File sharing sites Openload and Streamango shut down by Anti-Piracy Alliance ACE

[mr moose]

19 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

I think @Kisai meant because of ridiculy slow connection or low data caps meaning that even if you could pay for the service you couldn't make the expecetd usage of it.

 

That's not a problem for the vast majority of internet connections.   Contrary to what the media and US youtube celebrities will have you believe, our internet is not that bad.

 

[Kisai]

20 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

I think @Kisai meant because of ridiculy slow connection or low data caps meaning that even if you could pay for the service you couldn't make the expecetd usage of it.

 

That's also true, and also true where data caps still exist (eg mobile devices). Like good luck watching a video stream from Netflix at 4K outside of a major city in most of Australia, or Canada.

 

22 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I agree but partially, there are reasons we are locked out and it usually comes down to regional licensing.    Netflix Australia cannot provide GoT for example because foxtel have the license so you have to buy a foxtel package for it.  We actually have access to a lot of the US stuff and not too late now either, however the number of packages you have to buy to get it "all" is ridiculous.

The same in Canada. Bell has the license to Game of Thrones, but you have to have like $300 in useless TV packages to get it. No thank you. Not straight up offering HBO to Australia or Canada was a mistake, and even if it had to comply with content standards (eg All TV channels in Canada must have % Canadian content, which is is MUCH MUCH easier to do on a VOD system than a broadcast/cable system)

 

I look forward to seeing what is actually available on Disney+ here, but we're not getting HBO any time soon because Bell decided to glue it to the CraveTV system. That would be fine if there was anything on Crave worth watching that getting HBO Max + VPN wouldn't do. The VOD system currently offered by Bell, Rogers, Telus, and Shaw is utter rubbish. The day "CraveTV" came out, all the VOD titles for TV shows were cut back to the last two episodes, and with the cartoon channels, just random episodes that aired months ago. If the ISP/TV systems are just going to pare down their TV services in favor of netflix-like VOD, then mainstream TV services can't die soon enough.

[mr moose]

3 minutes ago, Kisai said:

 

That's also true, and also true where data caps still exist (eg mobile devices). Like good luck watching a video stream from Netflix at 4K outside of a major city in most of Australia, or Canada.

https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/internet-landline-services/broadband-performance-data

 

NBN gives users 80-85% of the advertised connection speed all the time.  Most of us have unlimited data or at least 500+G packages.   It really isn't that bad.  And now we have 160+ internet retailers all fighting for the same customers we have genuine competition and with being forced to market honest speeds consumers are less and less being locked into dud contracts.

 

3 minutes ago, Kisai said:

The same in Canada. Bell has the license to Game of Thrones, but you have to have like $300 in useless TV packages to get it. No thank you. Not straight up offering HBO to Australia or Canada was a mistake, and even if it had to comply with content standards (eg All TV channels in Canada must have % Canadian content, which is is MUCH MUCH easier to do on a VOD system than a broadcast/cable system)

 

I look forward to seeing what is actually available on Disney+ here, but we're not getting HBO any time soon because Bell decided to glue it to the CraveTV system. That would be fine if there was anything on Crave worth watching that getting HBO Max + VPN wouldn't do. The VOD system currently offered by Bell, Rogers, Telus, and Shaw is utter rubbish. The day "CraveTV" came out, all the VOD titles for TV shows were cut back to the last two episodes, and with the cartoon channels, just random episodes that aired months ago. If the ISP/TV systems are just going to pare down their TV services in favor of netflix-like VOD, then mainstream TV services can't die soon enough.

HBO can't sell directly in Australia because other companies have the distribution rights for HBO content.  If they want to have an HBO service we will have to wait until all the other contracts expire.   Hence why GoT is on foxtel. 

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

2 hours ago, mr moose said:

Thanks dude,  I wasn't expecting that.  

No problem, i'm so frustrated by my country that can't move forward. 

