We tend to look at piracy as the antithesis of Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, or Prime Video. But as it turns out, you can thank ruthless digital pirates for the low price and high quality of your favorite streaming services.
我们倾向于将盗版视为Netflix，Hulu，Spotify或Prime Video的对立面。 但事实证明，您可以感谢无情的数字盗版者所钟爱的流媒体服务的低价格和高质量。
盗版创建流 (Piracy Created Streaming)
Without piracy, streaming wouldn’t exist. Or, at least, it would only exist in some bastardized form. This is a bold claim, but if you look at the history of streaming, the connection seems quite apparent.
没有盗版，流媒体将不存在。 或者，至少，它只会以某种混蛋形式存在。 这是一个大胆的主张，但是如果您看一下流媒体的历史，这种连接似乎就很明显了。
Let’s start with iTunes. While iTunes isn’t a streaming service, it’s arguably the first true precursor to services like Spotify. And guess what, its inception was a direct response to piracy.
让我们从iTunes开始。 尽管iTunes不是流服务，但可以说它是Spotify等服务的第一个真正的先驱。 猜猜是什么，它的诞生是对盗版的直接React。
During the ’90s and early 2000s, record companies charged ridiculously high prices for CDs. Their idea was that, if people liked a hit single, then they’d shell out $20 (about $30 when adjusted for inflation) for a CD just to own the single.
在90年代和2000年代初期，唱片公司对CD收取高得离谱的价格。 他们的想法是，如果人们喜欢一首热门单曲，那么他们会为自己拥有一张CD 掏出20美元 (按通货膨胀因素调整后约为30美元)。
Naturally, this business model can’t work digitally. On a digital store, people can purchase a hit single and avoid buying a whole album. So, record companies avoided digital services like the plague. In response, piracy boomed. P2P services like Napster made music free for everyone, and the record industry is still reeling from the after-shocks.
自然，这种商业模式无法进行数字化运作。 在数字商店中，人们可以购买热门单曲，而不必购买整张专辑。 因此，唱片公司避免了瘟疫之类的数字服务。 作为回应，盗版猖ed。 诸如Napster之类的P2P服务使每个人都可以免费享受音乐，而唱片业仍在遭受余震的困扰。
Apple saw this as an opportunity and put together iTunes, the first successful digital music store. But in the end, iTunes led people back to piracy because of its stupid DRM (anti-sharing) policies that Steve Jobs openly hated. Services like Spotify cropped up in response, and the rest is history.
苹果公司将此视为机遇，并组建了首家成功的数字音乐商店iTunes。 但最后，由于史蒂夫·乔布斯 ( Steve Jobs)公开憎恨的愚蠢DRM(反共享)政策，iTunes导致人们重新回到盗版领域。 诸如Spotify之类的服务应运而生，其余就是历史。
A year after the launch of Spotify, Netflix unveiled its video streaming services, mostly to fill a similar hole in the market. DVDs were expensive ($25-$30 each), and even video rentals were unfairly priced (not to mention inconvenient) due to the massive overhead that comes with running a store like Blockbuster.
推出Spotify一年后，Netflix推出了其视频流服务，主要目的是填补市场上的类似空白。 DVD价格昂贵(每张$ 25- $ 30)，由于经营像Blockbuster这样的商店会产生巨大的开销 ，甚至视频出租的价格也不合理(更不用说不便了)。
盗版鼓励高质量流媒体 (Piracy Encourages High-Quality Streaming)
We’ve spent a lot of time complaining about the cable-ization of streaming services. As video streaming becomes more popular, subscription costs go up, streaming libraries get smaller, and more businesses build exclusive services. Not to mention, big streaming services sometimes try to cut costs by damaging the user experience.
