More Unblocking Companies Give Up Their Fight Against Netflix (techspot.com) 213
Earlier this year, Netflix announced it was going to block the VPN services that were circumventing the streaming service's geoblocking technology, and it seems in the months since many of the top VPN players have given up on finding ways to workaround Netflix's block tech. From a report on TechSpot (condensed): Australian company uFlix discovered that some of its users could no longer access Netflix. It said that a fix was coming soon, but, uFlix announced recently in a recent blog post that it has given up the fight. "As of today we are going to stop supporting Netflix as an unblocked channel. Unfortunately every time we set up a new network or find a workaround it is getting blocked within hours." Uflix isn't the only service to throw in the towel -- most of the other unblockers have quietly decided to stop trying to evade Netflix's geoblocks, as more customers complain they can no longer watch the streaming site. Popular VPN TorGuard had assured customers that the crackdown wouldn't affect them. But there is no mention of Netflix on TorGuard's website, and its shared Netflix server was taken offline four months ago.
Y'all know what you need to do (Score:5, Interesting)
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Contact Netflix and tell them you are cancelling your subscription due to this action on their part. That's really the only leverage you have over them. It is not in the customer's interest that they are doing this.
This. I'll do it right after I finish catching up on Luke Cage.
Re:Y'all know what you need to do (Score:5, Insightful)
And what do you expect them to do?
It's not Netflix' choice, it's their content providers requiring them to do this.
Re:Y'all know what you need to do (Score:5, Insightful)
And what do you expect them to do?
It's not Netflix' choice, it's their content providers requiring them to do this.
I'm not sure what I expect them to do. But the bottom line is cancelling one's service is the only real leverage one has over a company. You can complain, and they might listen. But at the end of the day if their product does not meet your needs, stop buying the product.
I know they have agreements with the content owners, but that is not my problem. I didn't negotiate those agreements. My problem (if I traveled outside the US much) is that I can't see the programs or movies that I want and paid for. If their licensing agreements become unprofitable because of lost business, Netflix will have to renegotiate or stop carrying that content. If they can absorb the loss of revenue but still maintain an acceptable profit, they will continue as usual. But all I can do is buy their service or not.
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It's not Netflix' choice, it's their content providers requiring them to do this.
Netflix keeps dumping third-party content in favor of its own self-produced stuff. So it's making less and less sense for people defending Netflix to keep playing that "it's not their fault, they have no choice" card.
If they can determine that quickly which people are using a vpn service, they can certainly choose to offer some limited set of stuff to those customers. Incidentally, it'd also be a good bellwether regarding whether any significant number of people actually care about the self-produced conten
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You don't seem to know what you're talking about. People are using VPNs to circumvent the blocking of content based on location. Netflix's original content is already available everywhere, they don't restrict it by location, so your first statement is just nonsense, the content the control is not the content being blocked. As for allowing them some limited service when they're on a VPN, you are describing what is available if they stop using a VPN to circumvent the geoblocking. Doesn't take a "Netflix emplo
Re:Y'all know what you need to do (Score:5, Informative)
Unlike Amazon, all the content Netflix produces is available everywhere that Netflix has service. So you don't need a VPN to access Netflix-produced content. At all.
And Netflix has service practically everywhere.
So the only reason you use a VPN is it access content on another Netflix in another country, as Netflix just checks where you're logging in from to determine your content. So if you travel to the US, you get to see the entire US catalog while you're there, even if you have a Canadian Netflix account.
So yes, it's the content provider's fault. In Canada, you cannot legally stream The Simpons, because Fox has given all North American streaming rights to FXX. Which doesn't serve Canada at all. So once it airs, it's one. None of the legal Canadian streaming services, free or otherwise, carry it. So if you miss the broadcast, tough luck, you have to pirate it.
I will give you three guesses... (Score:3)
...where people will go when they cannot access their desired content through approved channels.
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T?
P?
B?
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If the content providers find their financial arrangements with Netflix agreeable, then perhaps this move would give Netflix a little bit of leverage. Ultimately, should Netflix continue to create original content, they could ultimately tell their content providers to shove off.
