Louis Rossmann And Piracy

[DaveEcc]

re: Rossman's list of morality.

I don't agree with the order of your continuum. You have people claiming rights to content without paying for it higher than people who've paid for content.

I've added 16 and 17 to cover region locking too. Often immigrants want to immerse their children in their own culture's media. Often it is blocked for no reason, as it's not actually offered by anyone in any other region. No local sellers are affected. I actually consider #16 to be entirely justified.

I've added 18 too, to cover things like VCDs, often used for Polish cartoons.


You've paid, media companies want to claim your disc is a license to watch at a particular quality, so watch:
16. New entry. Region locked content not available in your region. You've bought the rights to the content, but can't watch it. Feel free to grab a copy.
18. New Entry. Modern players refused to be backwards compatible. VCD discs that played on a PS3 don't work on a newer console, and you have no other reasonable way to play media. It is not realistic to keep a legacy device and its controllers around and connected for an occasional use. You've paid for the content, feel free to grab a copy.
1-5. you've paid for a license to the content, backups are often prevented or considered illegal to make, so not having a backup isn't your fault. Feel free to grab a new copy.
8. Again, you've paid for the rights to the content. Suck their DRM needs a newer chip. Bait and Switch if they didn't clearly disclose the needs up front. Feel free to grab a copy.
9. You've paid for the rights to the content, you've just expediting shipping. Could be argued you don't have the rights to the content yet, but whatever, you've paid... you could also argue your rights should start with them collecting payment. Is it seriously worth anybody's time to go after someone who watches a movie they've paid for a few days early?


You want to pay, but nobody wants your money:
11. You haven't paid, but you can't. Disney vault, BBC UK-only content... As have no way to pay for the content legally, go wild.*

You don't agree with terms of content availability:
17. New Entry: Region locked content not available in your region. Since you can't buy a working copy, you don't buy a copy at all, and download. - You have no rights to the content for free.
6. rights to shows come and go on streaming services. You have no right to the content. If service advertised it just before pulling it, you have a legit beef with the streaming service, but still no right to that specific content.
7. turning your rental right into a purchase right isn't a thing.
10. You haven't paid for the rights to view the content, and the content is available for purchase. If you want to boycott it, fine, but you don't get it free.

You want everything free, sometimes with BS justifications:
12-15. You might want a middle-man free experience, you don't have the right to demand it.

* - For me, #11 was the damn Disney vault. Or maybe it wasn't even the official vault, but a complete lapse in availability in every format. When my daughter reached a reasonable age for Toy Story, it was not for sale. No VHS. No DVD. No re-release on DVD. No Bluray. No collections that included the film. Nada. Every format was magically unavailable. Sure, there were scalpers on Amazon offered used copies of Toy Story 1 on VHS for $50, a 3 movie set, Toy Story 1, Toy Story 2, and A Bug's Life for $150, or a 5 movie set for $250... but I'm sorry, no. Halting official sales, creating an overpriced used-market for kids films? That's insanity. I was actively looking for a way to give Disney money, and they weren't interested. While legally wrong, I have no problem with someone pirating in such a case.

 

[Abazigal]

The problem is that it is not a static situation: streaming has offered something and then taken it away. When streaming started, you could get maybe two of the big-name streaming services at $10/month or less each and have a choice of high-quality, ad-free materials from all the major studios that rivalled that $200 cable package. Now that streaming has more-or-less killed cable, surprise surprise, those prices are ramping up (or the old price points now have adverts and ad-free is premium) and every studio has started their own $10/mo streaming service for their new shows, and are gradually reclaiming their back-catalogues as contracts with the old-school streamers expire. Yes, the solution is to subscribe-binge-unsubscribe (they make their money from people who can't be bothered) but if enough people start doing that we'll soon start seeing minimum contract terms (or even higher prices for month-to-month) and other tricks (we're already seeing less shows released as whole seasons, and even the re-emergence of the mid-season hiatus to keep you subscribed).

I think we all need to step back, look beyond our own immediate self-interests, and understand the broader issues - that the video industry is now facing what happened to the print and music industry before them. People praise music streaming for having largely tackled the piracy issue, but is it really a solved problem when companies like Spotify aren't profitable, and majority of artistes are barely making ends meet?

