[jazzyjackson]

The pirates lost, I know one other person besides me that collects movies to watch offline outside of subscription services. The legal actions against free streaming sites prevents any serious competitor to Netflix, Disney-Hulu etc, which are hugely valuable properties.

[ruthmarx]

The pirates remain triumphant and unshakeable. Why? Because you can go to any number of torrent sites you want right now and download anything you want, and as long as it's not too obscure it will probably not take more than 10 or 2 minutes.

Trying to shut down piracy is playing whack-a-mole with one hammer, 10,000 moles and 100,000,000 holes.

> The legal actions against free streaming sites

The only people using those are people too scared or lacking in knowledge of how to download.

[ben_w]

> The only people using those are people too scared or lacking in knowledge of how to download.

That's most people.

Also, most laws aren't perfectly enforced; part of the reason for disproportionately high penalties is to create that fear.

[ruthmarx]

Well, there's a lot of opinion on the subject but personally I'm er much against disproportionately high penalties as a deterrent because it's comes at the cost of justice to the individual.

That aside though, there isn't any chance of stopping piracy with the way the current internet is. SO all they do is spend disproportionate amounts of money, i.e. throw that money down the drain, just to take down a website here and there, and maybe, comparatively rarely, get a few people thrown in jail here and there.

That isn't deterring anything, not remotely, so it just seems like revenge.

[ben_w]

> personally I'm er much against disproportionately high penalties as a deterrent because it's comes at the cost of justice to the individual.

Likewise.

I think that as we've already developed the technological capacity for mere organised crime to build a surveillance system that would make the actual literal Stasi jealous, it's important for the legal system to catch up, and move to the combination (because neither would work in isolation) of (1) penalties that are much much smaller and directly match the offence with (2) so much surveillance that basically everything is caught.

Now, is there a way for this to avoid falling into a horrific dystopian nightmare? Because it's one thing for an internet pirate getting an illicit copy of one episode of Space 1999 getting dinged for $0.99, and quite another if the same capabilities are used to interfere with or supress political opponents a-la the Watergate scandal.

> That isn't deterring anything, not remotely, so it just seems like revenge

I know what you mean, I think that's also part of it, and that kind of attitude in parts of the legal system also interfere with the thing I've just suggested.

[appplication]

I used to pirate years ago, and have tried pirating again recently and I find it too difficult to get into any of the private communities (some of which require you to pay?). There’s some stuff outside of those communities but the quality and consistency of content is quite poor and it seems to be constantly getting taken down, and finding torrents with search engines isn’t as effective anymore.

Sometimes it does feel like the pirates did lose. At the very least it seems almost impossible to casually pirate something like you used to in the late 2000s. Now it feels like you don’t have a homelab setup with plex/jellyfin/arr/arr/arr and a network of private trackers and god knows what else the. You’re not really going to be able to find much.

It feels like piracy morphed from being like stealing a pack of gum at a gas station to being more of a time and equipment intensive hobby.

[behringer]

I think you're doing it wrong. You don't need private. You just need to find the right "release groups" and the right software to use.

[appplication]

I’m almost certain I’m doing it wrong, but that’s sort of my point. As a dev, I spend all day working with software, but then I try to do something I used to easily do as a 12 year old and it’s almost impossible to achieve an even half-decent experience without significant knowledge and research now.

It may be obvious to you what the right release groups and software are but this isn’t how it used to be. You used to be able to just search for torrents, and find high quality ones for just about anything. It’s not the case anymore. Even going to TPB and searching there feels like I’m missing something because of how poor the catalog and average health is.

[ruthmarx]

If you're out of touch, then you can monitor sites like torrenfreak that report relevant news and discussion forums that are seemingly legal like r/piracy on reddit.

> it’s almost impossible to achieve an even half-decent experience without significant knowledge and research now.

The thing you have to learn is how to find resources at short notice. That skill is adaptable and should never require significant knowledge and research. Most of what you learned as as 12 year old should still apply.

[behringer]

I definitely hear ya. Try out qbittorrent and it's built in search system for an old time kazaa feel.

And don't forget a good VPN like proton VPN

[dxbednarczyk]

>The pirates lost

I believe this is not mainly due to big companies and/or governments cracking down on piracy, but a massive loss in knowledge and shift in perspective about piracy, especially in younger generations.

It's true that piracy numbers have been declining, but this largely comes as a result of "piracy is dangerous, don't do it! you'll get viruses!!1!"

[leoedin]

I can only speak for myself - but the convenience and relatively low cost of Netflix killed piracy for me. It wasn’t really a moral reason, or a fear of prosecution. But Netflix is truly easy, and the cost isn’t significant.

Spotify did the same for music piracy. I just stopped bothering with files.

I think as others have said, the increased balkanisation of the tv streaming world might change that.

[drekipus]

Netflix has the worst quality and selection that I've seen.

I'm about to pick up piracy again so I can watch good shows that I like

[dylan604]

It does now. Back when it was the only streaming service and all of the different studio's content was on it, it was the best fight against piracy. Now that the streaming ecosystem is so fragmented requiring subscription upon subscription, Netflix' selection has atrophied to the realm of mediocrity with the occasional gem like every other studio out there.

I can absolutely see where piracy surges again as people fight back against the onslaught of YASS (yet another streaming service).

[Ekaros]

I think Gabe was entirely right, it is in the end service problem. And services can be wrong at multiple ways. For a moment video content got it right. But this was naturally unstable equilibrium. Free market capitalism is naturally greedy so everyone wants their own piece of the pie and not just give it away for someone else.

[troupo]

Pirates kinda lost when Netflix was more or less the only game in town.

Now with 10+ streaming services gatekeeping their content piracy is likely to be back on the rise

[dariosalvi78]

Agreed. It's what brought me back to piracy. I can pay one or two subscriptions max and happy to do it, but if the content I'm looking for is not there guess where I go to? And I suppose that many others do the same. In addition, many streaming websites have content that disappear for no apparent reason, or have the content only in some countries etc.

Streaming has reduced the need for piracy a lot, and that's probably a good thing, but it hasn't made it completely obsolete, because of silly models that media companies still enforce.

[zapkyeskrill]

It's what irks me, you travel outside the borders and suddenly everything stops working. Often when you need it the most. Looking at you Amazon kids plus.

[olddog2]

Plex with a couple of decent paid subscription servers ($20 a month total) is fantastic and is equivalent in usability to netflix except basically everything is available.

It is funny listening to podcasts with billionaires who have unlimited financial resources but can’t watch a show recommended to them because they haven’t downloaded or subscribed to a particular streaming service.