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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.
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.
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"?
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.
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.
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