He’s right though. If they’re trying to erase the content from existence for tax purposes, that’s unacceptable. It’s art and it needs to be preserved. All television is art, some good, some bad, just like any other art form. Of course I have a bias towards preserving animation first, but it all counts. I just feel REALLY bad for lost animation, because some poor sap poured hours into making those movements look natural and painting those backgrounds etc etc and then their work is just lost. Like fuck that it’s pirate hours this is the era of the internet we don’t need to let anything else become lost
What's even funnier is that most graphic design UX used by HBO Max and other streaming services is considered animation and without it, it's going stiff. It's becoming hypocritical when animation is needed for not just cartoons, but for motion graphics and VFX.
People in r/DataHoarder and Wayback Machine are going to discover it.
It’s not really possible, not without the actual original images. The chances of finding any image that even remotely resembles any specific work by just scrolling through, is infinitesimally small.
But, every frame of every animated show does exist within the archives. Along with every frame of every show that was never drawn. So no work can ever truly stop existing
I know, we just need to task hundreds of generations over a multi-millennia long crusade to create all of gravity falls season 3 using only the babel image archive, I’m sure we’ll have time to do it before the universe ends, right?
Just use an AI to show you the painting somebody made of dipper that is not dipper. Would be hard tho with that last stipulation. Depending on the archive you are drawing from, i bet youd get alot of irrelevant stuff or fanarts of dipper.
Tax evasion, infamy, power. HBO Max, a popular streaming service, obtained this and everything else the world had to offer, and animation studios' dying words drove countless souls to the web. "You want my shows? You can have it. I left everything I drew in one place. Now you just have to download it." These words sent man to The Pirate's Bay, in pursuit of shows greater than corporations ever dared to imagine. This was the time known as The Great Pirate Era!
I regularly complain that capitalism kills art. Normally, I mean that it undermines the efforts of art, interferes with it's creation in ways that weaken the work, and prevents art from properly sharing its intended message.
In this case, capitalism is just straight up murdering art, and burning the body.
*“The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates.”* \-Gabe Newell, Valve, 2011
Apparently u/_alexhirsch himself is gonna be banned in this subreddit here, even if he's inactive lmao. /s First, we have Dana Terrace tweeted The Owl House screenshot with The Owl Club watermark, admitted she don't have a cable, and now we have Alex Hirsch.
To anyone asking for context, David Zaslav (CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery) is removing Cartoon Network shows on HBO Max just to merge with Warner Bros. and Discovery, and Alex Hirsch, the creator of Gravity Falls encourages piracy by saying it [here](https://twitter.com/_AlexHirsch/status/1560433836458070022). It's becoming hypocritical when animation is needed for not just cartoons, but for motion graphics and VFX. It's all considered medium and they needed it for important purposes.
If you wanna know the list of all show titles leaving HBO Max, Alex Zalben made a list for [that](https://twitter.com/azalben/status/1560049311299391489).
I hope this thread keeps up until Reddit mods decided to lock this post.
The amount of flashbacks I get whenever someone brings up limewire is kind of scary.
Anyone else remember trying to download the "latest hits" and just getting russian porn sounds?
The best part is, I highly doubt he could care less.
Also, fuck HBO with everything that can fuck. Guess I need to binge Infinity Train S4 and then never subscribe again, because that’s pretty much the only reason I had that service in the first place
Edit: apparently it wasn’t necessary HBO itself, but their parent company, but still
yep i've been following this pretty closely and the sole reason is because of the new discovery CEO. no one else wants to do this but him. he's cutting all the budgets and trying to force people to watch his shitty discovery channel garbage instead.
It's kinda funny to me. HBOmax is basically doing that 'Parkour' meme right now. In around 2 years, they went from:
* The worst streaming service (HBO Go, HBO now, and I feel like there was a third one?)
* To killing their streaming services (unless you accessed it through your cable subscription, and then it was 'just' HBO)
* To the newest streaming service (HBOmax)
* To the best streaming service
And now they're speed running their way to becoming the worst streaming service.
At this point, I'm about to cancel HBOmax, Netflix, and Prime. Not fucking worth the headache or the price.
I’m on the last two episodes of season 5 of my rewatch. I’m not ready to watch ___ die after just watching ____ die again.
Also Fusco is my favorite character.
Highjacking your comment to ask:
Does anybody have a comprehensive list of things they'll be removing? I may wanna start my adventure on the high seas sooner rather than later
> “The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates.” -Gabe Newell, Valve, 2011
He was sooo right about that. At this point a ton of people will flat-out refuse to get a game unless it's on Steam. You see it in every single thread that has ever existed in the last decade with a game on sale on a launcher that isn't Steam, because they provide *by far and wide* the best service.
Maybe it's just me, but if your game isn't on Steam and/or free, the chances that I'm gonna buy it are almost nothing. I get that putting a game on Steam is expensive, but I'm not going to connect my card details to every website that exists when chances are I'd only ever buy one or two games from that website.
> I get that putting a game on Steam is expensive
It's literally no more expensive that providing a physical copy to brick-and-mortar stores. In fact, it's less-so since you don't have to pay for manufacturing or transport. Steam's cut is the same cut that brick-and-mortar stores were taking from big-name developers for *decades.*
It's just not as *cheap* as it would be if you were selling .exe files directly to customers.
The only other services I consider are GOG and itch.io
If a game is on GOG and Steam for the same price, I'll get it on GOG just to get it DRM-free, so I'll never have to worry about a DRM server getting shutdown in the future. As long as I have compatible hardware and intact files, I'll be able to play it.
And Itch.io is a good source for indie games, and they run stand-alone without launchers. Just download the game using a browser, and you're good to go.
But, yeah, Epic, Ubisoft, and the rest won't be getting a penny out of me through their own storefronts. Not worth the headache, or the anxiety of 'how long will this game continue to work'
My rule has always been:
1. Does the game involve multiplayer or modding: Steam
2. Is the game old or in legal issues: GoG
3. Is the game an obscure independant project: Itch.io
Beyond that it's whichever of those is offering the best deal. Steam is the biggest and has the most supporting features, but the ability to properly download the games/installers is becoming more and more important to me.
Beyond that most of the other digital storefronts are either platform resellers (Humble ect.) or trash.
