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Child Item

"Over 1m viewers could have access cut over illegal streaming"

oneilla

The Commercial Court was told yesterday that as many as 1.3 million people in the State may be involved in illegally accessing the work of six film and TV studios through various streaming websites.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/over-1m-viewers-could-have-access-cut-over-illegal-streaming-1.2965805

Six US movie studios are taking Irish internet providers to court to force them to block illegal streaming websites. Fair enough but 1.3million is nearly a quarter of the population. Seems like a lot of people. Helluva attention grabbing headline.

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R P McMurphy

Atomicjuicer0 wrote: »

Stop stealing, start paying. Stop making excuses and expecting the rest of us to pay to keep video alive.

Yeah the movies the last 10-15 years have gone to crap. Hmm what does that coincide with? Oh yeah... Internet use.

You can buy an Xbox 360 for 50 quid, it has Xbox movie rentals, it has Netflix I bet none of the whiners in this thread have ever paid a tv license either but complain about fake news on Facebook.

Spotify is a ripoff though. Who the hell thought 10quid a month was fair for a regular user? They need to offer different models for people who don't use it as heavily.

Anyway, stop torrenting, stop downloading, stop streaming illegally. There's plenty available if you'd have the decency.

I worked with professionals across the world in the movie industry. I've watched students get media production qualifications, I've watched video games survive because their anti piracy measures are better.

Movies are dead and it's because people are stealing.

Are you claiming that movies are dead because there is not enough money in the industry due to downloading?

Gbear

The fundamental problem is that digital media is worthless.

That's why people don't pay anything for it.

No work nor cost goes into making it, it has no physical footprint, it's infinitely plentiful.

The stuff about willingness of people to support creators of media or offering streaming services is a bit of a red herring.
Access in a centralised location at a time of your convenience is somewhat valuable but I don't think its enough on its own.
I'd pirate a tv show I have unlimited access to on Netflix or Amazon Prime just so I can have it sitting there on my PC and to save me having to log in.

People pay for digitial media as a form of charity at this point. There's nothing wrong with that either - it's a form of patronage which has to be adopted more comprehensively going forward.
Things like Patreon allow people to finance things that are intrinsically worthless if you don't try and sell them until after you've already given them to everyone and that kind of system has potential to give all forms of media creators a financial platform to do their work.

People go to the cinema not to experience the film but first and foremost because it's a service.
It's no coincidence that things that are actually worth going to the cinema to see are the ones everyone goes to (not how good they are but how well they take advantage of what a cinema offers exclusively).

The cinema is the only place I can get that size of a screen, the giant speakers and all that. And it's a bit of a day out.
I'd pay for films in a smaller setting as well as part of a social outing, involving booze or a meal.

Similarly, Steam offers a service of sorts.
It has the sales, it has a centralised platform for all your games, it has reviewing facilities, discussion fora, the workshop for hosting mods.
I never pirate games, not just because steam gives me a way to access them, but because it creates value in and of itself.

Games themselves can work on that basis as well - a game with online play or other player-developer interaction can be worth paying for above and beyond what you're willing to pay to access it and that offers protection against piracy.

Copyright infringement with regards to digital content needs to be completely binned.
It's a completely incoherent and nonsensical notion.
There's no incentive to pay for it and there's no moral obligation to either. Why then are we still doing it?

Atomicjuicer0

Stop stealing, start paying. Stop making excuses and expecting the rest of us to pay to keep video alive.

Yeah the movies the last 10-15 years have gone to crap. Hmm what does that coincide with? Oh yeah... Internet use.

You can buy an Xbox 360 for 50 quid, it has Xbox movie rentals, it has Netflix I bet none of the whiners in this thread have ever paid a tv license either but complain about fake news on Facebook.

Spotify is a ripoff though. Who the hell thought 10quid a month was fair for a regular user? They need to offer different models for people who don't use it as heavily.

Anyway, stop torrenting, stop downloading, stop streaming illegally. There's plenty available if you'd have the decency.

I worked with professionals across the world in the movie industry. I've watched students get media production qualifications, I've watched video games survive because their anti piracy measures are better.

Movies are dead and it's because people are stealing.

Banjoxed

Jayop wrote: »

Traditional methods of viewing TV are on the way out imo. Soon everything will be on demand and you will only pay for what you watch.

That would make a huge difference to how TV is being made. Basically all those crap filler shows would be scrapped and only shows people will actually pay for will be made. Regional restrictions will be a thing of the past.

Seeing as we've been waiting over a decade in the Republic for TV programmes on iTunes, I won't hold my breath waiting for that. No legit means of access to the BBC iPlayer yet either. That's not going to happen soon either.

