It Could Happen Here - Paywalls, Libraries, and Free Media

Episode Date: March 18, 2022

Garrison and Mia discuss piracy, and how free access to information is a net good.   Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Arrgh! Arrgh, BRTs! This is me doing a pirate

voice, which is kind of a bad Irish voice. That's enough of that. Hi, welcome to Could Happen Here, the show where we talk about things that could possibly happen and or are happening. And go yarr, fiddly dee. I'm Garrison.

Welcome to this tech-centric episode. This is very exciting. With me is Chris to help us discuss libraries and piracy, argh. Permanently pirate brained. And paywalls and all this fun stuff. So, yeah, we're talking about kind of free access to information. And I don't know, like, I really like libraries.

And I think a library-based economy would be pretty cool. Yeah. You know, libraries for everything. Food libraries. You take food, you deposit compost. It's a decent system. You've got tool libraries, so you can get, you know, your angle grinders

for taking apart federal fences. You can get your, you know, soldering irons for building your FGC-9s. You know, all of the basic stuff. And I guess book libraries are cool too. But we already have those, and we're going to be talking about them a little bit. We're going to be having a discussion on paywalls,

piracy, arg, and how access to information is actually good, contrary to what many people want to tell you. Yeah, no. So, yeah, as the internet became easier to access and the information flow accelerated, there's been kind of questions and speculation on how physical book libraries will fit into

our increasingly digital media landscape. Now, it's important to mention that the library is also one of the main ways for lower income people to access the internet with their, you know, collection of free to use computers, as well as, you know, a decent Wi-Fi connection. And many, many libraries also are expanding their scope to include stuff like makerspaces, as well as, you know, their printers and standard kind of office supplies. So libraries are already kind of beyond just places to get printed media.

But of course, that is kind of their main premise. But, you know, they've been including stuff regarding e-books, computer use, Wi-Fi access, all the stuff's been a part of libraries for, like, the past, like, 20, 30 years. Yeah. Wi-Fi access, all this stuff's been a part of libraries for the past 20, 30 years. It's not a new thing, but I think when people think of libraries, we just think of books or newspapers and stuff. But it is definitely more than that. Because yeah, obviously physical libraries are mostly known for printed materials. And because we'll be talking about paywalls and piracy, arg, and fears that access to free content will negatively impact creators' ability to make such content, I figured let's start by talking about book libraries, since they're one of the oldest examples of providing information for free.

collected from library users across the country, it would seem that libraries and loaned e-books are actually a very powerful economic engine for the book business. Now, yes, libraries do have special deals to buy the books that they have in stock. Sometimes they're donated. But even beyond that fact,

like library users, the fact that libraries exist for the users in and of themselves increase book sales. It's pretty fun. So even as far back as like 2011, there's been studies that show that libraries do increase book sales. Now, yes, this is a capitalist argument. But sometimes when arguing with, let's call them normies,

you can convince them to agree with a lot of kind of like anarchy-leaning improvements to the world by carefully using their own rhetoric against them. This is like the same thing with giving out free drugs and having safe drug intake sites and giving houses to homeless people, all this type of stuff. All of those things are cheaper for the taxpayer than what we're currently doing with how we use emergencies like we have for how we use emergency services spending

so yes it's a capitalist argument but you can still kind of you know paint someone into a corner to to agree to like actual good improvements by using hey this is actually cheaper you know that type of argument so yeah libraries they do increase book sales. So that is mostly cool. There was a study that shows around, this is a study around 2011, showed that 50% of library users report purchasing books by an author they were introduced to through the library system, which debunks the myth that when a library buys books, the publisher will lose future sales. Instead, it confirms that the public library does not only incubate and support literacy, as it's generally understood in our culture, but is also an active partner with the publishing

industry for building up the book market. And also including in that is the ever-growing e-book market, which I don't really like e-books for reasons we'll kind of discuss in a bit for how I kind of have an aversion to the idea of like digital ownership, but e-books are undeniably a very growing industry that also does support

writers in a lot of ways. But I think physical books are a lot cooler and more reliable. They are, as you can tell by my very nice physical book collection behind me, which you cannot listen to because this is a podcast and you can't listen with your ears unless you're on a lot of drugs, which

good luck hearing the books behind me. People who listen to this podcast on drugs. Yeah, you too, but yeah, I'm not talking about them. This is an anti-people who have on drug-induced synesthesia podcast. Now, lucky bastards.

You're going to get canceled for that. Oh, sure. Yeah. That's what's going to get me. After all. Yeah, not the ****. Well, bleep that. I can't believe you said that.

