Streaming Pirates Are Hollywood's New Villains (bloomberg.com) 160
Illegal subscription services that steal films or TV shows bring in $2 billion a year in ads and subscriber fees (non-paywalled link). From a report: Ever since taking on Netflix at its own game, old Hollywood has struggled to turn a profit in streaming, with the likes of Disney+, Peacock and Paramount+ losing billions of dollars each year, sparking concerns on Wall Street that the services will never be as profitable as cable once was. But the age of streaming has been a boon for some unintended winners: pirates that use software to rip a film or television show in seconds from legitimate online video platforms and host the titles on their own, illegitimate services, which rake in about $2 billion annually from ads and subscriptions.
With no video production costs, illicit streaming sites such as myflixer and projectfreetv have achieved profit margins approaching 90%, according to the Motion Picture Association, a trade group representing Hollywood studios that's working to crack down on the thousands of illegal platforms that have cropped up in recent years. Initially the rise of legitimate online businesses such as Netflix actually helped curb digital piracy, which had largely been based on file uploads. But now piracy involving illegal streaming services as well as file-sharing costs the US economy about $30 billion in lost revenue a year and some 250,000 jobs, estimates the US Chamber of Commerce's Global Innovation Policy Center. The global impact is about $71 billion annually.
In the US, which counts almost 130 subscription piracy sites, the MPA estimates that the top three combined have about 2 million users paying $5 to $10 per month for films, TV shows and live sports. Analysts say the user number could soar as the cost of subscriptions from legitimate companies such as Walt Disney approach $20 per month as they seek to bolster the finances of their streaming platforms. "Some of these pirate websites have gotten more daily visits than some of the top 10 legitimate sites," says Karyn Temple, the MPA's general counsel. "That really shows how prolific they are."
With no video production costs, illicit streaming sites such as myflixer and projectfreetv have achieved profit margins approaching 90%, according to the Motion Picture Association, a trade group representing Hollywood studios that's working to crack down on the thousands of illegal platforms that have cropped up in recent years. Initially the rise of legitimate online businesses such as Netflix actually helped curb digital piracy, which had largely been based on file uploads. But now piracy involving illegal streaming services as well as file-sharing costs the US economy about $30 billion in lost revenue a year and some 250,000 jobs, estimates the US Chamber of Commerce's Global Innovation Policy Center. The global impact is about $71 billion annually.
In the US, which counts almost 130 subscription piracy sites, the MPA estimates that the top three combined have about 2 million users paying $5 to $10 per month for films, TV shows and live sports. Analysts say the user number could soar as the cost of subscriptions from legitimate companies such as Walt Disney approach $20 per month as they seek to bolster the finances of their streaming platforms. "Some of these pirate websites have gotten more daily visits than some of the top 10 legitimate sites," says Karyn Temple, the MPA's general counsel. "That really shows how prolific they are."
Paying direcly for piracy (Score:4, Interesting)
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My VPN provider doesn't give me any content. It doesn't magically make things on Netflix appear. The question isn't VPN vs paying pirates, the question is which source do I use for both of them.
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I think you may have missed the point. bobbutts was saying that a VPN provider will give you free streaming just that you should get a good VPN and then stream from a free source (not that I would recommend doing the last part).
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Piracy faded when Netflix et al were proper. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Piracy faded when Netflix et al were proper. (Score:4, Informative)
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Perhaps INTERPOL can EXPRESS CONCERN about the "torture" you describe?
(In all seriousness, the overheated rhetorical language around this somewhat-fraying area of intellectual property law in the age of digital content is striking. "Piracy" is not the term we ought to use for someone making a local copy of a streamed Kurt Russell movie from 1984.
Maybe one step toward arriving at a basically fair economic model around this might be for people to tone things down about three notches. Ads are annoying, but the
Re:Piracy faded when Netflix et al were proper. (Score:5, Insightful)
"We should all tone things down but I'm going to I'm going to massively exaggerate the claims you are making"
Give me a break, no one is equating watching commercials with being water boarded. Putting far more extreme statements then are being said in others mouths is not toning things down.
