Discovery in Top 30 on The Pirate Bay in less than 24 hours.

[JoeP]

It violates their terms of service and they could rightly cancel your account.

 

[Zod]

It violates their terms of service and they could rightly cancel your account.

And how are they going to find out? You need a VPN to utilize it so.....

 

[JoeP]

And how are they going to find out? You need a VPN to utilize it so.....

Not sure. But to say it's not immoral is lying to yourself since you accepted in good faith the terms of the service when you signed up.

 

[Zod]

Not sure. But to say it's not immoral is lying to yourself since you accepted in good faith the terms of the service when you signed up.

I disagree. Agreeing to the ToS has zero to do with morality. It's a legal document. Just because I sign a contract with you doesn't make it moral or immoral. It's not meant to be either. That's some overly rigid thinking.

 

[Kor]

Can't the Netflix system tell that you have a US-based account?

Or is it possible to use your US account when you travel overseas too, and get the content that's available in that area rather than the content available in the area where you signed up?

Kor

 

[JoeP]

I disagree. Agreeing to the ToS has zero to do with morality. It's a legal document. Just because I sign a contract with you doesn't make it moral or immoral. It's not meant to be either. That's some overly rigid thinking.

No, signing it doesn't make it moral or immoral. When you break the terms of that agreement it is immoral, unless you don't think consciously breaking an agreement you made in good faith is wrong.

Bottom line: disagree all you want. You're still wrong.

 

[Spider]

All this mental masturbation is going to give your keyboard warts.

 

[Zod]

Can't the Netflix system tell that you have a US-based account?

Or is it possible to use your US account when you travel overseas too, and get the content that's available in that area rather than the content available in the area where you signed up?

Kor

So I don't know about logging in when you are overseas. What I do know is that if you change location from USA to UK when you login its to euro Netflix. They currently do check this, and some VPN no longer work. If it doesn't work you get an opps type error message.


I have not read about anybody losing their account. The reason is simple. How many people even know what a VPN is let alone know how to change location on the fly? It requires some tech sophistication even though it's very easy. So not enough people do it to be worth their time.

 

[Albinator]

Whether you think it's fair or not, you signed a document staying you wouldn't do it, and then you did it. That's immorality. In fact, signing your name to that agreement when you had no intention of upholding it was immoral.

 

[Albinator]

So I don't know about logging in when you are overseas. What I do know is that if you change location from USA to UK when you login its to euro Netflix. They currently do not check this, though that could change at any time.

The reason is simple. How many people even know what a VPN is let alone know how to change location on the fly? It requires some tech sophistication even though it's very easy. So not enough people do it to be worth their time.

I once went overseas for vacation and tried to use a free VPN service to watch US Netflix. Netflix detected it, and I was denied. The only VPN's I could find that would (apparently) work were paid services. I went the week without my US Netflix, and stuck to Swedish dramas.

But this brings up another point: if the working VPN's are a paid service, why the uproar over the paid CBS app?

So people are willing to pay to not have to pay?

 

[Kor]

Non-compliance with the terms of service of a contract gives the other party the right to take whatever corrective or punitive action the contract specifies, perhaps up to and including termination of the contract depending on the specifics of the breach.

It's as simple as that. I don't see how it turns into some high-minded question of "morality." Or is it "immoral" if I pay my apartment rent late because that's against my rental contract?

Kor

 

[Zod]

So people are willing to pay to not have to pay?

You nailed it. I guess they are. I edited my post above because I had forgotten. Netflix can recognize some VPN now, even paid ones. Some now advertise as being able to "work with Netflix" I think the change hit a few months ago.

 

[Albinator]

Non-compliance with the terms of service of a contract gives the other party the right to take whatever corrective or punitive action the contract specifies, perhaps up to and including termination of the contract depending on the specifics of the breach.

It's as simple as that. I don't see how it turns into some high-minded question of "morality." Or is it "immoral" if I pay my apartment rent late because that's against my rental contract?

Kor

Depends. Did you intend to pay late, or did you just forget, or not have the money right away? If you sign a contract with no intention of holding to it, or knowingly and maliciously break it, that's immoral.

I really don't care, but someone asked if it was immoral and I answered.

 

[Albinator]

You nailed it. I guess they are. I edited my post above because I had forgotten. Netflix can recognize some VPN now, even paid ones. Some now advertise as being able to "work with Netflix" I think the change hit a few months ago.

That is SO ridiculous to me. Wow. People are OK to pay for a service that breaks the rules, but a few bucks to legally stream their favorite show is too much for them...

 

[Rahul]

Your first statement is right: the first step to subscribers is to make a good show. It being heavily pirated is a sign they've got a good show. Now the job is making CBSAA a service worth paying for, so that those willing to pay outnumber the pirates. Even better make it more convenient to pay $6 for an app with dozens of great shows than it is to take the time to download dozens of great shows.

That said, I disagree that paywalls won't work long term. Netflix has proven this is a viable long term business-- already look at how many people want Discovery on Netflix?

The key to long term success is a model by which there isn't TOO much choice. And I do believe we'll see an explosion of streaming channels in the next 4-5 years, before it contracts down to 5 or 6. CBSAA may or may not survive; it's my belief that long term we'll see more platforms like Hulu, with multiple channels teaming up to offer a wide array of content on one service.

We may eventually see a platform that allows you to pay by-the-show: imagine if a service like Hulu offered a large back catalog and allowed you to pick 10 current shows for an additional fee of 4.99. 20 shows for 7.99, and so forth.

