I'm sick of goddamned streaming services

A laptop and a Sony Android TV.

 

CBS's streaming site has been shit for years, I'm not really surprised that it's still shit.

Also, most of CBS's content is freely available over the air (Trek being the notable exception). I have no moral qualms about downloading episodes of broadcast television if it's freely available but for the fact I can't sit down to watch it at the particular time it airs.

 

Have you heard of the site Big Champagne? They track what is being pirated, not who is doing the pirating. Remember when the CEO of HBO bragged about Game of Thrones being the "most pirated show"? He got that information from Big Champagne. The simple truth is that if it wasn't for people pirating Game of Thrones, HBO couldn't have gotten their standalone app.

The formal term is "inventory shrinkage." The truth is that employee theft is greater than what the general public does. The folks that run retail operations justify their low wages by saying that employees will steal merchandise. What they don't realize is that the reason employees steal so much is because they're paid below a living wage. This is why so many folks who work for places like Walmart are on food stamps.

Like when Apple patented "slide to unlock" and multitouch.. Can't find those things on any other device, can you? Every heard of George Selden? He patented the automobile, even though it had existed long before he ever filed for his patent. Henry Ford fought the patent in court, and won.

Nope. My mother is on a service which provides a "mere" 5 Mbps, and streaming video services work just fine for her.

Ya wanna know what inspired Reed Hastings to start Netflix (ya know, when it was a DVD by mail company)? It was a college professor asking what's the "bandwidth" of a trailer (as in a semi-trailer). He quickly discovered that the movie studios didn't like his idea. Yet he persisted.

That all depends upon how you define "piracy." In an era where "truth" was what people thought, and not what happened, then the potential for examples are legion.

That's nice. Others disagree.

There's a big fuck difference between stealing a car, and downloading a movie/TV show/Song. If I steal your car, you don't have a car anymore. If I pirate a version of your song/movie/TV show, you still have the version you want.

Only to someone who doesn't know the history of art. Here's a short list of artists who died poor. There are others who could be added to the list.

Except for the fact that the copyright notice hasn't stopped folks from pirating Iron Sky. Nor has the piracy prevented the Iron Sky folks from producing a sequel. Hell, let's not forget that the Iron Sky folks got their start from producing a parody of Star Trek, which is available for free on YouTube, thanks to pirates. And folks who do parodies are often sued, even though they're protected under the law. The book The Wind Done Gone is but one example of works which are considered "fair use" under parody, yet the estate of Margret Mitchell sued to try and block it's publication. (Her estate lost, BTW.)

Let's look at this from the movie studio's perspective, shall we? If there were no piracy, and only a handful of people went to the theater to see a movie, they'd have no idea why, other than people didn't want to see the film. If a year or so later, the movie wound up on TV, and it got high ratings, the studios could conclude that folks were interested in the film, but not enough to go see it in a theater. However, if a pirated movie has large downloads within days of its theatrical release, yet few people see it in the theater, then the studio can recognize early on that people are interested in the film, they're just not willing to pay theatrical ticket prices to see it. The studio then has two choices: They can opt for the direct to consumer model (ie streaming/TV service), or they can try to figure out where they got it wrong, and make sure that their next film has elements which make it such that folks want to see it on the big screen.

 

They go where the money is. No money, no movies. Yes, this includes Iron Sky.

Your rationalizing theft because of, well, theft, is charming.

 

Yes, you idiot: The 260ci v8 was replaced with a 289 as the base v8.

For a car guy, you don't know much.

eta: the first gen Corvette didn't get a V8 until 1955, almost 2 years after it was introduced. This may have been because the T-bird came out in 54 with a V8.

 

Tucker, you ignorant slut: You bet there's a big fucking difference. If you steal my car, you have a stolen car. If it was worth anything I will have had it insured and get reimbursed for the theft. If you pirate my IP as a digital copy, as good as the original, and distribute for personal gain, you are stealing my means of support. Receiving stolen goods doesn't absolve you.

 

More fun with IP!

So back in the early 80s a Japanese design studio called Studio Neu developed what would become the Macross series. Tatsunoko Production company was sold the international distribution rights. They then licensed 20th Century Imports to make models in the US. FASA liked the models and decided to make a table top game based on the idea of giant robots. They contacted 20th Century Imports and got the rights to make games based on their models. This game was originally named BattleDroids but after Lucas threatened to sue it was changed to Battletech. This was in 1984.

The next year an American production company named Harmony Gold USA bought N. American distribution rights for 3 Macross series that they reedited and merged together (in order to get the required 85 episodes needed to get into syndication) to create Robotech.

In the late 80s Harmony Gold sued FASA saying that they didn’t have the rights to use the designs they licensed from 20th Century Imports b/c 20th Century Imports only had the rights to sell models based on those designs and the table top gaming pieces weren’t models. Harmony Gold claimed to have the IP for Macross/Robotech and its derivatives, which they claimed all of Battletech was. FASA settled out of court. Part of the settlement was that FASA would not use the 12 designs they had licensed from 20th Century Imports. These designs became known as ‘The Unseen’.

