re: The Verge: Plex makes piracy just another streaming service

Well....the verge?
Nobody will read this. Second....Plex....funny. sounds like a grandma wrote this hit piece.

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How is sharing a server with your content with others any different than pirating?

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Sharing it is definitely technically illegal, no doubt about it. But I have my server shared with like 5 people, it's been that way for a couple years now, and I would say maybe 10-20 hours of content total have been streamed from my server, total, in 5 years. We're all using our Plex servers for personal collections, and since streaming from one another takes bandwidth and CPU power, there is etiquette involved and it's not like it's some mass piracy thing. The impact is little different than borrowing a DVD or watching a movie while over by a buddy's house, because there's a similar practical limitation to it. So I have no moral regrets.

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(I am a big fan of illegal streaming so I am not knocking Plex, I just find it odd that anyone would pretend the main purpose of Plex is something other than to be able to watch content you did not pay for)

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I can see in this thread that there are plenty of people who abuse the 'sharing' feature as if it were a 'mass distribution of content' feature, which is not what Plex's intended use is. You can put a pirate movie on a BD-R with a Toshiba, Sony, Samsung, etc. Blu-ray burner and play it in Toshiba, Sony, Samsung, etc. Blu-ray player, but one would not realistically consider Toshiba, Sony, Samsung, etc. a facilitator of piracy or that piracy is their devices' "main purpose." There is no difference for the Plex software; the purpose is to import personal media and present it to the user as a streaming service, with the option to share on a strictly non-commercial, personal basis. How the user gets that media is of no consequence to Plex

Plex isn’t even close to the only means of “sharing”

Emby is the exact same thing. Same ease of use as well.

There are so many free movie sites. So many. And people watch the heck out of them. Most people streaming online are still not even using plex. Why use plex when sites have all the content you desire. There are still so many people streaming online who have no idea what plex even is.

There are probably no legal things to those sites, but at least Plex does have legal purposes

The “piracy” starts outside of plex, period.

I use plex specifically as a DVR to watch the tv shows that I actually still pay $150+ a month to watch. I even have to pay for my own capture card monthly. I rather use my own equipment than rent from my cable company. And that’s my right.

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I'm sure everyone on this board is currently using it for streaming completely legally obtained material ( )

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for personal use, yes we are.

I use Plex for a mix of legitimate media I own/ripped myself. I use it for live DVR recording. I use it to stream podcasts and free streaming content. I use it to stream from paid services like Tidal. And yes, I use it to stream pirated content too.

Plex is at an intersection of a wide variety of use cases, some legitimate and some illegitimate. Like almost anything DIY in computing, I'm sure many/most people are breaking some sort of license or law somewhere along the way.

Streaming services offered new ways to consume media but never offered anyone a way to actually own a copy of a movie or song. Plex allows us to do that. Even if I never pirated a movie or TV show ever again, I'd still be using Plex to stream my own media, and if I didn't have Plex I'd still be pirating media at the same rate, so I think it's completely disingenuous to write a hit piece implicating Plex for piracy. Especially when it doesn't even mention other FREE options like live DVR. It deserves no more implication than a DVD player does for playing a movie off of a DVD-R.

I bet that guy supported divx too

Kork is right. First the music industry and now Hollywood is fighting to keep their cash cow when all anyone really wants it's a way to watch what they want when they want.

Netflix is a disaster because you never know when that Blockbuster you've been putting off watching is going to disappear. Why do you think they're trying to lure you with "originals"? It's because big name studios constantly give and take and Netflix is trying to distract from what is happening (see impending Disney divorce) and personally it pissed me off when my kid wanted to watch the same movie for the 100th time suddenly it was gone from Netflix.

Solution? That movie now lives on Plex.

That's not Netflix's fault but I don't see the trend ending anytime soon.

You gave me a service when I can stream 4k HDR movies with every movie ever released for $15/mo and Comcast drops their ridiculous data cap and my Plex server would turn into a local TV station DVR.

Exhibit A

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The struggle is real

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do you even 'secret life of pets' dude?

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the most recent was Boss Baby

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yup, that one too. i was like WTF is boss baby?