It's easier and faster to pirate an e-book, than it is to buy it
1. I went to Amazon, since I have a kindle and didn't want to buy physical books. Amazon doesn't have a shopping card for kindle books, so I started buying them one by one. My company uses Spendesk for managing funds, so for each of the purchase I created a new virtual card and bought them. After a few minutes my Amazon account is blocked for suspicious activity, and ALL my kindle library is wiped, and the funds are returned to my company.
2. Not wanting to give up, I go to a different online store, Thalia, to buy the books again. After buying them, I download the files, which are in an .acsm format, and can only be opened on the Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) software. Once opened, an .epub file is downloaded, and even though I can't transfer the files to my kindle on ADE, I download Calibre to transfer them. Once I try opening them on Calibre, I get an error message saying the files are protected by DRM. Funnily enough, it's possible to remove this DRM protection, but it's also not something completely legal, and makes me question why did I decide to legally buy the e-books in the first place.
After spending hours trying to buy e-books, having my Amazon account blocked, and downloading files that can't be transferred to my Kindle, the only conclusion I come to, is that I'm never buying e-books again.
503 comments
[ 0.26 ms ] story [ 121 ms ] threadWe have some other examples of this in software:
* There was an article here on HN a couple of days ago, regarding how Windows 95 detected SimCity and treated memory allocations differently if it was running. (https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/10/windows-95-went-the-...)
* Excel still treats 1900 as a leap year, which it was not, for greater compatibility with Lotus 1-2-3. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/troubleshoot/excel/...
* The Linux kernel has an extremely strict policy of not breaking userland - to the point of keeping buggy behavior in place (I can't find a reference for this one, but I believe it one notorious case involved PulseAudio and one of Linus's earlier "moments").
The good news is: public domain products are strictly superior: https://breckyunits.com/how-the-public-domain-can-win.html
Amendment to abolish copyright: https://breckyunits.com/the-intellectual-freedom-amendment.h...
Here you go, get the full site without hitting my web server: `git clone https://github.com/breck7/breckyunits.com`
> just answer the question
>> So if you write a book, and sell it for $20, and I make a copy of your book and sell it for $10, you are ok with this?
If I make a hammer, and sell it for $20, and the person I sell it to uses it to make more hammers that he sells for $10, are you okay with this?
Your question shows a shallowness of thinking. What is a book? Did you come up with 100% of the words in the book? If not, are you tracking down and compensating all the people who invented the words you used (or their ancestors?). What about the letters? Let's talk about the machinery you used to print the book. Are you providing a "royalty" to the printing press manufacturer?
The problem with me wasting my time is that your question is so basic and shows such lack of thought that I can't distinguish whether you are being genuine or are a paid shill by the (c)opywrong regime out there muddying the waters. And yes, there are a tremendous amount of paid shills out there spreading false and dishonest information about (c)opywrongs.
Back to digital books: how does an author get paid for writing when there’s no legal protection for his work? It costs nothing for any customer to forward along copies. Without laws to allow a temporary monopoly, the author might see a few sales. Pricing one’s time for so few sales (ergo higher prices) will inevitably encourage further free copying. In a society of capitalism, where would the motivation to create (and iterate, and hone) come from without a monopoly on copying?
If the naysayers of IP laws want to advocate for a different, non-capitalist paradigm, that’s fine. But the lack of intellectual rigor behind the “eliminate IP laws” argument isn’t everyone else’s fault when they fail to make it convincing.
How do cotton farm owners make money if they have to pay their employees? Saying we need (c)opywrong laws to have creative content is like saying we need slavery to have cotton. It's just completely false and absurd.
So how does this apply to creative digital artists? Are you suggesting that they all need to be employed by someone else? How does THAT person make money on the digital product?
Seems to me you don't have a completely formed thought around this entire concept and therefore can't explain.
The United States government employs more knowledge workers than all other companies (see NIH, DoD, CDC, NASA, NOAA, NWS, et cetera). Everything they produce is public domain, by law. And yet, they still get paid!
You are arguing for slavery on behalf of slaveowners. We don't need slavery. We still have cotton even after the 13th Amendment (we actually have more and better cotton now), and we will still have creative works after the passing of the Intellectual Freedom Amendment (we actually will have more and better creative works). You are on the wrong side of history.
I’ve argued for nothing more than you to produce an argument. And yet you still haven’t.
Not a satisfactory answer. Delivery to whom? Once the creator has “delivered” a digital creation to a paying customer, all other customers can take “delivery” from previous customers and never pay the creator again.
So the question still stands: how does a creator of works (especially digital works) actually get paid for their work without temporary legal monopoly on their creation?
How do cotton farms still make money even after slavery was abolished in the United States? They found a way! Turns out, you don't need slavery. But I understand, those who have a lot of slaves do not want to give up their power.
The question I think is interesting here is: can you still be an author without being lucky enough to gain celebrity that you can slurp value out of (e.g. endorsements, etc.)? Certainly there would be plenty of freeloading. I don't think there would be much reselling, except for extremely low margin stuff on the level of print-on-demand, because it would be easy enough for buyers to just get the content for free. But there would also certainly be social pressure to compensate creators for their work.
What I wonder is how that balances out when CC-BY is the norm and not some weird thing that most consumers are learning about for the first time when they see a donate link.
(That might sound snarky but I don't mean it that way.)
- - - -
It seems to me that we will see a kind of memetic evolution: some folks will develop a culture of giving credit and money to original authors, while others will develop a culture of free-for-all. Often you'll have different standards for different realms or subjects. E.g. I pay for books often and gladly, but software seldom and then only if I truly can't find a FOSS solution (has never yet happened BTW.)
- - - -
Really it's kinda regressive to try to make money selling hardcopies of books: it makes way more economic sense to let the books go where they will and then trade on your fame to sell t-shirts or whatever. ("10k rabid fans" and all that.)
See also: Pyramids, Sixteenth chapel, Rambrandt paintings, computers
How do you explain World wide web and sqlite? They are 100% public domain.
Ah yes, they appeared out of thin air and no one had to create them or fight to keep them (Haben Sie bemerkt, dass wir Englisch und nicht Deutsch sprechen?).
> only to find someone used it without your consent
My consent? What are you talking about? Do you think I own slaves? No, I do not. I think slavery is abhorrent. I guess you support slavery though, and like to control other people even when they are in their own homes. So we will disagree. You support slavery. I do not.
"Ah yes, they appeared out of thin air and no one had to create them or fight to keep them (Haben Sie bemerkt, dass wir Englisch und nicht Deutsch sprechen?)."