Re: Piracy faded when Netflix et al were proper. (Score:2)
"Piracy" is not the term we ought to use for someone making a local copy of a streamed Kurt Russell movie from 1984.Arrr, but TFA is specifically talking about the illicit business of reselling pilfered content at scale, not your personal backups or that copy of Idiocracy you downloaded matey, not that you're entitled to that trade, lest you be labeled a pirate yourself ARRR!!
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Maybe one step toward arriving at a basically fair economic model around this might be for people to tone things down about three notches. Ads are annoying, but the frequent Hims commercials I see on Hulu aren't waterboarding me.
We'll tone it down about three notches when they tone down advertising about ten times that amount of notches. The majority of people react badly to advertising because it's simply out of control. Nearly every content source has become infested with an ever increasing number of ads. The Internet is basically unusable without an array of ad blockers, DNS blocking, and content filtering. There seems to be no end in the race to the bottom in terms of ad quality. I genuinely wonder how anyone who works in the a
Re: Piracy faded when Netflix et al were proper. (Score:3)
... hold content hostage behind arbitrary tiers, constantly jack up prices, impose ads even on paying customers, and torture people ...
Dude, it's just tv, go outside more.
Re:Piracy faded when Netflix et al were proper. (Score:4, Insightful)
And bizarre lawyer-controlled geofencing. Don't forget geofencing, which gives us who do not live in a certain very special country every incentive to avoid this whole disaster and use the simple (free) option instead.
Imagine that (Score:3, Insightful)
Gee, what a Scooby-Doo mystery! People are willing to pay five or ten bucks a month to see whatever entertainment tickles their fancy, versus paying a tenner to Paramount+, then a tenner to Peacock, another tenner to Hulu, another tenner to CBS All Access, etc...
Economics; price vs supply (Score:5, Insightful)
Just another example of corporations trying to maximize profits at the expense of people.
Re:Economics; price vs supply (Score:5, Insightful)
Just another example of corporations trying to maximize profits
Ever since taking on Netflix at its own game, old Hollywood has struggled to turn a profit in streaming, with the likes of Disney+, Peacock and Paramount+ losing billions of dollars each year
And as it turns out, they are doing a terrible job at it.
Those who understand that people don't mind paying for convenience and make a good offer along these lines not only make great profits, but people love them. Steam may be the best example, and so was Netflix before studios started to see them as competitors and not as partners.
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There are sites in Russia that offer pretty much anything you want to watch, well out of reach of the MPAA or any American laws.
I know people in that part of the world, and absolutely everyone uses those sites, freely and openly.
So it's not about cost. The only price most people will accept, given the chance, is $0, ad free.
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You wouldnâ(TM)t steal a handbag (Score:5, Funny)
No, I wouldn't steal it again (Score:2)
It smells gross!
Re:You wouldn't steal a handbag (Score:2)
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Re: You wouldnâ(TM)t steal a handbag (Score:3)
You clearly wouldn't turn off "smart" punctuation on your device.
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This is a funny from The IT Crowd, whoever downvoted it. The FriendFace episode I think.
It's hilarious. Good job.
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You wouldnâ(TM)t steal a car. You wouldnâ(TM)t steal a baby. You wouldnâ(TM)t shoot a policeman, and then steal his helmet. You wouldnâ(TM)t go the toilet in his helmet, and then send it to the policemanâ(TM)s grieving widow - and then steal it again!
But you would use an iPhone.
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All of the analogies you make are to physical objects which when stolen, are not available to their original owners.
who says stealings bad? im all for it
Re:You wouldnâ(TM)t steal a handbag (Score:5, Informative)
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The overblown metaphors used, starting with "piracy," are just crazy in this area.
Describing copyright violations as piracy has a long history, going back to at least 1808; see here [google.com].
Too much friction... (Score:5, Interesting)
The current streaming environment has too much friction, walled litter boxes, and the like. Folks want to get in, get their stuff, and get out. The more barriers you put up to doing that the more customers are going to move to lower barrier options.
It wasn't the RIAA that killed Napster. Yea, their lawyers, fines, etc. made a dent, but that's about it. It was Apple selling music for $0.99 / song. Friction was greatly reduced and the vast majority of folks decided that iTunes was the easier path. Buck a song was about the same price as a CD at the time.
