A new stunt perfectly demonstrates how a broken streaming system encourages piracy
8Reported today on The Verge
For the full article visit: https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/10/21172214/streaming-piracy-all-streams-netflix-disney-hbo-hulu-amazon
Reported today in The Verge.
A new stunt perfectly demonstrates how a broken streaming system encourages piracy
We've all been there: you have a sudden itch to watch a specific movie, and, after a cursory search of Netflix, you realize it's not there. Next step: Google. Type in a search query for where that particular movie is streaming. It's not on Hulu or Amazon Prime Video. It is, however, available via HBO Now, and this is where the decision paralysis hits. Do you sign up for the seven-day free trial, rent it for $3.99, torrent it, or give up and just find something on Netflix to fill your time?
This scenario - having more entertainment available to us, immediately, than at any time in history - is where the streaming exhaustion hits. It's also what internet art collective MSCHF's newest installation tackles. All The Streams is a streaming take on pirate radio stations. People who open the site can choose from six different popular streaming services - Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus, Showtime, Amazon Prime Video, and HBO Now - and tune in to a live feed showing exactly one program from the service, already playing, just like traditional TV. There were just under 275,000 users at the time of this writing.
The website looks like an old-school radio unit with a TV monitor in the middle. A tuner lets you click on the different services to open up a specific stream from each. Clicking on Hulu might bring up a Keeping Up with the Kardashians episode, while HBO Now might bring up Game of Thrones, and Showtime may play some Dexter. MSCHF has subscriptions to all six streaming services, but making the content locked behind subscriber paywalls available to anyone isn't exactly legal. The team knows this, and they're already preparing for the takedown requests.
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