Re: Y'all know what you need to do (Score:5, Insightful)
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This is probably one of the driving forces behind their shift towards original content.
Which they also geolock. The last season of House of Cards appeared on US Netflix weeks and weeks before it aired locally. I pay for Netflix, but I still ended up looking on Torrent sites to watch their content without waiting.
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On the other hand, it probably doesn't look good from a legal perspective if you signed a contract with your content providers to stop people from watching from other regions, and then you didn't do due diligence to enforce it, had you agreed to do that.
I was hopeful that Netflix wouldn't really work that hard to enforce this, but it seems that they have. If they are being contractually compelled to do this, and they have agreed to enforce it, then it would be a bad idea to not really do it.
It is likely be
Re:Y'all know what you need to do (Score:4, Insightful)
Great news! Piracy always works. (Score:5, Insightful)
As a bonus, the VPN does a great job of neutering threats.
I pay Netflix because I hate the media companies. Netflix will win.
Netflix is not the enemy. The rent-seeking copyright holders are; so hit them where it hurts.
If they don't want my money.. the Torrents doth provide.
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Piracy is very reliable indeed! I never switched from Piracy and as such, have never suffered any kind of geoblock or service outage. Also, Piracy lets you save shows (in fact it usually saves them by default), and viewing is completely device-agnostic, so it even works on my weird old GNU/Linux phone! I've never needed any other service than Piracy and have no plans to switch.
The verb? (Score:4, Funny)
many of the top VPN players have given up on finding ways to Netflix's block tech.
Maybe they could try to accidentally Netflix's block tech.
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Sounds like you even it too. I didn't....
Technology (Score:2)
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Plus they already know which accounts have used VPNs in the past and are likely to do so in the future. "Oh, 4 accounts that have used VPNs have just shown up on this previously-unseen IP range".
I haven't really understood why they don't just say that your subscription fee only covers the region in which you subscribe. Then they'd at least get double the subscription fee from someone who uses it in their own country + another country.
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I haven't really understood why they don't just say that your subscription fee only covers the region in which you subscribe. Then they'd at least get double the subscription fee from someone who uses it in their own country + another country.
That would be rather annoying for people who travel a lot, but Netflix could do something related. They could lock the content to the home address you have given them for payment. Then you can watch from anywhere in the world but your content is locked to your home country.
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That's what spotify do. I'm not sure i've heard of a lot of people seeking out US spotify accounts so they can access american music overseas - but maybe it does happen.
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If they're using TCP you can look at how long it takes to get an ACK from data send, basically a TCP ping. If it's outside of a certain range, it's probably on a VPN
Anything over 50ms? Flag. Multiple connections? Flag Multiple accounts, same IP address? Flag
The only way I can think of getting around this is to use your own host and use something like a VPN and TOFFEE.
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If they're using TCP you can look at how long it takes to get an ACK from data send, basically a TCP ping. If it's outside of a certain range, it's probably on a VPN
Central and south Texas have a lot of Wireless ISPs to cover the vast regions of nothing... OK bandwidth, but very bad latency. Sometimes 100ms.
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It's not really that simple. I tried setting up a VPN using a basic Amazon EC2 machine. When I first tried it, I was able to watch US Netflix. The second time I attemped to use this method it ended up blocking me. My AWS machine did switch IPs in the interim, as I had stopped it and restarted it, so it may have just picked up an IP that was already banned, but I think they are doing a lot more than just checking how many people are using a particular IP address otherwise they may end up doing things like
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I am sure it is simply whack-a-mole, but they have a dedicated team for it and there are only so many VPN providers of a scale that matter...
I am sure that a single person could easily handle monitoring of dozens of VPN providers.
So next year... (Score:5, Insightful)
So next year we'll be seeing the stats that piracy is increasing again since hollywood and so on decided that region locking was a really good idea. I know of quite a few people here in Canada who've simply cancelled their netflix subs, kept the VPN and now pirate everything like they did a few years ago.
