[chungus_khan]

Only in the eyes of the law. The RIAA can no more stop people from downloading YouTube videos than the DVD CCA could stop people from cracking CSS. Pirates haven't lost yet, only ever been delayed, and rarely by all that much.

This battle has been going on since audio tape recorders and VCRs became a thing, and at some point various industries will have to accept copying as part of reality, and that it is incumbent on them to have a business model that aligns with reality. A farmer doesn't serve a legal notice to the sun because its setting every day hurts productivity.

[Santosh83]

No they're winning slowly. Fifteen years back everyone I know could easily download mp3 from various p2p applications. But now the present generation of youngsters seem to think it is Spotify/Amazon or nothing. They haven't even heard of p2p. Similarly Netflix is slowly eating away at torrenting.

The platform owners can and will tighten the noose gradually. End users and hackers have much less power than they like to imagine, especially the latter segment.

[Vivtek]

But look, this is exactly because Spotify/Amazon/Netflix are responding to reality and providing media at a price point that reflects it.

That's a desired outcome.

[blfr]

Will they keep providing the media like that once the threat from piracy is gone? Even right now most video platforms only offer the lowest quality to people on platforms free from DRM.

I can easily get a 4k h265 video packed in mkv to play on my Linux laptop. I haven't tested lately but a while back Netflix would serve 720p max.

Spotify has been very cool, going as far as delivering a .deb package and Ubuntu repo for their client. However, Rogan podcast doesn't work on Linux because it includes video. Will it before they go exclusive? Maybe, maybe not. I can easily youtube-dl the latest podcast and watch it on Linux.

[kaszanka]

> only offer the lowest quality to people on platforms free from DRM

That's not correct, accessing their content at all still requires running malware like Widevine on your computer even on Linux.

[TeMPOraL]

Not really, because Spotify/Amazon/Netflix aren't giving you media, they only rent it out to you. They can and do retroactively take away access to any piece of content, while keeping the money.

[phjesusthatguy3]

They're not renting media to you, they're selling you an access license to something they may or may not have at any given moment. Literally Nothing-as-a-Service.

[gamblor956]

Note: it's also the industry adapting to reality.

Spotify, Netflix, etc., are possible today because the copyright owners created streaming licenses that recognize that ephemeral access to content is a different use case than downloading. (Streaming licenses are cheap compared to download licenses; my old employer streamed millions of hours of music from the Big 3 labels for a total annual cost of less than $2500.)

[hyperpower]

If platforms tighten the noose, you'll see people gravitate back towards p2p.

People stopped torrenting because Netflix and company made it extremely easy and more affordable to consume a wide range of media. Affordable enough that the hassle of torrenting was no longer worth it. If that changes, you'll see a resurgance.

[blfr]

If platforms tighten the noose, you'll see people gravitate back towards p2p.

Assuming there's something to go back to. General purpose computing has been limited by the rise of mobile. These devices are both limited by battery and CPU and more constrained in their abilities by tightly controlled operating systems.

And yet surprisingly many young people don't have anything better. Most still have laptops but it's also not a great hardware platform for torrenting.

Internet connections have been moving away from wires to more convenient but less spacious radio. And even wired connections are often degraded by carrier grade NATs.

Now, the very tools for gathering content are under assault. We need to act because a free and open Internet is not one of the laws of physics and corporations are capable opponents.

[feanaro]

Also, people haven't stopped torrenting at all in many parts of the world.

[baq]

i feel like we're one streaming service away from people becoming fed up with the whole idea and going back to torrents. having to pay for five subscriptions just to see the one show you want in each every quarter will be too much.

[KnobbleMcKnees]

But this boils down to convenience not prevention.

It's so, so easy to get access to a million pieces of media through the accounts your parents or siblings already have. Further those services provide specific family plans to make it even easier again.

As gaben said, "Piracy is almost always a service problem".

[syshum]

15 years back you had to buy a $20 CD to get access to 1 song you liked...

Today for $9/mo (or nearly free with Amazon) you can listen to almost any song....

The lowering of costs, and easy access is what is driving lower use of p2p not RIAA lawsuits and more restrictions

[shaan7]

Although I get your point, there is an important difference between those two though. Once you've bought the CD you can listen to it forever, that is not true for subscriptions - _that_ is why they are cheaper.

I kinda use a hybrid - I discover new music on free tier of subscription services, and once I identify songs that I love, I buy them from iTunes DRM-free. I'm just afraid that option won't remain there forever.

