Random Thoughts.....What Are You Thinking?

theft or no, i'd rather support the people who make the things i like. didn't always think this way, but as i get older piracy seems very selfish to me.

As all things, it's situational.

You aren't going to pay a million dollars just to play original super mario brothers.

Media is weird like that. Inability to buy reasonable physical copies means your only option is piracy.

i see your point with very old or rare things, but you can always choose to go without. nothing says you're entitled to consume everything just because it exists and you want it.

Nope. You don't have some inherent right to play any game you want to play, and if that is perceived as being violated by a publisher you get to illegally acquire a copy of the game because you feel entitled to play it.

If someone makes a game and decides to only print 5 copies of it, that doesn't give anyone the right to make copies of it.

If a company decides to charge $200 for their game, you don't have a right to download a copy of it because you don't consider it reasonable.

Here's your option if you don't like the availability or price of a game: don't play it.

I mean, the purpose of a thing is to be used.

A game only exists to be played. A movie only exists to be viewed. Food only exists to be eaten. Houses only exist to be lived in.

Unfortunately the narrative has been changed to;
The purpose of everything is to be sold. Hoarded. Collected. Resold.

In an open market the alternative needs to be better.

When pirated content comes without ads, is easier to get, can be moved without restrictions, watched anywhere without restrictions and is generally better than the sold product, guess what - it is a better product.

The fact a pirated product is superior to a paid for one means the paid for product has failed.

Can assign morality all you like, the market does not work on morals.

If purchasing something isnt ownership, then piracy isnt theft.

Everything I buy is physical copy.

Services only exist to be used, guess you get legal services, maid services, travel agents, mechanics, electricians, etc. all for free now!

I mean yeah, it's probably really hard to compete with people who steal all your work. Try to make a viable streaming service where your competition doesn't pay license fees, doesn't have to create any content, has extremely limited, if any, employees, etc.

It's a completely stupid argument. Netflix et al have ads because they have to pay for their content. You'd bet your *** if pirate bay or whatever sites were paying tens of millions for movies to be made, they'd be putting ads in their videos. This is the dumbest take I've ever seen.

Make an online platform where all your content can be downloaded and freely moved around by any customer who pays for a single month's subscription and see how much money you make. Jesus.

Literally Youtube.

Yes, the service who doesn't pay license fees for anything, has extremely limited employees, doesn't have ads, and lets you download all their content and transfer it around anywhere you please. I can't find the "download to MP4" button on my favorite YouTube video, could you let me know where it is?

Why the *** are people paying for Netflix et al then??? Netflix was ad free when it first came out.

Paid cable TV was commercial free when it was first introduced as an alternative to free over-the-air, with the payment covering ad costs. But low and behold, corporate greed kicked in and the commercial breaks showed up there too.

IDK, don't ask me, I don't subscribe to any of that ***, but honestly the answer is probably: they like what those services offer and think it's worth the amount of money they're charging. If you don't think it's worth $15 a month if you have to watch ads, don't pay for their service, you don't get to watch (whatever the hell they have on there). You don't suddenly have a right to copy/download (whatever their shows are) because you don't like their business practices. You have the right to not watch it. If you choose to download their stuff that's wrong, plain and simple. It doesn't become OK because you disagree with their advertising policy or pricing.

Sure, let's pretend it is not possible to "download" a video you are watching. Let's also pretend you are watching it without downloading it. Or any of the hundreds of addons that let you save them to disk.

Pretend you cannot listen to or watch any music video free of charge on YT while we're at it.

Let's also pretend the internet does not exist, that will fix everything.

Gamefly still does what Netflix used to be.

Rent a movie disc, make a copy on ccmputer, send a disc back. Repeat.

Install Jellyfin and make a custom library. Watch a movie anywhere.

Wait, is liking streaming media bad?

Hm? Jellyfin lets you watch a movie from your server. It can stream to any device using your server's ip address.

I went to my friends' house to watch movies from my own server many times. The custom library looks very like Netflix and any other streaming media.

You gotta d/l it first?

Yep because Jellyfin supports something like a .mp4 and .mkv unless you gotta find something to do it legally.

So it's just another Plex then?

While both are alike, there's a difference. "Licensing." Plex is a commercial product with a paid subscription model, while Jellyfin is open-source and free to use. So basically, if you want unlimited mobile streaming from your media collection, you pay Plex or just go for Jellyfin because it's free.

I don't know about any country but in the USA, there's a vending machine called RedBox. It lets you to rent a movie disc. They are mostly found at any 7-11 store.

Good morning, you baited shitposter

Dang... its the second day that I feel like there is a marble inside my cheek. It isnt that painful, but its damn annoying and ugly to be seem like this.

I suppose if by monday it doesnt get back to normal, I will need to visit a dermatology,

Ok, i finally decided my next game after a hiatus of 2 months since i stopped Palworld (only playing Age of Mythology to passtime).

Shin Megami Tensei 3 will be my first try in the series.

Ur life is about to be changed

First question was: whats your family name.

Panta doesnt have a family name. But the game insisted that I must declare one.

So Panta is now Panta Atnap

what happened to Star Ocean 3? Outrage!

The competition isn't better because they don't have to pay, it's better because it's created by developers who care about the product rather than corporate DEI idiots. Plex user experience is better than every single streaming platform, and it's not just because of ads.

I'm an example of the kind of user who doesn't mind paying for a service, but does mind the horrible UX. I'll watch the ads on prime video rather than downloading the content because it's not that big a deal to wait 40 seconds before an hour-long show.
Kindle user experience is great, so I don't download ebooks, I just pay for them. However, my gf has a crunchyroll subscription, and it's consistantly awful. Missing or out of order seasons, no subtitles or dub when they exist, straight up crashes and freezes. I find myself downloading content that we could watch legally on crunchyroll just because it's more enjoyable to watch on plex. HBO/Disney put out quality content so rarely that it's more hassle to activate the subscription, watch the content, and deactivate the subscription than it is to pirate.

Obviously, another type of pirate exists, the type who wants to save money and doesn't care about anything else. But, I don't think much can be done about that. I'm not even sure the companies want to; because keeping their media in the public eye ensures others will pay to watch it. It's certainly unethical, but it's also basically the same principle as tipping or taxation. If you go to a restaurant and give a 30% tip, you're just subsidizing the *** next to you who stiffed the waiter. The people who pay for streaming services have to pay more because pirates are not contributing. A socialist might argue that it's people who can afford it paying for people who can't, though I don't really like that.

However, for my type, all they have to do is create a better user experience. Ensure the application works correctly on every platform it's deployed on. Make it easy to cancel and reactivate your subscription from the application, or better yet, allow you to purchase a license to watch a single show instead of subscribing. Ideally, create a public API and use a standardized streaming protocol so a third party client can use an authorized account to play your content directly.

Did you region unlock DVD players when DVDs were still a thing and all the license holders decided they needed to sell the same product multiple times in different regions to make more money?

You are a pirate.

Did you record over the air broadcasts from TV onto VHS tape back in the day?

You are a pirate.

Did you record songs from radio stations onto tape/CDs?

You are a pirate.

Did you copy friend's DVDs onto identical duplicate DVDs with DVD recorders?

You are a pirate.

Did you copy music CDs into mp3s so you can listen to them wherever?

You are a pirate.

This can go on all day.

Technology always disrupts the status quo and license holders hate it because they can't fleece you for more money for the same thing anymore.

Tough luck. That's how an open market works. Compete or get left behind.

It's hilarious that consumers, used to being screwed up the backside for decades, are now crying oh the morality on behalf of the very same corporate entities that have been pegging them all this time.