Seriously, unless you are a massive copyright holder, attempting to exploit every red penny out of your brainwashed masses, I don't see how any user would have a problem with this. Maybe the movie industry should try to out-innovate?
1. If you click his name, you will see edw519 is a long-time respected member of the HN community, who generally posts insightful comments, submits excellent articles, and writes riveting blog posts. This is no throwaway shill for the MPAA.
2. Do you believe no one in the world besides "massive copyright holders, attempting to exploit every red penny out of your brainwashed masses" dislikes piracy? That's a very simplistic and naive view. I hope you find these discussions illuminating.
It's very difficult to out-innovate 'taking things someone else made and giving them away completely for free', when you have to make tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to break even.
So the best way to encourage innovation is give companies big fat monopolies like infinitely expandable copyright?
It is of course the exact opposite: it is very difficult to innovate when you have guaranteed monopolies, because they are effectively money for nothing, and the easiest way to keep the business going is to focus on manipulating the law and enforcement in your favour instead of working on innovation -- which is indeed exactly what the MPAA/etc. lot have been doing.
What are you going to do? Work hard to create new ways to improve the service, or call a lawyer and have the government shut down your competitor overnight? It is an all too easy choice, and it is one the media industry has been taking year after year.
It's very simple. As a creative person, who produces creative work, I desire a world in which it is possible for me to make a living doing that.
To put it in terms HN might be more comfortable with - how would you feel, if you operated a subscription website, if someone came along, and swiped your code and content, and put it up for free. Would you support that?
Because nobles in the feudal system would patronize great artisans to produce work. All the great composers were basically salaried employees of various lords, majors, dukes, etc.
>how would you feel, if you operated a subscription website, if someone came along, and swiped your code and content, and put it up for free //
Well if it was 15-20 years after I created it and it had already paid out for me then I'd feel mighty fine about it.
For me this argument works at the short-term and for the artists but fails to speak at all to why the government of a country should get involved in protecting the assets of those who have already received their living wage many, many times over for something that may well have been created by their great-grandchild's employee 100 years ago.
I'm not sure about the rest here, but as I have said before and will say again; I PAY (a lot if need-be) for your creative work IFF (if and only if) you make it trivial for me to purchase it when I want it. I am not going to jump through hoops, wait for ages because I happen to live in EU etc. I buy nearly every nice indie game that comes out, I sponsor indie movies; both are always super easy to get, worldwide without delays.
How does any of what he said sound like it's from the MPAA? I don't like piracy one bit and I try very hard to find legal solutions to my media wants (not needs): Netflix, Amazon Prime, CrunchyRoll, Zune, Vudu, Red Box, Hulu, iTunes, Sony's Video Unlimited (not completely out yet?)
What is so bad about honestly getting permission to watch things you want to watch?
>What is so bad about honestly getting permission to watch things you want to watch?
Because the terms are offensive and anti-consumer.
Let us count the ways:
1. Overpriced
2. DRM encumbered
3. Bad UX (by way of 2)
4. Platform lock-in (by way of 2)
5. Geograhphy lock-in (again, by way of 2)
So basically, if I live in Europe, I can pay downright extortionate rates to access content in a format which goes out of its way to make my life difficult, (IF i can access it at all)
Or,
I can key in a random torrent site, search for what I want, it will be available in multiple, DRM-free formats, and I can click a button and have it on my local machine in less than an hour.
Which sounds like a better value proposition to you?
I'd rather cut a check to the artist directly and know that I'm not supporting N middlemen who actively campaign against my interests.
You must have skipped the "actively campaigning against my interests" bit. Why should I care about the rights of someone who tries to make sure I shouldn't have any? At that point, my view on their rights is something along the lines of "Fuck 'em".
In the meantime, I'm not Gandhi. I refuse to respect someone who doesn't respect me. If this makes me an unethical jerk, I guess I'm an unethical jerk.
Seriously, unless you are a massive copyright holder, attempting to exploit every red penny out of your brainwashed masses, I don't see how any user would have a problem with this. Maybe the movie industry should try to out-innovate?