- cross-posted to:
- piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
- cross-posted to:
- piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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I may have missed it, but does he (or anyone else) have recommendations for options to simply pay for content and get high quality DRM free files (edit: I mean legally)?
And how much of a pain in the ass is it to buy DVD box sets and rip them? Presumably that’s legal for personal use? Is that the only way? :(
I have some additional frustrations with Netflix:
- they have removed some shows that I like
- if you travel to another country, you can’t always watch the same shows— even if you downloaded them within the app
- they completely remove some episodes: the episode of community where they play Dungeons and Dragons, and (other streaming services) remove the Michael Jackson Simpsons episode.
- extremely user hostile way to browse content. They always move your list around and show the same show in multiple places
- I absolutely hate how all these streaming services auto play to the next episode. You can often change this behaviour. But my partner sometimes casts it to our TV and the damn app (Disney+ in this case, I think) changes the interface just as you get to the credits. I want to sit in peace and let the credits play, and discuss the episode. But it tries to shove another one down your throat, presumably to “maximize engagement”. (I get it for content that you’re binging or are re watching. But this is horrible if you’re just watching an episode during dinner and don’t want to have to scramble to stop the autoplay as soon as it ends)
I believe ripping your DVDs is technically illegal because breaking CSS is a violation of the DMCA. It is quite easy to do though. MakeMKV is great.
There is actually a DMCA exemption (1201) for ripping DVD’s and bypassing the DRM for copyright that falls under fair-use otherwise. The Librarian of Congress has the power to grant these exemptions to the DMCA and grants quite a few other things. Exemption to Prohibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for Access Control Technologies
These exemptions are good until October 2024 but just like previously, the same exemptions and perhaps even more will likely continue.
Huh, I guess I’m not the bad-boy who plays by his own set of rules that I kept telling myself I was.
Thanks for the correction.
the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that effectively control access to copyrighted works shall not apply for the next three years to persons who engage in certain noninfringing uses of certain classes of such works.
Do they define “noninfringing uses” anywhere?
Sure. Scroll down.
Some vinyl comes with a download card for lossless files.
Companies need to make it clear which and I would personally pay full price. As it is I only buy on sale and the cards are a bonus.
Ripping discs sucks but it’s a one time thing.
Some of the end credits on netflix are longer than the show. I would kill for auto skip in jellyfin.
Ah, I actually have bought a few music CDs a while ago, and they were actually fairly easy to rip myself. I can’t complain about that at all. If ripping DVDs was that easy then I would probably enthusiastically buy a few DVD boxsets. But I don’t really want to buy dedicated hardware just to read DVDs on my PC to do a cumbersome ripping process, and also probably lug that hardware (or the entire PC) to my TV now and then to watch a movie.
I’ve been interested in vinyl for a while, does it really sound better?
Vinyl is just a way to be intentional about listening and actually owning your media.
The dirty secret about vinyl is that everything since the 80s was recorded digitally anyway. a CD will always have better audio fidelity and record collectors hate this fact.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
For audiobooks I recently discovered libro.fm and it works great. You can use their app to listen to it like any other service, but you can also just download the plain drm-free mp3s. For music there is bandcamp if the artist is on there, but for movies and series I’m not aware of any vendors like that. DVDs I don’t see as an option because their file size limit is too low, the quality on a modern TV looks really bad. And Blurays are a whole other level of DRM hell.
Awesome, thanks for sharing this! I haven’t gotten into audiobooks yet, but it’s good to know that there are user friendly options out there.
Vaguely related: it’s also possible to listen to audio books through local libraries in some cases. I think the app is not as friendly, and does a lot to prevent you from getting DRM free mp3s, but at least there’s no charge.
I don’t know about the value of libro.fm… Seems to me that the monthly subscription is the price of a physical book and you only get one per month?
I get a much better deal with my city’s library which offers a large catalogue of audio books for free. It’s not owning, it’s borrowing like you would from a library but at least it doesn’t cost anything.
I think the pricing of their subscription is roughly the same as audible’s, but you get your books DRM-free. They also have some great books on sale sometimes that you don’t need a subscription for, and you can choose a local bookstore to share revenue with. That said, city libraries are an amazing option as well.
Thanks for this! I’m so glad to see an audible alternative.
EDIT: I signed up for a free trial and will give it a go. Bummed to see they have a much smaller selection but I guess that’s expected with Amazon’s muscle.
There WAS bandcamp…
Autoplay next episode is what many people want.
But Netflix or platform should let users make their own choice and put autoplay in the option/setting.
But Netflix or platform should let users make their own choice and put autoplay in the option/setting.
On Netflix, it is in the Profile settings. (Manage Profiles -> Edit Profile.)
I am not a lawyer, but I think you are entitled to a backup copy of something you own, even if you didn’t rip it yourself.