Bonus 

They censored black panther where he says "Glory to Hanuman" because it triggered religious people of India. Which is ironic becasue it's a praise to their god and its heard everywhere except India.  
https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/not-just-black-panther-heres-a-list-of-hollywood-scenes-that-our-desi-censor-board-couldnt-digest-1667401.html
 

 

 

[leadeater]

3 hours ago, Rohith_Kumar_Sp said:

7 - went to see Hitman's Bodyguard samuel L jackson constantly swears, in one of the scenes he says "fuck fuck fuck fuck" like 5 times, they censored the first 2 Fucks but the other 3, saying it too excessive 

What?? Why bother with the first 2 then? That's like baking a cake but not bothering to put it in the oven, a terrible cake.

[leadeater]

 

13 hours ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Theft isn't a synonym of "breaking the law". Legally, copyright infringement isn't more "theft" than tax evasion, murder, or driving without a license...

Precisely because the law being broken is copyright law we know it's not theft, but copyright infringement.

Well you managed to relay back my same point, there is no "Theft law". I didn't say theft is a synonym of "breaking the law" but that theft the word itself is being improperly used in all cases if you want to use legal definitions.

 

I and basically every other person who has a right to a work seeing someone acquiring a copy of my said work would say they are stealing it, that is not saying they would be charged with robbery/fraud/blackmail etc etc under say our Crimes Act 1961 (this is a huge act covering many things including theft, murder, fraud, blackmail etc).

http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1961/0043/latest/DLM327382.html

 

I however would use a different descriptive word for the person distributing the copyright work, I would say that person is infringing copyright because in that case theft does not commonly portray the action being done.

 

The appeal to change colloquialism falls flat for me here, the only reason this is trying to be done is an appeal to peoples sensibilities and consciousness that the unlawful acquiring of another's work is not as bad or as impactful as other means of theft. We already have an understanding that not all theft is the same, hell I've "stolen" many pens and other office equipment over my working life by mistake but have not returned them (often not possible to), I can most certainly be described as a thief but that doesn't mean I broke in to houses and stole people's property. Not all crimes are equal, but you can in regular life use the same descriptive word without issue.

 

Issue will only arise if someone wants to argue semantics.

[jagdtigger]

19 hours ago, mr moose said:

You cannot justify piracy because someone doesn't want to sell you the product (assuming it is even that bad and people aren't just exaggerating the conditions).

At the same time they either shouldnt be able to justify their crusade claiming these downloads caused them losses. But they do........

 

19 hours ago, mr moose said:

are arguing that piracy is a legit form of business

No, im saying its a competition, big difference.

 

Dislike and dont condone piracy all you want, but that wont change ppl's preferences. They want a centralized service that carries all their favorite stuff for reasonable price and without BS restrictions(no FHD on anything other than their mspy crap and their app for instance). Piracy has all the marks while legit sources are pretty lackluster and built up on the idea that ppl would try and steal stuff from it. So they handle the customer base as criminals and impose heavy restrictions on the media... (Which is pretty ineffective and a waste of money, just like in case of games.)

 

But if you so hell-bent in legality how can you tolerate their "pay up or else" mafia style extortion campaign? If they are so sure someone did wrong bring it to court. Oh wait, IP isnt enough evidence so they cant...........................................................   And this is the last nail in the coffin of this topic on my side.

Edited November 3, 2019 by jagdtigger
quick fixing, just left out a word

[leadeater]

10 hours ago, justpoet said:

But at the same time, it is important to realize that the MAJORITY of individual people don't pirate just because of price, nor make anything from it.

Today I very much doubt that, and then that could vary by entertainment genre. Music downloads could lead to a greater proportion of sales, movie downloads could lead to zero sales. Who knows. What I do know is every person I know that has acquired content of all entertainment genres had no intention of ever paying for them, most often due to cost. Some of that can be attributed to greed where in they want more than they can afford, others fall in to not being able to pay even if willing due to finances, some object to the asking price, a lot of reasoning hovers around the cost/price.

 

And then there are some who proclaim they simply will not pay regardless anyway for what ever reason the wish to use on the day.

 

Ever since the hay day of Limewire etc there is one central theme I have heard by most that use, "I am not willing to pay for it". Their reasoning aside I put that in to the category of price.