Rezident

heh heh good to see that the lawyers are scamming the studios now 'Give us millions in legal fees and we will stop this for you'. Ho ho ho, you can't get rid of the internet, you morons. There are so many different ways to get around this, they obviously don't understand what they're doing.

These poor old men are still living in the past when they could rip off the public. They must be so confused now that we have the choice to bypass their rip-off.

The lawyers will put a good dent in them with this alright

JRant

As the famous film quote said "if you build it, they will come".

I stream my music through a Spotify subscription, use Steam for gaming and have a Netflix account.

For sport I buy the NFL game pass, costs about $150 all in but I can choose any game I want. UFC fight pass is the same.

All these legit operations seen the way the wind was blowing and gave the consumer what they wanted, and how they wanted it.

When the big studios cop on to themselves and stop trying to dictate how and when their content is consumed they'll be the better for it.

The majority of people will pay a reasonable fee to view content but the days of being gouged by the big studios and channel providers are coming to an end.

Offer your service at a reasonable price with superior capabilities to the pirates and the people will allows go for the path of least resistance. If the gaming and music industry hasn't shown them this then nothing will.

A_Sober_Paddy

Decuc500 wrote: »

Serious question. Can you not just buy the dvd box set if you want to pay for it?

When it comes out 6 months later by which time the amount of spoilers will be unreal

mikhail

The Raptor wrote: »

What's an android box?

I think they're generic Roku competitors.

The Raptor

What's an android box?

hatrickpatrick

VinLieger wrote: »

DVD boxsets of new shows do not come out for a good few months after the last episode of the show has finished, They get to watch new series and shows on demand in the US in the vast majority of cases immediately after the episode has aired, the only thing stopping that service coming over here is archaic regional distribution that the industry is not bothered changing and instead would prefer to waste money on prosecuting all its potential paying customers

Literally this.

I remember last year when every Cloverfield fan under the sun was hyped for the release of 10 Cloverfield Lane, which as fans of the Cloverfield series will know involves a protracted, cryptic marketing campaign shrouded in total mystery. Paramount almost totally blew it by deciding to release it in Ireland and the UK a full month after the US release - which would of course have meant that fans would have had spoilers shoved down their throat and lost interest long before the movie was available to watch for them.

I emailed Paramount to this effect, and they actually responded in agreement and moved the release date up to match that of the US, to my amazement. Lobbying by the little guy does sometimes work.

But the question is, why the f*ck were they going with staggered regional releases to begin with? In the age of piracy and 24/7 spoilers, nobody was going to wait an extra month to see it for fear of having the story ruined. Super 8 was released in 2011 by the same Paramount studio (Bad Robot) after a year-long mystery marketing campaign, but because they released it in America June 2011 and in Europe August 2011, everyone who had even the slightest interest in it and didn't choose to disable all of their internet enabled devices over the summer knew the ending long before it was released here.

I have no sympathy whatsoever with the victims of piracy as long as they keep up this asinine living in the past. The world is no longer divided by borders as far as information goes, so neither should the media.

VinLieger

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

The horse has bolted, you're not going to get the Irish to stop stealing.

Please point me to the piece of legislation that could be used to prosecute me for stealing by streaming a tv show

mikhail

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

The horse has bolted, you're not going to get the Irish to stop stealing.

Oh, that's cute. You've swallowed their years of propaganda. When you steal something, like a horse, the original owner no longer has it. Copyright infringement isn't theft.

I don't stream things illegally, but the studios have abused their artificial monopoly for long enough. I say we enforce their rights only after we cut the term of copyright on entertainment media to five years.

ScumLord

Arghus wrote: »

My opinion is that if people want to produce an independent film in the more traditional sense, it's still hard and probably will, in all likelihood, remain hard. Next time you watch an indie movie you should try to count how many production companies or financial backers that get their logos on screen before the credits begin; usually it's quite a few, which tells me that getting financial backing to make a professionally made movie is increasingly complex and difficult.

I also wouldn't sniff at the distribution and marketing opportunities afforded by working with studios. I don't think it's as easy as you make it sound to get your own work out there and promote without some backing or help, and oftentimes the more traditional methods of raising peoples awareness of your "product" are still the most effective.

I agree, studios are the experts with experience. That's often invaluable. Buth they come with an awful lot of bloat too. When a handful of operators would have sufficed before going to the studio, once they get involved they bring unions with them and a guy for every specific task and you can't even turn the equipment on until they say so. It's a very contrived way of making films.

We have more media than ever before, way more than any person can realistically go through. The problem I find with the entire industry is they're painting by numbers at this stage, they're very much stuck in a rut and unwilling to take any risks. they keep making bland and suppressing anything that won't definitely make money. Every story follows a formula and anything that does get attention for being different gets aped so much it becomes old before you know it.