Re:So next year... (Score:4, Informative)
Indeed.
Region Lock == Price Fixing
_Why_ does it matter _where_ I buy the movie from??
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But but but price fixing is illegal! unless it's gas prices. Or propane prices. Or food prices. Or... hmm...
You know.... (Score:2)
Time for the average folks (Score:2)
To start running OpenVPN and letting anyone they know personally abroad connect in and view the content they want. My connection should be able to handle 2 or 3 more regular HD Netflix streams in and out. They block my IP? Big deal, I can convince the ISP's DHCP server to assign me a new one. Once they've blocked enough dynamic residential IPs to piss everyone off, they'll most likely just give up.
It's easy to play whack-a-mole when there are only a handful of very visible moles. Put millions of them underg
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To start running OpenVPN and letting anyone they know personally abroad connect in and view the content they want. My connection should be able to handle 2 or 3 more regular HD Netflix streams in and out. They block my IP? Big deal, I can convince the ISP's DHCP server to assign me a new one. Once they've blocked enough dynamic residential IPs to piss everyone off, they'll most likely just give up.
It's easy to play whack-a-mole when there are only a handful of very visible moles. Put millions of them underground and see how much effort the rent-seekers are willing to spend on blocking.
1) Securing your own network from a foreigner connecting to it would be a pain.
2) Data caps in the US make this untenable.
3) Why should US citizens pay so that foreigners can watch our videos? Shouldn't you just unsub from Netflix and let them know why?
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I mean for friends and family abroad, not random foreigners. Why? As both a friendly gesture to them, and a middle finger to the rent-seekers, that's why. I'm personally not affected by a cap, so that part's no big deal, and I can handle securing the network.
Although I agree, unsubbing sounds great in practice, and I'd absolutely do it in a heartbeat (Cable TV, too), except the whole family would have me strung up in the back yard about 5 minutes after I do it. I've found most people under the age of 30 in
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> Why should US citizens pay so that foreigners can watch our videos? Shouldn't you just unsub from Netflix and let them know why?
You realise this goes two-ways, right? There is a lot of content geo-blocked to people in the US as well (especially in Canada). And what does citizenship have to do with this? It only matters *where* the endpoint of the internet connection is, it has nothing to do with the nationality of the user paying for that connection. U.S. Americans travelling abroad should be able
So piracy goes up, I guess (Score:2)
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The problem with pirating is you have to be pretty technical to not only find and download your copies but also savvy enough to avoid malware. How many times will a non-techy have to be burned by a pwnd system that they have to then spend hundreds on either repairing or replacing before they decide that it isn't worth the risk? I am guessing once.
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The bar for malware is:
- User must be savvy enough to install torrent software and know about torrent sites
- User must be savvy enough to install a video player which can playback files
- User must be non-savvy enough to click on torrents that have executables instead of movie files
I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but unless instructed extremely bad by those helping you set this stuff up, the surface area for malware is lower than you make it out to be.
This to verify when using ANY l
Car analogy (Score:2)
Geo-blocking movies is like geo-blocking automobiles, and it makes about as much sense. Can you imagine a car dealer or rental agency telling you "sorry, your car won't work in the following geographic areas"? Geo-blocking is all about artificial scarcity, and if it was being done between US states it might even be treated as collusion. But since it's an international thing, the law says it's OK. Movie watchers beg to differ.
Thanks to the Internet, the world is now a very small place; when a movie is releas
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No, cars are almost universally 'geoblocked' because of safety standards and tariffs. There's little of artificial scarcity in play here. I've had many friends import their cars from around the world for one reason or another, but they've largely been able to do so after paying up the nose and having the cars' safety/regulatory features brought to spec.
Example: Canada requires daytime running lights. Every car, basically no exceptions(?). We don't stop all Americans from driving their non-daylight-running-l
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If you are Canadian, YOU are an American. Stop trying to pretend like you're this magical "other". It's a huge continent, and we're all in this together. I'm not defending the United States' absurd lack of regulation, nor our many idiot residents that can't be bothered to use things like seat belts--that is truly astounding in this day and age. I just get sick of stuck-up Canadians, Mexicans, Brazilians, etc. pretending that they aren't Americans just as much as we are.