[Thaldor]

8 hours ago, mr moose said:

If more people did this the price would come down naturally through normal market forces (legal competition).  But while people choose to pirate, the prices will remain high and the services will remain semi shit.  That's how humanity works like it or not.

 

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

I agree but partially, there are reasons we are locked out and it usually comes down to regional licensing.    Netflix Australia cannot provide GoT for example because foxtel have the license so you have to buy a foxtel package for it.  We actually have access to a lot of the US stuff and not too late now either, however the number of packages you have to buy to get it "all" is ridiculous.

You see what that "legal and natural competition" does?

Like the whole reason now why piracy and one illegal service is on the rise again is that the corporations are as fucking useless in competition as Epic Games. Instead of building better, cheaper and what consumers want service they create shittier, more expensive service and compete with exclusive content. The only ways to compete with better service would be like either get enough money behind to create your own content and be part of the problem or, like the one illegal service does, get the content illegally and make your service illegal.

The main problem is that instead of building their own service, getting even their competitors behind it and beating Netflix by just being better, the competition is to pull own content from other services, make your own shitty service that isn't even global and where most of the content is rented with extra payments and see how people now pirate your content again because you wanted to "compete".

Oh, and that whole "vote with your wallet", the corporations don't give a shit about your vote. If everyone was to stop paying for their services, they wouldn't return their content to the services people want to pay for, they would just cancel their content because it was not profitable enough. They don't care did you want to see the series, they don't care did you like the series, they don't care did you like the way they broadcasted the series, they just care that it didn't bring them enough money and if they can't get the whole cake, no one can get even a piece of the cake. Same thing happens with piracy but at least it leaves a mark that people wanted to see the content and liked it so if the big good corporation goes full burned-earth on it, there's hope someone else will some day revive it just because people liked it, but didn't want to pay for it for a reason or another and might fix the reason why people didn't want to pay for that content (like BS X:th service that costs the same as the others but is even more restricted by content and meant that better services lost that content).

 

And yes, what I do I do because I feel entitled to do it. But hey! I vote with my wallet, it's too bad that services like HBO Nordic, Viaplay, VRV and Funimation (what the fuck are those? oh, some US only shit), Disney+ (when it comes) aren't on my voting list, even Netflix is on the edge (just because Netflix in Finland is piece of crap with 8th least content and still being 3rd/4th most expensive and they have really put a new gear on fighting against VPNs) but VPN is a good service to pay for just because some Dallas Buyers Club LLC. shit is somehow still going on in Finland and I really love the service where there is actually all of the content of the other services one button press away under one roof (too bad it's illegal, but it being free pays back for that cost of moral, can't get anything for free these days).

[leadeater]

6 hours ago, mr moose said:

I think you'll find that's a very small portion of people who pirate and a very small force in the market.   Although many people on these forums like to claim they don't get the content in their region, the bigger reality is that's the best argument they have to legitimize their desire to pirate instead of pay for it.  

I would like to amend this to not available in their country in the format/distribution method they wish to use. The majority of the time you can go on to Amazon and buy it and ship to your door completely legally, but if you want to stream it on a service you are already paying for that has other similar content then you are not pirating because the content is not available in the country. If you have a legal option but are not willing to use it one cannot use this justification.

[Donut417]

9 hours ago, Kisai said:

HBO

Blame AT&T for that, they own HBO. They probably didnt want to deal with laws of other countries. Which is why the dont provide it directly. It could also be regulations. In many coutnries you have to liscense the "product" or get in to a joint venture to offer products or services.  Not sure if those rules would apply to media, but they could. 

[Kisai]

6 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Blame AT&T for that, they own HBO. They probably didnt want to deal with laws of other countries. Which is why the dont provide it directly. It could also be regulations. In many coutnries you have to liscense the "product" or get in to a joint venture to offer products or services.  Not sure if those rules would apply to media, but they could. 

Just to be completely fair to Bell and Foxtel, they likely paid and arm and a leg to license HBO's content library.