Now everyone wants annuities (Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora, etc. ) not sales. In some circles, not a bad idea - allows unknown artists a shot a being heard. But, throws out the concept of right of first sale - as there is no sale. Only a lease.
Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, Prime Video, YouTubeTV, Paramount, Peacock... lots of friction between them and have to subscribe to more than one to have any selection.
As loathed as the cable companies are.. they (and the other telcom companies) totally missed the boat on this. They should have immediately setup streaming platforms that mirrored their cable offerings, but to anyone - not just within their wired areas. Now have a wider offering of customers, more competition, and the concept of 'cable cutting' doesn't exist. What does it matter that they are switching from cable tv to paying us for a streaming option alongside their internet?
Re:Too much friction... (Score:4, Informative)
I would argue that it wasn't even iTunes that landed the KO. $1/song with easy access was a series of body shots. The knockout took place when streaming services like Pandora and Spotify started offering subscriptions. Piracy was still rampant when iTunes came out, it was the inexpensive unlimited access to nearly the entire (mainstream) music catalog that overcame most piracy.
Re:Too much friction... (Score:4, Interesting)
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My feeling is that once you get down to maybe two or three large services, the studios may become more flexible in licensing
ROFLMAO
Have you ever seen a junkie pass up another hit? Surprisingly, I have; however, that is NOT the safe way to bet.
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Napster itself was dead after the RIAA. It shut down in 2002, while the iTunes store didn't start until 2003. However, there was period in the 00s, where a bunch of other copycat distributed filesharing programs took its place (Kazaa et. al). The problem was that Napster was generally pretty safe, but the other services were rather infested with malware of various types. A lot of it was that Apple offered a return to the Napster experience (for a fee). Of course, internet speeds also helped as a lot of folk
Re:Too much friction... (Score:5, Informative)
...they [] totally missed the boat on this. They should have immediately setup streaming platforms that mirrored their cable offerings, but to anyone - not just within their wired areas.
The boat was not theirs to sail.
They couldn't do this without major contractual changes, as the licences for the content they were showing precluded it, and the media company's thrive on creating artificial scarcity for their products.
Added to this, it would have required the cable companies to invest extensively in their infrastructure - not something they've ever really shown an interest in.
FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
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Excuse me? Lack of availability? We're not talking about some esoteric 1 season TV show from 15 years ago or limited run films that aren't available on media or streaming services -- we're talking about first run films.
The only thing 'inconvenient" is the price.
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That is illegally lowering the value of the IP causing the LEGAL providers of the IP to lower prices (often below what is profitable).
You figure more people would buy it if only it were more expensive?
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"You figure more people would buy it if only it were more expensive?"
What I figure is that there will be less of it (content) if the value of the IP is lost.
Right now, I think the only two profitable streaming services are Netflix and Hulu -- but Hulu's days may be numbered since they were bought by Disney+ which is losing money hand over fist.
Pirates predate Netflix (Score:5, Insightful)
When the services provided decent content with a decent interface at a decent price, piracy was minimal.
When everything is being finely tuned to extract more money at the expense of the client's perceived quality and value of service, piracy blooms.
There's no lack of money in Hollywood, they're not starving. They're simply greedy fucks, and nobody cares about respecting their rights as they obviously don't respect ours. They don't even respect the people who make the product they sell.
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drug-fueled wild sex parties, divorce lawyers, alimony payments,
These activities are the purview of the mid-century conservative, nothing "woke" about it.
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This is really it.
I've had Netflix for years. I don't even know if I watch it enough to justify it, but it's 'low-enough' that I just keep paying it.
Ditto for spotify.
What I simply don't want to do is pay for more than 1 service. I have kids and while Disney might be nice, I just don't want to pay for more services and have another account... It's just too much.
Years back, I wished more companies (Disney) would put their content on Netflix. Of course they eventually chose the opposite route and trying to bu
Not this numbers game again (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember from some decades ago, that the cost of piracy was estimated by finding a student that downloaded Photoshop and Maya, estimated that this was $3000 of retail (and thus loss for them), assuming that the student would have purchased the software at full price if the pirate option did not exist.