Wow. Whoa. Chris just said one of the most horrible authors that I would never be caught dead reading any of their books anyway. of industries and you know the idea that you know just having access to free versions of media will hurt the ability to make more of the media is definitely proven wrong simply by the uh modern existence and popularity of anime uh in the united states because uh we would not have anime anime would not be what it is today without piracy uh And because in the specifically like 2000s, late 90s, the piracy of anime became a massive reason why it is the cultural juggernaut that it is today.

Over half of anime-related sales revenue comes from overseas, not Japan. It comes from places like the States. Yeah, and it's also, I think, worth mentioning here. It wasn't even just that they were pirating the States. Yeah. And, you know, and it's also, I think worth mentioning here, like it wasn't even just that they were like pirating the show, right. They were pirating, they were getting a worse version of it.

Oh yeah. Because like, you know, you're talking about resolution. Yeah. Terrible resolutions. Like, I mean,

literally like VCRs that people had figured out how to like, right. So like get subtitles on, like these versions of it are terrible. The translations are awful. And it's still just like absolutely just catapulted anime from

an incredibly fringe thing for weirdos to a thing that is also still for weirdos but is now incredibly mainstream I'm gonna take this opportunity to plug our future episode, which is dissecting the politics of Attack on Titan dun dunan it's coming folks strap in so yes anime uh would not would not be the thing it is today without without without privacy and again

but the majority of of sales revenue comes from not japan so yeah that's that's uh pretty pretty pretty clear so the the discovery of new books and authors through the library system um is definitely searching right now actually specifically due to ebooks and audiobooks being available uh online anytime well like via library means so there's like you know there's there's ways you can access, you can quote unquote borrow these types of things via the library systems, despite them being like digital media, which again, I prefer physical, but that's something we'll talk about later.

So even while visits to libraries and physical bookstores plummeted during COVID-19, digital library usage soared, which is, you know, that tracks. More than 430 million titles were borrowed from the Overdrive library platform in 2020 alone. And it would, you know, you could assume that this would cause a drop in the purchasing of books during the same period, but the opposite's true. Actually, the overall purchasing of books also rose

in 2020, including an 8% lift in the sales of print books, despite a lot of people being out of jobs, out of work. It turns out people are bored, so they're going to spend money on books, because books are cool. And even when they have access to library stuff, they still buy books.

Yep. It's a simple truth that the library patrons are usually also book buyers. Yeah, it's me. I am literally surrounded by books on all sides. They have me surrounded. I have no escape. And this is what happens when you grow up in a library. I mean, I also grew up in a library.

I mean, I was homeschooled. I grew up a lot of time in a library. To my left, I have books on urban exploration and Lemony Snicket. To my right, I have books on alchemy. Behind me, I have books which I shall not name. And behind me,

I have a massive stack of comic books. Yeah, I am usually surrounded by books. Books are great. And you have them. Unless they burn up, you're going to have them no matter whether the internet goes out, whether an online provider shuts down. You're going to have physical

books. They are pretty cool. And libraries, and the library system, offers a really great way to discover new books, new series, new genres, or new authors before deciding whether to permanently purchase those titles. So this isn't just like an assumption used to hype up the idea of a library.

This has been proven by lots of studies, like the one I mentioned a few minutes ago from 2011. Also, there was the Panorama Project's Immersive Media and Books 2020 Consumer Survey, which is a way too long of a title. It's a real mouthful. Which found that one third of responders bought a book that they discovered through the library in 2020.

So turns out you discover a book, you return it, and you're like, hey, that book's actually pretty good. I'll just buy a copy myself. I did that. I still do that all the time. It's, yeah, It's a thing. This is why I own all my Star Wars books.

For better or for worse. This is why I have a beautiful copy of Splinter in the Mind's Eye. Oh, God. Which I am very curious to see who will get that joke. I was trying to think of the worst Star Wars book that I have, and you said that. I'm like, I can't. I got nothing.

I think I actually have that. Well, there you go there's there's two there's two for you i gave you two uh yeah so in our kind of in our like technology driven world of like you know wanting things very quickly you know instant instant gratification um library users are no different they still have that instant gratification drive and many times they will want a specific book and they'll be happy to pay for it instead of waiting for it at the library right you can put a book on

hold and wait a month or you can buy it for 10 bucks and often times people will buy the book because we want things quickly according to the same panorama project immersive media and books 2020 consumer survey about 30% of respondents said that they just bought books rather than waiting for them if they are unavailable from the library at the time. It's a great system. Libraries are also frequently used just as a really good browsing tool.

