No arguing? Hahaha, woooooow…
Migrate and get over with it, the other paid alternative is a great one, clients everywhere, the open source one not so much but well its free…and stop whining here, just spread the word that Plex made a very dumb decision it’s not much but it’s all we can do.
1 Like
Plex guys: If you have any idea about Marketing read this thread and check how many of the people complaining about this decision have a Plex Pass and decide accordingly. Anyone can see you are upsetting your paying customers.
8 Likes
I got a VERY SIMPLE SOLUTION TO PLEX. This is what you SHOULD HAVE DONE.
Please UPVOTE all if you agree.
Release a plex server version with a feature that:
- for all servers hosted on Hetzner IPs there is only 1-2 simultaneous download possible.
So simple…
So if Plex really cared about their actual clients they would send a message that “because of people misusing the service they need to make it more difficult for the pirates for some time so they will limit for these IPs servers outgoing traffic only to 1 (or 2) simoultenous stream at 1 time. Sorry it makes your life more difficult bla bla bla. After some time we will review the policy and if possible we will increase this number to 2 or 4.”
Ok, I could live with that for some time. I would understand then their pain. No pirate can live and run their paid services with 1 or 2 simoultaneous streams. I guess. It just requires a simple server update.
What I really DO NOT like about Plex approach is:
- absolutely anti-customer e-mail - there is even no information what IPs we are talking about - if you have more servers you have no clue wtf is going on
- they do not answer to replies to this email - sorry, but this a BUSINESS KINDERGARTEN
- they did not seek any solution showing their respect to normal clients
To me it’s like Lidl would close all stores in Berlin because some customers steal in Berlin more than somehwere else. There are some ways to make thieves lives more difficult, right? The same goes for the servers. IF THEY REALLY CARED THEY WOULD DEPLOY A SOLUTION TO MAKE THE LIFE BIT MORE DIFFICULT TO CLIENTS AND MUCH MORE DIFFICULT TO PIRATES. And shutting down legal, loyal clients is NOT A SOLUTION.
Most probably someone is right here, they just do not care about current business model and current clients anymore as they can not generate more revenues. I am sure that Plex as we know it is coming to an end. The next Plex will be another streaming service (paid) and then it will just die and get forgotten as they will not win the market as just another 100th straeming service.
7 Likes
Wouldn’t work.
The guys selling access would just spin up a plex docker container for each person paying. In fact that would help them out, because now they can start a server per person and if that person shares their plex credentials with friends/family, they’re limited to only 1 or 2 streams. Now the sellers don’t have users consuming more bandwidth/streams than they’re paying for.
That’s silly. Do you honestly think Plex has the ability to even do that? They would screw up their software so bad they would go out of business trying to implement something that complex. Not only that but it won’t work as Plex has ZERO control over what you’re proposing.
THERE IS NOTHING WHATSOEVER that Plex can do that will actually solve the issue at hand unless they change their whole product and business model. aka go out of business completely. Pirating has been around for the lifetime of the internet and the issue is more prevalent than ever before! If there hasn’t been a decline since ages ago what makes you think Plex has the ability to curate a workable solution.
The workaround has already been mentioned many times here and it’s so easy to work around which makes their efforts very amateurish.
I’m surprized they havn’t tried to come up with a better solution just to save face.
3 Likes
My upload is terrible at home. I host using Hetzner so I can view my content while I travel (a lot). Just me. No one else. Why am I being punished for having bad internet at home?
13 Likes
How should you please discuss a topic and that decently, which is already a done deal? You make yourselves more ridiculous with every comment.
Since only a review bombing helps.
The thing is: Plex’s ban of Hetzner isn’t any kind of official policy. It isn’t in the TOS, They haven’t accused anyone of violating the TOS. They’ve simply opted for blocking all Hetzner IPs.
That means that Plex customers who use Hetzner are perfectly within their rights to take whatever measures they choose to implement in order to overcome this blockade. What those measures might be should be pretty obvious to most people running Hetzner servers. Some might not work, but there are some fairly obvious ones that would be virtually impossible for Plex to detect. And you can bet anyone using Plex to serve video to paying customers (something I have no problem criticising in the strongest possible terms) will know exactly what these measures are.
Ultimately all that Plex will have achieved by imposing this blockade is not to stop the for-profit pirates, not to stop customers who know what they’re doing from using Hetzner, but only to stop those who are least likely to have been using the Hetzner servers for piracy. And they will have only imposed extra work and likely expense on their customers.
And if this was done simply to make a show for a license holder of movies and TV shows whose lawyers demanded a crackdown as a condition of going into business with Plex, that company would have to have some really lousy lawyers if they are fooled by this pathetic dog and pony show.
3 Likes
“tip our hand” I believe is the expression you’ve adulterated.
You replied to the wrong individual with that quote. Lobbing snark at other folks generally works best when you get the target right.
You all can thank s.t.r.e.a.m.b.o.y. d.o.t. t.v. thats the ■■■■■■ who runs plex on hetzner to resell it
I’m sure he’s not the only one.
1 Like
Plex - you need to come up with a better policy. This isn’t it.
1 Like
Plex ships GPL code, doesn’t it? How does it work around that license?
2 Likes
That’s an excellent question. I’m sure what the Plex-can-do-no-wrong crowd here will say is: they aren’t violating the terms of GPL because people can still run the software and do what they like. All they’re doing is blocking IPs.
However, the fact that they are, by their own admission, rendering the software dysfunctional for anyone who chooses to run the software from Hetzner, might militate against that defence.
1 Like
Ok, so Plex Media Server uses two GPL 2.0 libraries still. It does look like they stay away from GPL as much as possible:
https://support.plex.tv/articles/204096476-license-information/
Based on the FAQ for version 2 of the GPL, we’d have to prove that the binaries they ship form one complete software package, and this can be ruled on differently in different jurisdictions:
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0-faq.en.html#MereAggregation
So, which jurisdictions might have a favorable view that this covers the dependencies of Plex Media Server and Plex Media Server itself?
We’d have to investigate how these libraries are being used. If they’re not modified, we might have trouble proving that point.
1 Like
Plex literally advertises sharing media with friends and family as a benefit of plex
1 Like
T -7 until bye Plex and hello Jellyfin. And there will be no tears. 
1 Like
The dysfunction in their software isn’t enough to be a violation of the GPL 2 or LGPL licenses that they’re using based on what I’ve read so far.
I’m hoping we can prove that the GPL 2 libraries they use are enough to cover the source code of Plex, but we have to basically prove they’re inseparable from the library’s perspective. I don’t think it’s likely but I’m poking around as I have time to build a more definitive answer.
Barring that, there is Jellyfin.
1 Like