Hu ?! I think you have a misconception of what creating something is :D Words and letters are human common heritage, it’s so old that no one knows who to credit for their creation :D There is a reason why copyright for original creation last 70 years, then fall into public domain : https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-duration.html Although details changes countries to countries… Making an original creation is putting the letters and words together, in original and unique form, like for example poets or writers do... see ? Say for example you're a rockstar, and a orange haired politician uses your best songs for his meetings without asking kindly, would you like it ?... (Et oui, je sais que l’on écrit en anglais, et ça n'a aucun rapport…)
> only to find someone used it without your consent
"My consent? What are you talking about? Do you think I own slaves? No, I do not. I think slavery is abhorrent. I guess you support slavery though, and like to control other people even when they are in their own homes. So we will disagree. You support slavery. I do not."
What ? WTF slaves and slavery as to do with creation and having a say on your original creation ?! Anyway yes… I support slavery, matter of fact I got 20 slaves very cheap at the market yesterday, have to train them to post on HN. You obviously have no idea what copyright is. Too bad, your posts are very creative and original. You own them (true), you should use more of that talent to write longer funny things… Cheers.
Can’t wait for the apologist to appear and explain why this is just totally fine
They'll probably want some kind of job to afford art supplies, but it's an option rather than a mandate.
This is oversimplified, of course, but it doesn't seem fundamentally impossible.
Nowadays with crowdfunding a writer could be paid by wannabe readers before the book is published, and only publish when he has obtained a FAIR compensation for his time working writing said book.
It seems like most are not using that model. Maybe it’s not lucrative enough; maybe they’re not aware of the possibility.
Kickstarters only work for known authors, so the newcomers would be excluded automatically from the beginning, but we consumers won't feel this for a few years.
Then it will stop being a novelty and hip thing to do (in about a week, given current attention economy), and the money streams will start to dry out, while the number of kickstarters will only increase while every existing author will switch to it.
Then Kickstarter itself and other portals will start promoting "better" authors, making it a sort of an unofficial ranked contest. Promoting will be based on different metrics, fairly as far as reviewers will think. Mostly it will be based on popularity and track record of previous products of those authors.
So the motivation to be seen on top (which equals - seen at all, due to the number or creators), will be releasing popular and catchy products, and as often as possible to generate a track record of good releases.
Over a few years this will shift people to create a common as possible popular and simple products, mandatory oriented on kids and ya because that's a gigantic market, so the lowest common denominator products will be the most successful and popular.
And so all kickstarter money, slowly drying out because more and more people will be tired of seeing this clown show and paying for inferior products, will be even further concentrated at the top kicktarting creators, while leaving "long tail" with zero money. Also audience will shift, while adults will stop participating in general, their kids will participate and will fund whatever is most flashy and predatory.
Thus this perpetual machine will go on in circles eventually producing only garbage.
We see a renewed interest of that with Patreon and other services.
(To simplify step 1, you could skip the thorny problem of defining who an "author" or an "artist" is by instituting a universal basic income.)
I thought we were talking about viable societies?
How can you expect any form of R&D investment if the investor can't expect to see an ROI? Sounds great if you want to stagnate but personally i dont.
If not, could you explain where you see a connection between copyright and R&D?
Almost all the money is skimmed by the huge range of industries that have arisen to capture the marginal proceeds created by copyright law.
Maybe you could argue that all artists are motivated by the folly of dreaming that they will be the next unicorn who actually gets rich, but I don't think most of them are that naïve. They find creating fulfilling. They would still do so with a UBI.
https://gizmodo.com/amazon-secretly-removes-1984-from-the-ki...
You don’t actually buy digital books, you rent a restricted right to read for an unspecified duration. I think there should be legislation that sets a minimum standard for the rights people acquire when they “buy” a digital work.
Which is fine, as long as you know that going in and set your price expectations accordingly. If those terms are unacceptable, walk away. If you do decide it's worth it, keep a backup with the rest of your digital data.
So it’s ever so slightly fraudulent.
If only there was a way to preserve digital data even if the company you got it from no longer exists…
I just treat it as a open end rental. The ability to revoke my access to the book lowers the value. The ability to instantly get the book in seconds adds to the value. I keep my expectations clear from the beginning.
Yes, we can argue that regular people are just too stupid to understand that. I don't really agree with that attitude.
We shouldn't let marketers tell outright lies just because regular people are smart enough to recognize them for lies.
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/bhdkvo/comment/el...
As OP said,
> I'm never buying e-books again.
I do something similar.
If the book is worth it, I buy it in material form.
If it’s not worth the bookshelf clutter it’ll cause, I just skip it.
But then again, most of my books aren’t on digital subjects, for that I usually rely on specs and articles, as tech is moving too quickly to be worth being nailed down on paper.
Yeah, just like someone can "buy" an empty iPhone box on eBay for $800.
I'd argue that the “buy now” when viewing a Kindle edition listing, or Audible edition, is noticeably less honest, especially as you are usually at most on click away from the dead-tree editions where buy actually does mean buy. I'd have that iphone box that I'd legally bought for as long as I choose to own it, the seller can not revoke access to it arbitrarily like Amazon can, will, and sometimes has (1984 being the most famous and somewhat ironic example) with ebooks and audiobooks.
As easy as that may be, the shiver-me-timbers route might be even easier.
(I use audible, if they want me to go pirate instead they know what to do!)
What's the stated time period here? 1 year? 5 years?
It is an indeterminate amount of time. It is not a lease.
I'd say their record overall points to the license offering potentially more value over the short term defined rentals, if you're planning on watching the content again.
Amazon isn't hiding any of this, there's a link to this that's close to the "Buy" button on their site and they mention you're agreeing to it when you check out. It is pretty easy to read and comprehend, it is not exactly fine print.
https://www.primevideo.com/help?nodeId=202095490&view-type=c...
By that definition of "buy" renters are home owners.
No, they are lease buyers. The lease (like the e-book purchase) is a right to use for a period of time. It's not equivalent to ownership.
(That's not to say I don't think the practice by Amazon is bad)
But seems strange that it is legal.
You are only harmed when amazon loses rights to media you purchased and that harm is easily measured in terms of the monetary value of the thing they took from you (which, they'll likely refund if you start talking to lawyers because it's not worth it to them.)
What we need is to get corporations out of politics.
I don't read anywhere in here where an unaffected individual can raise a case and collect money. Rather, this sets up how the government can enforce the law at various levels. That's pretty standard stuff everywhere (that's why every state has a department of justice). The government can police, but me, and average citizen, can't raise a case against amazon.
Class action lawsuits are civil lawsuits. You can't raise a civil lawsuit if you aren't harmed.
[1] https://law.justia.com/codes/california/2010/bpc/17200-17210...
What the format (digital+DRM vs. physical) makes possible is more fine grained control by the owner (or their proxy) of the work.
