Netflix Deals Another Blow To Piracy With Mobile Video Downloads

[kcarbotte]

Strike another reason to pirate TV shows off your list. Netflix now offers local download options for mobile device users, which means you can watch your favorite shows and movies anywhere without having to worry about your internet connection.

Netflix Deals Another Blow To Piracy With Mobile Video Downloads : Read more

 

[targetdrone]

I give it a week until someone hacks it to convert the downloads into mkv/mp4 files.

 

[TheSpiral01]

So, does this mean i can sign up for service, download 60gigs of shows on my iphone 128gig, then cancel the service till i watch the 60gigs, then renew again months later?

 

[targetdrone]

You need to log into the Netflix app to watch the downloaded videos.

 

[Jeff Fx]

>One of the only advantages to pirated content is its ability to access it locally

Really? Not the higher quality, earlier release, downloaded shows not disappearing like Netflix shows, or the ability to stream and play files on a larger variety of devices?

 

[delaro]

Piracy will never stop until TV content can be found for free. More and more people are getting tired of paying $80+ dollars for 300 Channels of crap they don't want, when they can simply just Download what they do in a small format without commercials. HBO and Game of Thrones/Westworld is a prime example, $15 a month just to watch two shows and nothing but repeat content the rest of the month.

 

[targetdrone]

Piracy will never stop until TV content can be found for free. More and more people are getting tired of paying $80+ dollars for 300 Channels of crap they don't want, when they can simply just Download what they do in a small format without commercials. HBO and Game of Thrones/Westworld is a prime example, $15 a month just to watch two shows and nothing but repeat content the rest of the month.

Personally I don't have a problem paying $15/month to watch Game of Thrones for the 2 to 3 months its on. I do however have a problem with paying $80+/month to the cable company just to have access to pay $15/month to get HBO.

HBO Now is a huge game changer.

 

[amk-aka-Phantom]

Why would you pirate when great content is this accessible?

Because it's still not free and, more importantly, locked to a particular platform/app. I want mp4/mkv files that I can copy to any of my devices as I please, back up, convert, and so on. Not what you want us to do, Netflix? Good thing you aren't our only option!

 

[Rheotome]

"One of the only advantages to pirated content is its ability to access it locally" HUH ??

I always thought the primary advantage to pirates & pirated content is the fact that them there folks are NOT paying for it .

 

[surphninja]

It's locked to a particular platform and certain devices, with a lot of other limitations on how long the content is kept and how it can be used. This will be helpful for road trips with a tablet, but that's about it. This article seriously exaggerates the impact of this "bold move."

 

[Titillating]

The justification of "because it's free" for why piracy is acceptable is silly. This stuff doesn't get made without money. You don't want to pay for it and insist on pirating things? Great, you do you. But don't try to act like you're entitled to free content. The cost to access the content may be exorbitant in a lot of cases, but that doesn't make theft okay. You don't need this content to live. It is a luxury. Luxuries are paid for.

 

[rayden54]

Completely useless or at least worthless to me. Can't use it on an actual computer and who wants to watch Netflix on an itty bitty little screen?

 

[hoofhearted]

It would be nice if you could just buy a subscription to the shows you want off of Amazon and download mkv as they come out.

 

[bloodroses]

I wonder if you can fling the locally downloaded video onto a chromecast or miracast device? This could be very handy if you're at a friend or relative's place and their internet access sucks.

 

[Titillating]

I wonder if you can fling the locally downloaded video onto a chromecast or miracast device? This could be very handy if you're at a friend or relative's place and their internet access sucks.

As far as Chromecasts go, they allow for full device mirroring now. It'll display whatever's on your screen, so even if casting it isn't natively supported, it should be easy to get around. Not sure on miracast devices though.

 

[bloodroses]

I wonder if you can fling the locally downloaded video onto a chromecast or miracast device? This could be very handy if you're at a friend or relative's place and their internet access sucks.

As far as Chromecasts go, they allow for full device mirroring now. It'll display whatever's on your screen, so even if casting it isn't natively supported, it should be easy to get around. Not sure on miracast devices though.

That may not necessarily true as Verizon's NFL Mobile app detects the presence of screen mirroring and disables the video as a result (at least last time i tried). I could see Netflix doing similar.

 

[THGhost2013]

This should be a reason to continue pirating TV and movies, because being able to download Netflix streams and watch them offline is only going to make piracy even easier!

 

[killerb255]

No matter how many excuses are shut down, people are going to find reasons to pirate.

Let's face it: all of us subconsciously want to get as much out of life as we can with as little effort/resource expenditure as possible.

Piracy is taking this to an extreme.

As long as rationalization is still a defense mechanism that people like to use, they're going to continue to find excuses.

 

[alidan]

"One of the only advantages to pirated content is its ability to access it locally" HUH ??

