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Netflix Is Not Going to Kill Piracy, Research Suggests (torrentfreak.com)
Even as more people than ever are tuning to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and other streaming services to look, piracy too continues to thrive, a research suggests. An anonymous reader shares a report: Intrigued by this interplay of legal and unauthorized viewing, researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and Universidade Catolica Portuguesa carried out an extensive study. They partnered with a major telco, which is not named, to analyze if BitTorrent downloading habits can be changed by offering legal alternatives. The researchers used a piracy-tracking firm to get a sample of thousands of BitTorrent pirates at the associated ISP. Half of them were offered a free 45-day subscription to a premium TV and movies package, allowing them to watch popular content on demand. To measure the effects of video-on-demand access on piracy, the researchers then monitored the legal viewing activity and BitTorrent transfers of the people who received the free offer, comparing it to a control group. The results show that piracy is harder to beat than some would expect. Subscribers who received the free subscription watched more TV, but overall their torrenting habits didn't change significantly. "We find that, on average, households that received the gift increased overall TV consumption by 4.6% and reduced Internet downloads and uploads by 4.2% and 4.5%, respectively. However, and also on average, treated households did not change their likelihood of using BitTorrent during the experiment," the researchers write.
Using BitTorrent is not equal to piracy.
So I'd been a Netflix customer and firm proponent since they went online. Not a heavy user, by any means, but I did enjoy shows at the gym, and I spread the gospel to anyone I met who still had legacy Cable TV.
About 6 months ago, Google added an option in the Play Console (for app developers) to exclude devices that fail to pass their so-called "SafetyNet" provisions.
Unfortunately, I and many others are unable to meet that requirement. "SafetyNet" isn't some simple checkbox agreement like "device modified; I know what I'm doing [Y]," but rather a set of secret scripts Google runs as root on your device to determine if Google has full control. Activities like patching security vulnerabilities, rooting, running AOSP, or even unlocking your bootloader disqualify you. The entire list of checks is, to date, secret. Their code updates happen automatically, in the background, without user control if you have the Play Store installed.
Once upon a time, the excuse for "SafetyNet" was that soon, Android devices could be used to pay for things. Fair enough. Just like my PC.. but it's mobile, so I guess different rules apply (?) ... I can use cash, or a credit card. Frustrating, but not a huge deal.
Of course that wasn't the end goal, as we've seen. The end goal was to discourage rooting, so that they could guarantee that their products (also known as users) would be forced to watch ads. Ad blocking is designed to be incompatible with "SafetyNet."
Lo and behold, back in June, Netflix started requiring "SafetyNet" certification in the Play Store. If your device doesn't qualify for any reason, you're excluded. Sideloading may still be an option, but I'm not sure.
Lucky for me, there are alternatives; I went to Amazon Video and YouTube, and cancelled my longstanding Netflix account. If the others follow suit, I will abstain from mass media and spend my money elsewhere.
Not everyone is willing to jump through such hoops though, and it's entirely possible this little stunt will bring back piracy from its death throes. All so that Google (and one day, surely, Netflix) could force more ads on us all.
Side note: yes I know Magisk can help. It's an arms race, for sure... but a great departure from what made Android successful in the first place.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC