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Feds seize Kickasstorrents domain, owner

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You mean like iTunes, Google Play, and Amazon Video?

Like those, but with actual reasonable prices. $4-5 to rent an HD movie for 24 hours, and $13 for a digital HD copy to "own" is just absurd. Even worse is TV shows, Season 1 of Game of Thrones in HD is $39 on Amazon for a digital fucking download. Yea sorry but no show is worth $40 for a digital copy of 10 episodes.
 

harSon

Banned
Yeah I'm sure.

Don't worry, I'm not doing this in my free time or anything. My job is computer forensics on child exploitation cases. The majority of my targets use torrents and peer to peer networks to receive and distribute CP. I've seen people using this site in particular to find it.

Good stuff my man. I don't think I have the mental fortitude to do a job like that. I'd just go home heart broken and pissed the fuck off every day. Glad there's people like you out there doing great work.
 

jstripes

Banned
Like those, but with actual reasonable prices. $4-5 to rent an HD movie for 24 hours, and $13 for a digital HD copy to "own" is just absurd. Even worse is TV shows, Season 1 of Game of Thrones in HD is $39 on Amazon for a digital fucking download. Yea sorry but no show is worth $40 for a digital copy of 10 episodes.

I agree, the prices are absurd, but the studios set the prices...
 

tmespe

Member
You mean like iTunes, Google Play, and Amazon Video?

Sölf;210849651 said:
Yes, but in a one place. And with sales. Many sales.
Amazon video is not available in most countries. iTunes store does not have TV shows in my country and the movies are 8$ per rental. Moreover it requires a Mac or Apple TV to watch on the TV. Google Play is more readily available, but has less movies than itunes, and no TV show support. Video streaming services are a mess, at least outside the US.
 

jstripes

Banned
Amazon video is not available in most countries. iTunes store does not have TV shows in my country and the movies are 8$ per rental. Moreover it requires a Mac or Apple TV to watch on the TV. Google Play is more readily available, but has less movies than itunes, and no TV show support. Video streaming services are a mess, at least outside the US.

The thing is movies and TV shows appear on different platforms so it's not like Steam. Which pretty much has everything. Also the prices are nuts and the sales garbage.
Steam would do nothing to change that. Everything is tied up in distribution rights that widely vary from country to country. Until physical media completely dies out, that's not gonna change, and even then all these companies worldwide will hold on to their rights to get their slice of the pie.

Steam is cheap though
The existing options could be cheap, too, if the studios got their heads out of their asses.
 

tmespe

Member
Steam would do nothing to change that. Everything is tied up in distribution rights that widely vary from country to country. Until physical media completely dies out, that's not gonna change, and even then all these companies worldwide will hold on to their rights to get their slice of the pie.


The existing options could be cheap, too, if the studios got their heads out of their asses.
These companies should go out of business if they can't adapt to how people consume media today. Local distribution rights are terrible for consumers in the internet age. Nobody wants to use 10 different services to watch their movies and shows. If it can be done for music and games, why can't it be done for videos? Maybe these companies should focus on adapting instead of suing people.
 

jstripes

Banned
These companies should go out of business if they can't adapt to how people consume media today. Local distribution rights are terrible for consumers in the internet age. Nobody wants to use 10 different services to watch their movies and shows. If it can be done for music and games, why can't it be done for videos? Maybe these companies should focus on adapting instead of suing people.
Local distribution rights suck, but they exist for a reason. Let's say Universal makes a movie, and they want to show it in France. They would have to:

- Do a proper localization. Which requires understanding the local culture.
- Run a marketing campaign. Which requires understanding the local culture, and working with a whole array of media outlets.
- Reproduce the film and distribute it to cinemas.
- Reproduce the film and distribute it to retailers.

Think of that, and then consider all the dozens of other countries it may be distributed in. Universal doesn't want to do that. They don't even want to run subsidiaries to do it for them.

Even Canada, which is right next to the US, and speaks the same language, relies on different national distributors (like eOne) because it's such a major hassle.

You could argue that maybe the digital distributions rights shouldn't be included with the physical rights, but after all the legwork the local distributors do, it would be unfair to deny them those rights.

It's a whole rat's nest of contracts, but it's not gonna change anytime soon.
 
Local distribution rights suck, but they exist for a reason. Let's say Universal makes a movie, and they want to show it in France. They would have to:

- Do a proper localization. Which requires understanding the local culture.
- Run a marketing campaign. Which requires understanding the local culture, and working with a whole array of media outlets.
- Reproduce the film and distribute it to cinemas.
- Reproduce the film and distribute it to retailers.


Think of that, and then consider all the dozens of other countries it may be distributed in. Universal doesn't want to do that. They don't even want to run subsidiaries to do it for them.