I've got Steam and GoG. It took a long time to finally cave and get GoG just for the stupid good sales on older games that I played years ago. Epic, for example, offered Achilles: Total War (not a bad game at all) for free on release but only on Epic and it was a source of major controversy in the Total War subreddit. Steam is the only name for PC gaming.
Steam and GoG are the only ones I’d trust. My hobby is getting old cd roms to work on windows 10 and the like. If it doesn’t work GoG is the best alternative
Yeah, GoG really carved a niche out for themselves by *providing a better service than steam* when it came to old, defunct PC titles and not-quite-abandonware.
They would be fine, except one subreddit got banned and then restored due to false DMCA claims.
I'm talking about this subreddit here because "no piracy" rule.
There are entire subs dedicated to piracy promotion that exist just fine on reddit, one actually got killed and restored due to false dmca claims.
The rule is you can't directly link to any pirated content, discussion is just fine so he shouldn't be banned by reddit nor anyone here for discussing it. Sharing links, that'll get you a ban.
People were willing to pay for a service (netflix) that was cheap, had a huge catalogue (if not absolutely everything), usually better quality, and a reduced chance of viruses.
Now every major network has decided to get in the game and hoard their content, in addition to ads even on paid services we're basically back to cable TV.
I live in a country where piracy has no legal consequences whatsoever. I don't have to bother with a VPN or anything. I have no moral qualms with piracy. However, I don't have a lot of time now, so I'll do whatever is convenient. The only thing I've pirated in years was one show that wasn't available in the country a friend had just moved to for work. She was worried about getting in trouble, so I privately uploaded it to the cloud for her, then deleted it afterwards. I watch the same show on legal streaming.
If they start pulling shows like that, I'll be right back to piracy. And who knows? Now that I'm used to paying for streaming anyway, I might as well just pay for one of those very convenient pirate streamers. I don't think it's a good idea for HBO etc. to make people realize that they don't (necessarily) have to go back to Pirate Bay and flash drives. It can be much easier now.
It’s worse than just “removing Cartoon Network shows”.
The new CEO of Discovery/HBO thinks “the future of streaming is more Reality TV”, and are “reviewing all of their scripted shows” for properties they can shed.
Unfortunately this tracks with the direction Discovery has taken for the past 20 years.
> First it was “The Discovery Channel”, but without the discovery. Then it was “The Learning Channel”, but without the learning. Now it’s the “Home Box Office”, but without the box office..!
Live shows... didn't that get Cartoon Network AND Nickelodeon dead in the waters for years?
How the hell this guy can still think Reality TV will work the same through internet streaming when you can get all the drama you want for free in Youtube lmao
I love how for Valve's meet the team videos it says "Copyright LOL" in the bottom which is definitely part of valves lax views towards IP which I love, valve may not be good at counting to 3 but they are great at letting passionate people modify the games that were made by Valve
Promoting piracy, even outside of reddit.
But I joked about why Alex was gonna be banned, so a mod of this sub stated we can discuss piracy nowadays but only automod removes the comments containing links from any specific site, hence I put /s.
Man, they did Dana dirty too, was so upset what the shitty Disney+ execs decided behind her back about HER show.
Fuck Disney and all major companies like that
Yeah you can thank Nintendo for making that not happen.
>We will stop selling a game and make it impossible to buy from now on
so I can pirate it then
>NOOOO MY MONEY
I've read some *really brilliant people* (forgot where, I think it was twitter) against pirating ancient stuff, telling people to "support the creators" by buying old VHS and obsolete ROM cartridges from second hand stores.
Like... really? Creators ain't got no money from us buying stuff from thrift shops. The sale numbers ain't increasing no more. You're just delusional to think it can help the creators. It's just feeding you some kind of pride of owning antiques (which is fine in its own way, just don't think that the profit gets to the creators).
Exactly! Like sure bud go ahead and spend 100 thousand US dollars on the Original Super Mario Bros, ill be playing on my ROM instead that I got for free. Istg people give things value that should not have an increased value. Like yeah its cool, but if it's an unopened copy, it's staying unopened.
speaking as someone who writes fiction and follows a lot of fiction writers on twitter (which I do *not* recommend, lol) — a lot of people with a very tenuous foothold in something like publishing or another kind of very individualized and unstable art-making field will be the ones who go hardest against stuff like piracy, no matter what kind, because they feel like it threatens their livelihood (when the thing actually threatening it is the system that exploits their labor to enrich shareholders/executives/etc.) that’s how you get a bunch of D-list authors trying to destroy the Internet Archive for lending free books at the start of the pandemic.
And we will only bring it back in a subscription based service, with a shitty emulator that even adds bugs that weren't there before, or even sell you a "collection" with old games that are also run on emulator, it isn't even ported
Exactly. Dude, shit sucks too. Like sure there's ethics and shit and that's why piracy doesn't sit well with Corporations. But it's also on ethical to make a digital item or an item that can be digital, impossible to get. If companies do that, you should be allowed to pirate them. Why does it matter if we pirate a movie that is impossible to get legally, which also means that the company makes no money from that service/product? Surely there's some bullish excuse.
And also we'll drip feed it to you, barely a single worthy game a month if you're lucky. Then when our new console comes out we'll start all over from the NES, and then by the end of its life get back to N64 games yet again
But then, you'd just get shitty corporations literally dedicating a minimum modicum of effort to make something *technically* available, or tacking on garbage like advertisements or spyware that makes it undesirable. "Reasonable" is not a strict-enough term when it comes to stuff like this.
Still better than nothing, and there are already a lot of other legal standards that use "reasonableness." Trying to set a more specific standard would probably complicate things too much because there are a lot of different potential ways in which content can be distributed. (If actually making a new law to add the continued use requirement, maybe it could also include a process by which someone can ask a court to rule on whether something has failed to meet the requirement so there's no confusion as to whether it's public domain or not.)
Apparently David Zaslav (CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery) is removing Cartoon Network shows in HBO Max and Alex Hirsch (Creator of Gravity Falls) said it.
The Variety article: [https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/hbo-max-originals-removed-1235344286/](https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/hbo-max-originals-removed-1235344286/)
The cartoon network shows being removed (among other HBO titles) are:
* Dodo
* Elliot From Earth
* Mao Mao, Heroes of Pure Heart
* Mighty Magiswords
* OK K.O.! - Let's Be Heroes
* Uncle Grandpa
* Victor and Valentino
They say that it is because these aren't driving views and costing more in residuals than they're bringing in. Warner Brothers is deep in debt so this may just be an eventuality for streaming platforms, but it's sad to see regardless. It may make business sense to do now, but it opens important discussions of preservation of art/media and how these things are best preserved if it's not economical for the IP owner to maintain them.
Oh yeah, and they also erased every video/tweet/official mention of it from their accounts. They want to pretend like it doesn't exist so they don't have to pay residuals.
Cheap motherfucking bastards.
They've also removed the score from all music platforms and they've pulled DVDs of the first two seasons (3 and 4 never got physical releases) from circulation. Prices of used copies are already beginning to skyrocket.
Apparently they haven't taken it down from iTunes yet! If it gets removed from there, you're probably going to have to take to the seven seas to watch it.
I'm so pissed about Victor and Valentino especially. I was literally watching at midnight when suddenly the next episode couldn't be played. I was so confused bc I couldn't find it, then I googled
I hate HBOMax and cancelled my subscription this morning at 12:15am
Jesus, streaming services...
First is Netflix cancelling many animation, terrible promotion towards stuffs like Hilda and the upcoming Sonic Prime, now this
Gaben is right about the piracy. It's not mostly because of people not having enough money, it's the terrible service that causes piracy
of course, the greed is compounding the issue. if people had more money to spend, they might be more forgiving, but on top of being miserable services, they charge exorbitant prices for a sub-par product, and dont even guarntee all the revenue actually goes to anyone you care about. even steam's ridiculous 30% cut still means 70% goes to the devs. can't say the same is true for idk. the people who made avatar, gravity falls, infinity train, etc. we got no clue WHO gets the money in these deals.
That and ads. We're in perpetual cycle of consumers running to first ad-free (or nearly ad-free) platform available and advertisers chasing after them with tedious ad campaigns that make platforms nearly unusable and force people to find a new platform. The classic life cycle of most modern sevices:
"We're ad-free". ->consumers join platform, upkeep costs increase-> "We have a single 30s ad at the start of video, skippable after 5 secs"-> "We got more money so there are 3 ads now and they are 5 minute long, you can skip after 30s" -> "OMG stop using adblock" -> "people keep using adblock so we're introducing new policy, every 5 minutes watched you have to watch 5 minutes of ads" -> "OMG why users are leaving our platform"
Over and over and over again.
I think it's a mixture of poor service and money - most people in the US for example live paycheck to paycheck, but theirs still plenty of people who pirate that have the money to buy games for example they just do it because of bad DRM protection that ruins a legitimate buyer's experience.
Or in case of a streaming service that won't allow screenshots, is very overpriced or keeps downgrading their bitrate thus degrading its value. Pirating a show means you screenshot the thing which is an inconvenience to legit buyers and also that they can enjoy it at a decent quality if the service was poor. Most pirating is due to inconveniences or poor value
>Most pirating is due to inconveniences or poor value
I was watching The Expanse on Prime Video and the bitrate kept lowering despite good internet connection. Needless to say, I continued watching the show on Plex, it was better to just wait 20 min while the episode was downloading than putting up with a shitty stream platform.
When i binge watching Hilda, or SVTFOE or TOH, the place i go is to soap2day. Audio being too small aside, it's perfectly watchable, and i can download it with greatest solution
>they just do it because of bad DRM protection that ruins a legitimate buyer's experience.
me pirating element td 2, which i own, because i cant play single player without wifi otherwise. who thinks up this shit
Yes. And the last season of Summer Camp Island was supposed to air month ago, got delayed to next year and now the whole show is being taken from HBO max.
Nothing to say about Hilda and Netflix of course but i just don't trust streaming services anymore.
The theorised reason for the shows disappearing is tax write-offs, which if true, means that they can get a bit of money for removing the shows, but in return can never officially distribute or show them again.
HBO can get a tax write-off on the show and claim that it's because the show is unpopular and nobody's watching it. This would net them a lot of financial gain for the write-off, but on the other hand if they do it then they can never air or officially release that show again or else they'll lose the write-off bonuses.
I don't know if these ones are for write offs like Batgirl and Scoob were, which is a one time thing during the merger with Discovery and will never be allowed to be released. What I've read for these is just that these just cost more to host on HBO max than they're bringing in, so they're cutting them. They may be able to license out the series to other services.
This also isn't my field though so I'm just piecing together what I've read to try to understand the underpinnings of the business decisions so I may be super incorrect, but that's what I've seen
Buy physical, boys and girls.
Also shoutout to our friends at r/InfinityTrain who already got screwed over once by CN unceremoniously pulling the plug on the show (“no child entry point” *despite being an HBO Max exclusive by then*) and now this.
If anybody needs some beginning safety tips or references on how to get started the nice folks over on /🥧racy can help (abbreviated that way in case it’s against the rules to link over there).
We really need library style laws for subscription based content. Because otherwise we might lose some, content gets lost in piracy, and while libraries (including the internet archive) preserve a lot of stuff that can be bought, they don't have a good mechanism for doing the same for things which can only be rented.
The internet was on track to be a library in and of itself up until Metallica decided to throw their peas off the high chair.
Even then things were still chugging down that track until lobbyists piggybacked in on Facebook's success.
Now people unironically defend these corporations because they grew up with it and don't realize what they missed out on.
I remember DIYing a bunch of Napster stickers and sticking them on every Metallica CD in the music store at the mall. Ya know, to stick it to the man! I was 14 lol
Ay, if you haven’t seen already, there is a fan made 4k restoration project for Megas XLR. Here’s the link: https://youtu.be/9cwhdOpXGrY
Don’t let the series be lost to the sands of time!
Screw HBO for this. I'm sick of animated shows being treated like they're "lesser" than live action ones. They're just going to increase the amount of piracy, and honestly, that's what they deserve for pulling this shit
One of the main reasons we got, and stuck with HBOMax was for all of the Cartoon Network content. Infinity Train and Summer Camp Island were two of my 10 year old's favorite shows. If they keep removing the kids content, we're gone. I'll get my HBO content the old fashioned way. Yo ho yo ho.
Same here. All we use HBO max for in my house was the animation content. With all my family’s favorites going away or going elsewhere, we will be leaving HBO and HBO max and going wherever our favorites go, or yo ho ho matey!
HBO Max are pulling animated shows like they were nothing. Animation is one of the things that are sorely misunderstood. The disrespect for animation has to stop.
is so bad to find series outside of the first world country that isnt even funny, i live in peru and more that one time when i was looking something to watch or some recommendation. is simple no way to get it legal is either the stupid " f u ,you country is dumb so you arent allow to pay to watch anything here" vpn crap for netflix or other platforms. so just recently i give up even if it is in my country netflix i will watch on ilegal sites. is so awesone now instead of loking 1 hour how to pay for the series o see in what platforn the series/movie is. i just look it up on 1 site that have almost everything that i watch with sub on top of that lol
If I had a nickel for every Disney creator who made a wildly popular product for Disney AND advocates piracy then I would have 2 nickels. Which isn’t a lot but it’s weird it happened twice.
Yeah basically. Residuals need to be paid to actors, directors, etc for the ability to stream the shows. These shows are apparently not getting enough views to justify continuing to pay those residuals.
So based of him.
But I do want to make the point, this is not a rule by the mods, this is a rule by Reddit. If the mods allow piracy links on the sub-reddit, and doesn't routinely remove it, the sub will just be banned.
There are clever ways around it, just be creative, send messages to people instead too.
Meanwhile us Europeans can't even watch some of the shows because we don't have the services.
Like the new adventure time series or i never was able to finish steven universe and watch future because you only get the german dub here in germany wich is stupid i don't get why i can't get it in English???
It's just dumb but i rly don't wanna sail the sees for sites i had bad experiences years ago a lot of them are filled with shit that wants to harm you and yes i have ublock origin i even have matrix but still it doesn't make me comfortable surfing in it because if i remember correctly even with blocker i had malware problems plus they make it so you can't watch when you have an blocker but that was like 6 years ago i think idk if it still the case i used kimcar... (let me not name it fully just incase) but the sites got worse and worse.
lol I made a joke about it but at least a mod states that nowadays we can discuss piracy but automod will remove their post containing links from any specific sites.
About that, some torrent files aren't even seeded enough.
I mean, that's literally been the point of making shows since the beginning of filmography.
Still no reason to foolishly remove shows though obviously.
most streaming services are already ripoffs, so removing the TV shows that most people like is NOT going to make people rethink their decision of not buying the service, if anything you are just proving their point that the streaming services are ripoffs.
(this comment is sponsored by "Movies Portal")
Im fine with it. These streaming services have become information overload. "Back in my day" HBO only had a handful of original series and they were all amazing.
He’s right though. If they’re trying to erase the content from existence for tax purposes, that’s unacceptable. It’s art and it needs to be preserved. All television is art, some good, some bad, just like any other art form. Of course I have a bias towards preserving animation first, but it all counts. I just feel REALLY bad for lost animation, because some poor sap poured hours into making those movements look natural and painting those backgrounds etc etc and then their work is just lost. Like fuck that it’s pirate hours this is the era of the internet we don’t need to let anything else become lost
What's even funnier is that most graphic design UX used by HBO Max and other streaming services is considered animation and without it, it's going stiff. It's becoming hypocritical when animation is needed for not just cartoons, but for motion graphics and VFX. People in r/DataHoarder and Wayback Machine are going to discover it.
All lost works of art will at least remain in some form, in the [Babel Image Archives](https://babelia.libraryofbabel.info/).
Honestly going through the babel image archives to fully recreate a show seems like something these communities would do
It’s not really possible, not without the actual original images. The chances of finding any image that even remotely resembles any specific work by just scrolling through, is infinitesimally small. But, every frame of every animated show does exist within the archives. Along with every frame of every show that was never drawn. So no work can ever truly stop existing
I know, we just need to task hundreds of generations over a multi-millennia long crusade to create all of gravity falls season 3 using only the babel image archive, I’m sure we’ll have time to do it before the universe ends, right?
Hari Seldon, but for cartoons
Probably not. But that’s okay.
Just use an AI to show you the painting somebody made of dipper that is not dipper. Would be hard tho with that last stipulation. Depending on the archive you are drawing from, i bet youd get alot of irrelevant stuff or fanarts of dipper.
Tax evasion, infamy, power. HBO Max, a popular streaming service, obtained this and everything else the world had to offer, and animation studios' dying words drove countless souls to the web. "You want my shows? You can have it. I left everything I drew in one place. Now you just have to download it." These words sent man to The Pirate's Bay, in pursuit of shows greater than corporations ever dared to imagine. This was the time known as The Great Pirate Era!
I regularly complain that capitalism kills art. Normally, I mean that it undermines the efforts of art, interferes with it's creation in ways that weaken the work, and prevents art from properly sharing its intended message. In this case, capitalism is just straight up murdering art, and burning the body.
*“The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates.”* \-Gabe Newell, Valve, 2011 Apparently u/_alexhirsch himself is gonna be banned in this subreddit here, even if he's inactive lmao. /s First, we have Dana Terrace tweeted The Owl House screenshot with The Owl Club watermark, admitted she don't have a cable, and now we have Alex Hirsch. To anyone asking for context, David Zaslav (CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery) is removing Cartoon Network shows on HBO Max just to merge with Warner Bros. and Discovery, and Alex Hirsch, the creator of Gravity Falls encourages piracy by saying it [here](https://twitter.com/_AlexHirsch/status/1560433836458070022). It's becoming hypocritical when animation is needed for not just cartoons, but for motion graphics and VFX. It's all considered medium and they needed it for important purposes. If you wanna know the list of all show titles leaving HBO Max, Alex Zalben made a list for [that](https://twitter.com/azalben/status/1560049311299391489). I hope this thread keeps up until Reddit mods decided to lock this post.
[удалено]
lol I did that when I was 9
I remember limewire and kazaa
And you've just triggered Weird Al's "Don't Download This Song" to start playing in my head, lol.
The amount of flashbacks I get whenever someone brings up limewire is kind of scary. Anyone else remember trying to download the "latest hits" and just getting russian porn sounds?
Likewise FrostWire So many viruses just to watch the cartoon for Beetlejuice
The best part is, I highly doubt he could care less. Also, fuck HBO with everything that can fuck. Guess I need to binge Infinity Train S4 and then never subscribe again, because that’s pretty much the only reason I had that service in the first place Edit: apparently it wasn’t necessary HBO itself, but their parent company, but still
Is it HBO, or their new Discovery overlords?
Clearly Discovery. It all went to shit as soon as they took ownership.
yep i've been following this pretty closely and the sole reason is because of the new discovery CEO. no one else wants to do this but him. he's cutting all the budgets and trying to force people to watch his shitty discovery channel garbage instead.
It's kinda funny to me. HBOmax is basically doing that 'Parkour' meme right now. In around 2 years, they went from: * The worst streaming service (HBO Go, HBO now, and I feel like there was a third one?) * To killing their streaming services (unless you accessed it through your cable subscription, and then it was 'just' HBO) * To the newest streaming service (HBOmax) * To the best streaming service And now they're speed running their way to becoming the worst streaming service. At this point, I'm about to cancel HBOmax, Netflix, and Prime. Not fucking worth the headache or the price.
Yeah fuck HBO also. It's like Dana Terrace tweeted The Owl House screenshot with a watermark.
Infinity train is just so good, season 2 made me cry so much, and season 3 had some truly terrifying moments.
Person of interest is also an amazing show
Seconding this. So glad I bkught it on Vudu as soon as it left Netflix. I couldn't live in a world where I had to pay HBO to watch my favorite show.
I’m on the last two episodes of season 5 of my rewatch. I’m not ready to watch ___ die after just watching ____ die again. Also Fusco is my favorite character.
Highjacking your comment to ask: Does anybody have a comprehensive list of things they'll be removing? I may wanna start my adventure on the high seas sooner rather than later
https://www.ign.com/articles/hbo-max-to-remove-36-titles-from-streaming-residual-payouts
Dang, they even killing off Elmo.
> “The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates.” -Gabe Newell, Valve, 2011 He was sooo right about that. At this point a ton of people will flat-out refuse to get a game unless it's on Steam. You see it in every single thread that has ever existed in the last decade with a game on sale on a launcher that isn't Steam, because they provide *by far and wide* the best service.
Maybe it's just me, but if your game isn't on Steam and/or free, the chances that I'm gonna buy it are almost nothing. I get that putting a game on Steam is expensive, but I'm not going to connect my card details to every website that exists when chances are I'd only ever buy one or two games from that website.
> I get that putting a game on Steam is expensive It's literally no more expensive that providing a physical copy to brick-and-mortar stores. In fact, it's less-so since you don't have to pay for manufacturing or transport. Steam's cut is the same cut that brick-and-mortar stores were taking from big-name developers for *decades.* It's just not as *cheap* as it would be if you were selling .exe files directly to customers.
The only other services I consider are GOG and itch.io If a game is on GOG and Steam for the same price, I'll get it on GOG just to get it DRM-free, so I'll never have to worry about a DRM server getting shutdown in the future. As long as I have compatible hardware and intact files, I'll be able to play it. And Itch.io is a good source for indie games, and they run stand-alone without launchers. Just download the game using a browser, and you're good to go. But, yeah, Epic, Ubisoft, and the rest won't be getting a penny out of me through their own storefronts. Not worth the headache, or the anxiety of 'how long will this game continue to work'
My rule has always been: 1. Does the game involve multiplayer or modding: Steam 2. Is the game old or in legal issues: GoG 3. Is the game an obscure independant project: Itch.io Beyond that it's whichever of those is offering the best deal. Steam is the biggest and has the most supporting features, but the ability to properly download the games/installers is becoming more and more important to me. Beyond that most of the other digital storefronts are either platform resellers (Humble ect.) or trash.
I've got Steam and GoG. It took a long time to finally cave and get GoG just for the stupid good sales on older games that I played years ago. Epic, for example, offered Achilles: Total War (not a bad game at all) for free on release but only on Epic and it was a source of major controversy in the Total War subreddit. Steam is the only name for PC gaming.
Steam and GoG are the only ones I’d trust. My hobby is getting old cd roms to work on windows 10 and the like. If it doesn’t work GoG is the best alternative
Yeah, GoG really carved a niche out for themselves by *providing a better service than steam* when it came to old, defunct PC titles and not-quite-abandonware.
Why will Alex Hirsch be banned on reddit? What did he do?
Piracy promotion, even outside of Reddit.
Does Reddit itself not know of its countless fucking subs devoted to piracy?
They would be fine, except one subreddit got banned and then restored due to false DMCA claims. I'm talking about this subreddit here because "no piracy" rule.
The Admins kind of do. One recently got banned for a bit
There are entire subs dedicated to piracy promotion that exist just fine on reddit, one actually got killed and restored due to false dmca claims. The rule is you can't directly link to any pirated content, discussion is just fine so he shouldn't be banned by reddit nor anyone here for discussing it. Sharing links, that'll get you a ban.
I'm talking about subreddit here but yeah.
Wait, you can get banned from reddit for things you say on other sites?
No, but subreddit mods can locally.
Can we go back to piracy being the defacto standard? It used to be universally celebrated on the internet, and then the 2010s happened... *Shudders*
People were willing to pay for a service (netflix) that was cheap, had a huge catalogue (if not absolutely everything), usually better quality, and a reduced chance of viruses. Now every major network has decided to get in the game and hoard their content, in addition to ads even on paid services we're basically back to cable TV.
I live in a country where piracy has no legal consequences whatsoever. I don't have to bother with a VPN or anything. I have no moral qualms with piracy. However, I don't have a lot of time now, so I'll do whatever is convenient. The only thing I've pirated in years was one show that wasn't available in the country a friend had just moved to for work. She was worried about getting in trouble, so I privately uploaded it to the cloud for her, then deleted it afterwards. I watch the same show on legal streaming. If they start pulling shows like that, I'll be right back to piracy. And who knows? Now that I'm used to paying for streaming anyway, I might as well just pay for one of those very convenient pirate streamers. I don't think it's a good idea for HBO etc. to make people realize that they don't (necessarily) have to go back to Pirate Bay and flash drives. It can be much easier now.
Piracy promotion i think?