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The United States propaganda machine has worked it magic on me too well. When I hear 'America' now, I infer hearing the United States of America. Though technically true that we're all residents of the two America continents, the 'word usage' for this word is far too muddy to be used without confusion. Apologies.
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Don't use it (Score:2)
I cancelled months ago (Score:2)
I want to enjoy television, but all of this walled garden crap has to end. There are more content providers producing original content which require me to subscribe to multiple services which I don't have money for or time to enjoy.
The only thing I currently have is Amazon Prime and the only reason I have it is because I get other Amazon services for free. I could care less about their selection although it is improving. I am not going to subscribe to any of these services and while I am falling behind o
And as I user I finally gave up Netflix. (Score:2)
As an European, when my VPN finally failed a few months ago, I simply cancelled Netflix.
Since then, I've spent the same level of money I used to pour into Netflix + VPN to buy Blu-Rays of recent good movies (a pretty rare occurrence per year, given the abysmal quality of movies). On the whole, I'm pretty happy with the change.
As for TV series, it's not like if there were many "The Shield", "Breaking bad" or other gems of that level around, so I expect the investment to be pretty low.
In the end it's a win,
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So basically, you are just continuing to *support* the media companies that force Netflix to implement these draconian measures. Congratulations.
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Why, thank you. But your conclusions are a bit hasty. You are presuming both to know the media companies that are pushing this, and that the movies I like are made by them.
Instead of paying a fee for a global heap of crap, I only pay for the few select ones that are worth it.
So you could say now I only support the select few good quality products, which is largely deserved.
the answer is simple (Score:2)
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"Your" advice has already been put in practice by lots of people for many years now.
TVs are selling brain availability to announcers. Like for facebook, the viewer is the product.
To escape advertising, many people have simply cut themselves from TV (as well as "people" crap etc)
Recently, TV has been in decline (I'm not sure if it covers my area, or the whole world) as the "younger" generation increasingly sees no interest in a non-interactive media.
Net Neutrality (Score:2)
So much for trying to play by the rules... (Score:3)
These customers were trying to actually *pay* for the content they wanted, as opposed to just pirating it, and still the asshole executives stuck in the 20th century insist on trying to block it. This is so incredibly disappointing. Surely we can continue to band together to oppose these absurd geo-restrictions. I have no doubt that the people at Netflix are very talented and will continue figuring out ways to stop it, but we have the numbers behind us. If media companies want to prevent piracy, they need to stop trying to control how and where we can access the media we have voluntarily chosen to pay for. They need to start treating us like actual *customers* instead of fighting us like the enemy.
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Netflix Against Linux (Score:2)
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Blame the music industry! (Score:2)
One more thing... Much of the need for these pathetic geo-restrictions is actually the *music* industry, funnily enough. Because they sell distribution rights to copyrighted music to a different companies in every country, licensing a work for streaming in one country requires a whole different set of agreements than in another country. I believe this is why, even if a content provider like the BBC wants to make its content available everywhere, they can't until they've secured the rights for every song
Re: You gotta fight for your right to (Score:2, Flamebait)
It is less about fighting the right to access Netflix and more about being able to access an equivalent service, providing content to your region. In many regions either a particular movie/series is not available or there is no suitable legal way to watch any recent content.
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I've found that most of the better stuff from Netflix is available by torrent. I guess people need to stop paying netflix and head off to the pirate bay. If they don't want your money then stop paying them.
Re: You gotta fight for your right to (Score:2, Insightful)
Do people understand that it is a product of whether Netflix wants to or even can buy the rights to a show in a particular reason. I find it hard to believe they are in the business of pissing off customers intentionally.
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Who cares whether or not it's up to Netflix? If the content's not legally available, it's certainly still available.
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Netflix could buy the rights for any show in any area. They just choose not to.