I see the same here. I guess some people just download everything they can find or binge 3 movies a day, something they would never have done if they would have to purchase the premium ultra Bluray package for each of them ...
well then max fine now days is like 3-5X the cost (Score:2)
well then max fine now days is like 3-5X the cost of Netflix
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This article has real numbers with real money. People are giving the pirates $2B in money and ad impressions. The "estimated loss" of $30B is BS, but the $2B is real
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And because the streaming services are so fragmented, some people simply cannot subscribe to them even if they want to and are willing to pay.
Re:Not this numbers game again (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that still does not really tells us much of anything at all.
My first thought was - so the actual loss is somewhere between 2B and 30B; except that isn't really true. In fact it assumes the pirate sites have not already optimized for supply/demand in terms of whatever they are charging or how many ads they are serving up. For all we know one penny more over that 2B and the demand vanishes entirely.
I still think, based on the consumer behaviors I can see, observations on how the cable-tv industry evolved, and admittedly limited financial statements reviewed as a causal trader who now and then considers shorting the Mouse etc, if Hollywood can't make money in the current streaming ecosystem, there problem isn't revenues it is costs.
I really think consumers are willing to pay a certain amount in for television/movie media subscripts and they are going to watch a certain amount of hours in a given month. Barring really really radical changes in quality or format; that wont change a whole lot.
People like certain franchise and that drives piracy. Star Trek - about the only things worth paying for in Paramount+ in terms of exclusives anyway as far as I am concerned, not going to pay 12.99 a month for that. Just aint happening. Right now I can pick it up once a year or so make basically all my TV Trek for a few weeks and catch up but break that by getting more aggressive with the 'trickle-out model' and take the piracy away - I think people just won't watch.
Think back some years ago was there anyone - I mean anyone at all you know in a STEM or related field that wasn't watching ST:TNG while it was new? Is that still true of things like Strange New Worlds? The media landscape is already super fractured, the friction is great enough that people already abandon even major 'must watch franchises'.
I am not saying they need to go back to 15 hours of primetime content per week X 3 major networks by any stretch, but they need to get back to way fewer properties at any given time to put more eyeballs on each, and license it a handful of distributors so customers are not trying to juggle so many subs. Until they do that the pirates will continue to win.
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That's the frustrating thing, they have a real number, but can't *help* but to toss in the $30 billion number.
The issue is the truth lies somewhere in between, *some* of the infringing users might have otherwise paid, but the conversion rate is unknowable, so attempts to be specific rightfully earn derision.
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Nonsense, they type of advertisers that come up on pirate sites would not be appropriate to come up on Disney+ or most other streaming services. If streaming sites offered 1 add per stream the first time you watched it I am sure most people wouldn't mind. The problem is not ads, they are fine the problem is the level of ads, and as soon as you accept the current level of ads they increase it because they want to make more money.
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A copied file is not a "lost sale" or "theft". (Score:5, Interesting)
The "billions of dollars" we keep hearing about is from the assumption that anyone who copies a file would otherwise have paid the fees to the streaming service. Soon this will kill the streaming services.
Before that it was "would have paid to get it at Blockbuster." They tried to kill Blockbuster, because that competed with "would have paid to see it at the theater."
The MPAA and the RIAA and the rest of the MAFIAA haven't learned anything in the last 40 years. People don't go to movie theaters as much. Blockbuster is out of business. Streaming sites charge through the nose and who nose WHICH streaming service to get because you need 4-7 of them to truly have coverage.
Or get a VPN and show them supply-demand-pricing in action.
re: Illegal subscription services that steal films (Score:3)
Seems after all the effort being put into signalling how you don't actually OWN any media you "buy", we shouldn't accept "steal" as the appropriate word.
Copyright infringement, please. Or unlicensed distribution.
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Keep in mind that the US Federal government is not allowed to grant copyright -- they are allowed "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" but not by any means they choose, the method by which they are allowed to do that, is copyright/patents.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
The Congress shall have Power... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries
Now I know some people want to strike that section off the Constitution as meaningless gibberish, but any child can tell you that it says "you may do this thing by this method" and not "ha ha, limited times means years after the author has died, also let's
Just as Steve Jobs said to recording studios (Score:5, Insightful)
The audio streaming services have some competition which is why their prices are still relatively low for the value they provide.
