Many people think it's an ethical requirement to pay artists for their work. So even if they're okay (arguably) violating the law, they might not be okay with just taking the art without paying at all.
I pay for Netflix and Amazon Prime, and still pirate all the content.
I’m on Linux, and they only provide 144p video for me, so pirating is easier for getting access to content I paid for.
It also may make it more likely that Netflix will drop the content if it's not getting good enough numbers.
So even if there isn't a per-view payout, I'm sure the view numbers do contribute to the studio getting more money.
Netflix mass-negotiates content contracts with distributors for lump sums. The distributor then pays out one-time royalties from that lump sum.
If a show is getting press and social media talk then they probably value that higher since new subscribers is of very high value. Retention is a different problem and not as particular to one show.
Who knew Cisco was selling enterprise-grade circumvention devices to the world's corporations? Somebody better notify the MPAA!
More seriously, this type of thinking is pernicious. It demands "consumers" simply "consume" is easy-to-control ways, stay in their lanes and not be suspicious.
There would be no internet if people did that. Don't get me wrong; if people want to be sheep, they can be. I will happily encrypt, tunnel, send weird packets and otherwise play on the net the way it was intended, and anyone with a problem with that can chose not to do business with me if they prefer more tractable clientele who will shut up and eat what they're fed.
Let's not be disingenuous here: we're not talking about VPN the technology -- it's impossible to detect if someone's traffic has passed though a VPN. We're talking about public 'VPN Services' which are all but billed for circumventing region locking, ISP throttling, and piracy.
Any kind of content provider would blacklist those endpoints in a second.
I honestly don't care if "content providers" want to block VPNs, as I mentioned in my comment. I much more strongly object to this notion that there's something somehow wrong with users using things like this. The attitude of suspicion directed at anyone who values privacy, wants to learn how things work, or even does somewhat dodgy things sometimes is what I object to. That creates sheep, not citizens, and discourages engagement and learning.
It is up to businesses that depend on artificial scarcity (really, any business, but the legacy copyright industry is being discussed here) to make their businesses work; it isn't my responsibility to make my behavior fit their business model. And if they can't, well, they deserve to die.
You can use most (any?) dedicated server or VPS service as a VPN. I personally just create a SSH tunnel to my server in order to browse any site. You do not need to rent any shady "VPN Service".
> for circumventing region locking, ISP throttling
Circumventing either of these is a fine act.
> and piracy
If they wanted to "pirate" they would not have used Netflix.
And on the flip side, certain firewall providers have marketed similar features to restrictive regimes such as China for the Great Firewall. And not just 'nudge nudge wink wink', but produced marketing material saying "This will help you prevent Falun Gong material being available, and help identify end users trying to access this material."
Because to me, it makes sense.
I don't think that way. Everybody deserves a reasonable income, but what these "artists" make is totally insane. The only reason I watch their movies is because with the help of their fans, they have created an artificial monopoly around their persona and I am basically forced to watch them. In a free market with intelligent consumers, these people would not make this much.
You're also not "basically forced to watch them".
HBO operates with a margin of 33% (1.7Billion income on 4.9 Billion of revenue). That's healthy, but it isn't "totally insane". There isn't much room to spare before they'd have to sacrifice quality. That'd be quite sad, considering the last decade is generally regarded as a golden age of TV.
What other method do you suggest for me to stay up to date on pop culture, considering I do not want to support it?
Now I don't watch TV anymore, or ever so rarely. I've converted the time to reading. It changed my life in dramatically good ways —pun very much intended. There's a time for everything, and quite frankly after some time it's like you've watched it all, you could predict plots and even lines (sometimes it feels as though all authors just get inspired from their peers and much of the writing/directing feels recycled).
There's no "keeping up to date" with pop culture imho, at some point it becomes anthropological. You just overgrow pop culture beyond a certain amount of experience. You could actually produce it for that matter. As it relates to the medium, thus technology, I'm thinking it will evolve once again with VR/AR/etc.
Most productions that people watch have somewhere between hundreds and tens of thousands of people working on them. Almost none of them are rich, including most of the producers, directors, and stars of your favorite shows--who are usually locked into contracts they signed before their shows got big, and shows almost never get big. The number of people who will get rich from a given TV show or movie is between zero and almost zero.
99% of show business is folks trying to get by, same as anywhere else. Most people in show business could earn more doing almost anything else. Almost all of them make less than some kid in Silicon Valley building Tinder for Dogs. Programmers at Netflix make far, far more than almost every artist and even many of the financiers, and few here would complain about that.
Pay for your content.
Also, we should all benefit from economies of scale, not just the film producers.
I think I've seen that scene... Clockwork Orange, right? http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/ccManager/clips/clock...
Perhaps... perhaps you might choose a different phrasing than "forced to watch"?
In a free market with intelligent consumers, these people would not make quite so much, but it would still be a significant amount.
People that can uphold a willing suspension of disbelief are rare enough, but those who can invoke it are the ones truly deserving of that reasonable income. Those folks aren't always the actors. Sometimes it's the writers, directors, or even the make-up or foley artists. Those people that don't get face time in front of the public might not always get the recognition they deserve, and they're the ones we really want to be paid for their art. But there are a lot of people shaving money off the wad before it gets to them, so putting too much cash in their hands is a small price to pay so that those who deserve it can actually make a living.
It's like buying stolen art.
The difference is "This dollar came from a user in the US", versus "This dollar came from a user in Eastern Europe (or wherever Netflix isn't available)".
Netflix is still licensing the content, just not for your (real) jurisdiction.
To imply that it's better, then, to just outright pirate the content is... confusing.
You don't really need to, you just need to say "VPN IP? Okay, you get our own global content only."
They're already doing the VPN IP test.
Honestly, if you're at the point where you're circumventing region locking to access Netflix, you should just pirate it. You're violating copyright either way.