Hiding in Plain Sight: The YouTubers' Crowdfunding Piracy (engadget.com) 79
Some YouTube channels are publishing full-length episodes of TV shows, rights of which they obviously do not own, and on top of this, they are trying to crowdfund their piracy efforts by asking viewers to donate some cash. From a report: YouTube creators asking for money is nothing new, be it through the site's built-in membership features or third-party services such as Patreon. But trying to profit off someone else's intellectual property isn't the same as asking for support on an original video they've created. The person who runs the Kitchen Nightmares Hotel Hell and Hell's Kitchen channel did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Engadget, but their Patreon page (named YoIUploadShows) isn't coy.
"Hey! It's not as easy as you might think to make my content, I have to look for the best quality episodes I can find, download them, convert them, edit them, render them and upload them," YoIUploadShows' Patreon page reads. "This can sometimes take at least a few hours. Especially because the downloads are usually slow and the rendering itself can take a couple hours, because I started making all my uploads in HD instead of 480p to give them a little extra clarity." It's not easy, folks, so for that he or she "would really appreciate the extra support if you have any money to spare :)"
"Hey! It's not as easy as you might think to make my content, I have to look for the best quality episodes I can find, download them, convert them, edit them, render them and upload them," YoIUploadShows' Patreon page reads. "This can sometimes take at least a few hours. Especially because the downloads are usually slow and the rendering itself can take a couple hours, because I started making all my uploads in HD instead of 480p to give them a little extra clarity." It's not easy, folks, so for that he or she "would really appreciate the extra support if you have any money to spare :)"
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If they do at the same scale, expect a response of the same scale.
The examples given here are multiple orders of magnitude smaller, so unlikely.
But possible. Americans love a good perp walk.
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Second best thing, easier to find things on the pirate sites.
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If the copyright owners were to utilize the same business model - serve movies/shows on YouTube and link to a Patreon account then they would probably render the piracy less interesting.
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Do the crime.
When you "pirate" Bladerunner, you're not hurting RIdley Scott or Harrison Ford.
You're not hurting the head makeup artist, the best boy or the gaffer.
You are hurting the media megacorp, who's trickle-down model is a ripoff for everyone.
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When you "pirate" Bladerunner, you're not hurting RIdley Scott or Harrison Ford.
I like the fact I have all the different versions of Blade Runner, not just the theatrical cut. Those only exists because of DVD sales.
Better if we all moved to a model of crowdfunding movies, of course, and left "copyright" behind.
Re:It's arguably a public service what they're doi (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, you do hurt them all. Their jobs depend on their employer's being able to sell the fruits of their labors — and profiting from it. Diminishing the profit diminishes the pay. For everyone.
So theft is Ok, if you really hate the victim? How about rape? Is it Ok to rape a CEO of a "megacorp who's [sic] trickle-down model is a ripoff for everyone"? How about murder? No? Why not?
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Copyright infringement = theft = rape...nice strawman and giant false analogy.
No, crime = crime = crime. Sure some crimes are more severe than others, but it is neither strawman nor false analogy to ask where the cutoff is between crime that is acceptable and crime that is unacceptable. It is simply a question, nothing more, nothing less.
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And things that shouldn't be a crime at all?
What Rosa Parks did was a crime, but it shouldn't have been a crime at all.
The anti-copyright people are trying hard to bring the copyright laws back to reasonable levels, but they have a hard fight because the pro-copyright people have made lots of money off prolonging copyright protection.
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Because crime is a natural force of nature, not a policy established through the exercise of power and privilege, often in violation of assumed social contract. Right.
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Of course, you do hurt them all. Their jobs depend on their employer's being able to sell the fruits of their labors — and profiting from it. Diminishing the profit diminishes the pay. For everyone.
I think he's saying that you are not hurting the head makeup artist, the best boy or the gaffer who actually worked on BladeRunner.
Now, as you point out, if rampant copying is tolerated (well, if it is tolerated for all content, not just for decades old content), then you will hurt current and future workers, as it will become difficult for the movie industry to make money.
But that's a subtler point and more difficult for many to grasp.
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I will steal from the Atlantic Records catalogue at will, with a clean conscience.
Jerry Wexler became a wealthy man, while many of the real artists died in near poverty.
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Of course, you do hurt them all. Their jobs depend on their employer's being able to sell the fruits of their labors — and profiting from it. Diminishing the profit diminishes the pay. For everyone.
The studios keep saying that the films don't make any profit, so what's the problem?
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karma gonna karma (Score:2)
Nice self-serving, incomplete logic.
Do you really think that the negotiating power of the A-list stars and directors is entirely independent of the profitability of the industry as a whole?
As it happens, the stars of yesterday were compensated based on the profitability of yesteryear. Not every economic compensation loop is forward-biased.
It's the young up-and-coming stars who are presently de
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As often happens, a small but powerful, greedy, and stupid group of people are in a futile fight against technological change. They can't turn back the clock, but they can and are hurting a lot of others and making a big mess. They are lying to themselves and everyone else, pushing vile control freak, ownership society propaganda with all its overtones of fascism and authoritarianism.