Everyone on this site knows that video streaming is now too fragmented and expensive that it's easier to use a pirate web site rather than subscribe and unsubscribe from the legitimate streaming sites every couple of months.
Curios (Score:5, Funny)
"The U.S., which has almost 130 subscription piracy sites..."
Just out of curiosity, is there a list of these sites?
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You just got the list of streaming sites for that show
Lies.Real Pirates Don't Pay Shit. (Score:2)
No one pays to watch pirated content. That is an oxymoron.
Let's make this even worse. (Score:3)
Worse is when the infringers won't stream current movies because of how crappy those movies are.
Bold new strategy (Score:2, Funny)
But seriously, piracy is punching bag they set up to deflect away from telling their stockholders that their content is lefty propaganda trash that nobody wa
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Oh please, movies and music have been shitty for a long time and for about as long they were blaming the evil, evil pirates for their plummeting sales, not the quality of the product.
And we're not just talking about the content, you can also de-value your product by making it unusable for the customer by disallowing format shifting or playing it on their preferred display. Back in the DVD days where they tried to disable playing movies on computers (because then you could rip them, ya know), I stopped buyin
Cory Doctorow says it best (Score:5, Informative)
"If buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing"
https://pluralistic.net/2023/1... [pluralistic.net]
For science! (Score:3)
I can't believe that Slashdot made us look up these sites on our own, and not post their links for us.
They made me look it up, through DuckDuckGo, behind a VPN, wearing rubber gloves.
This is for scientific research only and no consumption of any of the links here: https://www.firesticktricks.co... [firesticktricks.com]
For the benefit of science!
The actual villians (Score:3)
Because of this unending desire for money, streaming has been the new way to strong arm people into getting it. And they are asking too much of the average consumer, but they don't care.
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These people want you for one thing, your money. .
Isn't that literally what our entire economic and social heirarchy is based on?
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These people want you for one thing, your money. Most of them don't want to entertain you, they want a paycheck.
Welcome to capitalism. Mind you, bad as it is here, it is far worse in the US health care industry, where providers have lots of means to make money off their customers that do not involve providing good health care.
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Yes, but do you really want to (Score:3)
Do you really want to give your contact information and
credit card number to a bunch of pirates?
I know some people will point out that they would not
trust Netflix et al with that information either, but to a
self-proclaimed pirate?
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What makes a pirate worse than Netflix? This is where the "invisible hand" appears: If the pirate makes more money selling movies than selling your credit card. he will sell you another movie. With a 90% profit margin per movie, selling your credit card is never a good move. Also, selling your credit card. means the buyer can use it to steal from pirate (since the seller suffers the cost of stolen credit cards).
The Invisible Hand also explains why Netflix is selling your viewing history. Plus, Netflix
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The market (Score:2)
In addition to showing how prolific they are, it also shows clearly how overpriced streaming is. I stopped pirating shows when streaming was reasonably priced, but now I'm back to downloading about a quarter of what I watch, because I can only pay for so many services at once.
Paywall? (Score:3)
illicit streaming sites (Score:3)
> "illicit streaming sites such as myflixer and projectfreetv..."
Got it, thanks!
Hollywood and TV productions are bloated (Score:5, Interesting)
The budgets for TV shows and movies today are absurd. These companies could easily rake in billions more if they stopped wasting their money.
Check out this list of costs for TV shows: https://www.buzzfeed.com/norad... [buzzfeed.com]
- $10 Million per episode of Big Bang Theory
- $30 Million per episode of Stranger Things
- $60 Million per episode of LOTR: Rings of Power
- $25 Million per episode of Falcon and the Winter Soldier
etc, etc. I mean, this is insane. If the actors cost too much, hire cheaper actors. If the sets are too expensive, film in remote locations, or use green screen, or film one or two exteriors and then all interiors. We literally won't care about extra fancy stuff. We only care about the story, the acting, and maybe the action.
If you brought down the prices of these shows, then you could charge us less, and then maybe do things like sell your content on a single platform, which is what all of us want.
The entertainment industry (Score:3)
Opt Out (Score:2)
I opted out for the most part a long time ago. Most of my time now is working in my garage, playing with my cnc, 3d printer, and taking chemistry classes.
