Countless Screaming ArgonautsJul 28, 2023
Everyone: Let's use this worldwide communication network to download all the movies and TV show we could ever want.
Hollywood Execs: But that would be piracy!
Everyone: So what?
Hollywood: If you pirate these movies, the people that make them won't get paid for doing so.
Everyone: So if we get the movies through you, they will get paid?
Hollywood:
Hollywood: I never said that.
Show threadRod HiltonJul 28, 2023
@nickwedig the moral argument against piracy has collapsed.
Show threadRev. GothAliceJul 28, 2023

@rodhilton @nickwedig And the argument for "piracy" as preservation has only skyrocketed, as production companies shift their content between streaming providers to maximize profits, giving the shaft to consumers who can't (and aren't) paying subscribers of literally every service.

Sure, I haven't been given a perpetual license to X media, but they sure as hell can't stop me. (2TiB+ of YouTube archived so far…)

Show threadQybatJul 29, 2023
@alice @rodhilton @nickwedig There are a few communities around dedicated to that sort of archival work, but because of their illegal nature they all operate in semi-secrecy, and it's rarely possible for a public archive to survive for any length of time. That makes actually finding things difficult. Someone, somewhere, has that old comic from the 80s you want in their personal collection - but good luck ever finding it. Perhaps one day copyright will be abolished and all the collections united.
Show threadRev. GothAlice

@Qybat In fact, I probably do have that comic. The last two or three months I've been "deep archiving" rather substantial comic collections, and have some non-comic works dating back more than 100 years. (Sister asked me for a medieval manuscript on textiles and clothing manufacture, and within 48h she had it. She couldn't believe it.)

Up here in Canada we have "fair dealing", which is a little better than "fair use", but… non-commercial personal development is hard to argue if you share.

Jul 29, 2023 at 3:31pmWeb
Show threadQybatJul 29, 2023
@alice Imteresting. I too have a large collection. Propose exchange? I also have some software used for lossless or near-lossless reduction of file sizes through recompression that might be of use.
Show threadRev. GothAliceJul 29, 2023

@Qybat Some JPEGs I'm processing go from 2.3MiB to 40KiB (blank pages are dumb, or mostly-blank with tiny logo centred on them).

Do you have 50TiB handy?
… it's … uh … a rather substantial collection. But at least I have gigabit fibre, so it shouldn't take /too/ long. (It'll take too long. Exercising offsite backup restores can take a week or two, and there are things like a copy of Wikipedia, every Popular Mechanics, Encyclopedia Brittanica, Project Gutenberg, &c. in here. Plus multimedia…)

Show threadRev. GothAliceJul 29, 2023

@Qybat The multimedia is a touch more problematic, since much of it (other than the aforementioned first animated film) are under rather strict modern copyright.

🤔 Checking… 27,423 songs totalling 76.9 days playing 24/7. 409 movies (officially; so not able to share most of these) totalling 245 days played 24/7. 5,261 television episodes (officially for most; some exceptions) totalling 105.8 days 24/7.

I used to decrypt iTunes video media in the name of preservation, but that's gotten harder.