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Comment by loudmax | Hacker News Reader

The frustration isn't that HBO is demanding money for content. Many of us would happily pay for episodes of GoT as they're released, or even signing up for HBO online and paying a monthly fee.

What I won't consider is a cable subscription, and lots of us feel that way. I don't want all those other channels. I just want HBO. Or better yet, just certain shows. I have money, they have content. Let's trade, yes? If not, torrenting episodes as they're aired is an attractive proposition while we're waiting for the season 2 DVDs to go on sale.

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torrenting episodes as they're aired is an attractive proposition while we're waiting

Because you can't, you know, just wait until they are legitimately available?

Is it an euphemism for "never"? I guess there is no way I can obtain Game of Thrones, legally, in English, with subtitles, if I live in Russia.

I could order a blu-ray, but then again it would be region protected!

If there is no way for me to pay them the damn money, how can it be if I'm a doing anything wrong by pressing "play" button and conveniently streaming it the same day it was aired? Brought to me by people who actually deliver.

EDIT: Before 1967 or so the copyright laws were built to explicitly combat this problem by NOT protecting foreign content with copyright by default. Then they believed the world went global and now they should. Guess what? In 2012 they failed to figure it out again so we should demand the roll-back to pre-1967 situation.

Serious question, do you feel you have some sort of basic human right to get Game of Thrones, in English, with subtitles, in Russia? Does that extend to all intellectual property ever created, or is it just commercial pop-culture stuff?

I do feel to have a basic human right to do whatever I want to do without harming anyone. For example, if I want to watch Game of Thrones, I do it, because I can and because there is no act of harming anyone: I'm not witholding any money its makers could possibly get if I didn't because they tell me they don't want my money.

That's morally neutral. It is my basic human right to be morally neutral.

Now, copyright is not a basic human right. So I'd argue they get no copyright unless they distribute.

And yes, that ought to extend to all intellectual property ever created. Imagine that suddenly anyone in Iran reading, watching or listening to american "intellectual property" becomes morally wrong because somebody in USA decieded to put an "intellectual property" embargo. Doesn't sound right, does it?

Again, serious question, does this exemption apply to things that are just legally unavailable, or also financially unavailable? If game of thrones were legally available in your region but cost $100 or $1000 or $10000, would it still be OK to watch an illegal stream?

I've seen that argument when people pirate expensive software, saying "there's no way I could afford this, so it's morally neutral for me to use it without paying for it"

Are there actual examples of financial unavailability [of tv series, books or music]? If there are, let's discuss on per case basis. If there aren't, let's not.

The thing is, if they actually put effort at making it available, the offers are usually okayish. The problem arises when they simply don't bother.

Actual example of financial unavailability. One of my wife's favorite kids books, "The 14 bears in summer and winter" was out of print for years. It was a collector classic and was fetching upwards of $300 in the secondary market. We didn't buy a copy, we didn't "pirate" one either.

The publisher saw the high price as proof there was still a demand for the book and produced another printing. We paid full price for it, around 15 bucks, I think. It's a cute book, I'm glad I have it, I wouldn't have wanted to pay $300 for it, though.

One could make the case that if everyone could just "pirate" the book because it was financially unavailable, then the publisher would never bother doing a re-issue.

More broadly, I think that respecting copyright holders (and the rule of law) means that sometimes you don't get exactly what you want exactly when you want it.

That's hypothetical losses. Maybe losses. As in, Maybe they lose from piracy, maybe not.

But your win in wealth is real. You can't compare Maybe losses with real wealth gain. Real wins.

Secondary market brings the copyright holder nothing, so it's a bad example.

A few people torrent, and then buy when available.

Just a like a few people actually wait to buy when it's available.

As has been said before, the "I deserve to have something RIGHT NOW" entitlement mentality is just infantile. If something is worth watching, it will still be worth watching in a few weeks/months.

There is an important social element to watching a show. When a new episode comes out, you can chat about it with friends and coworkers. That isn't true if you have waited weeks or months to watch it.

The problem is, that's your mentality that is infantile.

You're going to tell us how we are infantile, how we feel entitled, how we are morally wrong in doing that we do. By doing this you implicitly show yourself as being grown-up and morally superior. And how you can go without watching the tv series as it gets released.