The art of it is dead, replaced by a profit chasing media producing machine. They've nothing worth while to tell us and are just cynically appealing to the most base in society. So generally I have no sympathy for the industry.

DEFTLEFTHAND

The horse has bolted, you're not going to get the Irish to stop stealing.

CptMackey

As regards streaming sport. I work every second weekend so paying sky 60 a month is pointless . I would how ever pay a reasonable amount to watch games that I'm off for if I could pay for individual matches or even if they launched a sports service like Netflix's .

Chain Smoker

slavetothegrind wrote: »

The 1.3 million unique user figure is rediculous , court should have asked for proof or thrown out.

Of course this is a report in an irish paper so could be entirely unresearched and inaccurate.....

I mean, if you really stretched it, you could get there, they'd have to be counting stuff like Simpsons gifs though

[Deleted User]

Jayop wrote: »

I don't know anyone who illegally downloads music any more. Like not a single person because it can all be got for a reasonable price per month on excellent services like Spotify.

.

How many people are just using the free version of spotify though. I use it but I won't pay for it so just use the free version, if that wasn't working I'd just listen to the songs on youtube or use tunein radio (which I also use anyway). If you want the songs offline you still need to download if you aren't willing to pay for spotify premium or some other paid sub that allows offline playing of content.

Arghus

ScumLord wrote: »

I'm not so sure about that. The fact is it's never been easier to make a film. Anyone can buy a decent camera these days, even a range of different types of camera so you can do fancy panning shots and all sorts.

The software to edit and do special effects for film has never been cheaper or more accessible. I learned how to use the entire adobe film editing suite over a year, it's not that difficult if you've got the time.

Making the film is not the problem, paying every **** with a notion is the problem, getting insurance is the problem, unions are a problem. The technology and art is sitting waiting for the financials to work out who gets what cut. If people are interested in the art and not so concerned with finances anyone could make a half ways decent film with enough time.

Even promoting the film isn't nearly as difficult as it used to be, with a bit of effort they can promote the film for next to nothing.

You make some fair points there.

Yes, in many ways, it's never been easier for people to make a film. But whether that film is good to look at, has any quality, or whether people are willing to pay for it is another question.

My opinion is that if people want to produce an independent film in the more traditional sense, it's still hard and probably will, in all likelihood, remain hard. Next time you watch an indie movie you should try to count how many production companies or financial backers that get their logos on screen before the credits begin; usually it's quite a few, which tells me that getting financial backing to make a professionally made movie is increasingly complex and difficult.

I also wouldn't sniff at the distribution and marketing opportunities afforded by working with studios. I don't think it's as easy as you make it sound to get your own work out there and promote without some backing or help, and oftentimes the more traditional methods of raising peoples awareness of your "product" are still the most effective.

I don't want to totally confine the argument to cinema - I think there's a broader change occurring over the value people place on entertainment/cultural content. I'm no saint myself: I download plenty, but I also pay for plenty and go to things plenty as well. I just used films as an example because it's the one that sticks out to me the most.

We've just come off the most atrocious Summer Movie season that I can remember. I'm a habitual cinema goer, but I didn't go for weeks during the Summer as the fare was bloody awful: nothing but rehashes, reboots and sequels. Now some people can say, sure that only goes to show that we're fools to pay for that crap - and that's fair. But I think the dearth of risk and originality in mainstream cinema is indicative somehow of a wider culture that has less and less of a problem with placing no worth on paying for entertainment - and when that happens you frequently end up with art and entertainment that is disposable and worthless.

VinLieger

Decuc500 wrote: »

Serious question. Can you not just buy the dvd box set if you want to pay for it?

DVD boxsets of new shows do not come out for a good few months after the last episode of the show has finished, They get to watch new series and shows on demand in the US in the vast majority of cases immediately after the episode has aired, the only thing stopping that service coming over here is archaic regional distribution that the industry is not bothered changing and instead would prefer to waste money on prosecuting all its potential paying customers

silverharp

Decuc500 wrote: »

Serious question. Can you not just buy the dvd box set if you want to pay for it?

dvd? cute , this isn't the retro forum :pac:

Decuc500

A_Sober_Paddy wrote: »

I'd happily pay to watch game of thrones, but I can't. As it would cost me a fortune and tie me into a contract with sky(who aren't great to cancel with) just to watch one shoe. also my apartment complex cant take sky. Why can't I just subscribe to something official online to stream the episodes at my own convenience

Serious question. Can you not just buy the dvd box set if you want to pay for it?

