Remember everyone, media piracy is in the spirit of a tv show about a post-scarcity socialist utopian future.
I feel like Quark giddily grabbing his security rods to break into Sisko’s personal logs.
Wtf why did a parrot land on my shoulder
It’s a mystery!
Do you have a sudden urge to sing sea shanties?
I’m happy about the long curly hair, but the hook for a hand, peg leg, and eye patch arrrren’t great. Worth it, but not great. Arrrr arrrr.
Ok, I know why I lost my eye, but where the fuck did this hook come from and what happened to me hand!?
That’s okay I’ll just watch it on Netfli…WHAT!? Since almost two years ago you say? Because of late-stage capitalism you say?
I really miss old Netflix. Even had Disney movies 😭
The worst part is, Netflix didn’t even mess up. All the content owners decided to pull their licenses and make their own Netflix. Now we have 200 streaming services.
So I joined the party and made my own netflix. And not to toot my own horn, but it’s the best one.
Well, they did mess up. That mistake was to make content of their own. This angered the other studios so they pulled content and here we are.
I think the issue started long before that. Netflix always had issues with content owners licensing it for one country but not for others, or asking huge fees to license for multiple countries. They’d also limit which shows Netflix could have at any time.
This meant Netflix had to manage many different catalogues for different regions and constantly cycle shows on and off just to make the content owners happy
Once content owners started realising they could milk Netflix for all it had, Netflix really had to start making content to reduce its risk and dependence on other studios
The issue is and always was corporate greed, on every level
There was multiple mess ups from many different places. Netflix making their own content was just an excuse.
First off the government allowed consolidation of the studios. All of the buyout and mergers reduced the number of players.
Netflix, video stores, and theatres before them were/are distributors. They did not create any products but acted as a local point of sale.
A distributor only makes sense when the producers and customers have a high level of segmentation and they can’t economically or efficiently connect directly. When the producers are consolidated enough, cutting out a distribution network in an attempt to generate more profit is inevitable. It never works out as expected.
In general the producers can not offer the level of service that the distributor did. So the customer always suffer from a decline in service. It also always becomes more expensive for the customer with shittier products. The producing companies try to make up for losses in revenue from sales with lower quality cheaper product.
Now if the government had blocked the studio consolidation we would have likely have seen the rise of distributor competition. Distributor competition is very, very good for the consumer. When multiple companies are offering the same product but offering differing levels of service the consumer benefits.
The producers if they are smart make the same amount of money from all of the distributors and focus on making high quality products they can sell at a premium.
They made their own content because Hulu was a partnership between 4 different content companies intended to screw Netflix out of money.
Those were the days…:-D
They’re getting some Disney content back. I’m not sure if this was intentional by the OP or not, but Archer is one of those. Also How I Met Your Mother, Horn Improvement, Lost, other stuff.
Still nowhere near old Netflix, but it could be the start of a trend.
Horn Improvement sounds like a fun show.
Maximum monetization will see a rotation of content between platforms. People mostly watch stuff when it is new on the platform and then after that it’s just a trickle unless some news comes out about it.
By licensing their bullshit to different providers they take a little bit of revenue from other platforms and the other platforms get more engagement. They basically have to play nice or spend a ton of cash constantly making more shows- which we’ve seen fail again and again despite huge budgets.
Well it’s also a somewhat natural reaction of the market. We went from basically just one service provider with many different publishers, to almost 1:1. I’ve seen some speculation that some of these services may collapse. It may be wishful thinking, but if for example Peacock fails and CBS just licenses their properties out that seems like an improvement.
What I really would love to see is the end of exclusive content. I want to see service providers compete more on the quality of their service than the content of their libraries. A variety of tiers that allow different numbers of simultaneous screen watching, different quality levels, the ability to download and view offline, better UI’s, different content sorting, filtering, and recommendation options. Different pricing structures: maybe pay-per-view, ad supported, and of course monthly and annual subscriptions. Maybe even partner with low to mid-budget content creators like Nebula. Steam and Epic can have the same games on different platforms: why can’t Netflix and Hulu have the same shows?
I’m also tired of seeing stuff completely vanish. Disney’s “vault” has always felt like a flaw in copyright law. If it’s not available for the public to consume, that should qualify as failure to defend IP and automatically become public domain. But that’s a whole other issue
So here’s an unpopular opinion, but this isn’t a bad thing. It’s just not enough.
The biggest reason that legal, paid Streaming is so shitty these days, the reason people miss old Netflix, is that everything is spread across so many different platforms now. Back in the day, just having Netflix meant you had just about everything, and if you wanted more still you could get Hulu… and that was it. One, maybe two subscriptions, and you’re set. But now? Now you need half a dozen subscriptions and you’re still picking what things you won’t get. If content was more centralized again, that wouldn’t be a problem.