我们花了很多时间抱怨流媒体服务的有线化。 随着视频流媒体变得越来越流行，订阅成本上升，流媒体库变得越来越小，更多的企业建立了独家服务。 更不用说，大型流媒体服务有时会尝试通过破坏用户体验来降低成本。
In 2018, Amazon quietly cut its Prime Video file sizes in half. Obviously, this lowered the video quality of Prime Video, and it pissed a lot of people off. And oddly enough, the biggest (and fastest) response came from the pirate community.
在2018年，亚马逊悄悄地将其Prime Video文件大小减少了一半 。 显然，这降低了Prime Video的视频质量，并激怒了很多人。 奇怪的是，最大(也是最快)的React来自海盗社区。
Pirates with video-ripping know-how confirmed Amazon’s misdeeds by checking the file sizes and bitrates of video all across Amazon. Only people who want to steal videos from streaming services know how to do that. Then, they spread this information to the press, abandoned their Prime accounts, and pirated high-quality versions of Amazon exclusive videos.
具有盗版视频知识的盗版者通过检查整个亚马逊上视频的文件大小和比特率来确认亚马逊的不当行为。 只有想从流媒体服务中窃取视频的人才知道该怎么做。 然后，他们将这些信息传播给媒体，放弃了他们的Prime帐户，并盗版了亚马逊独家视频的高质量版本。
In the end, Amazon reversed its video quality changes, thanks to the pirating community. Everyone’s Amazon video streaming quality went back up. And while this is a very specific example of piracy leading to high-quality streaming, there are some less specific examples to consider. Just look at Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu’s newfound (albeit overdue) interest in 4K streaming. Pirates have been obsessed with 4K for a while now (even though public torrenting sites have some low-quality video files), and streaming services are just starting to catch on.
最后， 由于盗版社区 ，亚马逊扭转了视频质量的变化。 每个人的亚马逊视频流质量都恢复了。 尽管这是盗版导致高质量流媒体传播的一个非常具体的示例，但仍有一些不那么具体的示例需要考虑。 只需看看Netflix，Amazon和Hulu对4K流媒体的新发现(尽管过期)的兴趣。 海盗已经沉迷于4K已有一段时间了(即使公共洪流站点上有一些低质量的视频文件 )，流媒体服务才刚刚开始流行。
盗版使流媒体成本下降 (Piracy Keeps Streaming Costs Down)
But pirates don’t just obsess over video quality. Quite naturally, they obsess over prices, too. And, in the world of subscription-based streaming, we’re continually expected to pay more for less content.
但是盗版者不仅迷恋视频质量。 很自然地，他们也迷恋价格。 而且，在基于订阅的流媒体世界中，人们一直期望我们为更少的内容支付更多的费用。
Basically, streaming sites compete with one another by offering exclusive content. But this exclusive content comes at a significant cost. When a show like Friends is on the table, businesses are willing to pay to the tune of $100 million for a contract. It makes sense, Friends is the second most popular show on Netflix, after all.
基本上，流媒体站点通过提供独家内容相互竞争。 但是，这种专有内容的成本很高。 当像“朋友”这样的节目在桌上摆放时，企业愿意为合同支付高达1亿美元的费用。 很有道理，毕竟，Friends是Netflix 第二受欢迎的节目。
But $100 million is a ton of money. After dropping hundreds of millions of dollars on exclusive content, streaming sites are forced to recover costs by increasing subscription prices and terminating unprofitable contracts.
但是1亿美元是一大笔钱。 流媒体网站上花费了数亿美元之后，流媒体网站被迫通过提高订阅价格和终止无利可图的合同来收回成本。
As you’ve probably guessed, this encourages people to pirate content. Every time Netflix gets more expensive, usage of torrenting clients like BitTorrent goes up. While this may not be a fair (or legal) response from the pirating community, it sends a quiet message to streaming sites and media corporations: content should be accessible, and, if it isn’t, then we won’t pay for it.
您可能已经猜到了，这鼓励人们盗版内容。 每次Netflix变得更昂贵时，诸如BitTorrent之类的洪流客户端的使用率就会上升。 尽管这可能不是盗版社区的公正(或法律)回应，但它向流媒体网站和媒体公司发送了一条悄悄话：内容应该可以访问，如果不能访问，则我们不会为此付费。
That’s part of the reason why Hulu and Disney+ are so focused on offering robust, low priced services. Even if a streaming service has to operate at a loss to bring in customers, at least it has more dedicated users than its competitors. Over time, streaming sites and media corporations may finally listen and abandon the exclusive contracts that are, in all honesty, turning streaming into a new generation of cable TV.
这就是Hulu和Disney +如此专注于提供强大的低价服务的部分原因。 即使流媒体服务必须亏损运营以吸引客户，但至少它拥有比竞争对手更多的专用用户。 随着时间的流逝，流媒体网站和媒体公司可能最终会听从并放弃独家合同，说实话，这些合同已将流媒体变成了新一代有线电视 。
盗版使我们有机会接触我们的文化 (Piracy Gives Us Access to Our Culture)
Culturally relevant movies, like Star Wars and Disney animated classics, are notoriously hard to watch at home. Disney’s Snow White, for example, is only available for streaming on Amazon for $18 and on Vudu for $15.
众所周知，像《星球大战》和迪斯尼动画经典之类的与文化相关的电影很难在家中观看。 例如，迪士尼的《 白雪公主》只能在亚马逊上以18美元的价格在Vudu上以15 美元的价格进行流媒体播放。
Let’s be real for a second. Is it worth paying $15 for Snow White, an 82-year-old film, on a website that follows a failing business model? Films like Snow White are incredibly important to our culture. They’re cornerstones of storytelling, animation, and film history. And while studios like Disney deserve to continue making money from classic movies, everyday people also deserve to engage in their culture at a reasonable price. It’s incredible how media corporations fail to understand this.
让我们成为现实。 在一个失败的商业模式的网站上，花15美元买一本82年历史的电影《 白雪公主》是值得的吗？ 电影《白雪公主》对我们的文化至关重要。 它们是故事，动画和电影历史的基石。 尽管像迪士尼这样的制片厂应该继续从经典电影中赚钱，但每天人们也应该以合理的价格参与他们的文化。 媒体公司如何无法理解这一点真是不可思议。
Luckily, piracy encourages studios to make culturally relevant movies more open. Because of piracy, Disney is abandoning the “Disney vault” to offer all its movies for just $7 a month on Disney+. Isn’t that interesting? Two months with Disney’s entire library costs less than a copy of Snow White on Vudu.
幸运的是，盗版活动鼓励制片厂更开放与文化相关的电影。 由于盗版，迪斯尼放弃了“迪斯尼金库”， 以每月仅$ 7的价格在Disney +上提供其所有电影。 那不是很有趣吗？ 迪士尼整个图书馆的两个月费用不到在Vudu上制作《 白雪公主》的成本。
As a side note, many of these old, culturally relevant movies should be in the public domain. If Disney hadn’t lobbied for ridiculous copyright laws in the ’80s and ’90s, then you’d be able to access a ton of 20th-century films for free. Like record companies, movie studios have practically encouraged piracy by turning cultural cornerstones into exclusive, expensive commodities. The fact that piracy helps level the playing field is both ironic and deeply satisfying. We hope that there won’t be a need for piracy in the future, but for now, it’s keeping things in check.
顺便提一下，这些与文化相关的古老电影中的许多电影都应该属于公共领域。 如果迪斯尼在80年代和90年代没有游说过荒唐的版权法 ，那么您将可以免费观看大量20世纪电影。 像唱片公司一样，电影制片厂实际上通过将文化基石变成了昂贵的独家商品来鼓励盗版。 盗版有助于公平竞争的事实既具有讽刺意味，又令人深感满意。 我们希望将来不再需要盗版，但就目前而言，它可以控制一切。
翻译自: https://www.howtogeek.com/424708/how-piracy-makes-legal-streaming-services-better/
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