Libraries are also frequently used just as a really good browsing tool. If you're unsure of what you want to read next, you can go to the library, look at stuff, and be like, okay, this is what I'm interested in, and then purchase it online or in person at a later date. And it's not just physical books. Library users are also driving the purchase of e-books and physical books um and audiobooks audiobooks have been actually very big at the library i used to listen to a lot of audiobooks actually from the library because i would get uh cds back when those were a thing yeah uh great for road trips back in the old days when you had a cd i say with my gen z uh outlook yes uh cds classic classic uh according of Outlook. Yes. CDs.

Classic. Classic. According to the Audio Publishers Association, also known as the APA, which is an acronym, daily audio book consumption has grown 71% since 2017,

which is not surprising. I mean, like, there's stuff like Audible and, you know, big platforms that are making high-quality audiobook content. But that's a lot.

In 2020 alone, audiobook revenue grew by 17%, even though the number of people who were commuting plummeted, right? Because a lot of people listen to audiobooks while driving to work. So the number of commuting dropped in 2020 because there was this plague i'm not sure if you've heard about that uh but the government clearly hasn't so you know that's true they're pretending it's not real but if yeah if if you look at most uh if you look at you know the uh the audiobook revenue it it grew despite there being uh much less much less um much less work commuting. And that was the eighth straight year of double-digit growth in the audiobook revenue sector.

And it aligns with other kind of digital library usage statistics. So yeah, like libraries and booksellers, well, they work in tandem. Libraries drive interest for content, both physical and digital. You know, Rising Tide races all of those floaty things in the water as the saying goes.

Arrgh! That's a piracy joke, everybody. Arrgh! Overdrive has found that when a reader uses one or more digital library apps like Libby, which I've never heard of until I had to research this podcast, but if you use more than one or more digital library apps,

you are 61% more likely to increase your book consumption year over year versus people who do not. So yeah, it turns out when you read more books, you want to read more books. Because they're good. Because it's fun. It's fun. It's good stuff. So instead of reading a book, I'm going to give our audio listeners an opportunity right now to listen to this carefully curated selection of ads.

Unless they're by like, I don't know, the National Guard or whatever. So here we go. Here's some ads. Here's some ads. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora.

An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we are back. Wow, what a lovely, lovely collection of audio treats to tickle your ears. Okay.

Okay. You're gone. Speaking of tickling your ears Sonic the Hedgehog so a lot of the reasons why we're gonna so this will make sense I promise

we're about to talk about fly genetics the gene SSH Sonic Hedgehog this is a real thing look it up we're talking about how like when people are allowed to like do piracy and allowed to do like their own things with media, it actually boosts the overall kind of like presence of the franchise. Right.

So Sonic the Hedgehog would not be a current cultural stake if it wasn't for fan culture and the use of like fan games and fan media related to Sonic. So the same thing was like anime, right? You know, Sonic fan games, which were allowed to be existed for years, which Sega encouraged, are the only reason why there's good Sonic games right now, like Sonic Mania, which they just hired people who

made fan games. The person who redesigned Sonic the Hedgehog for the movie used to make Sonic fan comics. And then he got hired to make the actual official Sonic comics they got hired to fix the horrible movie design

so yeah Sega's been very good about like not being horrible about like copyright stuff and trademark stuff they've like really encouraged it because turns out when you yourself don't make good games you need to rely on fans to actually make the good games

so that's where you get beautiful creations like the Sonic Dreams collection which is a heartwarming nostalgic look at Sonic through the ages and other great games like Sonic Mania so you can compare this to like a Nintendo

who unfortunately makes good games, but also hates when fans make games or do, like, emulation or any, like, ports. They will clamp down on that so fast. If you ever emulate a Nintendo game, you ho, watch your back. There will be men in black suits following you around. To give an understanding of, of like how far this goes.

Right. So Super Smash Bros. Melee. This game is like maybe older than Garrison. It is. I think I actually don't know if that's true. But yeah, literally old and Garrison. Right.

This game has an absolute still still to this day, like copies of this game are extremely expensive because there's an enormous professional scene around it. Nintendo, like. of this game are extremely expensive because there's an enormous professional scene around it uh nintendo like basically was working to actively smash them because they were they were playing a yeah yeah smash them yeah because they because they were playing on like an emulated uh like they're playing an emulated version of it for tournaments because it was easier emulated software yeah yeah and nintendo again who is literally getting like millions of views of completely free, good publicity was like, no, we hate you. Yeah. Nintendo will not like it when people use their their like their their content and stuff in ways that are not not not official. And because they make decent games, they can actually get get away with that.