And if content was more centralized, that centralized platform would have PLENTY of subscribers, they wouldn’t need to add commercials and hike prices just to stay afloat. I mean… they’d do it anyway because capitalism enshittifies everything, but it wouldn’t be a do or fail situation for them.
The only thing I ever used the Paramount streaming for was Trek. I wouldn’t complain if Trek, ALL Trek, migrated to somewhere else that has other things I like, too.
We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem," he said. "If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate’s service is more valuable.
-Gabe NewellThe problem is that the people who hold the rights don’t want to share. They want that sweet, sweet, monthly subscription income. They don’t want to compete because that means they’ll potentially earn less and have to spend more.
I tell people about fmovies every chance I get because it has just about anything you are looking for. I’ve only run into a few titles they don’t have.
No registration, completely free, and easy to use.
IMO, we really need an update to copyright law covering streaming. Think of how Redbox would just buy DVDs even though studios wanted them to wait about 2 months.
Streaming services should have a similar option. Then they’d need to compete on features, not on the streaming equivalent of “you can only watch this movie if you buy a Betamax player”.
This is why I own most of star trek on dvd. Cant take that away from me.
Its also very difficult to find complete torrent for the series. Just too much content that nobody wants to host the wild file sizes
This is why I own most of star trek on dvd. Cant take that away from me.
I was so disappointed when the HD remasters stopped. I snapped up TOS, Animated, TNG, and all the movies on Blu-ray (replacing DVDs in the case of the movies and TNG) despite them being available on Netflix at the time. I was really looking forward to catching up with DS9 and Voyager the same way since I was only able to catch them sporadically when they were airing… but no, it seems these are doomed to remain in SD purgatory.
There is a group has who completed an upscaling remaster of DS9. It’s very very well done (though could be better with better source material from the producers).
They are working on Voyager now that DS9 is done. They’ve completed season 1 of voyager so far.
Thanks, I’ll have to keep that in mind. We just started season 5 of TNG so it shouldn’t be too much longer before DS9 is up.
If there a way to download that version?
They have instructions in Discord (https://discord.gg/qceXKtsM)
Im a special case. I do retro gaming so I still have a classic tube TV. SD content looks amazing when viewed on a CRT. I had to housesit for Someone and brought my TNG set only to be shocked at how terrible it looked on their 55" LCD.
I’ve also hung onto my old CRT (and consoles, players, etc.), I just haven’t had anywhere to hook it up for the past decade plus. My Blu-ray player does a pretty good job at upscaling, but you’re right - SD is going to look a lot better on the originally targeted hardware.
It’s odd that people are against monopolies, generally speaking, but for streaming services we would prefer if there were a few giant companies which owned it all.
I’m not disagreeing with the above, just thought it was curious.
Compare Movie/TV-show streaming to the Music streaming industry. Spotify/Tidal/Apple/Amazon all offer access to the same music (more or less). They compete on features/quality/apps/prices/etc. They don’t compete based on their exclusive libraries. Somehow the music industry can survive in that model. Video streaming needs to do the same. Stop the exclusivity. This way, monopolies are not needed in video streaming.
People aren’t clamoring for a monopoly, they are asking for interoperability. I didn’t need a single VHS rental store to be the only place I could get Ernest Scared Stupid, but I did need to be able to get Ernest Goes to Jail at every VHS rental store.
I’m clamoring for more miak.
A mother’s love
All we’d really need to do that is just make it a law that contracts aren’t exclusive.
If shows were sold to multiple streaming services legally, then those services would compete based on the actual service they offer, and not the content they have.
In other words, make streaming services the customers for shows, instead of individuals, and then let people be their customers.
As it is, a streaming service is pretty comparable to a car dealership.
That’s not all we’d need to do though. Too many cases of the content rights holders also owning a streaming service means they’d just not sign any contracts. Disney, paramount, NBC, hell even Netflix owns content. We need to also break up so that right holders can’t also control the means of distribution.
No, my problem is that we have this system where each piece of content is its own monopoly. That exclusivity means that people need to use a specific service to access that content.
The whole “I wish it was all on one platform” isn’t really wishing for only a single platform to exist, but wishing that one platform could host all of the content. Ideally, there would be multiple ones doing this and differentiating themselves from each other in some way and, well, competing on their platform itself rather than “I paid a bunch of money so that you have to come here if you want to see anything Marvel.”
I think two or three viable platforms was kind of the sweet spot. It’s not all dominated by one, but I also don’t have to shop around and subscribe to five different things if I want to get what I want legally. But you’re right that it’s a sticky issue that just doesn’t seem to have a good answer.
The solution is mandatory licensing at fixed rates for media that is no longer under production. Make it so the only way to have exclusive content is to commit to continuing that content.
So you’re saying you want a media company that has a monopoly?