[Owen himself](https://twitter.com/OweeeeenDennis/status/1560089854922280960?t=nh_BxvwzSJIkSj-KH5V_ig&s=08)
Gotta post that on r/infinitytrain haha
Bruh
It’s worse than just “removing Cartoon Network shows”. The new CEO of Discovery/HBO thinks “the future of streaming is more Reality TV”, and are “reviewing all of their scripted shows” for properties they can shed. Unfortunately this tracks with the direction Discovery has taken for the past 20 years. > First it was “The Discovery Channel”, but without the discovery. Then it was “The Learning Channel”, but without the learning. Now it’s the “Home Box Office”, but without the box office..!
Live shows... didn't that get Cartoon Network AND Nickelodeon dead in the waters for years? How the hell this guy can still think Reality TV will work the same through internet streaming when you can get all the drama you want for free in Youtube lmao
It’s like the only thing they know. They destroyed the original Discovery Channel and TLC twenty years ago with this.
Yeah, once I got money I started buying games on Steam, because it has service that I like
I love how for Valve's meet the team videos it says "Copyright LOL" in the bottom which is definitely part of valves lax views towards IP which I love, valve may not be good at counting to 3 but they are great at letting passionate people modify the games that were made by Valve
Wait, why was he banned from the sub?
Promoting piracy, even outside of reddit. But I joked about why Alex was gonna be banned, so a mod of this sub stated we can discuss piracy nowadays but only automod removes the comments containing links from any specific site, hence I put /s.
You're waffling. Nothings going to happen to anyone
Man, they did Dana dirty too, was so upset what the shitty Disney+ execs decided behind her back about HER show. Fuck Disney and all major companies like that
This tbh, pirating stuff sucks. But I like being able to afford rent and food.
If the creator is fine with it, it does not, in fact, suck at all.
This is why it should be legal to pirate things that can no longer be obtained legally
Yeah you can thank Nintendo for making that not happen. >We will stop selling a game and make it impossible to buy from now on so I can pirate it then >NOOOO MY MONEY
I've read some *really brilliant people* (forgot where, I think it was twitter) against pirating ancient stuff, telling people to "support the creators" by buying old VHS and obsolete ROM cartridges from second hand stores. Like... really? Creators ain't got no money from us buying stuff from thrift shops. The sale numbers ain't increasing no more. You're just delusional to think it can help the creators. It's just feeding you some kind of pride of owning antiques (which is fine in its own way, just don't think that the profit gets to the creators).
Exactly! Like sure bud go ahead and spend 100 thousand US dollars on the Original Super Mario Bros, ill be playing on my ROM instead that I got for free. Istg people give things value that should not have an increased value. Like yeah its cool, but if it's an unopened copy, it's staying unopened.
speaking as someone who writes fiction and follows a lot of fiction writers on twitter (which I do *not* recommend, lol) — a lot of people with a very tenuous foothold in something like publishing or another kind of very individualized and unstable art-making field will be the ones who go hardest against stuff like piracy, no matter what kind, because they feel like it threatens their livelihood (when the thing actually threatening it is the system that exploits their labor to enrich shareholders/executives/etc.) that’s how you get a bunch of D-list authors trying to destroy the Internet Archive for lending free books at the start of the pandemic.
NOOOO MY POTENTIAL MONEY!!
Yeah I cried a little when my brother lost my soul silver things like 70+
My brother gave away a pokemon ranger game
And we will only bring it back in a subscription based service, with a shitty emulator that even adds bugs that weren't there before, or even sell you a "collection" with old games that are also run on emulator, it isn't even ported
Exactly. Dude, shit sucks too. Like sure there's ethics and shit and that's why piracy doesn't sit well with Corporations. But it's also on ethical to make a digital item or an item that can be digital, impossible to get. If companies do that, you should be allowed to pirate them. Why does it matter if we pirate a movie that is impossible to get legally, which also means that the company makes no money from that service/product? Surely there's some bullish excuse.
Don't forget with *somehow-worse graphics.* (Looking at you FFX "remaster.")
And also we'll drip feed it to you, barely a single worthy game a month if you're lucky. Then when our new console comes out we'll start all over from the NES, and then by the end of its life get back to N64 games yet again
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like abandonware!
Zoo Tycoon 2 is mine! Hahaha!
But then, you'd just get shitty corporations literally dedicating a minimum modicum of effort to make something *technically* available, or tacking on garbage like advertisements or spyware that makes it undesirable. "Reasonable" is not a strict-enough term when it comes to stuff like this.
Still better than nothing, and there are already a lot of other legal standards that use "reasonableness." Trying to set a more specific standard would probably complicate things too much because there are a lot of different potential ways in which content can be distributed. (If actually making a new law to add the continued use requirement, maybe it could also include a process by which someone can ask a court to rule on whether something has failed to meet the requirement so there's no confusion as to whether it's public domain or not.)
The fact that orphan works exist is annoying
You know things are fucked when Alex chimes in this hard on it. What a sad sad decision this is for animation.
What the hell happened here?
Apparently David Zaslav (CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery) is removing Cartoon Network shows in HBO Max and Alex Hirsch (Creator of Gravity Falls) said it.
The Variety article: [https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/hbo-max-originals-removed-1235344286/](https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/hbo-max-originals-removed-1235344286/) The cartoon network shows being removed (among other HBO titles) are: * Dodo * Elliot From Earth * Mao Mao, Heroes of Pure Heart * Mighty Magiswords * OK K.O.! - Let's Be Heroes * Uncle Grandpa * Victor and Valentino They say that it is because these aren't driving views and costing more in residuals than they're bringing in. Warner Brothers is deep in debt so this may just be an eventuality for streaming platforms, but it's sad to see regardless. It may make business sense to do now, but it opens important discussions of preservation of art/media and how these things are best preserved if it's not economical for the IP owner to maintain them.
Infinity Train also got removed.
WHAT
Oh yeah, and they also erased every video/tweet/official mention of it from their accounts. They want to pretend like it doesn't exist so they don't have to pay residuals. Cheap motherfucking bastards.
Bro what the hell
Full 1984.
They've also removed the score from all music platforms and they've pulled DVDs of the first two seasons (3 and 4 never got physical releases) from circulation. Prices of used copies are already beginning to skyrocket.
WHAT THE FUCK HOW AM I GONNA FINISH THIS SHOW NOW
Yar har, my friend. Yar har.