Sega does not make decent games, unfortunately. So they have to rely on fans doing that but yeah that's the reason why sonic is still a thing just because fans have like have been able to you know through through piracy through emulation through creating through using like sonic code to code their own games all that stuff is the reason why that's still like a cultural staple that is uh releasing a new movie next month which i'm very excited about i'm very excited about sonic the hedgehog 2 it's gonna be it's gonna be i'm thinking i'm thinking it could we could finally clamp down on the video game oscar this time i feel it well that's that look this

this this is just because uh ace attorney got robbed okay well greatest movie of all time that is that is my little side bit about about uh about about sega um oh yeah i should also briefly mention that uh nintendo just like put literally put a guy in prison for helping for helping jailbreak consoles like put put a man in prison for this for modifying people's software on a game console i guess the other thing i'll talk about is like, I mean, part of the reason why I really don't like digital ownership of media is because you don't actually own the thing. You own a license to use the content

as long as the online service is active. So even if you buy a game on the Nintendo Switch store, you're not actually buying the game, you're buying a license to use the game. Same thing for whether you're buying media on Amazon Prime, right? It's the same thing. If you're buying a digital copy of it, it's a license to use the game. Same thing for whether you're buying media on Amazon Prime. It's the same thing. If you're buying a digital copy of it,

it's a license to use it. What Nintendo has done a few years ago is they shut down the Wii Shop channel, which means if you bought a game and it wasn't currently downloaded, it's gone. You cannot play it anymore because they just completely took the service down.

So you're not actually buying the thing you're just buying license to use the thing now they did they did the same thing a few months ago for the wii u shop channel and the 3ds channel so yeah rip rip to that uh if you if you if you have if you bought games on there that were not currently running then you cannot get them anymore they're just gone like you can they're just lost, lost to time. Well, and you know, and again, if you modify the software on the game console that you like nominally own

in order to play the games that you bought and paid for, they will throw you in prison. Nintendo will send men in suits to come and get you and throw you in the prison. Yahoo. That's a Mario joke joke everybody um yes so i mean i it's the same thing with like subscription services like obviously if you have a subscription service you don't own the content you're watching you are just getting permission to use it from a

certain amount of time so this is obviously this is this is more obvious right you don't own what's on netflix you just are able to watch what netflix has legal rights to show but you even see this thing extended to like cars like toyota was was trying out a program and that this may even it may even still be active for some cars where you need a subscription service to use the key fob on your cars like automatic like door locking like fob like you need a subscription to use that service of it which is like why like if you it's it's just turning everything it's turning everything into a to us like a subscription service it's horrible like everything is becoming a new subscription service a new a new thing to get your monthly payments for it's it's it's awful

like you don't actually buy things anymore it's just subscription services and digital copies it's not nothing is nothing is actually the thing anymore yeah it's it's all just rent extraction the entire economy instead of you know having a thing they figured out wait what if we just extract rent and then you also don't own it same thing with like tesla cars you have to like buy buy you know upgrades via software that are already built in and like subscribe to keep your car running nicely. Like what? It's not like,

no, I'm going to, I'm going to go on a very small gamer rant here because this is a, this is a thing. A lot, a lot of the worst practices for this originated gaming. And this, this was a,

this was a big fight back in like the early 2010s about, okay, if you buy a game, right, do you own everything on the game? And there was a huge fight about, you know, they'd have these like delayed DLC, like they had these new content packages that would be on the disc, right, that you've bought,

but you can't access it unless you pay them money. And this was like a fight and some gamers were like, eh, you know, some gamers tried to fight it, right? But most gamers didn't care. And then they became the weaponized shock troops of the far right instead of, you know some gamers tried to fight it right but most gamers didn't care and then they became the weaponized shock troops of the far right instead of you know dealing with this shit

and now literally everything has fucking day one DLC on it that you buy the thing you don't even get all the stuff you have to buy the season pass to get all the content in the future you have to buy the season pass for your car to work properly yeah this is just how capitalism works it to buy the season pass for your car to work properly.

Yeah. This is just how capitalism works. It started with the season pass for a $60 game to then buy season pass to get more of the game. And now it's for your $50,000 car. So, yay. That's fun. It's not. It kind of sucks.

No, it's awesome. But yeah, a lot of these a lot of these like play to win practices these like free models which then like which lead into like a subscription service based model um have to have definitely started in online gaming and it's yeah it's it's really frustrating because as we'll talk about here in a bit, the Sega model is better. It turns out when you encourage your fans to play around with the stuff, it only helps your property. That's the reason why there's still Sonic March available now, and it's not a dead franchise. It's because they allowed that to happen.