And that's lame. That's unhumble. That screams "I want to tell the whole world how right I am". "My values - right. Your values - stupid" (c)

I see your perspective, and I don't want to hold myself up as a morally superior grown up. I was trying to have a serious ethical discussion about something I don't completely understand. I don't think HBO is doing the right thing (from a customer service or business point of view) by restricting their content the way they are, but should it be within their rights to do so?

But I am sorry for my unhumble tone. Using words like "entitled" and "infantile" was counter-productive to a real discussion.

From my perspective, we should not talk ethics because we can talk business.

Our purpose, obviously, is increasing the amount of wealth available to each and every human being on the planet. For that, we want HBO to exist and produce content. We want people who consume that content to pay HBO to make sure it exists. But that to do with people who want to consume the content but HBO behaves as if they didn't exist? What about letting them watch the content for free? The upside is, they have more wealth, and the downside is, I struggle to figure out any.

The ethical discussion is, to me, more interesting because there is a big gray area. A lot of people are framing something as a dichotomy (get HBO or pirate) when there is (to me) an obvious third option, which is waiting until the content is available.

As far as a business decision goes, HBO is making a choice that may or may not be the right business choice, but it is well within their rights. Maybe they will fail, maybe they will win big. Whatever.

Okay, they've made their choice to not engage certain markets.

How does that make consuming their product at those markets morally wrong?

I don't think it's morally wrong but it is at least ambiguous. I find the gray area interesting. Other people don't see it that way and I don't think they are moral degenerates or anything.

they've made their choice to not engage certain markets

They've made the choice not to engage in that market at the moment, but as legal copyright holders, they have the ability to engage that market later. Having that market eroded by people getting the content for free might be counter-productive, as in "we're not going to release in Russia because everybody pirates everything" leads to "I'm going to pirate this because nobody releases anything in Russia".

As I'm telling you, they're sitting on their rights of Maybe releasing, and Maybe profiting. But I get Real wealth, not a Maybe one, from torrenting their series. Real wins over Maybe.

> "I deserve to have something RIGHT NOW"

Is it acceptable for someone in Region 2 to buy a Region 1 DVD?

Why is it different to buy grey market product (which may well require law breaking to be able to watch) than it is to torrent something and then buy it legally for my region?

Region coding is a really interesting thing to me. As I understand it, a lot of the intent is to be able to set content prices differently in "rich" countries than in "poor" countries, the same way that prescription drugs cost more in the US than in Sub-Saharan Africa.

If you were deliberately getting extra-cheap off-region content, I could see that as maybe a little ethically ambiguous.

As far as buying out-of-region content to get it sooner? I have a hard time seeing any problem with it. Maybe there's an angle I hadn't thought of.

I cannot understand why it is not acceptable to torrent then buy a DVD, but it is acceptable to buy from a different region.

Content providers think that buying from another region is "bad"; that's why they forced region controls onto DVD hardware producers. See ridiculous controls in some OSs restricting users to a certain number of region changes.

But thanks for not ranting!

Upon thinking about this a little more, it seems that the possible ethical problem with torrenting now and buying DVD later makes me think of exclusive availability windows. When a big movie comes out in theatres, there's a delay before you can get it on DVD. For good or for bad, this is a time-tested way to squeeze extra money out of people who don't want to wait until they can get it on DVD.

It seems that HBO wants to squeeze the extra money out of impatient GoT fans by requiring that they buy the whole bundle if they want to watch anything without waiting a few months. There is extra value in getting it now, as other people have pointed out, because you can take part in discussions now while it's still part of the cultural zeitgeist.

Is it OK for HBO to require that you pay a premium for that extra value? My instinct says "yes", but I concede that it's a gray area. I also have a hard time calling fans "pirates" or "thieves" for torrenting ahead of making legitimate purchases.

thanks for not ranting

The world needs fewer rants. Thanks for not ranting back.

"I deserve" may be infantile, but I don't believe "I can watch it right now, and it hurts nobody to do so, so I will" is infantile. It's just reasonable.

Or, you know, this is a trend on how consumer markets have evolved/are evolving.

Or as you know technology is evolving.

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