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This topic comprises 7 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
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Author
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Topic: Torrent Sites still going strong
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 04-13-2017 07:11 PM
quote: Bobby Henderson
If the piracy apps are pre-loaded in the box and retailers are selling the boxes as supposedly legitimate products it's a piracy box as far as I'm concerned. Whenever I hear the term "Kodi" I automatically think "piracy box." I absolutely know I'm not the only person who see Kodi in that image.
If we keep calling it that way, more people will see it in that way. The point is, it's entirely unjustified and almost a form of discrimination for an otherwise legitimate project. It's a very open, extensible and free platform, that's why it's often being used for those piracy boxes.
quote: Bobby Henderson
If the box is coming pre-loaded with piracy apps, I wonder what else might be pre-loaded. This kind of device would be perfect malware bait for unwitting suckers. How would anyone know if it was infected with all sorts of spyware? If the device asks for any personal information, particularly any credit card of banking info one would have to be really idiotic to enter any of that info into the device.
The irony is, that you can't entirely be sure with the "good guys" either those days... So much shit is phoning home to someones servers out there, without even having the decency to inform me about it. But indeed, those kind of boxes might offer an easy backdoor right into your living room. Additionally, I doubt the manufacturer of such a box will keep good care of it and it will most likely never receive any security updates.
quote: Bobby Henderson
I can just see a gullible user getting had by a device like this and then going to the police to complain about all the money suddenly lost. Then they get hit with the double whammy, finding out what they were doing was illegal. And then they lose even more money in fines, court costs, etc.
It will depend on your local police station, but I think in most cases they will just have a good laugh and be done with it. There aren't really any set fines for things like this and since copyright infringement is largely a civil thing, it would require the content owners or their legal representatives to start a case against such a piracy-box user.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Android may be a more flexible platform than iOS, allowing users and developers to do more with it. But most Android users are smart enough to download any new applications from Google Play, where the apps are screened for malware.
Android is open source, everybody with sufficient knowledge can customize it to their needs. There's no need to go trough Google Play if you pre-load those apps on the box.
quote: Bobby Henderson
I think it's fair to call anyone using these piracy boxes who thinks the box is a legit and legal device "stupid." I have another label for most of the people using these devices: "thieves." Deep down they know the piracy apps they're using are illegal. They'll vomit out some bullshit to rationalize their illegal activity, like "Aurra Sing" in the discussion thread Buck quoted. Whether or not anyone listens to the bullshit they know they're still in the wrong.
Not everybody involved in illegal activities is inherently stupid. You could say that you're inherently stupid if you don't know what you're doing is illegal though. This "Aurra Sing" figure knows full well that whatever she/he is doing, isn't legal in any way. They just look for excuses to downplay the situation.
quote: Bobby Henderson
I'd like to know how many download versions of movies Hollywood studios are selling versus the movie sales on physical discs. I've never bought a download version of a movie and have no desire to do so. But that's just me. I'm under the impression the sell-through numbers for movie downloads are puny compared to retail disc sales. I mean, why bother buying a download of a movie when streaming it gives you the same experience?
There's also not much difference between streaming and downloading. None of the official outlets offers DRM-free downloads of entire features. So, your download is often locked to just a few devices.
There should be no compelling reason why a product that's being delivered "virtually" should be worth less, than the product delivered physically. Still, I think the lack of something tangible also has an impact on the perceived value of your product.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 04-13-2017 10:32 PM
quote: Marcel Birgelen
There should be no compelling reason why a product that's being delivered "virtually" should be worth less, than the product delivered physically.
There is at least one very big reason. Intellectual property sold to consumers on physical media (be that books, audio recordings, video recordings, you name it) can be disposed of by the initial purchaser as (s)he likes. DRM-laden downloads cannot. If I buy a book or a DVD, I can lend it, sell it, give it away or leave it to someone in my will. If I buy an album on iTunes, I cannot: their terms and conditions state that I cannot do any of these things, and that my ownership of it dies with me.
Some celeb (can't remember who - sorry) was threatening a lawsuit against iTunes, wanting to be able to pass on his or her digital music collection in their will.
Personally I feel that this makes digital downloads of significantly lower value to me than physical media, and would only buy them if the price reflects that.
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 04-14-2017 01:16 AM
quote: Frank Cox
Really?
No materials, manufacturing, warehousing, shipping, returns and damaged or surplus goods at any level.
None of these reasons are compelling?