So it's actually really cool when we're allowed to access free information and play with it how we want to instead of having this weird strict copyright rules for not allowing certain usage of certain things. It's not great when you're restricting emulation, restricting fan games, restricting access to information. It's not fun. But yeah, this is kind of

plays into why I am very skeptical of digital media which is why i start started collecting blu-rays of all the things i like because i've bought things on amazon prime which are now no longer available on amazon prime and that sucks so like why do that instead just buy your physical copy yeah well the thing is like it didn't and it's still true to some extent like if you buy physical copies like it didn't used to be like this, like Blu-rays used to, to some extent still do, but I don't know how common it is.

They still do, mostly. Yeah, sometimes. Yeah, but like, like if you buy the physical copy of it, they will give you a code that lets you use the online version.

A digital download code. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, that's a much better way of the thing working than instead of, you know, you don't buying it, you don't have the physical product

and also they can take it away from you yeah it's i'll circle back to this idea towards the end but i kind of want to i want now want a little bit segue to like the idea of the same type of like paywalling subscription service issues and like the restriction of free information regarding like online news. So there's a lot of people, whether they be reporters, editors, authors, or just annoying people online, but there's a decent collection of people that perpetuate the notion that readers or consumers are actually responsible for the dire straits of the media industry. But the problem with journalism and many other media industries, the problem isn't that people aren't paying for news. The problem is that newspapers and outlets are being decimated

and dismantled by hedge funds, capital investment firms, venture capitalists, and tech companies in search of profit. You can look at how Facebook tricked a whole bunch of companies into switching over to video content, and then a whole bunch of companies had to fire tons of people because it was a lie. You can look at how Sinclair Broadcasting dominates local news channels and websites, and how well-established local papers are struggling while big companies buy up all the competition. So especially the venture capitalist thing is actually a really interesting idea that has been documented decently well. In a bit, I'll teach you how to bypass newspaper headlines via different methods. But there's this actually good article in the Washington Post that is titled, As a Secretive Hedge Fund Guts Its Newspapers,

Journalists Are Fighting Back. It kind of just details all of the different hedge funds and venture capitalist firms that have just totally destroyed so many local papers throughout the entire country. It's actually kind of surprising once you learn how many of these papers are just getting destroyed by just a few hedge funds are just doing all this damage and it's it's like yeah i mean this is why the current like journalism industry kind of sucks right now is because of these types of practices and i mean like no one likes it like

no one's happy with it like everyone hates journalism journalists hate journalism people who read journalism hates journalism like activists hate journalism. Everyone's mad at it. And yeah, you could look at these hedge funds and venture capitalists who are just making it such an impossible industry. And then you have internet sites and culture sites like Vice,

BuzzFeed, and Cracked, who've had to frequently lay off large swaths of their editorial and writing teams, whether for union reasons or because the company made failed attempts to chase some big tech companies or media giants, you know, proposed money like in the Facebook switching over to video content kind of debacle that happened a few years ago.

And like, it's, it's, it's, it's understandable why these writers, artists, the journalists are frustrated because yeah, the work is hard and the salaries are low.

Well, the work should be hard. Some people kind of slack off. But, you know, the good journalism is challenging. And salaries typically aren't great. But even if audience monetary support were the solution to making creative and writing industries more profitable again, the kind of anti-piracy folks would still be missing a fundamental point is that kind of the pro-paywall people want you to get it through your head that journalism is just like other types of things you buy, whether it be food,

you know, alcohol or entertainment, saying, you know, all these things, you know, Netflix isn't free, you know, Coca-Cola, you know, Netflix isn't free. You know, Coca-Cola isn't free, right? This isn't journalism's fault. It's just how the world works. You have to buy it to use it. It's, you know, it costs money to make, so you have to buy it to use it. It's just, it's like, it's dumb to think otherwise.

This is kind of their framework. But I beg to differ because enjoying art and worthwhile journalism, I think, should always have the option of being free because when information is in the public interest it should just always be available to everybody whether or not you've already used up your three free articles like this is really important especially now when there's you know the whole

war thing happening and finding like paywall articles about it is incredibly frustrating and yeah I mean there was even when there was a right wing extremist who opened fire and killed someone at a Portland Black Lives Matter protest a few weeks ago. That is, you know, still definitely impacting the city because it's still very recent. But a lot of the news coverage, first of all, wasn't great. A whole bunch of news coverage was parodying the

police lies and framing the attacker as an innocent homeowner who was defending himself. It was pretty gross. But even when the news articles started to correct their previous grievous errors, almost all of it was paywalled. A whole bunch of stuff was paywalled like all like all of like a whole bunch