What an app store or kindle "purchase" provides you with is exactly a lease. You gain a temporary right to utilize a resource (such as a particular physical or digital copy of a work) subject to various restrictions.
By contrast property rights always imply the ability to transfer (via sale, inheritance or gift or voluntary abandonment) as well as to in fact not transfer. Both of which are fundamentally lost here. You can't sell your kindle ebooks, pass them on to your children or even keep them if Amazon decides otherwise (as in the case of 1984).
And there is absolutely no technical or economic reason you can't inherit or sell a DRM protected work.
Nope, licenses as a form of intangible personal property long predate the “modern technological advances” being discussed (or, say, the existence of the US, for example), and the meaning of the word “buy” already encompasses buying licenses, which may have a variety of terms, including termination conditions.
It’s just that you seem to be trying to falsely generalize the specialized meaning of “buy” that applies when the object of the purchase is an item of tangible personal property to things which are not tangible personal property.
What you write is true and I see where you are coming from. But my contention is that what you refer to as the "specialized meaning of buy" was pretty much the only meaning an average person would have used it in. And that such a person's reasonable and natural assumption when first confronted with a "buy" button for an ebook would be that it pressing it would confer analogous rights of transfer as buying the physical copy. And furthermore that courts and regulators allowing this assumption to be violated was a major oversight. If for no other reason than that it is foolish to the extreme to bring about a system where a single dominant entity having a bad day could in a blink wipe out a large fraction of accessible books.
A 99 year lease still has an end date on it. These licenses do not have an end date. The only time it is generally supposed to become unavailable is "due to potential content provider licensing restrictions or for other reasons."
https://www.primevideo.com/help?nodeId=202095490&view-type=c...
Buying a limited license which allows "an indefinite period of time" is still inherently different from renting. It is definitely different from buying a physical good, I do agree. But I still don't seem to be convinced that its "renting" or "leasing".
If Amazon had to put an end date ahead of time on all the movies they listed with "Buy", do you think they'd put that date as 99 years or would they make it more like one year? Personally I'm perfectly fine with the tradeoff that sure, some move I "bought" 15 years ago on Amazon might some day disappear from their service, as I knew it ahead of time that was the trade-off of "buying" a license on their Unbox service versus owning a physical copy of the VHS or DVD at the time. But in the end I felt it was worth the tradeoff for the connivence.
For all we know Amazon may continue on forever, offering some kind of version of its streaming service and continue to offer these movies forever. Its not guaranteed Amazon will lose the rights to some of these movies, its not guaranteed they'll stop offering a streaming service, its not guaranteed they'll eventually be replaced by Walmart which will buy out Weyland-Yutani. There's no real pre-defined end condition to it at all, other than until the rights holders say we can't or until some other situation happens that makes it unavailable.
Its definitely different than owning a physical good, I completely agree. Its still very different from renting or leasing.
It's non-transferable (i.e., can't move it from the account), but it doesn't list death as the end of the license. If a family member of mine dies but has a bunch of "purchased" movies on their account, those licenses don't just disappear. They remain on the account until the account is closed. I don't think the Amazon Terms of Service requires me to have a pulse to continue to have an Amazon account, and the license terms listed in the link I provided above clearly allows family members to access the media licensed to my account as long as it otherwise is allowed under the above terms, which never references death.
I don't see any reason why my spouse wouldn't be able to access Super Troopers on my Amazon account purchased back when the service was Amazon Unbox after my death, assuming Amazon still has a streaming service, and they still have the rights to stream that movie on the platform, etc. If I'm wrong, please feel free to point it out to me on the Amazon ToS.
Non-transferable doesn’t mean “can’t move from the account”, it means “legally belongs to the original person to whom it is issued, and cannot be transferred to another person”. Transfer by inheritance at death is…still transfer. A non-transferrable license expires when the entity to whom it was issued ceases to legally exist.
> It’s non-transferable (i.e., can’t move it from the account), but it doesn’t list death as the end of the license.
They don’t need to, since the underlying general law requires you to be alive to legally exist and have property rights in anything, including an Amazon account (unless you are a special entity created by law, like a corporation, which has its own rules.)
It’s different from a lifetime lease in that there is nothing to revert. The subject of the lease is not an enduring, rivalrous “thing” (tangible or intangible) which is returned to the owner, it is a use permission which is extinguished.
You can buy a license with specific terms, including termination conditions. This…long predates digital anything.
Unfortunately, for now I'm still stuck with google / apple maps and Gmail.
I set up a forwarding policy from GMail -> Protonmail. Whenever I would receive a forwarded email, Id go to the sender and update my email address. After about 6 months the only email coming from my Gmail account was spam.
Then I turned off my forwarding policy and noticed something: I don't really get spam anymore. I don't know what it is about Gmail but it receives several of orders of magnitude more spam than any of my other email accounts. To drive that point home, to crack down on spam, I setup my own domain on protonmail and configured a catch-all. Now everyone gets their own email address (like homedepot@mydomain.com). It lets me reverse track who is sharing my personal info with who for marketing purposes. Turns out: in the 5 years I've been using Protonmail I've had two cases of someone sharing my email address. I had assumed all my spam was from people sharing my email - turns out it was just a Gmail problem.
If your experience ends up being the same as mine, the time you save not dealing with spam on Gmail will cover your migration costs.
https://www.theverge.com/2014/12/28/7458159/encryption-stand...
“After years of growing, we are at the point that our systems can no longer support free 6 second video storage for all our users”
I proceeded to remove the cameras and replaced them with on site NVR. After I did this I receive another email-
“ WE ARE SORRY.
Due to a system error, we sent you an email by mistake expressing that we will no longer support free 6 second video for the Yi/Kami Home app. Do not worry, you will still have this feature.”
Too late. I also find myself moving away from subscription based types of experience whenever I can, where the company can just remove feature or content at will. I wonder if there is a name in marketing circles for this behavior.
I was wondering if these cameras are locked-in with the Kami cloud vendor solution, or they use a standard protocol thus trivial to move to another provider, or just something in between those two extremes...
I'm sorry, this person stumbled and happened to land with their chest directly on the tip of my knife which I was holding in my hand.
Organic Maps.
Migadu or Fastmail.
You're not "stuck" with anything.
In many cases OSM-based solutions like Organic Maps or Mapy.cz are good enough (though for car navigation Google Maps is still clearly better).
In Czech Republic they use data outside OSM, but last time I checked it was entirely/mostly data released by government of that country.
Roads, buildings, hiking trails, landuse, paths shops outside Czechia are from OpenStreetMap.
