman 1. sınıf emprenye edilmiş ahşap ve kereste kullanarak imalat yapmaktayız. Bu sayede ürünlerimiz uzun yıllar kurtlanma, mantar, böcek gibi canlılardan korunur ve çürüme göstermeden dayanıklılığını korur Ahşap ev, kamelya, kış bahçesi http://www.ahsapcit.gen.tr i tercih edin?

  76. Forced into it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Quit the "available with the a&e app" shit and the "you bought the 'season' but there are 5 or 6 episodes missing (looking @ you, amazon). Seriously, stop the fucking "regions" BS and licensing crap, and needing a shit app. I wanted to pay for the content - IN ITS ENTIRETY. But when that becomes impossible, hoist the fucking jolly roger.

  77. Unlicensed Services Still Better by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Unlicensed services still offer vastly better selection and quality.

    Streaming services like Netflix are crap quality, selection is limited, and you need subscriptions to several services just to get half of what unlicensed services offer all in the same place.

    The licensed providers have done a pretty good job compared to 10 years ago, but they are still way behind.

  78. And 68% lie about it by gweihir · · Score: 1

    It is well known that statistics about perceived wrongdoing are notoriously low.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  79. Wrong article title by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It should be: 32% of All US Adults Admit Watching Pirated Content
    I wouldn't be surprised if the actual fraction is close to 100%, given the risks you might expose yourself to if you admit it to the wrong person, the low risk if you don't, the low barrier of accessibility, the ease of use, the (usually) better quality, the availability of stuff that's hard to get legally, the fact that it's widely considered socially acceptable, and so on.

  80. Re:Functioning members of society, definition by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 1

    Wow, self centered much? Yeah, I was talking about you ... specifically. /sarcasm

    Here is my $.02 worth. Your disability doesn't entitle you to robbing stores, pirating movies or any other "illegal" activity. Yeah, I know it sucks to be disabled. I know, because my wife can barely move due to a number of different, unrelated problems, but we have managed to not need to pirate movies in the process. So, while you think you are somehow excused from nominal social norms because of your disability, perhaps my post was directed to you after all.

    Please stop justifying your ill manners on your disability. Actions such as this help give the rest of the disabled community a bad name.

    --
    Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
  81. Pirate is BETTER by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I use PIRATE SITES to consume content I ALREADY HAVE LEGAL access to because the pirate sites are so much EASIER to use than the stupid stuff they come up with for the 'legal' sites.

    When they make the legal sites as easy to use and user friendly as the pirate stuff then I will stop using the pirate stuff.

  82. You're buying into the US myth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "not permitted"
    "viewing is illegal"
    "stealing"
    "pirating"

    You're buying into the US myth.

    And Pirates are violent. And when I steal your car you don't have the car. If I borrow / share / timeshift some information, its just copying information (reading bits).

    If I write your bits, or cause you to execute my bits, that's a bit more harmful, but you should have provisions to handle this expected attack.

  83. Number is much higher, more like 80% by theendlessnow · · Score: 1

    Just based on my own informal surveys when I do speaking engagements (about free software and copyrights), about 80% (possibly more) people use illegally obtained copyrighted content and about 90% of those have no problems sharing such content with others. This includes wealthy people, lawmakers, judges, etc.

    Torrent users are such a small percentage of those ignoring copyright and usage permissions.

  84. Permitted?!! by BubbaJonBoy · · Score: 1

    Fuck that permitted BS - free people can do anything they wish including breaking the law.
    Not to mention the whole legal concept wherein ownership of packets of electrons is ludicrous to begin with.

  85. 64% of all surveys are bogus by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Really? Of all adults? How many people over 50 are doing this? Does anyone even respond to surveys? Did you watch a non-authorized music performance on youtube? You're a pirate, bub!

  86. And 68% thought ... by allo · · Score: 1

    And 68% thought, that admitting to watch pirated content could get them sued.

  87. Picture the internet as radio... by Kevin108 · · Score: 1

    While most would agree that broadcasting something you down own the rights to is wrong, simply tuning in shouldn't be a crime.

    --

    It's a perfect time for being wasted.
    A perfect time to watch the stars.
    - Burden Brothers, "Beautiful Night"