Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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Streaming Pirates Are Hollywood’s New Villains - Illegal subscription services that steal films or TV shows bring in $2 billion a year in ads and subscriber fees. (www.bloomberg.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

The problem isn't the number of providers, the problem is exclusive licensing deals.

If it was like music, then (theoretically), more choice is better. AFAIK all the platforms have pretty much all the music, so there is some choice available.

With TV and film, it's so fractured that it's literally easier to just pirate things, even for shows I (potentially) have ad-free paid access to already. With Stremio + Torrentio + a Debrid service, I just launch one app and everything's available in seconds. With paid services, I need to search Netflix, then Prime, then CBC Gem, by which point I'd already be watching.

Plus, torrentio lets me pick the video quality I want, so I can force 4K H265 on my big screen for films or just pop on a 720p H264 on my small underpowered laptop (that can't decode H265 fast enough for smooth playback).

It's not even about price, it's just a better experience to pirate. And that's a Big Problem for the industry.