Can you give example of anything that is "their own proprietary data"? So far I have not noticed anything like that outside Czechia.
https://licence.mapy.cz/?doc=mapy_pu
The ambiguity in digital purchases is a real problem, but if physical goods and services haven’t solved the problem with the semantics of “buy”, I’m not sure that’s a productive approach, unless the idea is to just scare people away from digital specifically by implying it’s materially different than other transactions where “buy” does not mean “receive irrevocable and unrestricted exclusive rights forever”.
Rent has a defined time period. Buying a license in this case has an indeterminate time period. Buying a license is still very different from renting or leasing it.
So, a rental agreement for a defined period (very short, instantaneous even), with automatic renewal.
I’m adding this detail because it’s not as sinister as you alluded.
You are correct with regard to renting, not buying. This is why I only buy paper books (with cash), and grab the corresponding digital version from the high seas.
From Amazon and the likes, no, not usually. But there are some sites that offer DRM-free copies to buy, rather than perpetually rent.
Even on Google Play, authors/publishers can choose to go DRM-free. You can download those copies without having to be tied to the Google app. Sadly, however, I don't recall Google making it clear which ones were DRM-free before making a purchase.
Personally I think ebook vendors should be required to use language that makes it transparent that what you are buying is a kind of contract, which is different to a physical book in several important ways.
Corporations (at least in Europe) aren't allowed to make you sign away your rights. I don't see why it should be any different for ebooks.
You would own nothing and be happy...
Could we avoid bait comments? They create unnecessary polarisation which is bad for everyone. We should strive for productive discussion which allows us to learn, not to shun the “other side” and start a flamewar before the conversation even begins.
In fact, HN in this sense is a bubble where people seem to agree with me on this issue, often misleading me into the belief most people are aware about the war on users' rights...
Just think about it, GP preemptively felt the need to shame virtual users having a different opinion.
To try to prevent this, Amazon tries very hard to make sure you download and install the latest version of the Kindle app.
The difference is that while I can do it by mistake, Amazon can do it intentionally.
By the way, when I first stepped in this landmine and went to complain on Amazon forum, regular people also defended this practice. It was even more mindboggling than Amazon actions itself. Like, why would people voluntarily defend strictly negative to them feature, and for free?..
> Can’t wait for the apologist to appear and explain why this is just totally fine
Obviously this is beneficial for the economic, because you will replace the lost goods and buy the important ones again. This will drive the numbers to signal bestsellers, and let unimportant ones dwindle into oblivion, or so...
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20297331
YMMV, if it doesn't work for you, don't shop there.
It's funny that techies, of all people, don't realize online digital content doesn't last forever. We helped build the system, and now we have to live with it.
We undoubtedly do realize this, but underestimated the degree to which companies would use this to siphon as much money out of the consumer as they theoretically could. It has made for many aggravating experiences, and ruined a lot of products that used to work perfectly.
Looking at the bigger picture, very few things in life are under my control, and on the long list of things out of my control, this is a relatively minor, hypothetical problem.
If this is a "minor problem" for you, why comment?
If others here clearly feel it's more of a major issue, perhaps you'd benefit from seeking to understand why. Personally, I find it disturbing in several ways. The consolidation of editorial control in the hands of tech-oligarchs; the resultant de facto sterile homogeneity of expression; the ditching of customers en masse without recourse; the erosion of ownership and the expansion of eternal rental of anything and everything; on and on it goes.
If you use an Amazon account you can email them to a specific email address to get them on your device.
They also provide an email address where, if you send an email with some epubs attached, they make them magically appear on your kindle.
I was pleasantly surprised by this last week, since I got a kindle and I thought it was going to be a hassle, but nope.
When I tried emailing an epub this way, Amazon messed up the conversion. I've had good luck converting pirated epubs to MOBI using an online converter so I haven't changed my practice.
I have an older Paperwhite; my GF has a newer one. I uploaded MOBIs to both last night (via USB) - it worked on hers, and they didn’t show on mine. I had to convert them to AZW3 and reupload for them to show in the listing.
(I’ve not checked, but it’s plausible my older model has more up-to-date firmware.)
Calibre provides a very good service, but it can be a bit puzzling in terms of UX, also getting certain pirate books is a big chore and might require visiting dodgy sites. But the reason I stopped downloading books is that I often ran into small issues, like footnotes or a table of contents that didn't work correctly. The last book I remember downloading was "Thinking Fast and Slow"... I ended up purchasing it on Amazon because every half page it had a word duplicated, with the duplicate slightly scrambled srcambled. It was maddening... probably planted by the author , Daniel Kahneman, as a psy-ops DRM device.
Because of this support I can download directly from libgen without converting or using a different device. For books that are only available through Amazon, I have the Kindle app installed.
Download file > Add to Calibre > Transfer to Kindle
We're talking four clicks.
It remind me of whenever people discuss about OS and someone said their grandmother can use Linux just fine, hell, I'm quite sure she's just browsing with Firefox and not doing command line kung-fu.
2. You bought them pretty fast/easy here too... Without knowing if you can transfer that format to your device.
The title is misleading and inaccurate.
Back around mid aughts, it was pretty easy to pirate movies. Doesn't really matter how but it wasn't hard (still isn't actually, but that's beside my point).
At the time I was still avidly collecting physical media, and I observed at some point, as did many others, that it became an absurd choice of getting an xvid, double clicking, and there's the movie, vs. load the DVD, sit through previews which, even if skippable, just no. And then the warnings of course, which again, sometimes skipping or fast forwarding would be disabled again.
So your reward for playing by the rules was wasted time looking at or skipping - forever - the marketing for whatever garbage they had coming out that season.
I understand that not everyone wants to embrace the Cory Doctorow professional model, but I sure don't mind giving him my money.
To ebook and DRM in general: yeah they suck. But that's kinda like a dead horse at this point.
To the convenience: I don't find buy an ebook on Kindle any hard if your goal is just to read it. And after graduating from uni years ago, I have no idea where to get pirate ebooks, so that's definitely harder for me. I'd assume same goes to the majority of people.
I suggest a library.
The practical side of this is that no one is coming after you individually for removing DRM from your own files. They will target the tools people use, or especially online services that are available.
1 - The DRM just has to exist on the file, there’s no need for it to be strong or require massive effort to undo.
Using a ton of different cards indeed would sound like a database leak to me, so with the retailer being liable for the user's and/or bank's failure to design a system under which the user can keep their credentials secure, this behavior being not allowed is understandable. This is all relatively foreign to me as a European who just pays with iDeal (Dutch system) that doesn't know fraud chargebacks or anything, and where it's on the banks (rather than retailers) to refund fraud from e.g. phishing so it's in their own interest to design a secure system, so correct me if I misunderstood something about how credit cards work.
The "single click" is in fact super annoying in my use case. I have an account with Amazon, with two different cards, one for professional purchases and one for personal ones[0].
When I buy a physical thing I can choose the card when paying. But for Kindles that's not possible, so I have to change the default card before buy. Very annoyging.