 

(IP-VOD is Impulse Video on Demand, basically the pay-to-rent, except that the TV channel content that has already been aired is free)

 

That doesn't explain why the IP-VOD systems I'm paying for, don't let me watch Disney, Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon things, channels I am paying for. The only channels that the IP-VOD works at all for are Global (owned by Corus) and CTV (owned by Bell). Corus also owns all those cartoon channels in Canada, why is it such an awful experience.

 

I got fed up and wound up just buying the shows I wanted to watch off iTunes.

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

12 hours ago, Rohith_Kumar_Sp said:

7 - went to see Hitman's Bodyguard samuel L jackson constantly swears, in one of the scenes he says "fuck fuck fuck fuck" like 5 times, they censored the first 2 Fucks but the other 3, saying it too excessive 

I dread to think what they did to the Boondock Saints then.

 

Warning: Explicit content. Mild swearing.

Spoiler

 

 

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

48 minutes ago, Captain Chaos said:

I dread to think what they did to the Boondock Saints then.

 

Warning: Explicit content. Mild swearing.

  Hide contents

 

 

given it was n 1999, i don't think it even would have released here. only blockbuster movies made it onto the screens here until the last decade. 

[mr moose]

10 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

At the same time they either shouldnt be able to justify their crusade claiming these downloads caused them losses. But they do........

So now your saying because corporations claim something you disagree with you are entitled to take their product without paying for it?

 

Quote

No, im saying its a competition, big difference.

It's not competition, it's theft.  Competition is providing an alternative service, not taking your competitors product and giving it away free. 

Quote

Dislike and dont condone piracy all you want, but that wont change ppl's preferences. They want a centralized service that carries all their favorite stuff for reasonable price and without BS restrictions(no FHD on anything other than their mspy crap and their app for instance). Piracy has all the marks while legit sources are pretty lackluster and built up on the idea that ppl would try and steal stuff from it. So they handle the customer base as criminals and impose heavy restrictions on the media... (Which is pretty ineffective and a waste of money, just like in case of games.)

 

But if you so hell-bent in legality how can you tolerate their "pay up or else" mafia style extortion campaign? If they are so sure someone did wrong bring it to court. Oh wait, IP isnt enough evidence so they cant...........................................................   And this is the last nail in the coffin of this topic on my side.

You seem to be confusing a lot of what I am saying.  Saying I don't condone piracy does not mean I like or agree with corporate behavior.    I think a lot of it stinks to high heaven.  I can see why people are attracted to piracy.  However what I am saying is that an eye for and eye and a tooth for a tooth does not work in this situation because big business hasn't taken anything from you or done anything to you to cause you loss or grief, however you are arguing you are entitled to their product without paying for it simply because they didn't run their business the way you want them too.

 

You see the difference.  When you engage in piracy you are automatically as bad as the corporations you accuse. 

 

 

10 hours ago, Thaldor said:

 

 

You see what that "legal and natural competition" does?

I see cause and effect, and I also see a lot of assumption and some correlation but not a lot of evidence. I refer back to the music industry and streaming thread where the only evidence on the topic is posted.  As for the rest,  no one can argue they are entitled to something without paying for it because they don't like the way another person runs their business. 

 

 

 

Quote

Like the whole reason now why piracy and one illegal service is on the rise again is that the corporations are as fucking useless in competition as Epic Games. Instead of building better, cheaper and what consumers want service they create shittier, more expensive service and compete with exclusive content. The only ways to compete with better service would be like either get enough money behind to create your own content and be part of the problem or, like the one illegal service does, get the content illegally and make your service illegal.

The main problem is that instead of building their own service, getting even their competitors behind it and beating Netflix by just being better, the competition is to pull own content from other services, make your own shitty service that isn't even global and where most of the content is rented with extra payments and see how people now pirate your content again because you wanted to "compete".

