Netflix added another 7 million subscribers in Q1 of 2018. They’re doing really well — which is at some level surprising to me. While it’s intuitive that cable-cutters are feeding Netflix subscribers, it is a little shocking that every single person I know now has a running Netflix subscription. When I suggest a show for someone to watch, the first response I get now is almost always, “is it on Netflix?”

At risk of dating myself (ha-ha-ha), some of you might remember the good ol’ days of scouring the web for working links and secretly trading fast streaming sites with friends like they were Pokemon Cards. Ultimately, Netflix capitalized on human laziness, and proved that you don’t really need a ton of content (or even good content *cough* Bright *cough*); all you need is reliable content.

Ninja’d from Wikipedia and edited with comic sans via non-pirated Photoshop

So what about all the stuff that isn’t on Netflix? What about all the other stuff? What if there was a way to get to all that, just as easily as with Netflix?

What if I told you that people are being paid to aggregate a list of real piratable material? What if I told you it was just a quick google search away?

You’d probably freak out. You’d call me a liar. You’d stare at me in disbelief and ponder how long it’ll be before I ask you to wire me your life savings. Probably.

But it’s true, and I’ll tell you all about it. But first, a disclaimer:

I know all this due to curiosity. I’m definitely not a pirate or ninja or anything (however, here is a video of me throwing a sewing needle through glass, which is probably the closest I get). Also, despite the clickbait title, I do not actually endorse pirating, especially if you have disposable income. But let’s continue for the sake of curiosity.

Whenever you google for piratable content, there’s actually a nice little list of real sites that someone has been paid to compile; the trick has always been paying attention to the details. Let me show you. I’m going to use Avengers: Age of Ultron as an example. I saw it in theaters (I have proof!) and it was so awful that I would never ever think of watching it again.

How it works

Naturally, the first thing we do is google: Age of Ultron Download . You’ll get a bunch of links, most (all) of which are scams that want you to register/pay. And if you scroll to the bottom, you’ll see why:

DMCA takedown notice on Google

I’m pretty sure 99.9999% of people ignore these. But if you click into one, you’ll see something like this:

Details of the DMCA hosted by an independent third party

This basically tells you that Disney hired some people to find illegal uploads of their content, authenticate that it was actually infringing (real), and told Google to take it off their search results. Google complies because of legislation known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

Pirates and ninjas — but don’t forget TROLLS

In response, Google voluntarily sends these notices to Lumen Database, a project by the EFF to combat censorship. Why? I can think of three different perspectives:

First, from a product management perspective, it actually makes sense to alert your users and provide an explanation whenever you do something that intentionally violates predicted intent. Second, from an ethical perspective, the argument can be made that users deserve to know when the information they’re looking for, whether legal or not, is being censored.

Third, if someone kept giving you a ton of work to do, wouldn’t you wish you could bother them back, even if just a little bit? ;)

If you must troll, troll until you break the enemy’s spirit such that they cannot retaliate. — a wise man/internet troll

Ignoring my bad jokes, I’m pretty sure Lumen Database is now the largest (and easily-accessible) index of piratable (ninja-able?) content in the world.

Wait, what!?

I apologize if my diatribe did not entertain you — I can ramble when I’m entertained. Let’s get back to it!

Once you click on a complaint link, hit cmd+f (ctrl+f on Windows) and search for “ultron”. you’ll see a list of infringing links, with something like this mixed in (without the grey blob that I’ve added to avoid getting taken down — wouldn’t that be ironic?):

If you follow one of them, you might see something like this:

For this particular instance, download options

That’s right! Through this, you can download Age of Ultron through Google Drive! The person who asked Google to take down the link to Google Drive did not even bother asking Google to take down the file.

Humor aside

Do I think anyone should do this? No, but the state of affairs is quite comical. It’s reminiscent of how Do Not Call lists get purchased and subsequently called from foreign countries.

But I do actually believe that the accountability Lumen Database creates is a good thing. Takedowns are inherently costly to comply with, and have a huge potential to be abused. Lumen adds a layer of transparency to this arcane process, acting as a much-needed aegis against due maleficence, and (hopefully) enabling research to better inform future policy-making.

A big thanks to everyone who helped me proofread and trim down my rambling (yes, it’s already been trimmed).

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