It might sound compelling, but no. The physical medium and the whole chain from raw materials to a disc in the store always was just a fraction of the price of the actual product. This whole chain amounted to less than a dollar per sold medium on average.
Also, keep in mind that digital distribution isn’t free either. People often think that it’s free, but the infrastructure needed to make it happen doesn’t come free. And if we’re talking video, we’re still talking about a considerable amount of bandwidth, especially for high end HD and UHD content.
quote: Leo Enticknap
There is at least one very big reason. Intellectual property sold to consumers on physical media (be that books, audio recordings, video recordings, you name it) can be disposed of by the initial purchaser as (s)he likes. DRM-laden downloads cannot. If I buy a book or a DVD, I can lend it, sell it, give it away or leave it to someone in my will. If I buy an album on iTunes, I cannot: their terms and conditions state that I cannot do any of these things, and that my ownership of it dies with me.
If you could get it without DRM, you could essentially do the same. The problem is, would you lend out a digital download by actually giving away the original or just make a copy? The former probably isn't even possible and who would destroy his own copy? In the latter case, you and the one you lend it to could both benefit from it at the same time. So in this case, the digital download would actually be worth more than the physical copy. Whether or not this is still fair use is highly debatable, off course.
DRM certainly reduces the value of the product you’re getting, especially if it locks your content to a certain device. Interestingly, most Blu-Rays and especially the UHD variant come with pretty strict DRM too. And if you buy a computer game on a physical medium, you’re often buying not even more than just a license key. The DVD or Blu-Ray they might put in the box is often just for show. The code that’s on there is already outdated when it hits the press and in many cases your computer or console will just download it, instead of installing it from DVD.
Still, I’m pretty convinced people associate more value to physical things, even if this thing might essentially be as limited or even more limited than the pure digital alternative. Many people tend to spend more when paying with credit or debit card than with physical cash money too.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 04-17-2017 11:44 AM
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Not everybody involved in illegal activities is inherently stupid. You could say that you're inherently stupid if you don't know what you're doing is illegal though. This "Aurra Sing" figure knows full well that whatever she/he is doing, isn't legal in any way. They just look for excuses to downplay the situation.
When it comes to topics like being street smart online and laws regarding intellectual property a great deal of the public is very ill-informed, if not stupid about both. I have certainly encountered many cases of people seeing no value at all in original artwork just in my own line of work. That especially goes for any artwork created using a computer, no matter how many hours were spent creating the artwork. The assholes just think people like me should be doing our jobs for free since tasks like graphic design and illustration are more of a leisure play time activity than "real work." Some of these people are gullible enough to believe a little $100 modded box will give them free Hollywood movies for life legally. They probably open emails containing attachments and even scripts without a second thought either. Some may even not bother protecting their computer with anti virus software, thinking that's just a waste of money.
There are others who do know how to be cautious online and do know the value of intellectual property yet violate the laws anyway. Those people do deserve to be called thieves and criminals.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
It might sound compelling, but no. The physical medium and the whole chain from raw materials to a disc in the store always was just a fraction of the price of the actual product. This whole chain amounted to less than a dollar per sold medium on average.
Also, keep in mind that digital distribution isn’t free either. People often think that it’s free, but the infrastructure needed to make it happen doesn’t come free. And if we’re talking video, we’re still talking about a considerable amount of bandwidth, especially for high end HD and UHD content.
The cost of setting up servers for download purchases is pretty small compared to the potential cost savings of cutting out brick and mortar retail store partners. In most cases the movie studios and music companies aren't even running their own virtual online stores. They're partnering with Amazon, Apple and Google to let them do the virtual store leg work while paying less money to them than they would a brick and mortar store.
Packaging for retail movie and music discs is somewhat cheap, but its production and other costs (shipping, inventory, etc.) eats up a substantial amount of the overall price. There are more people, companies and jobs involved in creating physical retail products and the packaging that wraps them. Album cover art used to be great with 12" vinyl LPs were popular. There's no need for an elaborate album cover if it's just a 600px X 600px thumbnail image for somebody's phone display. Movies and music have been very commoditized in recent years. Those products can't maintain their introductory prices for months or years on end like they did in the past. Movies go through a pretty rapid cycle from new pricing to bargain bin pricing.