Also, for some reason, as described by the OP, one can't add a Kindle book to any cart to buy more than one at a time... or even save it for later! Which is completely absurd and user hostile.
[0] It's also possible to have two different accounts, but that comes with different problems; I have a pro account with Amazon but never use it.
That way, my conscience was clear (subjectively).
Then, the FBI or someone took down z-library. So, I’m not sure what my next move will be.
You do need to login with an email though which sucks.
Have you considered libby? Nowadays libraries around the world provide you with an account that gives you access to their catalogue for free.
I'll check out a physical book from the library, grab an epub, and delete it when I return the book.
While I like the idea of authors making more money rather than less, I see no fundamental reason why they _should_ benefit from second hand sales. When I buy any given object <X>, use it for what I need it for, then sell it to someone else; the original producer does not make anything off that second sale. And that's normal/expected.
Authors should benefit from secondhand sales at least a little bit.
The more demand there is for a used book, the higher sellers can price the used book. And as the price of a used book increases, more buyers will choose the new version over the used version.
It's not as beneficial as buying a new copy, but it benefits the author more than just pirating it. Libby is similarly beneficial in an indirect way.
The scenario you're describing sounds different than what I'm talking about, though. You're talking a retailer selling a new product and then passing back commissions on the sale to vendors upstream in the supply chain? I'm not seeing the connection between that and the price effect of used goods on their corresponding new goods.
>>> Authors should benefit from secondhand sales
>> Would you propose this for all goods?
> Yeah, I think it's true for most goods.
You suggested that "most goods" already have money from 2nd hand sales flowing back to the "authors". I asked the obvious question about physical goods. Who would get the money? Now I obviously think it is ridiculous idea and "authors" shouldn't be profiting from 2nd hand sales of their works whether those are books or clothes. I am asking you, someone who seems to think it is a good idea, who gets that money from 2nd hand sales of physical goods? The retailer? The manufacturer? The laborer?
When I said "should" I meant "logically should," not "morally should." I wasn't wishing for a world where this is true but rather describing our current world where this is already true. Like, "Hitting a lightbulb with a hammer should cause the bulb to break."
It might help to have a more fleshed out example.
Imagine a system where there are only two ways to buy my book. You can either buy it new directly from my website or buy it used on eBay. I sell it on my website for $60, but the current price for a used copy on eBay is $30.
Suppose 100 buyers decide to start buying used copies on eBay. eBay sellers increase the price from $30 to $50 to match the increased demand. I, the author, still receive $0 on every sale of the used copy, so I don't see any new money directly.
But there are buyers who are open to either a used copy or a new copy, depending on the price. As the price of used copies approaches the price of new copies, more buyers will choose to purchase new directly from me rather than from eBay.
Even though the 100 new eBay buyers didn't benefit me directly as the author, it indirectly benefitted me by pushing up the used price and influencing other buyers to purchase the new copy instead of the used copy.
Also, you would be amazed at the amount of book returns that exists in the industry. Publishers routinely bake the cost of those returns into the hard/paperback's retail price and deduct the cost of the returns from royalties paid to authors. Most unsold pbooks are <gasp>destroyed!</gasp> This is because this is the relatively lowest direct cost option compared to the bookseller returning the book back to the publisher.
For an example with self-publishers, see: https://www.ingramspark.com/blog/making-your-book-returnable
If a self-publisher chooses to have the book returned to them (in the hopes that they can directly sell it from their author website), they are also charged the shipping & handling (deducted from the royalties).
The reason I bring this up is because, the publishers would rather the used books sales completely disappeared. That is part of the reason why they don't hesitate to destroy the returned books to avoid crashing the price.
https://forum.mobilism.org/viewforum.php?f=106
Well there's your problem. Look Amazon is a shady company and I completely understand not wanting to hand over any more money to Bezos. But one account making N orders on N different cards in quick succession is going to trigger any rudimentary anti-fraud protection
>My company uses Spendesk for managing funds, so for each of the purchase I created a new virtual card and bought them.
Presumably Spendesk doesn't allow using the same virtual card multiple times?
What if the content was sourcecode for your non-open-source software - would you still feel the same way?
In order for ideas to be free there has to be some new way to compensate authors for their hard work. Voluntary donations don’t work well enough.
Perhaps the solution is an “idea tax” that everyone pays a small amount into every year - and the proceeds are distributed pro rata to authors based on the relative proportions of their content in all downloads?
You can’t just liberate all content and not also find a way to compensate people who work to make the content as their paying jobs. That isn’t sustainable.
There is a missing idea in your plan. I think it can be solved somehow - but might require an equally radical and blanket solution on the economic side.
I know what OP is talking about. Managing ebooks is a pain in the ass. I want to buy books directly from the author and put them on my reading device, but I barely ever have the option to. Often the only source for ebooks is Amazon, which I dont really want to buy from for several reasons.
There are other stores, but often their ebooks are locked to their specific devices, essentially locking you in to whatever platform you pick. God forbid the one you picked doesnt have a particular book you want to read.
I end up buying a paper copy, because I dont have to deal with yet another shitty ebook that may or may not work.
He (and I as well), want to be able to easily buy non DRM'ed epubs so we can transfer them from one reader to another, sometimes offline.
After getting increasingly aggravated by Amazon over the years, I transfered my files out of Amazon into Calibre and onto my Kobo. I am not at all interested in connecting Amazon to my Kobo. I explicitly do not want Amazon to know I bought a Kobo, they can of course see I am not buying any more books from them. [I buy them from multiple competitors these days.]
It was solved already in the distant past. It is called first sale doctrine. You sell me a copy. That copy is mine, we no longer need to speak to one another unless I want to buy something else from you.
"Oh, but what if you copy it and give out many copies?" So you're assuming I'm a criminal and using that to justify ruining the perfectly good relationship we had before? If I'm treated like a criminal anyways and get a better experience by actually being a criminal--well it is better to be a criminal and treated like one than an honest person treated like a criminal.
97% of authors do not make a living off their writing. (https://authorscast.com/how-many-writers-make-a-living-writi...)
> What if the content was sourcecode for your non-open-source software - would you still feel the same way?
Personally I like to write code, not run a business. I let others pay me to do that so I don't have to deal with that when I work on my own projects. I like this arrangement as a creator as work keeps me exercising my writing so I can build more interesting things. I find I'm more creative when I stay in that programming mindset.
-
I think the best idea we (humanity) has had for supporting the arts has been patronage. It lets artists build up a following over time who might include enough people willing to contribute to supporting them produce more work. The internet gives this idea a lot more power than it used to have and has become the default model for many artists on the net.