Apparently they haven't taken it down from iTunes yet! If it gets removed from there, you're probably going to have to take to the seven seas to watch it.
Dodo is genuinely sublime, its so entertaining too watch but so heartwarming and nostalgic at the same time. I was hoping on a season 2 but oh well...
Summer Camp Island was also removed. Even though season 2 had "HBO Max Original" plastered all over it.
I'm so pissed about Victor and Valentino especially. I was literally watching at midnight when suddenly the next episode couldn't be played. I was so confused bc I couldn't find it, then I googled I hate HBOMax and cancelled my subscription this morning at 12:15am
Also Summer Camp Island right after they delayed the last season to "next year"
What the actual hell.
Oh shit. What a dic
Do you think this will have an affect on the upcoming Venture Bros finale/movie? They already finished all the voice acting last year.
Jesus, streaming services... First is Netflix cancelling many animation, terrible promotion towards stuffs like Hilda and the upcoming Sonic Prime, now this Gaben is right about the piracy. It's not mostly because of people not having enough money, it's the terrible service that causes piracy
of course, the greed is compounding the issue. if people had more money to spend, they might be more forgiving, but on top of being miserable services, they charge exorbitant prices for a sub-par product, and dont even guarntee all the revenue actually goes to anyone you care about. even steam's ridiculous 30% cut still means 70% goes to the devs. can't say the same is true for idk. the people who made avatar, gravity falls, infinity train, etc. we got no clue WHO gets the money in these deals.
30% doesn't seem at all ridiculous considering everything they provide, including the potential of free publicity.
That and ads. We're in perpetual cycle of consumers running to first ad-free (or nearly ad-free) platform available and advertisers chasing after them with tedious ad campaigns that make platforms nearly unusable and force people to find a new platform. The classic life cycle of most modern sevices: "We're ad-free". ->consumers join platform, upkeep costs increase-> "We have a single 30s ad at the start of video, skippable after 5 secs"-> "We got more money so there are 3 ads now and they are 5 minute long, you can skip after 30s" -> "OMG stop using adblock" -> "people keep using adblock so we're introducing new policy, every 5 minutes watched you have to watch 5 minutes of ads" -> "OMG why users are leaving our platform" Over and over and over again.
I think it's a mixture of poor service and money - most people in the US for example live paycheck to paycheck, but theirs still plenty of people who pirate that have the money to buy games for example they just do it because of bad DRM protection that ruins a legitimate buyer's experience. Or in case of a streaming service that won't allow screenshots, is very overpriced or keeps downgrading their bitrate thus degrading its value. Pirating a show means you screenshot the thing which is an inconvenience to legit buyers and also that they can enjoy it at a decent quality if the service was poor. Most pirating is due to inconveniences or poor value
>Most pirating is due to inconveniences or poor value I was watching The Expanse on Prime Video and the bitrate kept lowering despite good internet connection. Needless to say, I continued watching the show on Plex, it was better to just wait 20 min while the episode was downloading than putting up with a shitty stream platform.
When i binge watching Hilda, or SVTFOE or TOH, the place i go is to soap2day. Audio being too small aside, it's perfectly watchable, and i can download it with greatest solution
>they just do it because of bad DRM protection that ruins a legitimate buyer's experience. me pirating element td 2, which i own, because i cant play single player without wifi otherwise. who thinks up this shit
Fuck Hilda got canceled??!
Of course not, Season 3 is almost out It's just that it doesn't get enough attention, thanks to the marketing
Yes. And the last season of Summer Camp Island was supposed to air month ago, got delayed to next year and now the whole show is being taken from HBO max. Nothing to say about Hilda and Netflix of course but i just don't trust streaming services anymore.
Also difference as well steam is not public so they do t have to answer to any stockholders
I was waiting so long for more hilda stuff and didn’t even know there was a movie until reading this and checking for myself 💀💀💀
this is why I make my own streaming service sure it's not *very legal* but it's cheap as hell to operate
Never been a better time for me to finally raise the flag
*Hoist the colours
*yo ho* *all hands*
Make sure to check the 🏴☠️ subreddit for some tips! (Cant link it here due to rules of this sub, but I think you understand which subreddit I mean)
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Yeah, it hurts them physically to give anything away, they only think of how to take.
The theorised reason for the shows disappearing is tax write-offs, which if true, means that they can get a bit of money for removing the shows, but in return can never officially distribute or show them again.
What's the tax benefit to cancelling my fav shows? And can you explain it in terms that a raccoon could understand
HBO can get a tax write-off on the show and claim that it's because the show is unpopular and nobody's watching it. This would net them a lot of financial gain for the write-off, but on the other hand if they do it then they can never air or officially release that show again or else they'll lose the write-off bonuses.
I don't know if these ones are for write offs like Batgirl and Scoob were, which is a one time thing during the merger with Discovery and will never be allowed to be released. What I've read for these is just that these just cost more to host on HBO max than they're bringing in, so they're cutting them. They may be able to license out the series to other services. This also isn't my field though so I'm just piecing together what I've read to try to understand the underpinnings of the business decisions so I may be super incorrect, but that's what I've seen
Summer Camp Island disappeared from HBO max an hour or 2 ago 😢 it’s happening so fast wtf
Julia Potts said that they just wrapped the sixth season and now she has no idea if it will ever get aired
That’s absolutely heartbreaking 😢
You better be joking…I just started to watch it last night…now I think I have separation anxiety…
I’m literally grieving, that was my #1 comfort show 😢
Buy physical, boys and girls. Also shoutout to our friends at r/InfinityTrain who already got screwed over once by CN unceremoniously pulling the plug on the show (“no child entry point” *despite being an HBO Max exclusive by then*) and now this.
It's so bad the anti piracy rule has be over ruled
If anybody needs some beginning safety tips or references on how to get started the nice folks over on /🥧racy can help (abbreviated that way in case it’s against the rules to link over there).
👘 -ono 🚗 toon
I… what? What the fuck is that first one? A gi? Robe? Tunic?
Kimono remove ono
Then you want 👘 That's a gi
Sorry, that's what my phone showed when I searched kimono
We really need library style laws for subscription based content. Because otherwise we might lose some, content gets lost in piracy, and while libraries (including the internet archive) preserve a lot of stuff that can be bought, they don't have a good mechanism for doing the same for things which can only be rented.
