[astalwick]

I consider piracy to be a form of protest.

I'm happy to pay, as long as the terms are reasonable. (I have a Rdio account that's been active for years now - I can't remember the last time I pirated music... I can't remember the last time I pirated software, either).

However, in Canada, the only way to watch (for example) Game of Thrones is to

a) get a massive cable subscription which includes 1000 channels you don't want and HBO (which itself has 100 programs you don't want to watch and GoT),

b) wait for the episode to show up on itunes and pay $4.50 per episode (whaat?) (and oh, season 5 isn't available yet),

c) pirate.

Is it a huge surprise that a lot of people choose option C? And can you blame them? At a certain point, non-Americans specifically just get fed up with being told "sorry, no, that content isn't available in your region."

[morley]

Not being able to watch a TV show isn't exactly oppression. If I didn't get into a closed beta of a highly-anticipated web service or video game, it wouldn't be "a form of protest" to brute-force someone else's login, or to crack the signup system. It would be wrong.

[astalwick]

It's not oppression, you're right. It's way, way smaller than that. My little act of 'defiance' is way smaller than it would be if it were exactly oppression, too.

I'm pirating content. I'm watching something that I want to watch, and at the same time, I'm hoping that my small increment of the 'pirated_copies_of_got' metric causes someone at HBO to go and sort out the way they distribute content outside of the US.

Literally no one else is harmed - because, no, I'm not going to pay the prices they've set. It's just nowhere near worth it. I'll go read a book instead.

Btw, hacking someone else's account is considerably more 'wrong', in my opinion: you're breaching someone's personal info and preventing them from using their account.

[chasing]

Look, you don't want to pay for it. For you, free is better than having to shell out money.

I wish people would just stop with their dumb moral workarounds. The show costs $X. You don't want to pay. You know how to get the content via other means. And so you do.

Don't embarrass yourself further by claiming you're somehow helping HBO out by going against their wishes and pirating the show they produced. You don't know what effect you (and other pirates) are having on HBO's business.

You apparently work for a company that aims to empower musicians. I would expect you to have a deeper understanding of how difficult it can be to make a living producing entertainment in this day and age.

[astalwick]

And one last thing: It is actually quite insulting to be reduced down to 'free is better than having to shell out money'.

No, it's not. I buy books (audible.com is amazing), I buy music, I buy software - all of which are just as easy to pirate.

I go to shows, I buy prints of photographsy that I like, I support artists. I am fully aware of how hard it is as an artist (my wife is an illustrator).

So, please don't reduce me down to "cheap bastard just doesn't want to pay". It's insulting and untrue.

[chasing]

I apologize -- I went off on you as a straw man instead of as someone who had literally just said that they didn't pirate music or software. That was unfair.

You touched a nerve. The "I'm not doing any harm" line is the general defense to the piracy question and I think it's very much wrong. I think I'm right in saying that too many people attempt to use it as a moral cover for the fact that they just want stuff for free.

[astalwick]

Yeah, I totally get that.

And there's definitely a part of me that is biased to "free is better than not-free," so for sure, that's a part of my decision-making process. But unless the content companies actively work to make it difficult for me to consume their content, I try very hard to inhibit that "i can get it for free" mentality.. Precisely because I do know how hard it can be for artists.

Anyway, thanks for the apology (and sorry for getting a bit defensive there). Cheers.

[astalwick]

I'm not trying to help HBO at all. Seriously, not. Couldn't care less about HBO. And you're right, I don't want to pay for it, not when it's priced like that and the distribution mechanisms in Canada are so broken.

But look: all of these American companies look at Canada, Australia, the UK, etc and go "you know what, we're just going to focus on the US." <Sorry, that content is not available in your region>.

That's so amazingly frustrating. So, yes, I honestly do hope that HBO sees the international piracy numbers and sorts out its sketchy content deals with Bell Media and launches HBO Go in Canada. Until the TV/Movie industry gets its act together, I'll pirate. (Since music is available to stream in Canada, I don't pirate music. Simple as that.)

As for my job: a) my personal opinion has nothing to do with my company, but b) I'm pretty comfortable with how Wavo empowers musicians and artists. We're a small company, so the fully-realized vision is still a ways off, but fundamentally the goal of Wavo is to help artists. There are no contradictions here.

[malka]

I do not give a damn about price. I give a damn about usability. And usually, the "free" versions are better than paid versions in this regard.

When the paid version is at least as good, people pay for it. cf Netflix.

[supercanuck]

These arguments are so stupid to me. Joe Consumer has X amount of dollars to spend on entertainment.