TLRD; support the people directly without holding their work prisoner
[1] https://markwatson.com
That way we get the content farms we have already on Insta/YT/TikTok etc. Just flooding the platforms with random stuff with shit background music, shitty autocaptions and robot narrators until something sticks. Then produce more of the same.
I don't know what this means. What is a 'shopping card for kindle books'?
EDIT: OK - thanks all. Likely a typo of 'cart', unless the OP explains further. That was an initial thought, but the next line mentions 'so for each of the purchase I created a new virtual card and bought them'... so wasn't sure what the 'card' connection was.
I'm a Kobo user so haven't bought Kindle books in many years, but IIRC you can only click to buy a single book at a time, rather than add them into a cart for a bulk buy.
For whatever reason, Amazon doesn't seem to have a way to place Kindle books in your shopping cart and do a single, large purchase. Rather you find the book you want and buy using their 1-click purchase option then go find the next book and purchase with 1-click.
It probably takes most people 1 or 2 minutes to click the one click buy button on Amazon and download a book. I can get a book from Z-Library on telegram, upload it to Dropbox, and have it downloaded to my Kobo in 3-4 minutes -- not a big deal on book reading time scales.
No matter what happens, the ones who pay will be the ones who pay.
Why do you think Netflix is restricting offline viewing? It would be so convenient to download first and watch it during travel when Internet connection is impossible or too expensive, but no, that's why I don't have Netflix anymore (it's been a while). I've heard they've allowed it since, but I'm not getting Netflix again.
The exception is maybe Denuvo, but steam warns you on the purchase page if it uses Denuvo.
But you don't own anything, and you're happy -- which apparently is meant to be the new normal.
https://www.manning.com/
This isn't just true for books. Streaming film/TV is essentially cable TV at this point: you either pay out your arse for all streaming services or you have to constantly micromanage different subscriptions. Even if you are happy with the former, there is no way to centrally browse everything so you need 7 different apps.
Not to mention series being removed from streaming platforms because of profit: https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/13/westworld-removed-from-hbo...
You can't even rely on being able to access the media you want in the future if you do it legally. It's insane.
Yes, its 100x easier.
Games could be in some cases easier to buy, especially since you realy must test those for viruses and other malcious stuff, not something you should be concerned with multimedia.
With Steam, GOG and Humble Bundle, it's never been easier to game on Linux. It feels like paradise.
In a way, gaming is in much better shape (re: convenience) than streaming TV shows these days. Yes, DRM for online play can be problematic for Proton -- but fuck those games!
However, I am sure it will turn out to be scam one day and you will lose access to all/most games you bought.
Also, there are sandboxes if you are unsure and you can convert to safer formats.
Anyway, I yet have to meet somebody that was fucked up this way, I guess there are numerious easier options.
Its way more probably that your country will hunt you, if you live in that lame country in which case VPN is a thing :)
Without those restrictions, PDFs can execute embedded JavaScript on open, which can access and execute local files.
Not sure how ebook readers handle js or xml exploits.
On the other hand, you can find almost anything there, faaar more then on most other places.
It has awesome integration with open subtitles and remembers everything you do on a video so if it crashes or you stop, it just continues with everything set like volume, position subtitle sync etc.
I'm a big fan of old scifi films and series and the more obscure ones are getting harder to track down. Quite a lot of the stuff produced in the early 70s is sometimes available on DVD which can easily be ripped, but it depends on whether it was popular enough for them to issue it.
With some old BBC series, I'm in the position of paying for a license, but not everything is available. Just before Xmas, I was searching for M.R.James Christmas Ghost Story adaptations and whilst I was able to get the newer Mark Gatiss produced ones from iPlayer, the older "Tractate Middoth" isn't available (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03n2rnf).
There's going to be so many lost productions unless pirates get together to hoard old media.
FYI: https://rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5940948
(I'm not even going to mention the complete rights cluster-duck that is Monkey Dust (and yes, I've already got a copy of all the series))
Some other titles to pique your interest:
1981 BBC version of The Day of the Triffids
1979 Tales of the Unexpected (not scifi really)
1979 Sapphire & Steel (with the most annoying introduction - they are not elements!)
1979 Quatermass series
1979 The Omega Factor
1978 Blake's 7 (should not really count as obscure due to the impact the series had)
1977 The Fantastic Journey
1977 Children of the Stones
1977 Beasts (anthology series by Nigel Kneale)
1975 Sky
1975 The Invisible Man (really cheesy, featuring David McCallum)
1975 The Changes
1974 Zodiac
1973 The Tomorrow People
1970 Timeslip
1969 The Owl Service
1968 The Champions
1966 The Time Tunnel
1966 Mission: Impossible
1965 Out of the Unknown
1960 The Strange World of Gurney Slade
1958 Quatermass and the Pit mini-series
1955 Quatermass II
Where do you find these seeded? I only know about Pirate Bay and 1337x.
There's a handful of old British TV that I've bought on DVD because I couldn't find anyone seeding it.
(Just bought the three seasons of Survivor on DVD now)
I hadn't heard of Survivors, but that looks right up my street. I used to be massively into Doctor Who and the Terry Nation novels. I can only find the first season easily.
1976 Gemini Man [another Invisible Man adaptation]
1976 Star Maidens
Can't find that anywhere though I was hopeful that BFI might have had a copy: https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b80e92d21
Tractate Middoth adaptation is awful Gatiss tripe. (He's so hit-and-miss, and this is a miss for me). It's also on YouTube:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5MlQgGu6nCU
My favorite of those M R.James adaptations, by far, is A View From A Hill. It's on YouTube.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lGh0ybk-xyk
I went on a scavenge hunt for M.R. James productions after catching Robert Lloyd Parry's (https://www.nunkie.co.uk/the-mr-james-project) reading of two stories in the basement of Bristol Cathedral. I've got hold of A View From A Hill but haven't seen it yet. Incidentally, I did enjoy the recent Count Magnus.
There is no actual pirating going on when you copy a digital file. Now there could be a loss of income if it grows out of control and artists are not being compensated. So obviously the discussion should focus on that.
Steam already solved piracy for gaming. Make it easy to download and manage your games. Apparently the same hasn’t played out for movies and songs on the whole.
Note we did have this conversation, years if not decades before. Everyone "in the know" already understands this. I bet most HN readers understand this.
It's just that general consumers don't, and there was a successful propaganda campaign by media owners and distributors to label this as "piracy", and the name stuck.
It seems educating users is an uphill battle when fighting against a propaganda campaign by companies with deep pockets.
I can't tell if you're taking the word literally or not. For the sake of argument:
Obviously there is no boat-stealing or plundering involved - no Johnny Depp or kraken here. But separately from whatever meaning you attach to the word "piracy" - illegally downloading creative works is theft. You are not entitled to someone else's creative work under any conditions other than those that they set, period.
