Fed up with increasing subscription prices, viewers embrace rogue streaming boxes.
  • baggachipz@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    2·
    4 hours ago

    Having not used one of these (and being extremely leery to put one on my network), does using a pi-hole with a custom blocklist for these things help? I’ve considered getting one and isolating it in its own subnet, but I only know enough to be dangerous.

  • robocall@lemmy.worldEnglish
    71·
    10 hours ago

    I know someone that uses TVpass.org and thinks that it’s not stealing because it’s a .org and “they only give those org websites out to good people” It made me smile.

    • Tiger666@lemmy.caEnglish
      4·
      1 hour ago

      What is stealing, let’s be honest.

      Is charging a crazy amount for forced programming laced with massive amounts of advertising considered stealing? I think so.

      As far as Im concerned copying something is not theft.

      • robocall@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        6 minutes ago

        The real thefts are the cable service providers that rip off their customers and force them to buy channels in bundles that they don’t want.

      • BrightCandle@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        41 minutes ago

        Theft has a very specific definition, critically it requires the taking of something so that someone else is permenantly deprived of the thing. When something is cloned or copied its not theft, its all intellectual law driven so copyright and trademark breaches. No one is deprived of the product, only potentially the payment for a service.

  • robocall@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    10 hours ago

    I found a website called yarrlist.net to watch movies and tv shows, and I thought it was great! but someone told me I was putting myself at risk by using it. Basically they said I shouldn’t use my bank/credit card while having those tabs open. I’m not very tech savvy so I don’t understand the risk.

      • robocall@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        15 minutes ago

        From what I understand, the risk seems low and keeping Firefox up to date on updates is important. I was wondering if using a separate browser like Firefox for everything and a different browser just for yarrlist had any advantages?

  • orclev@lemmy.worldEnglish
    661·
    21 hours ago

    As always piracy is a symptom not the problem. People pirate when a) they don’t have enough money or b) the experience for paying customers is significantly worse than for pirates, or c) the price of services far exceeds their perceived value. Piracy was down for a while because Netflix and Hulu were relatively cheap (or free), ad free, and the economy was doing OK so most people had a little disposable income.

    Now that we’re in a recession that’s starting to look like it might turn into a depression and Netflix and Hulu (and others) have cranked the prices of their services up and stuffed them full of ads, yeah I’m not in the least surprised to see piracy surging. Every time you turn around there’s another email from some service letting you know they’re raising prices another couple bucks a month, and a bunch of people cancel their subscriptions and start sailing the high seas.

    • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      39·
      20 hours ago

      I stopped pirating when we got a Netflix sub for reasonably cheap.

      I started pirating again when I realized we were subbed to six different platforms, paying over $1k a year for the content, and still couldn’t watch what we wanted sometimes. The fact that I had to jump through hoops to find the thing I wanted to watch was also quite infuriating.

    • -RJ-@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      16 hours ago

      Or c) the money never makes it to the actual artists so why give the record label money they don’t deserve

    • DancingTable@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      18 hours ago

      This is it. I was sick of trying to figure out which streaming platform had the content I wanted. Now it’s all on Emby.

    • acosmichippo@lemmy.worldEnglish
      102·
      20 hours ago

      and D) I’m not going to give money to institutions like cable TV where a percentage of my money ends up with Fox News, or Paramount whose ownership is in bed with Trump, or Amazon and Bezos for obvious reasons. Go on down the line, fuck em all.

  • MattBlackAlien@lemmy.worldEnglish
    18·
    21 hours ago

    “You wouldn’t steal a handbag. You wouldn’t steal a car. You wouldn’t steal a baby. You wouldn’t shoot a policeman. And then steal his helmet. You wouldn’t go to the toilet in his helmet. And then send it to the policeman’s grieving widow. And then steal it again! Downloading films is stealing. If you do it, you will face the consequences.”