Oh, and that whole "vote with your wallet", the corporations don't give a shit about your vote. If everyone was to stop paying for their services, they wouldn't return their content to the services people want to pay for, they would just cancel their content because it was not profitable enough. They don't care did you want to see the series, they don't care did you like the series, they don't care did you like the way they broadcasted the series, they just care that it didn't bring them enough money and if they can't get the whole cake, no one can get even a piece of the cake. Same thing happens with piracy but at least it leaves a mark that people wanted to see the content and liked it so if the big good corporation goes full burned-earth on it, there's hope someone else will some day revive it just because people liked it, but didn't want to pay for it for a reason or another and might fix the reason why people didn't want to pay for that content (like BS X:th service that costs the same as the others but is even more restricted by content and meant that better services lost that content).

 

And yes, what I do I do because I feel entitled to do it. But hey! I vote with my wallet, it's too bad that services like HBO Nordic, Viaplay, VRV and Funimation (what the fuck are those? oh, some US only shit), Disney+ (when it comes) aren't on my voting list, even Netflix is on the edge (just because Netflix in Finland is piece of crap with 8th least content and still being 3rd/4th most expensive and they have really put a new gear on fighting against VPNs) but VPN is a good service to pay for just because some Dallas Buyers Club LLC. shit is somehow still going on in Finland and I really love the service where there is actually all of the content of the other services one button press away under one roof (too bad it's illegal, but it being free pays back for that cost of moral, can't get anything for free these days).

If you think it is on the rise again because business is useless then don't buy from them, none of it is essential services for survival.

 

[Thaldor]

21 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I see cause and effect, and I also see a lot of assumption and some correlation but not a lot of evidence. I refer back to the music industry and streaming thread where the only evidence on the topic is posted.  As for the rest,  no one can argue they are entitled to something without paying for it because they don't like the way another person runs their business.

Trusted Reviews has quite a good opinion piece with some good sources about how the fragmentation of streaming services is driving people back to piracy just because the competition between services is making things bad for consumers.

And as it's said, the problem is that Netflix and other early streaming services were hugely successful, so now everyone wants to have their own to get the full cake from it. Too bad at the same time everyone forgets the reason why Netflix and the others were successful, which really wasn't that they had one or two exclusive titles, but that they had huge library of content in one place at affordable price.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist and make a million dollar research to see that the close future of streaming is same as the old cable/satellite channels. At first they were good, more recent content from few channels without ads with affordable price. And finally we had 200 channels divided into countless bundles and most of the channels showed almost the same content as free channels and almost every channel had ads and to see all the content you wanted to see, get ready to sell your kidneys. Great development, will happen again.

[matrix07012]

Openload had so many JAVs on it. Where am I supposed to get them now?

[Donut417]

4 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

Trusted Reviews has quite a good opinion piece with some good sources about how the fragmentation of streaming services is driving people back to piracy just because the competition between services is making things bad for consumers.

And as it's said, the problem is that Netflix and other early streaming services were hugely successful, so now everyone wants to have their own to get the full cake from it. Too bad at the same time everyone forgets the reason why Netflix and the others were successful, which really wasn't that they had one or two exclusive titles, but that they had huge library of content in one place at affordable price.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist and make a million dollar research to see that the close future of streaming is same as the old cable/satellite channels. At first they were good, more recent content from few channels without ads with affordable price. And finally we had 200 channels divided into countless bundles and most of the channels showed almost the same content as free channels and almost every channel had ads and to see all the content you wanted to see, get ready to sell your kidneys. Great development, will happen again.

This is why OTA TV is becoming more popular even though it had fell out of favor. It was only going to be a matter of time before streaming stopped being the saving grace. Content creators want to be paid, so now they figured out that they all can release their own streaming services and get paid. 

 

But as I said above, OTA TV is making a come back in the US. I see antennas every where now. As long as you live near enough to the broadcast towers your good. I get like 50 stations, all the major ones like ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and so on. Not sure how OTA is doing in the rest of the world, but its making a come back here. There are a few options now for OTA DVR's, I use the HDHR and Plex, but there are many other options. 

 

Streaming services still have the upper hand. Why? Because you can easily sub and unsub to them. So for example in the Spring Ill drop Hulu for CBS All Access (For Picard). Onces that show is done, I might sub to Hulu again or find another service. Its primarily will be choosen based on the exclusive content. I have several Netflix serries I watch. Amazon also has serries I watch, plus 2 day shipping. The fact is, the days of having 500 channels are long gone, now people will choose what services they want for a time and can change them at will. 