of stuff was paywalled about it and that's incredibly frustrating uh because this is like you know when information is in the public interest it should be free to access uh like that's just it's like a good moral thing like uh and even um and we've seen it we've seen this before back in 2020 when the plague was a new thing, news organizations across the country started to lift paywalls to share coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, which was great. And you can obviously see that once that changed over, a lot of people who were making this happen behind the scenes probably hoped that it would just convince people to become paying customers. behind the scenes, probably hoped that it would just convince people to become paying customers. But it was still like, that's still the way things should be, is to have the option of it being free and then having the option to donate. And this actually seems to be kind of the trend. In 2018, the University of Texas at Austin surveyed about like a thousand Chicago residents about their

local news consumption. And they found that respondents were more willing to give a $10 donation to support a free news site than pay $10 for a subscription to access premium news content. So, yeah. Like, that's, and that, I definitely share that same, like, that same idea. I will way sooner

donate money to a newspaper that I enjoy that is also free than I will pay $10 a month to read subscription service based news it's uh it's because it turns out when you like this this applies to

all types of media but like when you enjoy media you want to support its creators whether that be anime whether that be Sonic the fucking hedgehog whether that be whether that be anime whether that be sonic the fucking hedgehog whether that be whether that be news or books right if you like something you're gonna buy it right i got introduced to lemony stick its books via the library and now i bought lots because i wanted to i wanted to buy the books from the person that i like yeah and there are entire like industries

that literally just work on this personal this is why free-to-play games work yeah exactly there's another conversation with free-to-play games here about like addiction and gambling and manipulation about that but like that that's you know like setting that aside for a second it's like yeah these things if if if people didn't want if didn't spend money on things they like free-to-play games would not work. Like, fundamentally, as a model. Yeah, no, definitely the idea of, like, yeah, you get, someone starts enjoying the service, then they start paying for it. Whether it be buying a

useless, you know, skin for whatever third-person shooter you have, or that be, you know, buying books or copies of the film or, like, anime body pillows, whatever. You want to financially support the things that you enjoy. This is just a part of,

this is what humans do. So yeah, maybe more stuff should have the option of being free. That is definitely my take on it. Let's have a quick,

let's have a bit of an ad. Speaking of free content, this podcast is brought to you by these lovely sponsors. So you can listen for free while just skipping the ads. So good for you. Welcome.

I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter. Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows. Presented by iHeart and Sonora an anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America from ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone chilling brushes with supernatural creatures

I know you take a trip to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast we're back and now we're going to talk about different ways of bypassing

paywalls specifically for online news because paywalls frustrate me. And as someone who likes messing around with kind of computery stuff, there's definitely a long list of ways to bypass paywalls, depending on what types of paywalls we are talking about. So types of paywalls. There are typically two general types of paywalls. There's hard paywalls and soft paywalls. Hard paywalls require payment upfront. So usually some form of subscription fee before accessing any content.

Websites with hard paywalls maybe will actually leave a tiny snippet of the article, but you need to pay subscription to access the full content. Soft paywalls typically allow you to read a number of articles before you need to buy a subscription. So you have a set number of articles that you can read for a fixed period or session.

A lot of websites operate like this. Most of New York Times operates like this. A lot of news sites have a soft paywall model, which is great because they're typically a little bit easier to bypass. First method, this works some of the time. It depends on how the website's constructed, but you can try to stop the loading page before it fully loads. It's generally a quick technique.

It's effective on several different types of webpages. You have to stop your browser from fully loading the webpage as soon as your browser displays the text element of the paywalled content. So you enter a page URL into the search bar, press enter, and then press the X icon or the escape key as soon as you see some of the text on screen before a paywall window pops up. A major limitation of this is that stopping the website may not load all content elements. So it may only render like a portion of the text or it may like miss out on like files,

like images, animations or videos. And it also depends on the order of which the website loads the page elements. So for example, if a website loads the paywall first, then this trick won't be successful. Also, you have to be kind of pretty fast in order to make this one work. Typically, this isn't the first way I do it, because there's generally easier ways. But if you can do this, then cool. It's definitely a fast one if you can get it to succeed. For soft paywall, so I will say, stopping the browser from loading is actually successful at some hard paywall sites. Because if they do load a portion of the text to read as a snippet, sometimes it'll actually load the entire text, but then just block it off with a separate window.