What do you expect (Score:2)
You innovated by replacing cable with cable (on the Internet)
Give is easy-to-order a-la-carte (Score:2)
...and then we won't pirate. Go bundle your asses!
Excessive d/l rates? (Score:2)
mean that the streaming services are so sloppy at network management that they allow connections to download far faster than their subscription can present the data.
OK, granted that you need to fill up a buffer, to cover the inevitable network dropouts. But what actual watching "customer" needs to download minute-135 of a movie when
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So I can no longer skip the boring parts of a movie I don't want to see? I can't rewind and watch a part again that I got distracted by a phone call?
You really want to take away one of the leading advantages of streaming? Not that the streaming services wouldn't do it, they already showed they don't mind making the experience worse and worse for a higher and higher price...
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What advantage does "streaming" have over that?
Convenience. Especially for people who are not technologically savvy.
Convenience was the whole selling point of streaming, and it is the selling point of a lot of things in our society. Ponder for a moment how many thing you could very easily do yourself, but you pay for them because it's more convenient, saves you time or is less of a hassle.
People pay for convenience. And if you take convenience away from a product, they will stop wanting it. Not because they're cheap or because they wouldn't want to pay
You brought this on yourself (Score:5, Insightful)
You had the goose that laid the golden eggs. Back in the good ol' days when Netflix streaming was young, the system worked. People paid a reasonable price for a reasonable selection of streams. And people were happy and didn't even consider returning to the Bay and other sites like it because, hey, what for? If the likes of Netflix and Steam showed us something, then that people are very willing to pay (reasonably) for comfort and ease of use.
Note that people paid for comfort. They still didn't give a fuck about whether or not that was legal. And they never will. If you make laws so confusing that it's virtually impossible for a normal person to know whether or not they break it, they simply stop paying any attention to it and accept breaking the law like some sort of natural disaster they cannot avoid anyway.
And you insisted in slaughtering the goose and taking that comfort away. Now people would have to go and figure out between half a dozen of streaming services which one they'd have to subscribe to and for how long to binge their favorite shows, and as an additional problem, you pull shows from the services at random intervals. That may even have a reason in the form of licensing contracts and how long they last, but guess what: People don't give a fuck about that. This is YOUR problem. They don't care about it.
They care about getting what they want. And if you don't deliver what they want, they will go to someone who does.
And they will not give a fuck whether you consider that legal or not. Not even half of one.
Piracy streamers offer more content (Score:2)
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Produce shows, then sell them to whoever will buy them. You'd be pretty frustrated if you had to run around to six different stores, never mind if you had to maintain Costco-style memberships at all of them, in order to find some product you wanted.
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I wonder if there are examples and numbers to prove it, but it sure seems like most network/studio based streaming services have been less profitable than licensing their content to the establish platforms.
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They're trying to stuff the cat back into the bag and are surprised now that the cat not only doesn't go peacefully but actually draws blood with its claws.
Grossly inflated numbers (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: Grossly inflated numbers (Score:2)
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you have a digital library of the movies you purchase. But, if the publisher decides to pull the movie, it's gone and you have no recourse. No refund.
Sounds like stealing to me.
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What the PP is stealing is his eyeball time. Stealing it back. What the studios are seeking to capture is your attention. You only have so many minutes of it a day and they'd like to get their new product in front of you. They can't very well do that if a good chunk of their viewers just choose to put that Star Wars DVD in the player again.
Once everything is streamed, when they pull it you will have no choice but to watch their new stuff. Or (shudder) read a book instead.
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Use the JustWatch app
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I think it's not even the price tag, it's that people will not sign up for half a dozen of streaming services, each of them costing about 20 bucks a month, to finally be able to watch the shows they're interested in.
From that point of view, signing up for illegal services saves you more than 1000 bucks a year. I can see the motivation to do it.
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People want one thing, first and foremost: Convenience. That even trumps price. Not by much, mind you, but it does. People are willing to pay a little more for a more convenient product. This is why streaming services pretty much eliminated piracy sites until a few years ago. Netflix was very convenient and nicely priced, so people went there. It was basically The Bay, just with less hassle, less wrongly classified content, no waiting for the download to finish and a nice interface.
Convenience.
When that con