And as far as I know, people who torrent get in trouble when they upload, not when they download. Regardless, such people should probably use VPNs.
Also as far as I know, the people who created media are more likely to receive a cut of profits if you purchase a physical copy of the media.
Again, not a lawyer!
In the US, you can make an archival copy of software for yourself.
However, you can’t legally sell it, give it away or use someone else’s archival copy for something you do have already.
Uh oh. Looks like that legal protection only extends to software, unfortunately. Other forms of media appear to have different rules.
https://www.archives.gov/research/still-pictures/permissions
EDIT: Sorry, I replied to the wrong reply here. However, if you’re interested in these exemptions, you can read through them.
/EDIT
Audiovisual works fall under Section III (1) of the exemptions, including video.
Computer Programs fall under Section III (5 - 12).
Explicitly software isn’t even mentioned until Section III (6) though E-Books falls under Section III (1D) which is obviously software.
Under PROPOSED CLASS 1: AUDIOVISUAL WORKS—CRITICISM AND COMMENT, DVD CCA, screen captures and viewing the media in a classroom as part of the concerns of those that were against the exemption in Section III (1) specifically.
These exemptions definitely do not just encompass software only.
The DMCA and copyright law does not allow any of this without the exemptions. These are exemptions to those laws and what is contained in them is legally allowed.
If you are torrenting anything, you’re seeding that data, period. So therefore you’re uploading. It’s just the nature of the beast. It’s why you may end up with a letter from your ISP if you raw dog it with no VPN. This may differ depending on what country you reside in.
That being said, best thing I ever did was set up a NAS a couple years ago. I seed all day long and build ratio on private trackers. I watch whatever I want in the quality I want via Plex.
Can’t you generally set the upload rate to zero in some clients? If that’s the case, would you still be transmitting data, or would you just be sending hashes of the data?
(Of course, if you’re using a good client, like qBittorent, you can also lock the network interface to exclusively use a VPN)
Yeah you can set up an auto-stop ratio at 0 and it stops without uploading anything. I should probably VPN too but I haven’t cared enough for like 8+ years and nothing’s happened yet
And how much of a pain in the ass is it to buy DVD box sets and rip them? Presumably that’s legal for personal use? Is that the only way? :(
It can be a pain at first when you figure out a schema, look for software etc., then just a matter of inserting a disc and pressing a button. DVDs are easy to rip, there are fully open source programs to do it, for example libcss from VLC team. And DVDs don’t require using leaked decryption keys like BluRays.
It is legal depending on the country. In US it’s in gray area as you strip down DRM. In country I live in (Poland) from my research there are no such measures and copyright works differently. In Poland the movie/music is untied from medium you bought it on, so copying is legal but selling or giving those copies without destroying other copies you have is illegal.
My advice is that for first dozens of movies don’t play with Jellyfin and storing them. DVD player on USB is the best and rip just to have movies for a trip or on a phone. Just out of simplicity, why spend time managing backups, storage shares and additional machines when there is only a few titles to manage.
Thanks, this is somewhat reassuring. Maybe some day I’ll try it. I used to like tinkering with things, but lately I haven’t had as much patience or free time.
Even assuming ripping is legal (it usually isn’t ,though it should be), the effort required is significantly higher, the cost is significantly higher, and at least for TV shows, you usually suffer from huge delays as you wait for the season box set to be released. This is even assuming they bother to release a bluray in 4k with HDR.
Netflix and other services (assuming it even has the content you want) have fixed these issues, with the massive downside of no 4k, lower bitrate, and no ownership at the end of it.
Piracy, while more illegal, has the content you want, at 4k, usually a higher bitrate, with minimal effort, no cost, and no delays. Now that I’m employed, I don’t pirate music or games anymore, because the services offered are good enough that piracy isn’t worth the effort. But for movies & TV shows, the services offered are simply terrible.
options to simply pay for content and get high quality DRM free files (edit: I mean legally)?
Lmao. Heard of geoblocking? My Jellyfin instance has no geoblocking tho. 🙆
Ah, good point. I had briefly heard of this and was shocked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_region_code
For anyone who hasn’t heard:
This is achieved by way of region-locked DVD players, which will play back only DVDs encoded to their region (plus those without any region code).
This definitely furthers the original post’s point. And he may have even mentioned it.
It’s infuriating that you can pay for something and then move, and lose your collection. This comes to mind: https://xkcd.com/488/
This is way the piracy is the only way to enjoy content without any bullshit.
Ripping your locally purchased content for ripping is a fun hobby and can be addicting to getting everything to look just right in your media player of choice. Also, ripping gives you control over codecs as you can reencode as needed for different clients. This works for music, movies, and TV shows. I will say that ripping TV shows is a chore, so start with movies and music first.
stremio solves most of that
Scam and enshittification as always.
i like the Google play model where i can pay $3 to download the whole movie before watching it. I also like the band camp model where I’m paying a few bucks to the artist to download the music in whatever format i want. i think this is the way.