I'm pretty concerned about the trends of online merchant growth. It's cannibalizing bigger segments of the brick and mortar retail economy. The biggest jobs segment of the US economy is in businesses that have a retail store front. Manufacturing is about 1/16th of the US jobs base, yet it gets all the political attention. Video stores and music stores have been devastated by online merchants. Now it's badly wounding or killing mainstream retailers like Sears and JCPenney. Online merchants hire far fewer people than a real retail operation. So with enough online "growth" America's economy is going to go completely to hell. Murdering movie theaters will only speed up that death process.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Still, I’m pretty convinced people associate more value to physical things, even if this thing might essentially be as limited or even more limited than the pure digital alternative. Many people tend to spend more when paying with credit or debit card than with physical cash money too.
If I'm going to buy a movie or music album I still prefer to buy it on a physical disc. The main reason is the product is still better compared to the download version. The Blu-ray is going to contain a much higher quality audio-video encode of the movie. The music CD will be uncompressed Linear PCM. The download version is a lower quality, lossy compressed version in either AAC or MP3 format. There are some online outlets that sell lossless music, even at better than CD quality levels. But the product variety is very limited compared to what you would see at iTunes, Amazon or Google.
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 04-17-2017 12:40 PM
Nothing is static and technology is always morphing into things we never thought would become part of the equation. For all we know, bandwidth will continually expand and become even cheaper and there very well may be streaming technology that allows quality beyond anything we have now. Did anyone think data could travel at speeds we are accustomed to today? Remember when we were communicating over telephone modems? Point being, even though it may well happen that all the concerns about quality differences between streaming vs. the uncompressed audio and 4K video quality of BR discs (maybe even 8K or more, who knows), that difference may evaporate in the future. For all we know, streaming might even surpass the quality of physical optical discs, but I STILL want to have that physical disc that I can put on a shelf and know that when I get the whim to see it, I don't have to rely on some third party to have it available on THEIR shelf. Yah, blockbusters will probably always be available, but I can guarantee, the more off-the-beaten-track titles are likely NOT to be maintained in some cloud server. Server space, no matter how massive, is not free. Keeping a title will have the same economic pressure that studios had in keeping film prints on the shelves at National Screen Service -- bandsaw them as soon as they are not making enough money to offset the storage costs. Not to mention that companies come and go, all those intellectual property rights, which happen to be quite complicated, shift and change hands and many times can entirely stop titles from being seen. Will I ALWAYS be able to find this or that personal favorite title available on Netflix? The Netflix and Amazon libraries, and I am sure all the others as well, seems to be in constant flux. What you watched a year or a month or even a week ago many be gone the next time you go looking for it. Having that irrefutable copy in my hand assures me that they can't control my access. There is something very powerful to be said for having your own library.
Maybe in decades to come when the general population becomes accustomed to never having the physical entity in hand, this won't mean much to them -- attitudes change as much as technology -- but for now, I think there is a whole swath of the population that appreciates the idea of HAVING the works that we love able to be accessed at will.
Then again, maybe the quality of what Hollywood spews out and the way they market it will be seen as so much throw-way trash that
no one will care much to put it up on a shelf nor would they be concerned if they can't access it. Yah, I guess I am conjuring the E G Robinson character in SOYLENT GREEN.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 04-17-2017 03:09 PM
quote: Frank Angel
Nothing is static and technology is always morphing into things we never thought would become part of the equation. For all we know, bandwidth will continually expand and become even cheaper and there very well may be streaming technology that allows quality beyond anything we have now. Did anyone think data could travel at speeds we are accustomed to today?
My home Internet service and mobile phone service both have bandwidths that can easily support uncompressed LPCM audio and Blu-ray quality video. But am I getting that through streaming services or virtual download products I can buy? No. The content providers prefer selling reduced quality products in their download versions. They treat that as an extra level of copy protection.
quote: Mike Blakesley
What's the alternative, though? We can always manufacture more stuff, or build stuff in this country as opposed to overseas -- the trick is getting people to buy the stuff. With shopping, it's different - most people don't care where something's made, so they are looking for price and selection, mostly. And changing people's shopping habits back to "the way it used to be" would take a complete culture shift backwards, and that ain't happening.
Despite the fantasies some lawmakers have on the topic, there is no way the United States is going to have a boom in manufacturing jobs to bring that jobs sector back to where it was 40+ years ago, just before Japan started laying waste to our auto and consumer electronics industry. Computer technology, robotics and automation are eliminating more and more bolt turner jobs. So even if politicians can move a lot of factories back to the United States the new plants will offer few opportunities to traditional blue collar workers.