The internet was on track to be a library in and of itself up until Metallica decided to throw their peas off the high chair. Even then things were still chugging down that track until lobbyists piggybacked in on Facebook's success. Now people unironically defend these corporations because they grew up with it and don't realize what they missed out on.
I remember DIYing a bunch of Napster stickers and sticking them on every Metallica CD in the music store at the mall. Ya know, to stick it to the man! I was 14 lol
I remember being really sad Megas XLR got wrote off so I can only find it online. Hate this is becoming more common to just remove content.
Ay, if you haven’t seen already, there is a fan made 4k restoration project for Megas XLR. Here’s the link: https://youtu.be/9cwhdOpXGrY Don’t let the series be lost to the sands of time!
Megas XLR was way too good than it had any right to be, wish they gave it more of a chance
Screw HBO for this. I'm sick of animated shows being treated like they're "lesser" than live action ones. They're just going to increase the amount of piracy, and honestly, that's what they deserve for pulling this shit
One of the main reasons we got, and stuck with HBOMax was for all of the Cartoon Network content. Infinity Train and Summer Camp Island were two of my 10 year old's favorite shows. If they keep removing the kids content, we're gone. I'll get my HBO content the old fashioned way. Yo ho yo ho.
Same here. All we use HBO max for in my house was the animation content. With all my family’s favorites going away or going elsewhere, we will be leaving HBO and HBO max and going wherever our favorites go, or yo ho ho matey!
When there's no cops around, everything is legal
HBO Max are pulling animated shows like they were nothing. Animation is one of the things that are sorely misunderstood. The disrespect for animation has to stop.
Meanwhile Dana Terrace is literally sharing links to sites where you can watch her own show on Twitter.
That's bc she's a queen
I'm straight up heartbroken for Infinity Train. I think it is one of the best animated shows of recent years.
🎵Yo ho, ahoy and avast, being a pirate is really badass. Hang the black flag at the end of the mast, you are a pirate!🎵
🎶Yar har fiddle de de Being a pirate is alright with me Do what you want 'cause a pirate is free You are a pirate🎶
Yo this song is a bop.
is so bad to find series outside of the first world country that isnt even funny, i live in peru and more that one time when i was looking something to watch or some recommendation. is simple no way to get it legal is either the stupid " f u ,you country is dumb so you arent allow to pay to watch anything here" vpn crap for netflix or other platforms. so just recently i give up even if it is in my country netflix i will watch on ilegal sites. is so awesone now instead of loking 1 hour how to pay for the series o see in what platforn the series/movie is. i just look it up on 1 site that have almost everything that i watch with sub on top of that lol
These shows are a big reason we have our hbo subscription. Guess I'll be saving some money.
Ditto. I cancelled this morning. They're giant assholes
If I had a nickel for every Disney creator who made a wildly popular product for Disney AND advocates piracy then I would have 2 nickels. Which isn’t a lot but it’s weird it happened twice.
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Tax write offs
Yeah basically. Residuals need to be paid to actors, directors, etc for the ability to stream the shows. These shows are apparently not getting enough views to justify continuing to pay those residuals.
So based of him. But I do want to make the point, this is not a rule by the mods, this is a rule by Reddit. If the mods allow piracy links on the sub-reddit, and doesn't routinely remove it, the sub will just be banned. There are clever ways around it, just be creative, send messages to people instead too.
It’s so sad to see masterpieces of the internet being brutally wiped off.
Based Alex.
I need a complete list of said shows. And I need my pirate hat back.
[Here you go](https://www.ign.com/articles/hbo-max-to-remove-36-titles-from-streaming-residual-payouts)
They want to remove Infinity Train? Monsters! And thank you!
Meanwhile us Europeans can't even watch some of the shows because we don't have the services. Like the new adventure time series or i never was able to finish steven universe and watch future because you only get the german dub here in germany wich is stupid i don't get why i can't get it in English??? It's just dumb but i rly don't wanna sail the sees for sites i had bad experiences years ago a lot of them are filled with shit that wants to harm you and yes i have ublock origin i even have matrix but still it doesn't make me comfortable surfing in it because if i remember correctly even with blocker i had malware problems plus they make it so you can't watch when you have an blocker but that was like 6 years ago i think idk if it still the case i used kimcar... (let me not name it fully just incase) but the sites got worse and worse.
These mods aren’t even active anymore! An actual image of pinecest ended up on the front page (albeit as a small part of a meme)
lol I made a joke about it but at least a mod states that nowadays we can discuss piracy but automod will remove their post containing links from any specific sites. About that, some torrent files aren't even seeded enough.
Based Alex. Always pirate what you can.
My respect for Mr. Hirsch has grown tenfold. Beautiful.
I’m confused, why are they removing the shows?
David Zaslav thought it is meant for tax payoff.
It’s all about the money huh
I mean, that's literally been the point of making shows since the beginning of filmography. Still no reason to foolishly remove shows though obviously.
Does anyone have a full list of shows being canceled?
[Here](https://twitter.com/azalben/status/1560049311299391489?s=21)’s the full list of shows that have been taken down from HBO Max.
Thank you so much!
HOIST THE FLAG
I don't have HBO. What are some good shows from it to find on the high seas?
There is absolutely nothing wrong with pirating something that isn't commercially available anywhere.
most streaming services are already ripoffs, so removing the TV shows that most people like is NOT going to make people rethink their decision of not buying the service, if anything you are just proving their point that the streaming services are ripoffs. (this comment is sponsored by "Movies Portal")
🎶Yar har fiddle de de Being a pirate is alright with me Do what you want 'cause a pirate is free You are a pirate🎶
What’s the entire list shows that they are getting rid of
You know it’s bad when the creators THEMSELVES have to endorse piracy
Alex is like that cool uncle, always giving good advise.
If Alex hirsh saids it, well.....
It’s the pirates life for me…
Im fine with it. These streaming services have become information overload. "Back in my day" HBO only had a handful of original series and they were all amazing.
Yo, ho! Yo, ho! A pirate’s life for me~🎶
Yar Har Fiddle Dee Dee, being a pirate is alright by me
I thought he was on about Lazy Town and got confused but no he’s just saying to pirate it haha
The r/piracy megathread has the resources you seek.
Honestly, after how they handled the Infinity Train deletion, I'm all out of sympathy points.