[AlexOak]

2 minutes ago, matrix07012 said:

Openload had so many JAVs on it. Where am I supposed to get them now?

From their website? Niki-san and Sakura-san need them views to stay afloat... 

 

On-topic:

So when is Decentralized video sharing going to become a thing? It really is a shame that this has to come to this. The streaming services are already becoming to similar like cable in pricing.

[ARikozuM]

"THE FREE MARKETS WILL TEND TO THEMSELVES!"

 

This is quite literally the free market taking care of itself and some big, rich dudes needing to keep himself from working harder. 

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, Thaldor said:

Trusted Reviews has quite a good opinion piece with some good sources about how the fragmentation of streaming services is driving people back to piracy just because the competition between services is making things bad for consumers.

And as it's said, the problem is that Netflix and other early streaming services were hugely successful, so now everyone wants to have their own to get the full cake from it. Too bad at the same time everyone forgets the reason why Netflix and the others were successful, which really wasn't that they had one or two exclusive titles, but that they had huge library of content in one place at affordable price.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist and make a million dollar research to see that the close future of streaming is same as the old cable/satellite channels. At first they were good, more recent content from few channels without ads with affordable price. And finally we had 200 channels divided into countless bundles and most of the channels showed almost the same content as free channels and almost every channel had ads and to see all the content you wanted to see, get ready to sell your kidneys. Great development, will happen again.

As I said, a lot of correlation and assumption but not a lot of evidence.   Piracy is just as prominent to day as it was at any point in the past, what has changed is the method nothing more.

 

EDIT: just for reference, this is a direct quote from their source material in regard to file sharing on the intenret:

Quote

Last year, we reported that we saw an uptick in file sharing for the first time in many years. Since we had a bit of a lapse in the reports between 2016 and 2018, and the dataset we were drawing on was a bit different, it was hard to give concrete proof. But this year, we have rock solid numbers that can’t be dismissed, even if you discount the final season of Game of Thrones (GoT) (more on that later!) as an outlier.

 

So even if they make any claims of it growing, those are claims based on observations over 1 year and not a look at file sharing as a whole over the last decade.

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, Donut417 said:

Not sure how OTA is doing in the rest of the world, but its making a come back here. There are a few options now for OTA DVR's, I use the HDHR and Plex, but there are many other options

That has and still is our bread and butter for TV here, even the switch to digital TV services was done largely on terrestrial transmission not satellite, to the point that while free to air was delivered over both only terrestrial had HD support. Paid services like Sky are done largely on satellite and they buy up almost all the bandwidth, which is one of the reasons why free to air is the way it is here.

 

So because of that DVR's here have always had support for this model, most poeple brought DVD players with 500GB HDDs in them so they could also record TV which have full TV guide scheduling capability and series record etc. Even when streaming wasn't a thing I still never watch ads, I would even use the edit tool of the DVR to cut out the ads so if I ever re-watched the content it was ad free.

[Donut417]

5 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Sky

Feel fortunate that Sky in New Zealand is not related to the UK one. Comcast bought it. Now the peopel of the EU will have to deal with the big evil. 

 

9 minutes ago, leadeater said:

digital

The best part of digital is the sub carriers. Many of the channels have 2 or 3 sub carriers which is nice. You can get some good content. Plus with the FCC repack, they are having to shove many channels down on the lower bands. 600 Mhz was bought by mostly T Mobile and a few other carriers. What sucks about this, is some channels are going off the air and many channels are having a hard time because the 1 company that makes TV transmitters is over whelmed with work. 

 

 

How many channels do you guys get OTA? Is it a good selection? 

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

How many channels do you guys get OTA? Is it a good selection? 

lol it's NZ, big fat no. Many of them are the same channel delayed an hour, why??? No idea, recording TV has been a thing since the 90s.

 

[ARikozuM]

^ I see THREE, THREE+1, THREE(f(x)^2), and THREE>. 

 

Is that supposed to help me solve for the channel number?