I mean, that’s a kind of shitty take. The point they’re making, that IP hoarding is making streaming fuck awful, is correct. They had a time in the recent past where that wasn’t the case and were trying to make an argument for why that should be again.
Content being centralized doesn’t require a monopoly, it requires the separation between streaming services and IP creators (like early Netflix). That would disincentivize the IP hoarding without requiring a monopoly.
Ya know, like movie theaters or video rental stores (when those existed). By allowing for vertical integration, you get Disney Movie Theaters, which only show Disney movies, and that blows (which is why any IP streaming service blows). Movie theaters, instead, show every movie coming out right now and that’s how streaming services should be. That way, the only way to compete is with app quality and price. Ya know, things customers actually give a fuck about.
I understand that the first person didn’t want a media monopoly, but your explanation and examples with movie theaters and rental stores really made the difference clear.
Streaming services should compete on quality of the platform, pricing and features, not exclusives. If every tv series and movie were available on every platforms, prices would drop and quality would increase, as the platforms try and be the best, it’s the contrary of monopoly because people can freely choose. Now they don’t care about being the best, they try and get exclusive rights for something you like watching so you have no other (legal) way to do it, right now it’s already a monopoly, a segregated one, but still a monopoly, because you have no choice.
Why on earth would capitalist companies do that though? That would guarantee most companies would not realize shareholder value.
Who gives a shit what they do? Piracy has never been easier or better than it is right now. Instead of being annoyed at their stupidity start teaching people you know how to use vpns and torrents.
Media companies used to be terrified of torrents. Now they don’t care anymore. It would nice to get that back
How much money does Netflix spend on trash series just to hope to get some exclusive? And how much money does Paramount+ spend on a broken platform full of issues?
Maybe if netflix spent those money on acquiring more IP, and producers like Paramount gave their IP to different streaming, they would make more money? I don’t have an answer to this question because it’s of course very complicated, what I’m saying is it doesn’t have to be like this.
How platforms are now is after a continuous growth over half a decade, it’s probably not sistainable to keep the same price with the same business model, so somwthing will have to change eventually
I’m not criticizing your rationale or anything. I’m just trying to get across how far from what you think things “should” be like and how they really are.
Imagine the infuriating arguments you have with boomer/geriatric family at Thanksgiving. except they’re in charge and have all the money and you’re constantly fighting their shortsighted thinking, racist bias, greed and ignorance…
That’s how decisions are made for these platforms.
We’re absolutely going ro see more and more ads on for-pay platforms because one of these geriatric greed monsters saw that another of their cohort made their hoard bigger last quarter so now they want that. Like a toddler who failed the marshmallow test. They don’t about your arguments. They have all the money so their clearly know much more than you.
I certainly won’t claim special insider knowledge as some anon on the Internet… but if you knew someone in the Industry you’d get similar stories.
If content is being streamed commercially, any other commercial streamer should be allowed to stream it for a fixed royalty. Every streaming service should have all publicly available content that they want to stream, and they should compete on quality of service and price.
they should compete on quality of service and price
But they don’t, they compete on “exclusives” to their platforms. Thus increasing the fragmentation in the market and exacerbating the end user. We’re basically back to the days of cable…
But innovation is haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrdddd…
What did they do?
Paramount removed all the Star Trek movies from their own streaming service, and gave them to HBO MAX. They have always billed their streaming service as “All things trek”, but now they don’t allow you to stream their own properties on their own streaming service.
That and hiking their prices like the rest of the streaming services while having a fraction of the new content.
War is peace
Freedom is slavery
Ignorance is strength
Pay more for getting lessit’s like 5.99 to watch 45 minute shows with 5+ 120 second ad breaks. I instantly canceled and went an alternate route
deleted by creator
I pay the higher rate for “ad free”, but now I see ads before starting programs. Quite irritating. I assume if I read the fine print, I’ll find that “ad free” changed at some point along the line to “fuck you, we’re showing ads and you’ll like it”.
We also have numerous issues with the Paramount+ app on our FireTV - frequent crashes, trouble starting playback, and other things. It’s by far the buggiest app we use.
I grew up with ads on TV and I stopped watching TV when I grew older. We have cable subscription now as a package for our internet, but it is not even connected. I own a TV but I only stream.
I cut the cord so I wouldn’t have to watch commercials and there is no way in hell I am ever going back to them. And if they start having ads on all the services, I guess there will be a lot more piracy.
They lie also. Adds Ghosts UK and says all seasons now streaming…shows 2 out of the 5 added
Ghosts is such a great show. I didn’t even want to watch the US version because I didn’t want to know how they ruined it.
I tried the first episode of the US version after watching the 2 UK seasons on the app. I was like nope. Everything about it felt worse.
If you finish the UK show and want more, the same people behind it made a comedy fantasy show called Yonderland. It has most of the same cast (although some of them are just doing voices because there are puppets).