I always thought the primary advantage to pirates & pirated content is the fact that them there folks are NOT paying for it .

That is just a side benefit. Here, let me put it to you this way, I have a bluray player, I have bluray software to watch bluray movies, I don't pirate movies because that's a great way to get screwed over. I buy [insert movie here to make it a hypothetical and less a real world problem I had to solve a few months back], the software refuses to play the movies and only shows the anti piracy message...

about 10 hours later I finished watching the 3 movies I bought the damn thing for on said device.
Piracy is less about getting it for free, more about convenience, just because I know how to, where to, and not get screwed over by viruses, does not mean that I only pirate. Hell I currently don't have an income, and I still buy 99% media I consume, and what I don't is based solely on I can not get it through any other means.

140$ spent on the software and movies, only to be shown "Hey piracy is bad, don't do it" And the movies would not go passed that point.

The justification of "because it's free" for why piracy is acceptable is silly. This stuff doesn't get made without money. You don't want to pay for it and insist on pirating things? Great, you do you. But don't try to act like you're entitled to free content. The cost to access the content may be exorbitant in a lot of cases, but that doesn't make theft okay. You don't need this content to live. It is a luxury. Luxuries are paid for.

Personally, I argue for just cutting the costs, trim the fat, do the actors need to really be paid THAT much for their work?
Look at gaming as an example, tomb raider at selling 5 million some copies was a disappointment/borderline failure, while demon souls at less than 1 million was a runaway success.

If you cant make money at an already high price point, you are doing something horribly wrong.
I look at shows or movies or even games with good voice actors, and they paid them FAR less than a named actor, yet the nameless voice actor usually does such a better job that its honestly wasted money.

 

[Brian_R170]

I will give it a try. I do a decent amount of international traveling with flights 8 to 15 hours long. The entertainment systems on planes rarely have much content I want to see and are frequently broken, so a phone or tablet with a couple dozen hours of content on it would help make the trips less painful.

Do they restrict how much content you can download or the speed at which you can download it?

 

[targetdrone]

I will give it a try. I do a decent amount of international traveling with flights 8 to 15 hours long. The entertainment systems on planes rarely have much content I want to see and are frequently broken, so a phone or tablet with a couple dozen hours of content on it would help make the trips less painful.

Do they restrict how much content you can download or the speed at which you can download it?

I think you're limited by your phone's storage capacity.

I've noticed that it stores downloads in phone storage even if you have the Netflix app installed on a SD card.

 

[Titillating]

The justification of "because it's free" for why piracy is acceptable is silly. This stuff doesn't get made without money. You don't want to pay for it and insist on pirating things? Great, you do you. But don't try to act like you're entitled to free content. The cost to access the content may be exorbitant in a lot of cases, but that doesn't make theft okay. You don't need this content to live. It is a luxury. Luxuries are paid for.

Personally, I argue for just cutting the costs, trim the fat, do the actors need to really be paid THAT much for their work?
Look at gaming as an example, tomb raider at selling 5 million some copies was a disappointment/borderline failure, while demon souls at less than 1 million was a runaway success.

If you cant make money at an already high price point, you are doing something horribly wrong.
I look at shows or movies or even games with good voice actors, and they paid them FAR less than a named actor, yet the nameless voice actor usually does such a better job that its honestly wasted money.

Oh, I definitely agree there, but on the flip side, it is a business and the goal is to make as much money as you can, and the actors, as workers, will obviously try to get paid as much as they can. It's a compounded issue, in that actors with recognizable names will draw in more viewers, thus resulting in larger gains, but those actors command a higher salary by virtue of their ability to draw people in.

There are definitely flaws to it all, but it irks me when people justify their piracy solely on the idea that they shouldn't have to pay (or pay as much). Media productions are large undertakings. Even if you don't think the actors themselves should be paid that highly, there are other staff involved who put in large amounts of work. Piracy hurts them, too.

That's not to say I agree with the way the industry tries to curtail piracy, with their DMCA takedown notices and endless legions of lawyers. Simply making the content conveniently accessible is the best way. What Netflix is doing may not be perfect, but it's a step in the right direction.

 

[dimar]

This could be HUGE! If Netflix allows to cache U/HD content at blu-ray quality or beyond to NAS, microSD, or extrnal USB hard-drive, and then stream it on Roku for example, this could be the beginning of the end of the disks.

 

[LeeRains]

How about boldly enabling higher quality downloads, so people can watch content at blu-Ray quality levels instead of whatever bandwidth you happen to be allocated at the time?

 

[mrmez]

I give it a week until someone hacks it to convert the downloads into mkv/mp4 files.

Yeah, because it's otherwise impossible to find pirated versions of anything on Netflix currently.
How did we ever find pirated shows before Netflix allowed downloads?