So sometimes with a hard paywall, you can actually stop it via this method. So that's always fun. Sometimes with a hard paywall, you can actually stop it via this method. So that's always fun. But second method, generally more for soft paywalls, is to delete your page's cookies. So, you know, websites store cookies to track your browser activities, including how much content you've accessed. So blog publishers, newspaper sites can track the number of free articles you've read using the cookies stored on your browser. can track the number of free articles you've read using the cookies stored on your browser. If you've hit the limit for non-subscribers,

if the limit of articles allotted, then you can delete the website cookies to refresh that counter, and it will possibly reset the limit of articles. You can go to the privacy or security section of your web browser, select the option that allows you to check the cookies and cite for all data,

and then search for the website that you're looking for in the cookie management page, and then click remove all. You can do this on like Firefox, Chrome, Microsoft Edge, if you want to use that for some reason. Safari, yeah. But this trick may not work very well on hard paywalls because they don't really use cookies for the same purpose.

And also, if you're doing this for soft paywalls, you have to do it every time you reach the limit. And this won't work if the website is using other kind of more advanced tools to track your activity, like IP logs, right? So if it's tracking your IP data instead of your cookies, then this probably won't work. So this one's, this one, I mean, you should clear cookies every once in a while anyway, just like generally a good practice. But to do this all the time, it's kind of a bit of work,

especially because the next method is typically easier and does the same thing, which is just reading articles inside a private or incognito mode or in the Tor browser. So as explained earlier, not all paywalls are about the same. If a website uses a soft paywall, you should be able to read subscription-based content through incognito or private browsing because it'll restrict the website into thinking you're a brand new visitor, or private browsing because it'll trick the website into thinking you're a brand new visitor

granting you access to the content before it racks up enough views to throw up the paywall window. This is a lot easier than just manually deleting the cookies every single time because most web browsers do not

transmit pre-existing cookies onto an incognito or private mode browser mode. So it doesn't switch those back over. And then, although the website will deposit new cookies onto your browser during private browsing sessions, they will be removed as soon as you close the window. One bummer is that some news pages are getting wise and actually are programming their websites to be able to detect if they're opened in a private or browsing mode or even on tour um and they just like won't open they'll they'll say sorry you have to we we've detected that you're using this in private browsing mode to view this content boot up a regular browser which which really sucks for the tour users because a lot of people who are using tour are like hey yeah like i'm in china

i'm trying to get past the Great Firewall and fuck you, eat shit. You should have somehow paid a subscription service to us to see information on this site that is literally illegal here. It's great. It's really bad for people who are actually facing government

censorship who need to use Tor to view content. So yeah, that is uh it's what we call a major bummer uh a major sucks a major oh no capitalism did a whoopsie um yeah but yeah this is definitely this is one of the modes i do most often it's like i can typically get a lot get a lot of sites to be able to view through incognito or private browsing. But again, it does depend on what the site is built to do. But by far, my

favorite method, oh yes, I'll mention another one that I don't really use very often, is the paywall removal extensions for your browser, which is like third-party browser extensions, which try to automatically bypass paywalls. These are really hit and miss.

They're also a really great way to get nice, fancy malware onto your computer. So I typically steer clear of this, but there is allegedly a browser extension called Bypass Paywalls for Chrome and Firefox that allegedly has been found to be effective that allows you to read subscription-based articles on hundreds of publications like New York Times, Wired,

Wall Street Journal, Washington Post. It is free, but you have to manually load it onto your browser. And just typically, I'm not a big fan of browser extensions in the first place, so I kind of steer clear of these. But some people swear by them, so

maybe they can work. They're not really my thing. But my favorite method is archive websites, specifically archive.is. So there are internet archiving tools that preserve copies of webpages and social media posts for reference purposes. And you can use these tools to access paywalled content and read subscription-based news articles for free, including a lot of hard paywalled pages. Archive.is or archive.is is my favorite one.

Also, it functions under archive.today. It just depends on what servers they're running at the moment. Of course, there's also the classic and pretty reliable archive.org, which has a nice calendar feature. But it's definitely good to check both of these because sometimes an article will be archived on archive.is really easily and it won't be available on archive.org.