Same goes with news. In a world of infinite capacity and free distribution, the problem comes when people stop paying for news (because again, I have access to way more sources of news than I have time to read, and if one outlet tries to charge for it, I will just go somewhere else that doesn't), and its ad-supported nature means heavier reliance on clickbait to draw in the views. Social Media further compounds this issue by pushing to users only content they think the users want to see, resulting in an increasingly polarised society.

It feels to me like the real problem is that Netflix conditioned everybody to expect a steady buffet of video content at the low price of $10 a month. A rate that was, in hindsight, never sustainable in the first place, considering how long it took them to finally turn a profit.

We then saw media companies try to fight for a piece of the pie, seemingly not realising that the economics of said business model never really made sense to begin with. In addition to content being extremely expensive to create, keeping it exclusive to your platform very often meant also giving up all the other options of monetising it (eg: cinemas, DVDs, other cable channels, traditional TV). For some bizarre reason, we saw Disney sending Pixar movies like Turning Red directly to Disney+. At the same time, I haven't been to the cinema to watch a Marvel movie since Endgame, in part because I know they will eventually come to streaming, and I believe I am not the only one.

The other problem, which we are starting to see unfold now, is that when people are over-inundated with more content than they have time to actually watch, it starts to lose its allure, because it's all feeling the same. This is anathema for an industry whose value was previously predicated on scarcity (eg: Star Wars was something special when you were getting just 1 movie like every few years). That is also partly why I feel many people are beginning to tune out of Marvel and Star Wars shows, because there's just too much, and too much undifferentiated content to the point where it's increasingly feeling like filler these days.

When I subscribe to Apple Music, it's not really for a single album (which I can easily purchase from iTunes and listen as many times as I want without incurring an additional monthly cost). It's for the convenience of being able to access any song I want, any time I want. If a certain album is no longer available, I will find something else to listen to. Music is just that disposable to me.

I subscribe to a number of publications which offer content and commentary that I don't find anywhere else. AboveAvalon for Apple-related news coverage, Stratechery for everything else tech-related, and Macstories for how to get more out of my Apple devices. All these come up to several hundred dollars a year, and I suppose if I asked around hard enough, I might be able to find someone reposting said content for free, but I am not going to bother because (1) it's just more convenient to have said content sent to my inbox daily, and (2) I value their work enough that I am willing to support them financially so they can continue doing what they do for as long as they can.

To me, whether you want to pirate a show or not is besides the point, and there is really no point in trying to seek approval or validation online. In my opinion, I am no more of a saint for paying a year upfront for Disney+ than you are a villain for torrenting the third season of Mandalorian. Do what you want to do, and we will let the free market work itself out, as it always does. If enough people subscribe to a service to keep it financially viable, then it will stick around, and continue to pump out more content that you presumable want to watch (otherwise, why would you bother torrenting it in the first place?). If enough people decide otherwise, and turn to piracy or subscribing periodically every now and then to binge a show once all exposes are out, the company may just decide to cut its losses and shutter said service, and we may never get another season of Mandalorian, or find out what Thrawn decides to do after escaping.

Of course everything likes to believe that they are just a small group of people pirating content and that the studio is still profitable enough to absorb these losses (and maybe that is true), but what happens when more and more people start thinking like this?

Think of it like a game of chess. You don't necessarily have to like said streaming service, and you don't have to agree with their monetisation options, but your decision on whether to pay (and how often to pay) is a vote for the kind of world you wish to see.

 

[sunapple]

I saw one Rossmann video last week about the topic of streaming quality in a specific browser, that sort of argument does not concern me. You pay some money, you get restricted acces, it's been fine for my needs the past decade.

Piracy would have been about convenience and regional availability for me. The past decade the streaming catalogue did start to cover most of my shows and movies, nowadays I would not have to pirate anything.

However I find myself cancelling subscriptions left and right as content dries out and new releases are months away. I do wonder what the next decade of streaming will look like as I feel more people are starting to take a second look at subscription pricing and content. Catalogues are still very fragmented and that does not help.

With that, piracy does feel more convenient again. And I feel like subscribing for one month per year per service is not saving the industry either. I am not justifying piracy based on this, but I am expecting changes in the industry, probably some more mergers amongst smaller services.