Although this is somewhat true, the problem is likely price. At $8/month they are operating at similar prices to HBO but possibly because it is on demand have to actually pay more per title so they are more just a channel that happens to be on demand. Just like a buffet is "all you can eat", very few have the most expensive entries and the ones that do charge alot more than the ones that stick to cheaper items.
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Not true. I certain areas, broadcasting rights probably already belong to someone else.
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Actually, they can't when somebody else already owns exclusive distribution rights in a region, which is hardly uncommon.
Re: You gotta fight for your right to (Score:4, Informative)
Netflix could buy the rights for any show in any area. They just choose not to.
This isn't true at all. A lot of content has existing distribution deals in different regions, some of these may go back decades. Others are new deals but they can be in place before Netflix even has a chance to buy the content (bundled with broadcast rights to local TV networks, for example). I'm sure there is some content they could but chose not to buy the rights to in specific reasons, but it's definitely not "any show in any area".
Re: You gotta fight for your right to (Score:5, Informative)
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You have a good point. Well over 90 percent of it isn't worth the bandwidth. Free is still more than it's worth.
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I agree with this. I was viewing US content through a Socks5 proxy through a VPS I was renting for other purposes. I am the only person who would be using that proxy and it has been blocked. Really I am fine with it, I just don't have the time or energy to figure out another workaround. Once I have nothing left to watch in my geo area I will just discontinue netflix. Simple as that.
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Hard to believe Netflix would cut off its nose to spite its face.
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> You do understand that Netflix isn't cutting off its legitimate customers right ?
Incorrect.
When I go to visit my parent's in Canada I can't watch my Netflix due to bullshit geo-ip licensing blocking half of the shows.
I'm paying for the dam service-- WHY does it matter WHERE I stream it from ???
Re: You gotta fight for your right to (Score:5, Informative)
Because the people that made the content signed a deal with a distributor in Canada saying that nobody in canada (including you) may view the content unless it's being broadcast or streamed by them. You really want to be blaming the people making the content for signing those deals.
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Netflix already knows my zip code from my billing address -- it doesn't _need_ to know which region my IP is in.
This is myopic stupidity.
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This and they also track views and presumably pay for content via the amount of views. If they are having very few legitimate views (or conversely a ton of illegitimate views) from a particular country then it could possible affect their negotiations.
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Malicious compliance would hurt Netflix far more than it hurts their content suppliers. After all, the whole point of geoblocking is to protect the content suppliers' ability to sell content to whatever entity is willing to spend the most money in a particular region. Zealously enforcing this wouldn't devalue their content nearly as much as it devalues Netflix.
Not really. It is true that it may hurt netflix in the short term, but it will hurt the content providers more in the longer game. Furthermore, it may actually get it through the content providers heads that blocking off a large portion of their profits is a Bad Thing when their revenues fall drastically; the single markets they think they want can't support the level of profits they have been previously making.
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You could focus your blame on the studios who publish the shows and not on netflix that is trying to broadcast them following the rules.
Because when the company follows the rules Netflix doesn't become Napster which took little to no concerns of the other companies IP rights. We may not like the current IP law. However if you are going to work with them you are going to be better off in the long run than if you don't.
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Then start a company to provide it.. or pay for companies that provide at least some of what you want, and convince them to provide more of it.
Couldn't Netflix go against these VPN companies legally? (Especially in a country like Australia..)
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The only reason I got Netflix in the first place was because I got Unblock.US at the same time.
I was slowly working my way through all the original Twilight Zone series, when suddenly I couldn't get it anymore. Not available in Canada. Now the available selection is crap again. Even the US selection had a hell of a lot of B-movie filler.
I would totally cancel it now, and tell them exactly why, except unfortunately my kids still find plenty to watch. So I can't.
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If the light bulb burns out, do you switch to a candle-based library?
Re:Welp, back to pirating (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup, because you're entitled to someone else's work.
Typical thief.
Thief - Someone who makes a copy of something that someone won't sell to them.
Is that how you're defining it now. Piracy has never, ever been thievery, at least since you stopped needing a boat and an eye patch anyway.