Jesus… Well time to get out the Bat’leths.
Time to take up the life of an Orion Pirate
Ok, I have to ask. Wtf?
gestures vaguely
That’s a pretty good summary, thank you.
LOL
This is why I have a media server.
Paramount+ is such hot trash. I tried a free trial after Amazon Prime went apeshit with ads one day as I was finishing up DS9. The app kept crashing my FireTV, wouldn’t play, would randomly change languages and the only solution was to “keep going back seasons and episodes until you find one in your preferred language and then just fast forward until the episode you want.” I had to go back 3.5 seasons - I don’t got time for that shit.
They asked me to complete a survey when I canceled the trial after 35 minutes. I was… not polite. I may have suggested that any programmers guilty of releasing code so incredibly damaged into a production environment should commit seppuku.
I may have suggested that any programmers guilty of releasing code so incredibly damaged into a production environment should commit seppuku.
To be honest, my anecdotal experience is that any feedback with this sort of nonsense is removed from the data set. It’s pretty easy to spot and right or wrong, it would be considered noise or an outlier at best.
I’m certain it didn’t get read, just as I’m certain any negative feedback gets similarly binned. It was far more catharsis for me than any misguided belief that anyone would see or even (lol) act to make their product better.
That’s why you should throw in only one or two snide remarks (suggesting commit seppuku) to ensure that you provide them professional criticism that makes it past the filters to a human, and then carefully insult the human.
Fwiw we have a feature that lets people type out a message on our website and it shows up immediately and directly in our slack channel. I work for a major tech company you’ve for sure heard of
deleted by creator
Unhelpful or unconstructive feedback? That is almost always filtered out before it ever sees the eyes of anybody important or anybody that could do anything about it.
Negative feedback, but which is actionable or actually insightful? More often that not (again in my anecdotal experience), that’s actually given some weight.
If you believe that, I have some bridges to sell you.
Their app is really the worst I’ve seen. Not only is as buggy as you say, some months ago they added a circle in every episode for the age rating, and when you pause the circles in inscribed in a black square. They cannot even implement transparency on their menu lol. This is not a lack of resources or funding, it’s just plain incompetence. I only have it because paramount+ is freely included in another subscription and it’s the only place I could fins nutrek, otherwise I wouldn’t give it a cent.
What did they do this time?
- Removed the Star Trek movies and Prodigy
- Went from 30 second to 60 second unstoppable ads on a paid platform
- Have different UI controls between different programs on the same platform
- For some reason their app continually turns off captions on DS9 between episodes and puts the language selection in a different order randomly
Those are just the ones off the top of my head
When did the ads thing happen? I have not experienced this.
It happened to me two nights ago. Normally you get that 30 second ad and you can click back then on the show again to skip. This time it was 60, then when I clicked back and on the episode again, it went to a 30 second ad, then I clicked back again and it started the show.
I had no idea there were ads on that platform. Is there a free version or something?
They are their own ads, or I guess previews. It’s just annoying that there is no skip button.
Ah ok I gotcha. They’re all skipable for me and only play at the beginning of a show maybe 9 out of 10 times.
Exist.
Spin up a jellyfin server, obtain the movies, copy to jellyfin.
Problem solved
Way ahead of you…
Does Jellyfin support audiobooks? Perhaps that is just categorized as music.
it supports books outside of music, but if you want it to work like an elibrary with books and audiobooks, apparently it’s a bit finicky. I also saw something called audiobookshelf which specializes in ebooks and podcasts
audiobookshelf
I should look into that. Thanks
Finished setup Jellyfin on a home server. roku, apple tv, and devices with swiftfin. was using plex, but they are going for the streaming profit model hard and probably worse than that soon. managed to find the TOS and TNG 4K remastered movies on usenet. hard drives are cheap and my ethernet is fast enough for 4k. whoo hooo…I mean, Arrrrrr!
QI’yaH, QI’yaH!
I pretty much have to. Paramount+ never actually works whenever I have had a free trial. If they expect me to pay for something that doesn’t even work, they’re outta their fuckin’ mind.
There are lovely 4k blurays of all the movies.
People still stream considering how insane the whole ecosystem is?
This reminds me I need to catch up on Star Trek, while avoiding the 14 trackers in the app.
I’m sure I’ll find a perfectly legal way to do so. Arrr.
Edit: I haven’t shopped Trek DVDs in awhile, but I will look there first. It remains to be seen if my DVD backups skills can provide the same level of quality and service as the high seas, but I’ll give it a go.
When trek dvds were super cheap, my family had Good Netflix (RIP) so they “didn’t need” to get the dvds.
Now the dvds are expensive again and streaming is shit.
My hat and hook sre in storage somewhere but I’m looking for some dust rags to clean them up.