Harmony Gold USA then slowed and finally stopped all actual production work becoming a real estate company and IP troll suing any and everyone who used giant robots or battle robots claiming it was derivative of Macross. The founder and CEO was also found guilty of tax fraud and embezzlement due to illicit dealings with Italian PM Silvio Burlesconi’s media companies.

Meanwhile back in Japan, in the early 20s, Studio Neu sued Tatsunoko Production and it was ruled that Tatsunoko Production only had the rights to distribute the Macross anime shows, but that Studio Neu held the IP. In other words Tatsunoko Production did not have the ability to sell anyone the entirety of Macross IP, only the shows themselves.

Fast forward to today and Battletech/FASA’s cocreator (FASA was bought out by Microsoft in the late 90s) has since partnered up with a small independent gaming company named Hare-Brained Studios that is releasing a turn based Battletech game thanks to Kickstarter funding. Harmony Gold USA has sued Hare-Brained Studios claiming the designs are too similar to ‘their’ designs. The suit is part of the reason the release has been pushed back indefinitely. Which sucks b/c not only did I heavily back the Kickstarter but I even bought a new laptop so I could play the game.

I'm sure Studio Neu would have never created Macross without the assurance that 35 years later IP trolls would be using it to extort money from independent crowd funded gaming studios, so I guess it's all cool.

 

The 'copied' designs.

 

I'm not sure what robot hentai has to do with this thread.

Somewhat related--I recently signed up for Sling TV with a cloud based DVR and it's been pretty nice. Doesn't give me every channel but it's a good supplement to streaming services.

I haven't had BBC America in years, and I'm really confused by how much Star Trek Voyager they're airing. Like 10 hours of Voyager daily.

 

Are we watching the same Youtube channels?



I just watched a video on this yesterday.

Battletech would be an awesome VR game. I'd really buy an Oculus for it.

 

Google Starts Blocking YouTube on Amazon’s Fire TV, Echo Show

 

Cool, but no. I was just checking on the Battletech game that I backed on Kickstarter that keeps getting delayed. I dived into the why and ended up in an IP blackhole which reminded me of this thread where we talked about how often American IP laws are bullshit and hurt both consumers and creators.

 

Honestly I hope Amazon fires back by making a direct competitor to YouTube. YouTube lately has been amazingly hostile to a lot of channels it deems to not be politically-correct.

It's time for some competition.

Amazon could also tie it in with their Amazon Prime.

 

They do TNG marathons too.

 

I remember those, and watched a lot of TNG on BBC America, and those were at least justified by Patrick Stewart being British. But Voyager?

It's kinda like History channel airing anything but history.






Ohhh....wait....

 

Anyone watched the Taken series on Amazon Prime? Stumbled across it yesterday. Is it worth a go?

 

Today's repeal of net neutrality in the US has reaffirmed everything that's been said in this thread. Already looking into VPNs and expanded storage capacity.

 

Changed you mind in 9 months?

Would a win Saturday do it?

 

Despite the Senate's recent overturning of the net neutrality repeal, I'm not confident that the House will follow suit; and even if it does, I'm 100% confident that it won't be signed by the current president. In the months since this post, I've lost access to even more content across Netflix, Hulu, etc. And then miraculously, a little VPN has given me access to all of that content again because it thinks I'm in either the UK or the Netherlands.

 

Which has jack shit to do with net neutrality (and everything to do with intellectual property). What's your point?

 

Hes not as bad as first thought, but its nothing special, just workmanlike. Hes useful for the squad and we gave him a years extension. Hes certainly not a guaranteed starter when everyone is fit. Its also doubtful he will play a major role on Saturday given his latest injury.

However, when we win on Saturday, he will be elevated to hero status with the rest of the team!

 

Sorry man.

Don’t hit the Bucky too hard.

 

Walmart’s Vudu streaming service is getting into the original content business. https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/5/1...ate-original-content-streaming-shows-free-ads

 

Let me guess...

Honey Boo Boo

My 600-Pound Life

Say Yes to the Dress

Walmart's Vudu Streaming Service!

All trailer trash, all the time!

 

ALL starring @Tererun!

 

Yeah, each studio seems to think they can have their own streaming service where they each charge $20 a month just because someone might want to watch a single show they produce. I doubt that will work in the long run. People will just pirate so they had better come down a lot in price or their steaming sites will fail.

Most people are willing to pay $10-$20 per month for everything not $20 x 5-10 different streaming services. You might as well have cable at that rate.

 

I've wondered about how willing these companies would be to cooperate and offer custom discount packages, pay X amount per month and choose three services for instance.

 

Most of them just aren't worth it as a stand alone operator but they all want to try and see if they can double or triple their revenue by pretending to be premium content providers. I expect that to go about as well as when newspapers wanted to charge viewers per article for online views. Very few still do that because few people are willibg to pay for what they can get for free.

 

Or just use Amazon (or google TV, Roku, etc) as an à la carte service.

Pay for the shows or series you want. Or subscribe to the channel (vudu etc) to watch whatever you want. When you're done, cancel the subscription.

The rationals for pirating media here are weak.