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Comment by AussieWog93 | Hacker News Reader

>Some people view piracy as the opportunity to "try something out" before buying.

I have met precisely one person in real life who does this, and he was far enough on the Autism spectrum to receive a government-funded integration aide for the first 6 years of school.

Every other person I know pirates because it's easier than acquiring the real product, they can get a pirated version before the official version is released, or they just simply want to save money.

I personally pirate because I can't be bothered looking through 6 different streaming apps to see which one has Terminator 2 on it. Apparently I'm not alone in this regard; piracy has started to rise again since everybody pulled their content from Netflix.

Yes, it's just anecdata, but I would be shocked if more than 5% of pirates intended to purchase genuine copies of the media they actually liked.

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> I would be shocked if more than 5% of pirates intended to purchase genuine copies of the media they actually liked

I agree, but I think this actually depends on the media. I do buy my technical books ($50-$150/a piece), but I want to take a look at them first before purchasing.

I pay for Letterboxd to filter my “watchlist” based on the streaming services I have (it uses the JustWatch API and supports several countries and obscure streaming services).

I personally prefer paying because I can decide what to watch on a whim, on 4k, without keeping a stash with several TB of movies I might never end up watching (like I did before Netflix) which I then have to copy or stream from another computer to my Apple TV to watch. Not even talking about the PITA of having to keep up with working tracker sites, mirrors, etc.

I understand pirating because of the price, or availability, but in terms of comfort streaming has won me over some years ago.

Just adding my own anecdote here, so that you can add one more "person I know" (even though you don't know me, you might, after this post, know of me as a person) to the list of those who have pirated specifically as a "try before you buy" method.

I have been burned too many times by games that simply do not run on my hardware despite meeting the minimum specs for the game. Modern platforms like Steam may allow for refunds, but this is a relatively new thing. Shareware and demos are a fantastic thing for someone like me, but these mostly seem to have gone away in favor of Let's Play and other videos of gameplay, which does nothing to help me determine if I can actually play the game.

Prepare to be shocked [0]

[0] https://torrentfreak.com/0-more-on-content-than-honest-consu...

So it is 9% and not 5%. "Justifying Infringers" as they were called in your link.

That 9% of people also included a group that believed they were justified but didn't actually buy a genuine product.

Yes. It is not truly 1:1, as in they probably don't necessarily buy everything they try for free and like, but at the same time were considered a group that spent enough money on the kinda of stuff they get for free... Thinking about the definition, I knew people like that, they were reading 10-20-40 manga per week, some just to see if they liked the content and some regularly, they mostly spent money buying Collector's edition of the stuff they loved but sometimes bought regular prints because the price was deemed good.

> I can't be bothered looking through 6 different streaming apps to see which one has Terminator 2 on it.

justwatch.com will solve that for you, and covers quite a few countries. Between Netflix, Hulu, and "Rent for $4 on Amazon" I can almost always find an option unless it's a Disney+ / Showtime / whatever exclusive.

$25-40/mo (depending on how often I have to invoke the "rent" option) seems pretty reasonable compared to cable.

I’m in Germany. I’ve got Disney+, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video.

And yet, a significant proportion of shows isn’t available for me on either of these, and requires maxdome, sky, whatever other bullshit which I’ll never subscribe to. I’m spending enough money each month on streaming that, if something isn’t on there, I’ll just pirate it.

> I’m in Germany. I’ve got Disney+, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video.

Damn. Let me know if you ever host movie nights, I'll come over :3

Weird smiley. What's it supposed to depict, "eyes directly above scrotum"? Or "...above buttocks"?

To me it looks like either "cleft palate wide smile" or "twirly moustache grin".

OMG no xD

Its like this https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sert_-_3_smile.svg

Also weird. What's the picture supposed to show; someone with two wads of chewing tobacco under their upper lip?

If anything, that picture seems to be a desperate attempt at retrofitting something, no matter what exactly, onto the smiley -- just look at the name: "3smile".

(So I think I'll stick to "ballsack with eyes".)

hehe ;) I'll make another attempt: https://www.giga.de/webapps/smileys-fuer-den-facebook-chat/t...

Aha, OK, kittycat. But also: Looks perhaps even more like a pinniped (eine Robbe). So I propose to use this as a marker for pointing out sealioning.

EDIT - Also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27849412

I've also got a full Dolby Atmos setup, so I'm already the one in our friend circle responsible for movie nights c:

But often enough, I still need to rip blu rays to get proper, high quality versions of movies that otherwise aren't available at all, so movie night can end up with glitches from my custom setup

I'm in the UK and i have a similar issue with services, like NowTV, not being available via Android TV for some reason.

At one point i dumped Amazon Fire because all the services didnt support it and only seemed to support Google. Now its switched, I'm not buying all new hardware again.

They generally don't help as I'll get a referral to a service which then isn't actually available in my country, like Hulu.

Justwatch.com is pretty good at that in my experience. I'm often looking for something I can watch with a friend in Canada or Australia so I'm often using the site to check the same title in multiple countries

True story, I just recently bought a DVD box set for a old TV Show from my teen years, that was not found on any streaming service, or on any unoffical download source....

I had forgotten what a pain in the ass it is to transfer a DVD to something usable in modern times like Plex or Emby, it is something like a 8 dvd box set I think I have gotten like 2 of the DVD ripped at this point

I do this and I haven't received any aid.

>I haven't received any aid

Maybe because Greece is broke? :P

But seriously, I wasn't trying to imply that everybody who uses piracy to demo things need help - it's just extremely uncommon/unusual to buy a piece of genuine media when you already having a working pirate copy.

> Maybe because Greece is broke? :P

I cannot help but laugh at this original and non-facile joke I have definitely not heard a million times before.

> it's just extremely uncommon/unusual to buy a piece of genuine media when you already having a working pirate copy.

Probably, but in my case I don't play games often, so if I buy something I'll end up ignoring it after a few minutes 99% of the time. Pirating and buying after I finish is a good way to tell for sure if I'll like it before I buy.

>I cannot help but laugh at this original and non-facile joke I have definitely not heard a million times before.

Well, shit. There's another comment to recall at random intervals for the next 10 years and blush with embarrassment even though nobody else is around.

Hahah, I can't say that wasn't my intention :P

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