[ryandrake]

These streaming services are approaching the right price (digital media’s marginal cost is $0), but at the expense of user freedom to backup, time shift, collect, and use offline. Is $9/mo streaming better than $20 CDs? Maybe, maybe not. The higher quality product (DRM-free files you can store) is still free and unencumbered by usage rules.

[Broken_Hippo]

CD's do break, and I'll tire of the music on it. Spotify is cheaper than a CD a month and provides a superior service than radio or music TV ever did.

I have absolutely no need to own a piece of music.

I'd start here about Spotify not paying artists enough. But honestly, the music industry - as a whole - has been screwing over artists for decades, at least, so it is pretty much same thing in a different dress. If I'm going to support musicians more directly, I'll head over to Bandcamp while still giving the artist listens on spotify if they have music there.

[maxfurman]

You said it yourself - now you can pay $1 for 1 song and own it forever. Still a better deal than what we had back in the CD era.

[Scoundreller]

I don’t think you own it, just a lifetime license (for you and X friends/« devices » sometimes).

Depending on how extensions go, your children and grandchildren may have to re-pay to listen to your collection.

[patagurbon]

Amazon Music used to sell music DRM free, you could download it and do what you wanted with it. Not sure if that's still the case.

[corobo]

Spotify and Netflix offered an easier alternative to piracy. I've heard a few people mentioning there's so many video services to sign up to now that they're back to flying the internet jolly roger having cancelled them all.

If any big exclusive content music services pop up we'll be right back on the pirate bay for everything again

[Dirlewanger]

I thought torrentting was back on the uptick because of the increasing platform fragmentation?

[avh02]

ah, with netflix i believe it _was_ going well... but we're getting to a point (with disney+, etc and moving content) where it's fragmenting again to the point where I don't want to pay $50 for 4-6 different services to watch whatever I want.

I think that'll be the return of either torrenting, or the casual pooling of subscription services between people.

[dredmorbius]

My growing sense is that this is less a straight-line progression and more a set of pendulum swings.

The pop music industry has seen at least three disruptions to its controlling gatekeepers since the 1950s (1956-60, ~2000 with Napster, and presently with Spotify and YouTube), but each time a dominant hegenomy re-emerges. I doubt this time will be different, though the brief renaissance will doubtless be appreciated. Charles Perrow wrote of this in the mid-1980s:

After the critical period from about 1956 to 1960, when tastes were unfrozen, competition was intense, and demand soared, consolidation appeared. The number of firms stabilized at about forty. New corporate entries appeared, such as MGM and Warner Brothers, sensing, one supposes, the opportunity that vastly expanding sales indicated. Some independents grew large. The eight-firm concentration ratio also stabilized (though not yet the four-firm ratio). The market became sluggish, however, as the early stars died, were forced into retirement because of legal problems, or in the notable case of Elvis Presley, were drafted by an impinging environment. Near the end of this period the majors decided that the new sounds were not a fad and began to buy up the contracts of established artists and successfully picked and promoted new ones, notably The Beach Boys and Bob Dylan. A new generation (e.g., The Beatles) appeared from 1964 to 1969, and sales again soared.

But now the concentration ratios soared also. From 1962 to 1973, the four-firm ratio went from 25 to 51 percent; the eight-firm ratio from 46 to 81 percent, almost back to the pre-1955 levels. The number of different firms having hits declined from forty-six to only sixteen. Six of the eight giants were diversified conglomerates, some of which led in the earlier period; one was a new independent, the other a product of of mergers.

How did they do it? The major companies asserted “increasing central control over the creative process”[352] through deliberate creation and extensive promotion of new groups, long-range contracts for groups, and reduced autonomy for producers. In addition, legal and illegal promotion costs (drug payola to disc jockeys, for example) rose in the competitive race and now exceeded the resources of small independents. Finally, the majors “have also moved to regain a controlling position in record distribution by buying chains of retail stores.”[353] The diversity is still greater than it had been in the past, and may remain high, but it is ominous that the majors have all the segments covered. As an executive said, “Columbia Records will have a major entry into whatever new area is broached by the vagaries of public tastes.” But for a concentrated industry, the “vagaries of public tastes” are not economical; it is preferable to stabilize and consolidate them. This would be possible through further control over the creative process and marketing.

Charles Perrow, Complex organizations : a critical essay, 1972, 1985. pp. 186--187.

The dynamics, actors, and economics remind me strongly of the software / high-tech industry, though with much weaker coupling and different lock-in mechanics.

[macksd]

But if the farmer actually sometimes got money out of legal action, I'd start to fear that the farmer's business model would BE legal action. Or at least the business model of the lawyer that gave the farmer legal advice.