[yebyen]

"Piracy" or more broadly unauthorized copying, which are hard to distinguish from each other using hard facts... are about convenience as well as free speech; I know I buy large expensive tools for storing data, and I see a lot of pictures of shelves stuffed with cheap plastic discs on reddit, discs that are easy to lose and yet each cost $35 for a variety of reasons, and one of those reasons is so that you can get paid for bringing me quality content.

Obviously it's not a short path from point A to point B.

I also know that as a computer enthusiast, I spent a lot of time learning to copy things that your camp would prefer I didn't copy, so that I don't have to keep collections of cheap (disposable) plastic discs. That's a huge investment too, and if the effort is duplicated... well, in the free software community especially we don't like duplicated effort. Can't someone else do it?

Then I pay for these pipes (again from my perspective: your camp) and it's really a lot simpler downloading from the cloud than making a large investment in plastic discs and time and labor spent on copying. Furthermore, according to the DMCA, if I did buy the media and try to consolidate it in accordance with fair use, long accepted as a measure in place for free speech, I am still breaking the law because of the anti-copying measures that I need to break in order to do it, which is directly illegal today. So why not just download?

... you won't get paid. That's why.

I want you to get paid, but I don't want you to dictate my viewing schedule or media organization, and I also don't want to pay for thousands of channels I won't watch just to get three or four I care about, once or twice a week... hope that you can see how your side are not really making it any easier for me to enjoy your work in relative comfort and with the benefit of modern technology.

Quite sure this can be somehow solved by using bitcoins...

[res0nat0r]

Not sure what plastic discs have to do with anything when you can leagally buy tons of content from Hulu, Lovefilm, Amazon, iTunes, Netflix and tons of other places digitally with ease.

[yebyen]

Congratulations, friend... you have managed to take away the one concern that actually confers a benefit, and replaced it with a bill payable directly to telecom.

You should be a patent attorney.. on the Internet!

I don't know about Lovefilm, but the rest of the solutions you proposed all require an ongoing commitment to pay every month, they don't provide any copy, and they are useless without an additional recurring payment to a third party that was not involved in producing content. You misunderstood my comments about the plastic discs. I hate them because they take up space, but I love them because they can be copied!

Why are there ads in Hulu Plus?

Again, a thousand channels I will never use, and I don't get a copy of the merchandise to keep for myself. What happens when I move out to the boonies and I can't get good internet? Oh yeah, I cancel all of my web-based subscriptions and I can never watch any of my favorite shows again. How about my favorite content providers? Sure, the partners will be paid, 70% of Hulu's revenue goes to... the advertising partners.

OK, I wasn't able to find any hard numbers on how much MrScruff gets for his contribution. But you know, I don't care, if I lose my access when I cancel my credit card and internet subscription. Tell me what ongoing benefit the ISPs provide! New content? No... they just provide peering, and hopefully reliable access, and then they also mail a bill every month. And guess what... it's more than Hulu is charging.

But you're right. They earned that money. The telecom lobbyists and the streaming advertisement providers made sure that I can't legally obtain a copy of anything new for myself, and now I'll have to go on needing them forever, no matter how much favorite content I've amassed into my collection. My archives will never be complete, at least not until I've received next month's internet bill.