Joe Consumer can find various ways of maximizing his dollars. $15 of that goes to Spotify so that he and his wife can listen to whatever music they please whenever, wherever they want (except Taylor Swift because she has a mansion in Rhode Island to pay for).

Joe Consumer would rather not pay $70 to buy Frozen on three devices, one on Blu-Ray to watch on his television, the Apple Store to watch it on an iPad on the way to Disneyland and Google Play on the Nexus Tablet after taking the kids to the theatre to watch said movie for $50 all the while hosting a Frozen themed birthday party... He would rather tell the studios to go fuck themselves and download it.

so yea, I don't want to pay for it because I feel a bit cheated that I must pay three times for the same thing.and apparently I'm an asshole because Disney isn't getting every god damn cent of entertainment dollar they are entitled to according to piracy police like you. The Rent is too damn high.

As for the musicians not getting paid, please... anybody can pick up a guitar and become a musician and post it on the internet. That does not entitle anyone to be paid for it. Nobody is shedding tears for Taylor Swift's inability to make money.

[spdustin]

You're not going to pay, as you've said.

Honor your argument, then, and go read a book.

[astalwick]

I actually do. I'm arguing a lot in this thread, but I stopped watching game of thrones around season three. I maybe pirate a movie every 8 or 10 weeks or something? I have young kids and a startup job. :) And I have Netflix (Canadian version, no vpn, so like 1/4 the content as in the US) for when I have some free time. But frankly I do prefer books (again, audible.com is the best)

That said, content distribution is completely broken outside the US, so I'm going to shed exactly one tiny crocodile tear for HBO when I do decide to get back into game of thrones. And I sure as hell won't be paying for it, unless they give me some sane options.

[joshuapants]

I pay for HBO and a few times I've still had to pirate Game of Thrones because their delivery is so poor. For a while it was impossible to watch on HBO Go when it aired because they were somehow unaware that their popular program would draw a lot of viewers to the site and it would crash. Now that doesn't happen, but instead I get poor quality video that pauses and stutters with annoying grey bars on either side of the screen that pop in and out and distort the video. This past Sunday I was fed up enough after 15 minutes that I just decided to wait an hour and download it in HD.

The terms aren't the only things that have to be reasonable, the quality of service must be as well.

[martypitt]

Is it a surprise? No. What you've described is downright annoying. It seems nonsensical to me that hollywood makes it so difficult for me to give them money to watch Game of Thrones.

But, Piracy isn't a form of protest, any more than stealing a car is -- regardless of how reasonable you consider the price.

[astalwick]

Laws aren't all equal. Stealing a car is zero-sum: if I take your car, you no longer have a car, which is a very, very expensive toy.

If I download Game of Thrones, the outcome for every single person in the world except me is exactly the same as it would have been if I had simply gone and read a book instead. HBO gets no money (I'm reading a book), and you still have the ability to watch GoT (I haven't done anything to prevent that).

Sorry, that's not entirely true actually. The outcome is ever so slightly different because I contribute to a metric that content producers do pay attention to: estimated pirated copies of GoT downloaded.

They make decisions based on that (like the launch of HBO go, which is not available in canada), and eventually, my hope is that they'll realize that there is a problem with the way they're selling their content and they'll fix it for everyone.

(Meanwhile, yes, benefit for me: I get to watch GoT).

Btw, you're being unfairly downvoted. Sorry.

[Lawtonfogle]

If you would've otherwise read a book. Had the ability to pirate not been available, a non-zero number of individuals would've paid. Hollywood is stupid thinking everyone would have otherwise paid. But anyone who insist that everyone pirating would've read a book instead is making the same mistake.

[matt-attack]

> any more than stealing a car is

It's the biggest logical fallacy to compare stealing digital content to stealing a car. It's a shame the word "steal" is used in both cases. The original owner of a stolen car no longer has his car after it's stolen. That is not true of digital piracy.

Can we instead compare it to illegally duplicating your car?

[hobarrera]

I had a rdio account once. But it turns out he price they publish is not what they charged (at least were I live), nor was it the currency they displayed (which added a huge extra on bank charges). I was charged around 200% of the published price, all due to them not holding up their end of the deal. I called Visa and rejected the payment, and immediately closed my account.

As for HBO. It's too expensive for me. In the US it may be cheap, but it isn't in other countries. And the web-based version is unavailable "in my region".

I wouldn't mind paying for decent terms, but putting a huge amount of money to watch a single series at a time they dictate, is unacceptable. HBO broadcasts at a certain time, and I have to stick to their schedule. Awful. I've a life. Stuff happens.

Piracy is the only affordable way, and comes with a huge amount of extra bonuses (replay, pause, watch later, no installation cost).

[Tanath]

Do you also consider libraries a form of protest?