VinLieger

wes wrote: »

Service like Netflix and Steam, have done more to combat piracy, then the legal system ever has.

In the case of Ireland, its actually pretty difficult to buy a TV show, and you can see on service like Google Play, they only offer movies for sale for example. This kind of strange holes, make piracy far more viable for a lot of people.

The industry needs to get there **** together, and make there stuff easily avaliable for people to pay for. Its still far to hard to get stuff in this country.

Exactly its far too hard to find a reasonable way to pay to watch new TV shows in Ireland and in many cases simply impossible, especially if you want to watch something on demand which people now expect to be able to do because of Netflix.

Many of the shows pirated here are actually available on demand in the states through Hulu etc immediately after they first air on TV but just arent on any service in Ireland so as far as im concerned the service I would like is unavailable for me as they simply do not want my money, therefore I will continue streaming and torrenting until they decide my business and money is worth actually competing for.

As far as sports go I would happily pay to stream the specific matches and events I am interested in and not have to shellout for countless of useless channels and other sports I never intend on watching, but again that service is not available to pay for yet is very easy to find as streams so thats the way I now consume my sports.

wes

Service like Netflix and Steam, have done more to combat piracy, then the legal system ever has.

In the case of Ireland, its actually pretty difficult to buy a TV show, and you can see on service like Google Play, they only offer movies for sale for example. This kind of strange holes, make piracy far more viable for a lot of people.

The industry needs to get there **** together, and make there stuff easily avaliable for people to pay for. Its still far to hard to get stuff in this country.

ScumLord

Arghus wrote: »

Not neccessarily just that. Studios are probably going to be less likely to finance the likes of smaller more left of field or original movies. Independent movies could potentially struggle; it takes a lot to get the finances together and then to distribute and market them.That becomes a harder and harder proposition in an enviroment where people are developing an aversion to paying for entertainment.

I'm not so sure about that. The fact is it's never been easier to make a film. Anyone can buy a decent camera these days, even a range of different types of camera so you can do fancy panning shots and all sorts.

The software to edit and do special effects for film has never been cheaper or more accessible. I learned how to use the entire adobe film editing suite over a year, it's not that difficult if you've got the time.

Making the film is not the problem, paying every **** with a notion is the problem, getting insurance is the problem, unions are a problem. The technology and art is sitting waiting for the financials to work out who gets what cut. If people are interested in the art and not so concerned with finances anyone could make a half ways decent film with enough time.

Even promoting the film isn't nearly as difficult as it used to be, with a bit of effort they can promote the film for next to nothing.

Arghus

ScumLord wrote: »

Yeah, big budget films where they pump millions into a celebrity list and then promote the bejaysus out of it may not do to well. But that's no great loss.

Not neccessarily just that. Studios are probably going to be less likely to finance the likes of smaller more left of field or original movies. Independent movies could potentially struggle; it takes a lot to get the finances together and then to distribute and market them.That becomes a harder and harder proposition in an enviroment where people are developing an aversion to paying for entertainment.

People look at the revenues of big massive dunderheaded blockbusters, but fail to realise that these things exist because they are sure bets in a far from stable or certain market. They are broad and dumb because they are designed to play to almost anyone, anywhere and turn a profit. Expect a lot more of them in the years to come.

hatrickpatrick

VinLieger wrote: »

Hilarious how they continue fighting this losing battle instead of simply innovating and giving customers what they are begging for.

It will take minutes for workarounds to be setup by the sites in question if this action is successful not to mention the very simple solution of anyone just getting their own VPN to workaround the ISP block.

The music industry in fairness has copped on to this, although it did take them long enough.

A_Sober_Paddy

Arghus wrote: »

My two cents: Large numbers of people not paying for content is going to have a long term detrimental effect on the overall quality of future content.

I'd happily pay to watch game of thrones, but I can't. As it would cost me a fortune and tie me into a contract with sky(who aren't great to cancel with) just to watch one shoe. also my apartment complex cant take sky. Why can't I just subscribe to something official online to stream the episodes at my own convenience

ScumLord

Arghus wrote: »

My two cents: Large numbers of people not paying for content is going to have a long term detrimental effect on the overall quality of future content.

Yeah, big budget films where they pump millions into a celebrity list and then promote the bejaysus out of it may not do to well. But that's no great loss.

Arghus

My two cents: Large numbers of people not paying for content is going to have a long term detrimental effect on the overall quality of future content.

ScumLord

scamalert wrote: »

most likely people who wouldnt pay,wouldnt pay either way

That's true, if I can't stream the movies I want I'll probably have to go back to ram raiding shops.

The quicker these big companies go belly up the better. We can then move on with proper services with a fair price.