Plenty of people went to netflix from the piratebay because it had all the content they wanted for one price. Was easy, convenient and fair. Yet with every step they erode that deal, one could say it's getting worse all the time. It might be ok in America where you have all the good content but try look out side where they charge more and give less. Australia gets a particularly raw deal as I understand it.
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I think piracy is theft. It's not the content that's being stolen, it's the forgone revenue that is being stolen.
I certainly am no fan of the current copyright enforcement regime, but I do think that content creators and owners should be able to control the terms by which their works can be obtained. The market will sort out those who over-charge, but piracy distorts the market and hurts all content-creators.
Re:Welp, back to pirating (Score:5, Informative)
Theft, in law, a general term covering a variety of specific types of stealing, including the crimes of larceny, robbery, and burglary. Theft is defined as the physical removal of an object that is capable of being stolen without the consent of the owner and with the intention of depriving the owner of it permanently.
theft | law | Britannica.com
https://www.britannica.com/top... [britannica.com]
We have a word for copying something. "copying". We have a term for doing it without the legal permission to do so "copyright infringement". Theft is a very different crime which is in no way related to copyright infringement in any way.
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What value does all this semantics bring?
Whether its "theft" or "copyright infringement" or "something else"; its illegal, Maybe it should or shouldn't be illegal, but it currently is in pretty much every country on the planet.
Re:Welp, back to pirating (Score:5, Insightful)
Well why don't we call it "murder" or "rape" while we're at it? They are also illegal, if that's what we're doing, lumping all illegal acts in together?
Why don't we call it jaywalking instead? Also illegal. But doesn't fit the narrative the studio's want to portray of it being a heinous act.
The point is that by conflating one crime with another you push an obvious agenda to try to make it seem more serious than it is.
Words do matter. And you can't have an honest discussion about a subject while using dishonest or misleading terminology.
Re:Welp, back to pirating (Score:5, Insightful)
No, "copyright infringement" doesn't "murky the waters" it describes EXACTLY What is happening. the only ones trying to "murky the waters" are those calling it Theft when it doesn't meet even the most basic definitions of such.
It's precisely because people know that theft is wrong, and understand WHY it is wrong (depriving someone of their property) that it is extremely dishonest to call copyright infringement theft. When talking to non-technical people, you don't need to come up with a completely unrelated example. Talk to them about photocopying books, they're all familiar with that, and it's exactly the same thing. Trying to pretend it's different is extremely dishonest.
I'm not getting in to value judgement of whether copyright infringement is right or wrong, but you can't have an honest discussion about it when you intentionally try to prey on people's feelings in regards to a completely different issue to cause them to feel that same way about this one.
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smooth wombat doing the literal definition of "Thief", stealth_finger the legal definition of "Thief".
It's grammatically correct to call the AC a thief, but not in a court of law?
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I don't think you read your own link.
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Again, I am referring up the dictionary definition of "thief", you're referring to the legal one, they are both valid given their appropriate context.
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Re: Welp, back to pirating (Score:2)
"The definition makes no distinction between tangible and intellectual property, and a thief is simply a person who steals."
Which is why, after the invention of the printing press, a new term was created for those who were given permission to steal copies of an author's work using this device, thieveryright.
Right?
Wrong. The English Language does not therefore define theft as the unauthorised copying of a work that is already being distributed (for a fee) to the public.
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Yup, because you're entitled to someone else's work.
Typical thief.
Capitalism doesn't work without scarcity. Once something can be reproduced at near-zero marginal cost, it loses value in the marketplace. That's true regardless of how much money or effort went into producing it. It's just the way the system works.
You can argue against it on moral or ethical grounds, and you'll have a good point. But really, if morality or ethics ruled the day the world would be a very different place. A technological lack of scarcity doesn't seem to be a problem for businesses when th
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hehehe, somebody doesn't understand how libraries work
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And the original person who shared the movie / book also either bought it or borrowed it from someone who did buy it as well, therefore it is no different - it's still 1 sale --> multiple viewers.
Shared movies don't just spring up out of the magic ether of the net you know...