What's the alternative? Revamp the sales tax code nationwide or just eliminate it. Sales tax is the main reason why brick and mortar retailers are getting killed by online merchants. When a customer has to pay upwards of 9%-10% sales tax on a purchase made locally that tax can add up big for any significant purchase. They go online, order the product tax free and even get free shipping to boot. If the playing field was level in terms of taxation the problem of "show rooming" would quickly become a thing of the past.
I don't enjoy paying taxes, but I don't enjoy seeing local retailers go out of business either. Local businesses who have a store front help keep me employed. The online guys don't employ anybody in my town at all. And they sure as shit don't buy any signs from me either. So I'm all for that tax free shit with online purchases going away ASAP. That's a poisonous situation for our economy.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 04-17-2017 04:18 PM
quote: Martin McCaffery
Totally agree, but given that sales taxes are local (we pay state, county and city, for instance) changes just can't be done on a national level. A different Congress may someday make it easier for States to apply and collect taxes from online retailers, but until all of the local yokels are willing to "raise taxes" it's not happening.
When enough major brick and mortar retailers fail and enough people are affected directly or indirectly by the problem then changes will take place. Until then, we're in "race to the bottom economics" mode.
quote: Mike Blakesley
I'm sure that has an impact, but the MAIN reason? Doubtful. Montana has never had sales tax, but our retail sector is getting killed just as dead as the states with sales tax.
Show rooming wouldn't even be a thing if the sales tax issue wasn't so widespread. People go to a retail store like Sears, Best Buy, etc. to check out a big ticket item like a HDTV or computer in person and ask questions about it. Then they go home and order the product online, free of sales tax and even free shipping.
Many retail items like TV sets, computers, video game consoles, etc. all have Minimum Advertised Prices. I can order a Playstation 4 online for $299 and pay $299 for it. If I buy the PS4 at a local store I'm paying close to $330 for it. The difference scales up big for things like TV sets, computers, DSLR cameras or anything else costing in the thousands of dollars.
Even big chains like Walmart and Target are struggling with certain product categories over this issue. They have their own online stores, but must charge sales tax in nearly every case since they have a physical presence in every state.
There is a certain level of convenience in being able to shop from home or even order something from your phone while you're on the go. But you have to wait for the product to be shipped to you, even if it is just 2 day free shipping wait via Amazon Prime. When you buy something at the retail store you take home the product immediately. I try to buy locally when possible, but even I have to order some graphics or photography related items online since there is such a limited market for that here in my town.
Since Oklahoma's state government has such a horrible budget situation its lawmakers temporarily abandoned their no taxes ever mindset to ink a deal with Amazon to start collecting sales taxes at the time of purchase. By law residents have had to declare the dollar amount of purchases made online on their state tax returns. It's what they called the "use tax." Well, next to nobody goes along with that. The state's only hope of collecting that money is making it happen at the time of purchase instead of a whopping sales tax bill at the year's end. The deal with Amazon might make a small dent in the state's budget issues. But they're going to have to re-examine all the big tax cuts and tax deals to the oil and gas industry to get to the root of the problem. Our public education system is getting demolished over the budget crisis.
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 04-17-2017 05:29 PM
quote: Bobby Henderson
Show rooming wouldn't even be a thing if the sales tax issue wasn't so widespread. People go to a retail store like Sears, Best Buy, etc. to check out a big ticket item like a HDTV or computer in person and ask questions about it. Then they go home and order the product online, free of sales tax and even free shipping.
Many retail items like TV sets, computers, video game consoles, etc. all have Minimum Advertised Prices. I can order a Playstation 4 online for $299 and pay $299 for it. If I buy the PS4 at a local store I'm paying close to $330 for it. The difference scales up big for things like TV sets, computers, DSLR cameras or anything else costing in the thousands of dollars.
Even big chains like Walmart and Target are struggling with certain product categories over this issue. They have their own online stores, but must charge sales tax in nearly every case since they have a physical presence in every state.
That's all well and good. I would still guarantee you that if the government started charging everybody their state's prevailing sales taxes on their online purchases, most people would still be buying online in droves, because they're happy with that experience. If not, brick-and-mortar merchants in Montana would be thriving more than our surrounding states since we don't have sales tax. But stores are closing left-and-right here, too. Heck, you can ask our UPS guy....I've been in his truck and seen the stacks of Amazon boxes in there.
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