Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again?

Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by Shank on Thursday January 05, 2023 @09:01AM (#34259635)

> “We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem,” he said. “If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate’s service is more valuable.” -- Gabe Newell

There have been many times where I've found DRM encumbered products inferior: trying to stream anime on Crunchyroll during primetime only to experience slowdowns; trying to screenshot something for a wallpaper only to get it blacked out; trying to download offline shows with subtitles, only to find subtitles didn't get downloaded with the video. Compound that with The Streaming Wars, I can't help but feel like a lot of people will turn to piracy out of necessity. It isn't enough that there are like 10 subscriptions to get all of the content you might want. It's also that each provider reinvents the wheel and each version is slightly jagged in different ways and doesn't work like a wheel. It's like 10 inferior clones of a wheel. Piracy, much to the chagrin of all of these services, usually fixes this: an H.265 .mkv file usually "just works" without problems in your favorite media player.

It's just a mess right now.

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by tobyhinloopen on Thursday January 05, 2023 @09:07AM (#34259697)

Ebooks are the worst offenders IMO. Most stores I’ve seen don’t even tell me the format or DRM, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be an open format

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by neilv on Thursday January 05, 2023 @09:21AM (#34259884)

I've started buying from ebooks.com exclusively, because they tell me it's DRM-free EPUB and PDF.

I end up paying a big premium in practice over Kindle DRM and discounted paperbacks, but I'm doing my part to convince publishers to offer DRM-free.

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by soco on Thursday January 05, 2023 @10:32AM (#34261062)

Speaking of buying DRM-free books, let me mention again The Humble Bundle. Not many books in there, but for a good cause: https://www.humblebundle.com/

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by neilv on Thursday January 05, 2023 @10:46AM (#34261340)

I bought a DRM-free Schneier's "Applied Cryptography" from a Humble Bundle, and got a virtual pile of other interesting books at the same time.

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by sam_lowry_ on Thursday January 05, 2023 @12:22PM (#34263182)

Schneier's last book, Data and Goliath IIRC, was also available as an audiobook, so I bought it, listened...until it ended abruptly at 1/3 of the full length.

How could he do this to readers, old fart!?

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by avtar on Thursday January 05, 2023 @01:25PM (#34264178)

_Some_ of their books are DRM-free.

“But please note that eBooks.com uses Adobe DRM to protect most ebook files, so the device, or the software running on the device must be compatible with Adobe DRM. If you'd prefer to obtain your books without DRM, you can browse our DRM-free section.”

https://support.ebooks.com/hc/en-gb/articles/214119286-Guide...

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by tren on Thursday January 05, 2023 @11:27PM (#34270963)

Yes, unfortunately this is the case (I work for ebooks.com). Most publishers require us to use DRM and Adobe DRM really sucks, but there isn't other options out there and we don't have the resources to make something better.

We focus quite a bit of effort on educating publishers about moving to DRM-Free as it makes everyone's lives easier and from what we've seen increases publisher sales numbers.

https://about.ebooks.com/should-we-sell-your-ebooks-without-...

https://about.ebooks.com/sales-jumped-54-when-this-publisher...

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by TrailMixRaisin on Thursday January 05, 2023 @03:49PM (#34266337)

Is this a regional thing to buy without DRM? I just checked some books from my reading list and many have DRM. Just some examples if you could double check: Double Star Project Hail Marry Children of Time A Memory Called Empire This is How You Lose the Time War

While I know/assume that it will be easy to remove the DRM, I do not want to install Adobe Digital Editions to download the books.

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by xavdid on Saturday January 07, 2023 @02:53AM (#34286127)

For the most part, whether a book has DRM is a per-publisher decision, not per-storefront. e.g. TOR books are DRM-free everywhere (including Apple).

That said, ebooks.com is great! Clean interface, easy to download old purchases, etc. It's my go-to for O'Reilly content.

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by politelemon on Thursday January 05, 2023 @09:18AM (#34259849)

Worst part for me is that even libraries, who want to promote openness and reading, are perfectly comfortable with delivering books using Adobe's horrible DRM delivery solution.

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by sct202 on Thursday January 05, 2023 @10:15AM (#34260737)

Libraries have to play in the rules the publishers give them or else they get cut off from the supply of ebooks. They already have to pay more for the ebooks that expire after a certain number of loans.

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by Mezzie on Thursday January 05, 2023 @11:36AM (#34262394)

Yeah, it's a major misconception to state that they're happy about it. Talk to librarians after hours and they will rant. (And most of us have personal DRM stripped libraries).

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by Cerium on Thursday January 05, 2023 @10:50AM (#34261412)

At least Adobe DRM is trivially easy to break. Right click in the Adobe software and it has a "open document storage location" option. Then drop that DRM loaded PDF into Calibre and you get a free and clear PDF in your library. At that point I go back to the library and hit the return button.

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by LarryMullins on Thursday January 05, 2023 @01:40PM (#34264396)

Why not get a DRM-free epub off the net in the first place?

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by yshklarov on Friday January 06, 2023 @02:15PM (#34279421)

In some cases these are not available. For instance, archive.org has many books that don't seem to be available anywhere else.

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by bccdee on Thursday January 05, 2023 @10:42AM (#34261261)

I like using the Kobo store, because it sells some of its books DRM-free. When it does use DRM, it lists the book as being DRMed, and Kobo DRM is easy to remove anyway.

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by irrational on Thursday January 05, 2023 @11:01AM (#34261680)

Are you aware of Calibre?

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by pizza234 on Thursday January 05, 2023 @10:07AM (#34260584)

> There have been many times where I've found DRM encumbered products inferior: trying to stream anime on Crunchyroll during primetime only to experience slowdowns; trying to screenshot something for a wallpaper only to get it blacked out; trying to download offline shows with subtitles, only to find subtitles didn't get downloaded with the video. Compound that with The Streaming Wars, I can't help but feel like a lot of people will turn to piracy out of necessity.