I don’t like Louis very much, because while we’re on the same team, he’s usually extrem in his opinion, and most importantly, he takes 30 minutes to explain a 3 minutes argument.
But on this, he’s right 100% I watched the whole thing! I’m an ex Netflix customer, btw.
Remember when Netflix used Silverlight? Couldn’t get it to work on linux back in the day.
Anyways, I don’t think this makes piracy completely justified. It just means the best user experience for desktop, or for super privacy related folks, is not supported by netflix. It was a weird self defeating ending to say at the end if it’s on netflix only, it’s just not worth watching, but also say it’s justifiable to pirate.
I think there’s a weird sense of irony in being both pro piracy and pro sag aftra. Although they didn’t win big, their payout is directly tied to streaming metrics. Piracy instead of streaming is going to screw them.
Odysee link for those who want to watch in the true spirit of the content:
lbry://piracy-is-completely-justified-louis
why do nerds think theyre entitled to free content, you just look like a bunch of whiny babies. if you’re gonna pirate do it with the same level of shame as everyone else
Looks like you did not watch the video.
I started to watch the video, but after listening to unnecessary rambling twice, I lost interest.
Can you give me a cliff notes of his argument?
Guy pays good money for a 4k tier Netflix subscription because he does not want to pirate. Has a home theatre linux machine because he is worried about the privacy risks of his smart tv and hence doesn’t connect his TV to the internet. Finds that he can only get a low bitrate 720p stream on his PC . He is appalled at the fact he isn’t getting the quality he paid for and amused at the fact that he would have gotten better quality if he had just pirated and concludes that piracy is just the better experience.
Thanks I appreciate the break down. Have an upvote. I actually saw that, or at least part of it.
But…
concludes that piracy is just the better experience.
There’s a difference between it being “a better experience” and it being “justified.” Simply because someone has wronged you that doesn’t make any action justified. They provide a shit product because they are trying to milk everyone. You don’t like it, you simply stop consuming it because you don’t like the product. This does not “justify” stealing it from them.
And, again, I’m not shitting on piracy, as I do it myself, and I agree with the reason that it’s often the better experience. But I understand what I am doing is not justified.
I don’t know man. The companies have no respect for us as consumers. Why should we respect them and their copyright in that case.
“justify” stealing it from them.
In many cases, these services stream shows which they did not have a hand in creating but own the distribution rights to. In that case pirating seems like a weak case of stealing to me. The original crew have already been paid and rewarded for their work and now the streaming companies are just storing and streaming that content which is the same thing piracy websites do. On the other hand pirating newer content and content that is platform exclusive because they(HBO, Disney, etc) are the ones that made it seems a lot more like stealing to me. I am not going to feel guilty for pirating shit like friends or Seinfeld. I am also not going to feel guilty for pirating content which has been geoblocked in such a way that it is not available in my country through any legal means.
What I am trying to say with this is that there are situations where piracy is both convenient and justified
The companies have no respect for us as consumers. Why should we respect them and their copyright in that case.
You shouldn’t and I don’t. You’re arguing against a stance I did not take. It seems most everyone here is. It’s like people can’t imagine a position that doesn’t fall into the dichotomy of wrong or justified. It’s not, it’s like the actions of a chaotic neutral character.
Take a step back and read your argument. You’re talking about watching Seinfeld, a pure luxury. It’s not like you’re starving and trying to feed your family, or protecting someone from grave injustice. You want a luxury but aren’t willing to pay the price, so you take it. I have no problem with you doing so because fuck those greedy cunts, but it’s not justified.
Yes it’s a luxury but in a lot of 3rd countries, these luxuries help people to learn and improve their English and general soft skills.
literally no harm done so of course its “justified”. you are not hurting anybody
Noone getting hurt is part of why I don’t give a fuck and do it myself. But what you’re describing is something that is neutral, not justified.
Why do technically inept people think they’re entitled to the dumbest takes, just look like a bunch of wankers. If you’re gonna post your mental diarrhea do it with the same level of shame as everyone else.
Shame? I do it with pride. I could be a multi billionaire, I’d pirate content with a smile on my face.
Indie stuff? I’ll buy.
Stuff from big studios, companies, publishers and so on? I’ll pirate it, I’ll help my friends pirate it, I’ll pirate it again just as a backup, and I will feel amazing about it.
Why do you think anyone cares what you think?
While I am not advocating for regulations or for people to stop I don’t think that we are entitled to someone else’s work. I guess you could try to justify it for works of art that were publicly funded.
Did you watch the video?