They have the arrogance to believe they're better and more deserving than everyone else, think the rest of us are "the ma
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If you "steal" a Hollywood movie made in the last 20 years, I insist that YOU are the real victim in this situation.
Stuff That Matters (Score:2, Troll)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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How long until you declare jews as nazis for not following your exact political beliefs?
Was YouTube EVER not a criminal enterprise? (Score:1)
Okay, so the old scammers are trying some new wrinkles to get money, but does it cross the threshold to be actual news? I don't think so, unless maybe you're a glutton for sad stories.
If the google wanted to decriminalize YouTube, they've had years of brilliance to come up with solutions. Obviously the google don't care. They must be making money from supporting the criminals or they would stop supporting the criminals. The only "law" at today's google is "All your attention are belong to us!"
https://en.wik [wikipedia.org]
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Actually your claim is totally the exact opposite of reality. It is not about Google making money, it is how much it would cost google to personally and individually review every single piece of content uploaded, 576,000 hours of content per day (https://www.businessinsider.com/viewers-find-objectionable-content-on-youtube-kids-2017-11/?utm_source=feedly&%3Butm_medium=referral&r=AU&IR=T) times by say $25 per hour because the people doing should be very knowledgeable in law, every single day.
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Google is one of the richest companies in the world, but you justify their profiting from copyright infringement because they can't afford operating withing the law? Since when is that a valid excuse?
Also, why should the content owners waste their time searching and reporting? So Google can cut their costs and hire less people?
Are you a Google shill or are you being dumb for free?
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Why is Slashdot overrun with illiterate trolls these years? One of my theories is that international hackers think trolling on Slashdot is a cheap way to boost their English skills.
If I started my own channel... (Score:5, Funny)
...where I take this yutz's content and ask you to hit the "Click to Give" link at...
https://thehungersite.greaterg... [greatergood.com] ...would that be wrong?
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You should do it! If only for the ensuing fun where we get to watch him figure out how to deal with it.
Sounds like they do more than cable (Score:2)
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Sounds like the free market at work.
They are just doing... (Score:2)
... what corporations have been doing to us via lobbying and inserting defects into software like games and OS's and calling them a "service".
The reality is out world is a hive of criminal and villainy and most people are too stupid to notice or do something about it.
350 subscribers (Score:2)
The Copyright Holder's Cycle of Stupidity (Score:2, Insightful)
Movie Studios c. 1970s: We can't let TV stations broadcast our movies - then nobody would go to the theaters anymore and we'd loose money! .... studios start licensing movies like The Wizard of Oz to be broadcast on TV and raking in cash...
Movie Studios c. 1980s: We can't let people rent movies on VHS - then nobody would go to the theaters anymore and we'd loose money! .... studios start selling VHS versions of movies for $80, raking in cash....
Movie Studios c. 1990s: We can't let people buy cheap movies on
Download them? (Score:2, Insightful)
So let me guess, they're not just pirating content, they're using someone else's pirated content as the starting point to make their pirated content. And they expect people to give them money for that, when the bulk of the effort was time a computer spent chugging away unattended? Might as well mine Bitcoin if that's so much of a burden. Damn GoFundMe generation expects people to throw money at them for doing practically nothing except breaking laws and violating rules.
Good lord ... (Score:2, Informative)
Wow, so basically this person is more or less admitting they're engaging in copyright infringement for monetary gain by indicating they wish to
Workload seems exagerated (Score:4, Informative)
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Often they have to do some editing to put the content in an embedded window, and surround that by a moving background so that the algorithm can't tell what they copied. Often they also add a few minutes of extra sound, or repeated sound, at the end for the same reason.
I'm not saying it deserves payment, I'm only saying that it does involve some editing.
Pirates should do it for love, if they do it for money they risk troubles. Great hobby, horrible job.
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YouTube's Content ID will flag their uploads if they don't alter the video and audio. :D
Apparently, Patreon isn't as quick to shutdown accounts of pirates as they are to people that offends someone.
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Never mind that. While it's been known since forever that time is money, it's also well known that not all time is equal. There's no correlation between how much time you put into your job and what you get paid for it, because sometimes the work you do is just worthless (hence, the endless begging for money).
I remember when people did stuff for free because it was fun. Today everyone and their grandma has a Patreon, and whines that they can't make a living posting recycled crap online.
Fake HD alert (Score:1)
So, the shows themselves are in ~480p, and the uploader thinks it looks better if converted over to HD? Wasn't there a recent post here saying how upscaling HD causes distortion in the properly made film?
Plus can't the uploader use the computer to do something else
You misunderstood. (Score:2)
Entitled cunts (Score:2)
How much harder is it to select a higher encoding bitrate or quality?
Given what Nintendo just did (Score:2)
a growing issue (Score:1)
You know what this is (Score:2)
It's the world's smallest violin.
PS Let's rethink your workflow. Or your priorities.
Disclaimer IANAL