Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/06/08/competing-with-free.html
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I subscribe to 3 major movie streaming services. When I want to watch a movie, I check all 3 and when they don’t have it I search for a free streaming online version. When that fails, well… what other options do I have?
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Makes sense. I think the so-called anti"piracy" effort is squarely targeted at the folks who are making a mockery of the artificial scarcity media vendors are trying for now that pervasive broadband has nearly eliminated any real scarcity.
Read a book? Go outside and invent your own wushu?
Just spitballing here of course. 
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what other options do I have… if I want to see that movie…
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*whiny voice* But you’re being entitled! /s
You could pay for it?
The point is that I’m trying to pay for it but no one is offering it for sale which is the point of this article as well.
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A survey? sooo, people responding to a piracy survey put out by an anti-piracy group claim they wouldn’t have pirated except they forced to? I don’t necessarily doubt that this could be true, and DRM and anti-piracy are bullshit draconian enterprises, but this methodology is hardly going to convince anyone… Anyone doing shady or for profit copying is definitely dark web savvy enough not to answer a survey about it. If this firm specializes in surveillance why don’t the show hard numbers on user activity?
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I don’t copy stuff without permission (I hate the misuse of the word “piracy” so I avoid it) because it would be a bad career move (I do high tech).
But as far as I know, there’s no legal way to get a fan-edited version of Jackson’s “The Hobbit” that’s been cut down to remove all the nauseatingly self-indulgent garbage PJ inflicted on Tolkien’s tale… I’m pretty sure there’s other stuff I’d really like to see that you can’t get legally for any sane amount of money.
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I mean morally all you’d have to do is buy all the movies, then I would easily be able to square it with the most strict version of my conscience (the less strict versions of my conscience have magnificent ways of rationalizing paying a lot less for big blockbusters).
Morally right is of course not the same as legally right.
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I’ve replaced 99% of my pirating for the streaming content online. But since I live in Canada, I have no qualms with HBO specifically being pirated. They virtually don’t exist online in Canada, you’d have to subscribe to a cable service to access content online, and 3rd party services were a no-go as well. So until they resolve that, fuck HBO.
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It has certainly gotten better but there are still rather infuriating moments where after spending 30-60 minutes trying to give someone money for content I can illegally download it in under 5. It’s also usually faster (download speed) to illegally download than legally. BitTorrent can be remarkably fast.
For me though the birth of my son has moved us from “let’s watch movie now” to “someday we should watch movie.” That’s given me time to physically buy content not available legally online.
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Just to be clear, most of the common free streaming sites are still piracy. It just doesn’t feel like piracy.
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The way Canadians explained it to me the last few times I visisted, it’s not piracy in Canada because it’s already been paid for by the media tax. You’re just finding a way to get access content you effectively already paid for as a society.
Is that about right?
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You said, in your original post, that you check the three subscription services that you pay for and for free online streaming and if that fails that you don’t feel you have other options. Maybe I skipped something I could have been reading but it rather seems like that doesn’t exactly meet most people’s definitions of exhausting all options.
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I do have some sympathy with this situation. Or the silo-locked circumstance where something is only available by subscribing to some massive service. Less so when the choice is between spending some money to buy a copy compared to downloading it illegally.
Muso, a terrestrial subsidiary of the Maximegalon Institute of Slowly and Painfully Working Out the Surprisingly Obvious.
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Yeah, me too - but you know, from there it’s a pretty slippery slope.
Once you can be hung for stealing a lamb, a lot of people are going to be annoyed enough with the rich laird to be willing to steal one of his sheep. The penalty’s the same and the offended party is an evil wart on existence anyway…
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Lucky for me I still have a very independent and amazing video store in the neighborhood (Casa Video in Tucson AZ) that carry everything. I think the one thing that I couldn’t find was some animated movie that, it turned out, someone had stolen.
That said, I’ve been ganked by developers that wanted me to pay full price for plugin software upgrades after I had already paid full price for my original versions. I even talked to them over the phone (this was 20 years ago). I was trying to be legit and do the right thing but they were making it impossible for me. Literally it took less than a minute to find and download not only my original plugin upgrades but their entire catalogue. I felt fully justified.
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