Unless an artist explicitly says "here's this public domain artwork, share it however you want" (which some people do!), pirating is stealing - you are taking the work of someone's hands without paying them for it, and it literally doesn't matter if you wouldn't have paid for it in the first place, because the work does not belong to you - it belongs to the creator and they get to set the terms of use.
If you want a game or a TV show or a movie so badly - make it yourself. Put your own effort and time and resources and creative energy into it - then you can set whatever terms you want on its distribution.
Believing that you have the right to take whatever creative work that someone else put their effort into that you can get away with not paying for is one of the most extreme cases of entitlement I've ever witnessed, and it demonstrates an extreme selfishness and lack of respect for other human beings as equals.
I would be very interested to hear what moral axioms could justify the position of "I can take whatever I want from other people as long as it doesn't deprive them of a physical good".
When these so called “creatives” (read: administrators) are making billions upon billions nickel and diming every little resemblance to “their work” (read: administrators and investors paying actual creators that lack negotiation skills jack diddly) at the cost of all of society (how far does copyright go these days?), they can stick it.
By pirating, a user is not TAKING something from someone. That is like trying to own an idea and suing people for having the same idea. Digital data is easily duplicated and hurts no one to duplicate. If you wanted to be a twat and micromanage your works, you shouldn’t have digitized it. Go be a traditional oil artist or an opera singer or a circus performer, where in person experiences matter.
If you want all the benefits of the digital world, then suck it up and be ready for digital works to be duplicated.
Before electronic copies, the only way to do that would be to physically steal such a thing. However, if it were possible to make copies of things via magic, without depriving people of such things, I don't think people would consider it theft. In literature, people tended to look on the idea of such things as wonderful miracles, to be celebrated -- feeding a herd of people from only a few fish, or a fairy godmother spinning fancy clothes via magic. No one ever reading Cinderella has ever considered it immoral for the fairy godmother to generate such a thing, and I suspect that most of society would similarly view it as natural and moral to let friends have copies of things that we have.
Imagine being able to say, "Oh, yeah, this desk has perfect ergonomics for me! here's the pattern/recipe and you can print one once you get home", or "oh yeah, I like this TV design way better than my old one, here's how you can make one too" -- in short, we _absolutely_ would download a car, or give someone else a copy of our car.
Now if only we could figure out how to pass value to creators and inventors in a way that isn't threatened by that, or by the advent of inventing-things-via-AI.
I can imagine a world where each creative negotiates their public contract associated with a work, then when the work is released anyone in the world can pay/donate anything they want to the wallet in direct recognition and know without question that every creator will get a fair piece of it.
“Piracy” would be the same as the radio (a convenient way to get exposure), and I suspect that people who do the actual work would see much less drama.
Or buy a knockoff for cheap.
Because they're right, the closest physical equivalent of software "piracy" isn't stealing, which takes the existing item and deprives someone of it, it's forgery, which creates a new "copy" of the item that certainly doesn't have the right provenance and incidentally might, possibly, differ in functional characteristics as well. It devalues legitimate copies of the item in the same ways that counterfeiting does, not the way that theft does.
Stealing is bad for a specific reason: it's a zero sum game. If you are to benefit from stealing somebody else has to lose something. Stealing is parasitism (benefiting while harming someone else) on other people / society. But if I could magically create a copy of something you own (e.g. your TV), and we both keep our own copy, there is nothing morally wrong with that, even if there are arbitrary laws that make it illegal.
Piracy is closer to the second case. Me making a copy of a file does not limit others from using that file. It is not a zero sum game. It's commensalism (benefiting without harming or benefiting anyone else), not parasitism. Morally it is at worst neutral.
Not to mention that copyright hasn't been a thing for the wast majority of human history and we did just fine. Standing up to arbitrary, unjust laws is a moral good.
Doesn’t copying a digital work without consent deprive the creator (and all associated parties) of revenue?
Isn’t deliberately depriving a person or persons of remuneration for their work stealing?
The laws against making digital copies of a work without the consent of the rights holder are not arbitrary. They’re in place to ensure those who invested time and money into creating something can earn money from the thing they create.
>Doesn’t copying a digital work without consent deprive the creator (and all associated parties) of revenue?
Depriving of revenue is not stealing, as I outlined in my previous post. The author still has access to their work and the ability to sell it if there is sufficient demand. If something had been stolen neither of those are the case. If "depriving of revenue" constituted stealing I could ask you for $100, you could refuse, and that would be theft because you "deprive me of revenue". This would be ridiculous for obvious reasons.
>Isn’t deliberately depriving a person or persons of remuneration for their work stealing?
No, as I outlined clearly in my previous comment.
>The laws against making digital copies of a work without the consent of the rights holder are not arbitrary. They’re in place to ensure those who invested time and money into creating something can earn money from the thing they create.
You might have had a case here if copyright ended with the death of the author and was limited to a reasonable time frame within the lifespan of an author, but this has not been the case for a long time. Copyright in the US is up to 70 years after the authors death. That is an arbitrary and unjust law that only benefits mega corps. Hence it is morally right to stand against the law through civil disobedience.
The act of people stealing the work is a clear demonstration of sufficient demand, no? If the price is too high or supply too low, that doesn’t excuse theft. It never has.
Wage theft is stealing. If I tell you I’ll paint your house for $100 and then paint your house and you don’t pay me, that’s theft, which is stealing.
Piracy is equivalent to wage theft, which is stealing. A bunch of people did a bunch of work and ask that people pay for the output of their labor. Those who decide to take that output without paying are stealing. They are thieves.
The length of copyright laws is a separate matter. Yeah, they protect major artists and labels with millions, but they also protect small artists who live off their work.
If you take a digital copy of something for free that you should have paid for, you are not a pirate and you are not Robin Hood, you are a thief. The same as someone who walks into a store and steals or snatches a purse off a park bench.
I’ve been seeing people deflect morality over stealing digital copies for most of my life and it’s always amazed me how it’s the only act of thievery that people openly discuss and brag about.
Somehow stealing copies of art is okay, but stealing cars is not.
Maybe you should try considering why this is so. Perhaps it's not actually thievery?
Someone made something with the intention of selling _copies_ of said thing.
Taking a copy for free deprives the creator (or the rights owner) of revenue. That is stealing.
Yeah it’s often exceedingly inconvenient or sometimes impossible to legally obtain a copy of a movie, song, book or software. But that still doesn’t justify stealing a copy.
The availability of copies of digital products to you is at the discretion of the rights holder. You don’t get to decide that you now have the right to take a free copy.
If you decide to take a free copy of a digital product without the rights holder’s consent, you are stealing, which is wrong, no matter how much you want the thing or how expensive or difficult it is to obtain.