Even Canada, which is right next to the US, and speaks the same language, relies on different national distributors (like eOne) because it's such a major hassle.

You could argue that maybe the digital distributions rights shouldn't be included with the physical rights, but after all the legwork the local distributors do, it would be unfair to deny them those rights.

It's a whole rat's nest of contracts, but it's not gonna change anytime soon.

If all of these was actually necessary, no one would actually download stuff that hasnt been prepared for their region.

Which is clearly not the case.

Piracy will always exist but give people at least a chance of acquiring certain media without having to resort to piracy.
 
For this?

That ridiculous Simpsons episode really is true to life.

R4fODtb.gif

I think it is very telling, honestly. It shows you exactly what type of system we live under.
 

FoxSpirit

Junior Member
3. Television and movie streaming options are still atrocious. You don't notice this that much if you're living in the United States because Netflix, Hulu, etc. are pretty much perfect, but outside of the USA it's a completely different story. Netflix in European countries has a generally pretty mediocre selection so the ban on proxy's has ruined it for many, something like Hulu doesn't exist in many countries, HBO Go is a shitshow (it hasn't worked on my tv at all these past months) and the local options are mostly terrible ('Uitzending Gemist' in The Netherlands still streams everything at 480p instead of HD resolutions, it's absurd).

4. In order to watch many of the top rated US television shows in The Netherlands when they're broadcast, you basically have to torrent. Shows like Archer, Hannibal and The Americans have, as far as I know, never aired in The Netherlands for instance.

This 100%. I'd pay 20-30 Euro a month for a service that streams ALL the series there are. When they come out. And with an English language option on all of them because forced German dubs are an insult.
 

jstripes

Banned
If all of these was actually necessary, no one would actually download stuff that hasnt been prepared for their region.

Which is clearly not the case.

Piracy will always exist but give people at least a chance of acquiring certain media without having to resort to piracy.
Again, that chance depends on the local distributors.

Studios would LOVE for their properties to be digitally available worldwide. (On their terms, of course.) But if a studio wants a theatrical and retail release of a movie, and they do, because they like money, they have to rely on those local distributors, and the movie's local digital rights become theirs too.

Until cinemas and physical discs completely die-off, or more deals are struck like Netflix's Adam Sandler deal, that's the reality.
 
I don't agree with the sentiment that "this is pointless, why are we wasting our time?"

The point isn't to make torrenting impossible—it's to make it more inconvenient and time consuming. Yes, more torrent sites will rise to take KAT's place, but nobody knows what those sites are. People will have to discover them, which will take time. And the replacement may not be any one site—it may be two, or three, all of which will contain only a partial catalogue of torrents.

It helps that Google et al have been delisting more infringing search results than they used to.
 
Yea sorry but no show is worth $40 for a digital copy of 10 episodes.

Ten episodes = 100 hours of content if I'm not mistaken. That's a pretty good deal at 40¢ per hour.

By contrast, Uncharted 4 at full price costs $3 per hour. And that's assuming the game takes 20 hours to complete, which is a very conservative estimate according to howlongtobeat.com.
 

Key2001

Member
Ten episodes = 100 hours of content if I'm not mistaken. That's a pretty good deal at 40¢ per hour.

By contrast, Uncharted 4 at full price costs $3 per hour. And that's assuming the game takes 20 hours to complete, which is a very conservative estimate according to howlongtobeat.com.

10 hours of content per episode? What series is that?
 
Oops, I'm an idiot. In my defense I'm at work so thinking about multiple thinks as I post. Still an idiot.

I think I overall point is still valid though, if a bit less extreme. A $40 season is about comparable to retail video game, if not slightly more favorable.
 
Oops, I'm an idiot. In my defense I'm at work so thinking about multiple thinks as I post. Still an idiot.

I think I overall point is still valid though, if a bit less extreme. A $40 season is about comparable to retail video game, if not slightly more favorable.

People will wait until that same video game hit's $19.99 on their preferred delivery method (Physical or Digital)

Digital copies of movies and tv shows rarely go on sales comparable to digital games from what I've seen
 
4. In order to watch many of the top rated US television shows in The Netherlands when they're broadcast, you basically have to torrent. Shows like Archer, Hannibal and The Americans have, as far as I know, never aired in The Netherlands for instance.

All 3 are on netflix though, I think latest seasons of archer are on NL netflix earlier than US netflix even. You don't get to see them day and date, but they still make it across.
 

Matt

Member
This 100%. I'd pay 20-30 Euro a month for a service that streams ALL the series there are. When they come out. And with an English language option on all of them because forced German dubs are an insult.
So basically you want Netflix (or whoever) to become the main financier of all of television, and establish a global monopoly. And then you want to pay not nearly enough to finance that service.

The issue is far more complicated than people give it credit for.
 
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