this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2023
1131 points (98.5% liked)
Technology
59187 readers
1991 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Plex's (almost) entire user base is pirates, it's the same with Kodi, Emby and Jellyfin. I don't know of anyone that has legally ripped all of their DVDs and Blu-rays themselves, it's just too much of a pain in the ass, and I know multiple people that have run servers for years.
Plex is just covering their own asses from getting sued for "enabling the distribution of pirated content". Kodi and Jellyfin aren't big targets since they aren't a business, they don't sell a product, Plex (and Emby) does. Kodi and Jellyfin can't get sued (or it doesn't make sense to sue them) because they have the disclaimer that says "we make this for streaming content you own, we don't host anything, we don't support the piracy plugins, do what you will with it, we're not responsible for your actions" but since Plex can route traffic through their servers (the Plex Relay) and the fact that they offer PlexPass puts them in hot water.
Instead of Plex blocking the specific users based on email, specific IP or something else specific to that account, they said "fuck anyone using Hetzner, regardless of whether or not you're violating our ToS."
I've paid for a lifetime PlexPass and have actually paid for it a few times over since it took years before I finally bought one. Yet, I get treated like I'm some mega-pirate making money off of them. They don't give a shit about their users, all they care about is money and not getting sued.
Sorry I don't buy it. It stinks of puppeting for rights holders. I moved to Jellyfin as soon as that story broke. I've been a Plex pass user for over 10 years (albeit lifetime single purchase) and the only thing I miss is in-TV subtitle search.
I've been running both Plex and Jellyfin for years and I've had more problems with Plex than I've had with Jellyfin. It's also easier to figure out what the issue is since it's open source, I actually fixed a bug and added documentation for the "Native streaming" in JellyfinForKodi since I was able to dig deep into it.
I've always found that Hardware (GPU) Encoding to be a pain to use, regardless of the platform. It also lessens the quality of the video compared to Software Encoding. Get yourself a stronger CPU and don't mess with HE. I have a AMD Threadripper 2970WX in my home server and it laughs at transcoding 4K with uncompressed audio and Dolby Vision/Atmos. I can do 4 4K simultaneous transcodes with room to spare.
People pay Plex for the ease of remote access. If you can read or watch a video, it's really not that difficult to setup remote access for Jellyfin (they have the process fully documented). There's a key thing here: if you setup the remote connection it removes any liability from the software creators (Jellyfin in this case). If you want to give them $120 or more because you can't be bothered to figure out how to setup remote access yourself, so be it, but you're also at the whim of the company.
You seem really sensitive to this.
Yes. Plex have access to my content, my usage history, my personal details, etc. Giving that sort of information away and trusting a for-profit company to do the right thing is naive at best. I feel happier now that the system is behind closed doors, even if I do miss out on a feature or two.
Not really. Are you mixing my response up with others? I voiced an opinion, that was all.
They also responded to me me saying "Plex has been cracking down on Netflix style streaming services for 5 years" but then tell you "Plex isn't cracking down on piracy, you're spreading misinformation!" 🤣
I've always hated the fact that Plex was sort of a black box, I've been using it for over a decade and always had random issues which we're unable to be troubleshot because there was no information available. One long standing bug is sometimes when you setup a server it won't connect to the Plex backend and doesn't register on their end, so even if you visit the local IP of your server, there are zero server settings available. No one knows why it happens or how to fix it, there has been a big report open for it for ages and even the devs/support team are like 🤷♂️ when you ask them for help, and this is after paying for PlexPass. Granted it doesn't happen frequently, but it's still annoying as hell. "Claiming" your server when its run remotely (especially in docker) can sometimes be a huge pain as well.
You sure are incredibly trusting and protective of Plex. For a closed source system, unless you work for Plex, you are spreading misinformation by denying opinions contrary to your own. I would think myself naive to continue to trust in a company showing themselves to be taking action in favour of copyright holders.
And you're incapable of having an informative discussion without resorting to insults. Blocked.
You know what, fuck this, you guys can all go with the narrative of 'plex is cracking down on pirated content and can see what you have on your server'. Have fun.