Ask Slashdot: Are You Streaming-Only For Home Entertainment? 697
hinesbrad writes "I'm getting really tired of paying ridiculous fees to my cable company just to have a DVR and high speed internet access. A neighbor of mine bought a cheapo Dell computer with an HDMI output. Apparently he streams all of his news live from respective websites, and also watches many of the shows on NBC and Comedy central using this method. He's effectively turned his PC into a DVR and gotten rid of his cable subscription fee. I wonder, how many people have completely gotten rid of their cable/satellite subscription and have now instead moved to a Hulu/Netflix/Content producer website streaming solution instead?" If you've done this, what does your approach include? If you'd like to, what are the bottlenecks?
No cable. Just Roku and my laptop (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No cable. Just Roku and my laptop (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to love Discovery and the History channel. Then it became all Deadliest Catch/Ice Road Truckers/Axe Men with a side of batshit conspiracy. It's been many years since I subscribed to cable TV.
"But what about copyleft?" (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Nether kinda (Score:4, Insightful)
It isn't technically stealing, it is copyright infringement.
If you steal my car, I can't drive it. If you copy my book, I don't get my royalty.
Re:Nether kinda (Score:5, Insightful)
This little unintended diatribe actually highlights the problem in my view.
We can't apply old style thinking to the internet... because the theory ("it's like borrowing from a library") doesn't quite match the reality for a handful of fairly obvious reasons and a number of not so obvious ones.
And as normal, the extreme sides are way out to lunch.
You have the "information wants to be free" types who think that because there is no tangible thing being taken.. because someone is not being deprived of a physical widget, that it's all cool. It may have cost 20 million to produce that first copy... but the fact that one person pays $20 dollars for it and shares it with 10000+ people just doesn't jive. This crowd basically wants the content and doesn't want to pay for it.. and has shoehorned old style thinking to play their case.
And conversely, you have the media industry, who wants you to pay for content every time you watch it and on each unique device, and wants to dictate when, how, and what you view. This crowd wants the most money and complete control of all entertainment.. and has also shoehorned old style thinking to play their case.
We really (as a group of people) need to actually figure this shit out at a rational level. The old style thinking doesn't seem to apply, so we need to actually define a "new style thinking". I think the media industry has a right to profit off their work, and I don't think I have some entitlement to entertainment the exact way I want it... but I also think that I should have the right to do whatever I want with what I paid for. Basically, you should either sell a product with no strings attached... or not sell a product at all.
Re:Nether kinda (Score:3, Insightful)
From the moral perspective I view it as stealing because I'm depriving someone, somewhere of a royalty payment.
Directly however, I agree. The crime (actually not actually a crime here.. kinda) isn't theft.. because as you said I have not actually taken the copy.