Really? When/where?
Are libraries entitled to loan any book on the market? Do they need permission? Do they ever provide compensation?
My understanding is the answers are yes, no, and nothing besides the normal purchase price of the book.
Self-publishing is growing year over year. More and more authors are publishing their own work on platforms where they get 70% (in case of KDP)-100% (in case of direct sales) royalties. Along with the time to write the actual thing this also usually involves paying out of pocket for things like editors and covers. If you're genuinely committed to this scenario you're describing, I hope you check whether you're actually "taking from robbers" or taking from the author who created the book you're enjoying.
Having to manage 7 subscription services for the 5 movies I watch per month and having to divide by zero to transfer my files from one device to another is hell.
I don't buy digital goods anymore, except games. And you know why? Because everything is on steam and available with one click.
Can you look up the legal definition of theft in your country and post it.
Here's mine (Canada)
https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/section-322.ht...
" 322 (1) Every one commits theft who fraudulently and without colour of right takes, or fraudulently and without colour of right converts to his use or to the use of another person, anything, whether animate or inanimate, with intent
(a) to deprive, temporarily or absolutely, the owner of it, or a person who has a special property or interest in it, of the thing or of his property or interest in it;
(b) to pledge it or deposit it as security;
(c) to part with it under a condition with respect to its return that the person who parts with it may be unable to perform; or
(d) to deal with it in such a manner that it cannot be restored in the condition in which it was at the time it was taken or converted. "
Please outline how downloading a movie meets that definition.
I'm not advocating piracy, but lets stop with the "theft" rhetoric which clearly it fails to meet the legal definition.
"to deprive the owner of it" it being copyright
They have the right over copies, and to make money from it if they choose.
Are you hung up on that it has to be some physical object?
Edit: to be clear, in this reasoning, the thing deprived from someone is not your copy of the movie, but rather the right of copying.
You really need to use the right word, and that word is infringement.
Theft requires someone somewhere be denied something they own and that does not happen when an unauthorized copy is performed.
Using the right words might lead us to better laws we all can live with. Starting with the wrong ones will continue to hurt everyone.
Well, you've bought into the lie. It is not theft because you are not depriving the original owner of it. it's breach of contract at the very most and it's an incredibly harmful to society contract that will likely never be fixed legally because entrenched interested have too much invested in keeping that system broken and abusing monopoly to rent seek excess profits from the masses.
Believing that you have the right to deprive me of the fruits of my own labor copying something is one of the most extreme cases of entitlement I've ever witnessed. No one is taking anything from anyone. The creator of the work still has their own copy of their work. People are spending their own effort making copies of data released into the wild by the creator and that's it.
Further, the economics of any particular created work where the marginal cost of copying is effectively zero are incredibly clear. The largest welfare improvement is from distributing that created work to everyone for the marginal cost (aka zero) and allowing everyone to create derivative works if they choose. The only reason to have any sort of copyright is to encourage additional works to be created and that should be tempered to the minimum time needed given the massive dead weight loss from distributing said works at above marginal cost. So, how long does a copyright term need to be to encourage new works? I am extremely skeptical of any claim beyond high single digit numbers of years and it is extremely clear that copyright terms measured in decades (or worse in author's life time plus decades) cause massive dead weight loss and are utter insanity.
Honest question, if Steam suddenly ceases to be, are these downloaded games playable?
https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/1355117576985...
I have been told that the BBC have a massive digital vault of shows that are available to producers obviously since iPlayer came into being any shows listed are there, just not available. And they are constantly archiving old material.
The German public-service broadcasters like ARD, ZDF and many regional ones offer such a service. I can request a program from the 70ies, tell the name and (helpfully) where and when it was broadcasted. Then they search through their massive archive, make a copy on DVD and send them to you. It's not cheap (up to 40€ per hour of program), but it is legal for personal use. No need here to pirate anything, except very very old broadcasts from before ... around 1967.
Gets even harder when you're dealing with hearing loss and it's nearly impossible to find subtitles for some older releases, despite there having been such when they were available....even for some non-obscure stuff. Some stuff is sitting in streaming-rights purgatory, the last release was on DVD and no one has it any more, etc etc...
The people at OpenSubtitles.org do their best to curate a good collection but those are only as good as the people who upload them.
To pile up onto your example of Westworld, I was super annoyed when I subscribed to AMC+ to catch up on The Walking Dead, just to find out that only last few episodes of current season are available and since I was waiting for more to air, I am now SOL.
My issue with Plex is their unceasing dark patterns and attempts to monetize users. Forcing centralized accounts and constantly re-pinning their “value add” channels made me leave them. Also eroded my trust with them, I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that they log all the media I watch in their app…
And Amazon is now doing this shady thing where the subscription includes every episode except the hold the last episode of each season hostage and make you buy it separately.
I think your best bet would be to just use a website like https://www.justwatch.com/au
To me that's the killer app right now, one-place-to-toggle-them-all, with a running tally of what you're paying this month. Unfortunately streaming companies have no vested interest in making it easier for people to turn on and off their subscriptions, so even if it could be done it'd be a constant arms race.
The Apple TV App (on iOS/iPadOS) does this. It even links you directly to the show in the app, assuming you have a valid subscription on that app. If it's not streamable, you can almost always "buy" or rent it.
It's not perfect, but it's the best there is that I'm aware of.
I basically agree with everything else you said.
Why is it not possible to pay for this version of the stream? Even if I sign up for ESPN through Comcast or whatever hoops I have to jump through to access live sports, I still get the version with the ads and screen junk. Pirate streams are higher def and just more pleasant to watch. Sometimes you can even choose streams with no commentation at all, just the sounds of the sport. Where are these options in the paid streaming service?
Because they want both your money and ad money.
I don't know why people ever accepted advertising on pay cable TV. Pay to watch ads?
Ads made sense on over-the-air broadcast because there was no way to earn revenue from that other than a BBC-style "license" tax that wouldn't really fly in the US (though we do have NPR so...)
Lots of people want to support the artist and have a convenient system.
And then Netflix solved a lot of those problems for a reasonable price.
And then through paying attention to the goldmine of watch data, they did it even better than piracy.
We knew that the licensing model would catch people off-guard eventually, but for a time they had actually solved it.
Then, they lost the contracts.
And media companies saw them as competitors instead of partners.
And Netflix brought back region locks (some not their fault, but some that was).
And the prices started to go up in chorus with the anti-consumer practices.
And now we’re back to the fragmented battleground that was cable TV.
And the book industry has somehow stayed just as bad the whole time, in many ways more draconian than Hollywood...
Maybe next time the pendulum swings back in favour of the consumers, we’ll end up with better contracts so we can avoid this sort thing as it swings over to producers again.
I’m not playing this game.