Sometimes it'll be on archive.org and not archive.is. I think it's currently – the one that's currently live I think is.ph. It automatically switches usually. I usually just type in archive dot is um and it switches me over automatically but yes there is there is there is there is a few of them yeah yeah you are right correct it does automatically revert to archive dot ph right at the moment so yeah but these these are the ones i use the most because people who have access to hard paywalled content will often

archive the hard paywalled stuff so it's available to people without the paywall. This can include the screenshot mode for archive.is and the regular archival method for archive.org. But both these are great and they're also really good for looking at

past versions of the articles. You can look to see what how the articles have changed over time and so these are great just research tools and archive.is is very easy to even upload stuff yourself even if you don't have um the paywall it's like even if you're blocked off from reading the full thing you can try to submit it to archive.is and there's a good chance i might actually grab an unpaywalled version of it because of how the site works. So just go to archive.ph or archive.is, enter the webpage URL that you're wanting to access in the designated dialog box at the bottom, select save, it'll go through a little process, and then you'll be able to select the screenshot mode or the webpage mode

and be able to see what type of thing it archives. It's pretty cool. I guess the last thing I'll mention is outline.com and 12-foot ladder. These are web-based tools, but not specifically archival sites. They're generally used to just get to the text of an article via like webpage nonsense

and bypassing paywall stuff. Unfortunately, websites have also gotten wise to this. So stuff like New York Times and Wall Street Journal have figured out a way to get these sites blocked. So you cannot use Outline.com or 12-foot ladder on them. But they still work on stuff like the

Washington Post. So it always depends. But I definitely generally will prefer the archive.is and archive.org method to viewing any kind of paywalled content um yeah and that's kind of my i mean i'm not now i'm not gonna explain how to do like regular piracy on the podcast because i don't have enough time but like it's easy yeah there are lots of people who will tell you i mean like kiss cartoon is like a very popular website like you don't even need to like you don't even have to like

properly like torrent stuff anymore there is like so much pirated media available yeah and it's like okay so like you gotta be a little bit careful when you're pirating stuff because sometimes you can get copyright strike but if you stream it they don't copyright strike you for that so yeah yeah

the other thing I will plug is Plex, which is a kind of an online movie hosting service like Netflix, except you upload all of the content to it. So let's say you buy Blu-rays. It comes with a digital download code. So now you can upload the digital copy into Plex and watch that wherever you want, as long as you're signed into the

Plex account and you actually own the stuff on the service. So as long as the service is online you can use it because you actually own the stuff on it. That includes if you have pirated versions of movies downloaded, you can upload those versions onto Plex, then delete the actual hard copies of it on your hard drive

then just watch the ones on Plex and you're totally fine. So Plex is great for having like ease of access. Sometimes I don't want to sort through my Blu-ray discs and make sure that I have a Blu-ray player with me to watch my stuff. So using Plex is a great web method to keep your stuff that you actually own accessible online to watch it as long as you sign into a web browser. you actually own accessible online to watch it as long as you sign into a web browser.

And the last thing I'll plug is library submission forms. So if you really want media and you don't want to pay for it and you don't want to like pirate it necessarily, you can get libraries to buy stuff. I did this all the time when I was younger. I found out that you could submit items for purchase via the library on the online forum, and I submitted so many comic books.

Most of the comic books, I would say, a good majority of the comic books in the Multnomah County Library system are because of me. Every Wednesday when a new trade paperback would be released, I would upload it to the library submission form and they would buy it and not just one copy they would buy like 12 copies

so there's so many Batman comics in the Baltimore McKinney system because I would studiously upload all that stuff so that I didn't need to pay for comics I could just get them from the library so definitely look into library submissions to kind of grow what your library has in stock.

And then also look into see what other things your library is doing. Because I know more libraries are looking into building like makerspaces and like tool libraries to have access to things that are not just like books, you know, power tools. And then, you know, how to access to even cool stuff like stuff like vacuum formers

and like 3D printers, laser cutters. All these things are kind of growing. So look into what your library is doing because oftentimes libraries have some pretty cool stuff. So yeah, this is my little bit on why I don't like paywalls, why I think content should be free

because it actually helps creators in the long run anyway, and how to get past news articles that don't want paywalls, why I think content should be free, because it actually helps creators in the long run anyway, and how to get past news articles that don't want you to read them without paying too much money. And remember, folks, if Japan invaded your country, pirating anime is reparations. If you're mad about this tweet,

find me on Twitter at iWriteOK. Yeah, make sure you tweet at iWriteOK if you have complaints about that take. So yeah, that is my little bit talking about piracy. Arrgh! And yeah, I mean, I've always held this opinion

that I think we can all learn a lot of lessons from Sonic the Hedgehog. And I think one of the greatest ones is that it turns out when you make stuff available to use for free and allow emulation people like the stuff

more. People enjoy it and it will actually support official uses of it as well. So more stuff for free more library based economies Having an enormous number of gold rings makes you nearly invincible. That's that is this is

this is also true. I mean there's multiple franchises exist with that exact premise. Yep. Yeah. So turns out when you have more more libraries

more rings people are happier. Yep. That's the episode. you should probably keep your lights on for nocturnal tales from the shadow join me danny trail and step into the flames of right An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturno on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.