Piracy is not necessarily better. Languages are very few (english essentially), subtitles may not exist at all, quality is variable, and speed can be a problem as well, since it depends on how popular a movie is.

Most importantly, malware push from pirate websites is a very serious problem. I warn non-power users not to download from pirate websites.

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by alexiaa on Thursday January 05, 2023 @11:27AM (#34262213)

It's common for them to not include more than original and/or English audio, but most competent groups will generally include all available subtitles at least.

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by kaba0 on Thursday January 05, 2023 @01:33PM (#34264296)

Besides the websites displaying less than friendly ads, what malware can even be found in downloading a video format? Sure, it could be an executable renamed to some video format, or something like that, but without a serious vulnerability in your video player which was very cleverly hacked for very low reward, what can even happen?

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by pizza234 on Friday January 06, 2023 @02:21AM (#34271888)

In the video file itself none, but before being able to click to download whatever (either torrent download or streaming), there's lot of misdirection. From a certain tablet for example, I wasn't able to start a video playback _at all_ from a certain website, because ads kept popping up. In some cases, it's not obvious where to click even for experienced users.

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by kaba0 on Friday January 06, 2023 @04:08AM (#34272607)

Sure, but nothing will “infect” your computer even if you click all the fake download/play buttons.

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by pizza234 on Friday January 06, 2023 @08:23AM (#34274301)

Fake buttons definitely can initiate the download of an executable file pretending it's a movie; there's nothing unusual (tech-wise) with it. Once in while, I do experience them.

There are countermeasures in place by some browsers/versions (that is, blocking of downloads with executable extensions), but non-savvy users can be tricked - the concept of file extension/type is not so clear to them, and it also assumes that the user is giving the right attention.

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by kevincox on Thursday January 05, 2023 @10:29AM (#34261003)

> trying to screenshot something for a wallpaper only to get it blacked out

I found this out when I was going to send a screenshot of a funny scene to a friend. Ok, I guess they don't want free advertising.

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by TAForObvReasons on Thursday January 05, 2023 @10:36AM (#34261127)

Even license holders benefit from using the pirated versions of games:

> Denuvo DRM Outage Leads to Major Games Being Unplayable

[0] https://gamerant.com/denuvo-drm-outage-major-games-unplayabl...

> The cracked version of Resident Evil Village runs better, testing confirms

[1] https://www.pcgamer.com/resident-evil-village-drm-denuvo-stu...

> Shadow of the Tomb Raider Reportedly Runs Better Now That Denuvo Has Been Removed

[2] https://gamerant.com/shadow-of-the-tomb-raider-reportedly-ru...

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by smcl on Thursday January 05, 2023 @11:09AM (#34261876)

That RE:Village one was wild - those stutters looked frustrating

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by malfist on Thursday January 05, 2023 @11:24AM (#34262153)

Denuvo is awful. Anno 1800 uses it, I can't tell you the number of times I've had to fiddle with my computer because it doesn't want to connect to it's server and says I can't play the game.

If the pirated version wasn't so buggy I'd use that, even though I've paid for the game.

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by Sakos on Thursday January 05, 2023 @10:38AM (#34261170)

I bought NFS Unbound when it came out. It was rendered unplayable on Linux repeatedly whenever EA updated their new launcher app even though the game otherwise ran fine on Linux.

Piracy is our last refuge from companies delivering awful user experiences and shitting on our rights as consumers.

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by lilboiluvr69 on Thursday January 05, 2023 @10:53AM (#34261485)

Fucking. Preach.

Just so you know you can fix EA games on the Steam Deck by logging into EA with your steam account and linking it. All the EA launcher games will work again.

Go to EAs help page. https://help.ea.com/en/contact-us/ Click login, and choose the Steam option. Link your steam with your ea account. Then try launching your game again. You’ll get the gray screen but give it time and it will go away.

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by RunSet on Thursday January 05, 2023 @11:20AM (#34262082)

It is worth considering that Gabe Newell quote in light of how Steam built its original install base: By strong-arming owners of retail copies of Half-Life (notably including players of CounterStrike, a player-created mod) and requiring them to install Steam and create an account to update Half-Life / play it online.

At the time this was as well-received as any other strong-arming.

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by dml2135 on Thursday January 05, 2023 @11:32AM (#34262327)

The pirating user experience is incredible right now. Gone are the days of hunting around different torrent trackers and sketchy websites for what you want. You can set up a server with the *arrs and download anything with the click of a button, and then have it automatically added to something like Plex or Jellyfin to watch. And then you hold on to the media to rewatch it whenever you like, forever.

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by sam_lowry_ on Thursday January 05, 2023 @12:23PM (#34263200)

*arrs?

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by zeendo on Thursday January 05, 2023 @12:33PM (#34263372)

Readarr, Sonarr, Prowlarr (and others)

Modern versions of CouchPotato or SabNZB if you were familiar with those

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by 9935c101ab17a66 on Thursday January 05, 2023 @11:59PM (#34271155)

Overseerr is worth a mention — it’s really, really good. Waaay better than Ombi.

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Re:Ask HN: How many of you are open to Piracy again? by half0wl on Thursday January 05, 2023 @11:45AM (#34262546)

GabeN hit the nail on the head. If you make paying for a service/content impossible or hard, people who want it will find other ways to get it. Regional DRM/content licensing is one annoying culprit.. Consumers want something instant, and if you instantly tell them "this is not available in your region," they're obviously not going to go out of their way to figure out where, whom, and how to pay for it.

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