You could then subscribe and pick shows from all service, whether it was a Netflix Original, Amazon Original, or CBS original.

Which would be exactly one type of reform I talked about to be necessary.
Netflix (and HBO) worked, because they were the only ones around. It makes sense, to pay a small fee for so much more content. If EVERYONE does it, it's simply not feasable for the regular user anymore. Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO, now All Acces, Disney wants to start their service.... It's simply too much. Nobody is going to payy for all of them. And everyone really is only interested in a handfull of shows of each service anyway.

That's where I say they need reform to survive. Like has already happened for the music industry.

I'm not betting on All Access being broke soon. But the system simply will get more and more unfair, with bigger monopolies and more and more pirating, and there simply not being a fair distribution of wealth between artists and corporations.

That's why I think, long-term, the system will need to reform itself, so that every content is available everywhere, after a certain time, and excluisivity only meaning immediate access vs. waiting times. And with the providers paying charges to each other in relation to how much users view the original content from each other. Something like that.

The exact make-up of that reform is purely speculation by myself. But something needs to happen, otherwise piracy will simply get mad out of control.

 

[seigezunt]

I'm paying for CBSAA, and was able to see the premiere episodes just fine, but I've found that the image quality has been on and off for other shows depending on the time of day. Which I find odd because I've not really had this issue as much with the allegedly more bandwidth-hungry Netflix, but not unexpected as it's a DSL connection.

Which I admit does have me tempted about torrenting. Which is something I've done in the past, torrented things I've already paid for. I know, it's still wrong, not proud of it.

 

[Albinator]

Which would be exactly one type of reform I talked about to be necessary.
Netflix (and HBO) worked, because they were the only ones around. It makes sense, to pay a small fee for so much more content. If EVERYONE does it, it's simply not feasable for the regular user anymore. Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO, now All Acces, Disney wants to start their service.... It's simply too much. Nobody is going to payy for all of them. And everyone really is only interested in a handfull of shows of each service anyway.

That's where I say they need reform to survive. Like has already happened for the music industry.

I'm not betting on All Access being broke soon. But the system simply will get more and more unfair, with bigger monopolies and more and more pirating, and there simply not being a fair distribution of wealth between artists and corporations.

That's why I think, long-term, the system will need to reform itself, so that every content is available everywhere, after a certain time, and excluisivity only meaning immediate access vs. waiting times. And with the providers paying charges to each other in relation to how much users view the original content from each other. Something like that.

The exact make-up of that reform is purely speculation by myself. But something needs to happen, otherwise piracy will simply get mad out of control.

I disagree on one point: I don't think we're quite at market saturation yet. We've got a lot of services, but even if you had Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, CBSAA, HBO Go, Fox Now, Disney Whatever, and what have you, you're still paying a lot less than the average cable bill.

 

[Gepard]

Or is it possible to use your US account when you travel overseas too, and get the content that's available in that area rather than the content available in the area where you signed up?

That is correct. If I went to Japan and logged into my account, I would see Japanese Netflix

Back before Netflix changed their ToS and started blocking VPNs, they were cool with people circumventing geoblocking and even profited off it -- IIRC, before Netflix came to Australia, there were about 200,000 Netflix users there who used a VPN to sign up for and use the service.

I imagine Netflix being able to secure location-specific deals like the one they have with CBSAA was contingent on them stopping that kind of region dodging.

At any rate, it's irrelevant now. All the free VPNs and most of the paid ones no longer work to watch Netflix, and the few pay services that do cost more per month than CBSAA.

 

[Rahul]

I disagree on one point: I don't think we're quite at market saturation yet. We've got a lot of services, but even if you had Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, CBSAA, HBO Go, Fox Now, Disney Whatever, and what have you, you're still paying a lot less than the average cable bill.

I'm pretty sure we won't even get to the point of "market saturation" you think of. Even with all these services on at the same time, with massive pirating going on, there's a chance all those services will survive on their income anyway.

What will be the breaking point is the compensation for the artists and content creators. At some point, they're going to say "fuck it". People want to get payed by how popular their work is. Not by how many subscribers the corresponding streaming service has. Once the number of people actually watching a show, and the people watching a show legally on the corresponding plattform don't correlate with each other anymore, investors will force a solution. There's nothing more people with money hate than investing in something with unclear rules for success/failure.

We're not there yet. But as the number of streaming services rises, the number of viewers of specific content becomes more and more seperated from the number of subscribers. Once there is no clear correlation there anymore, a reform will be forced upon. Simply in order to create a reliable market place again.

 

[Albinator]

.

I'm pretty sure we won't even get to the point of "market saturation" you think of. Even with all these services on at the same time, with massive pirating going on, there's a chance all those services will survive on their income anyway.

What will be the breaking point is the compensation for the artists and content creators. At some point, they're going to say "fuck it". People want to get payed by how popular their work is. Not by how many subscribers the corresponding streaming service has. Once the number of people actually watching a show, and the people watching a show legally on the corresponding plattform don't correlate with each other anymore, investors will force a solution. There's nothing more people with money hate than investing in something with unclear rules for success/failure.

We're not there yet. But as the number of streaming services rises, the number of viewers of specific content becomes more and more seperated from the number of subscribers. Once there is no clear correlation there anymore, a reform will be forced upon. Simply in order to create a reliable market place again.

Talent can complain all they want, but no studio will pay them based on how much they're being pirated. Nobody.