Serious question about torrents: How is this not stealing? I'm not trying to be judgemental. I certainly don't have any room to do so as I used Napster and the likes back in the day. Now with the advent of Amazon Prime, Hulu, Netflix, etc, I'm genuinely curious to know the moral argument for using services and platforms that utilize torrents to distribute media other creators are actually trying to sell? Edit: Appare…
We were fine for a while. Netflix killed film/series piracy for me - for a while it literally made no sense. Then, every copyright owner realized they want a slice of the streaming cake - (HBO, Disney+, all the cable networks...) and started making their content exclusive on their platforms. Now, instead of a single Netflix (or anyone else, really) subscription I would have to pay for a dozen, that I would rarely use…
Popcorn Time 4.0
41–50 of 229 posts
Re: Popcorn Time 4.0
#42Serious question about torrents: How is this not stealing? I'm not trying to be judgemental. I certainly don't have any room to do so as I used Napster and the likes back in the day. Now with the advent of Amazon Prime, Hulu, Netflix, etc, I'm genuinely curious to know the moral argument for using services and platforms that utilize torrents to distribute media other creators are actually trying to sell? Edit: Appare…
Spotify doesn't have even half of my collection of Johnny Horton (which I torrented as well).
Also, I'm afraid of censorship. Some of the early 20th century county singers we throwing n-words left right and center and you won't find them on Spotify. Same for Apple Music. With Apple Music it even worse. Music disappears from the library _suddenly_. Just because same shady firm has it's license expired in Australia. Internet is full of stories of people who were unable to re-download movies or music form iTunes because the right owner has deleted it from the store. No, no money back.
So the only place where I pay for music is Bandcamp, which lets you download the stuff you paid for, right here, right now in variety of formats including lossless.
Re: Popcorn Time 4.0
#43Serious question about torrents: How is this not stealing? I'm not trying to be judgemental. I certainly don't have any room to do so as I used Napster and the likes back in the day. Now with the advent of Amazon Prime, Hulu, Netflix, etc, I'm genuinely curious to know the moral argument for using services and platforms that utilize torrents to distribute media other creators are actually trying to sell? Edit: Appare…
Edit: and for the moral part, most Hollywood people preach for communism. So let them show the way.
Re: Popcorn Time 4.0
#44I remember once writing to an Aussie record label asking for a copy of an old album of Brett Garsed. They told me I wouldn't find it here in Europe nor they had the means to send it to me. Should I just accept it? Once again, I could find it in Nicotine++.
I can't find many movies I like in original language in Netflix, HBO and Amazon, all services I have legal accounts for. Again, should I just accept I won't watch them knowing that I might find them in other channels?
I live in Spain, country where I pay a compensation copyright tax for every pen drive, computer, hard drive, TV set, etc, I purchase just in case I download something "illegally".
It turns out I'm lazy/I choose not to spend the required time and I accept not enjoying albums and movies I otherwise would.
Well, let me tell you I applaud Popcorn Time.
Re: Popcorn Time 4.0
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sometimes as a legal user you are faced with far more obstacles than the illegal user. All kinds of limitations that are made to curb piracy but actually just hurt legitimate users. This applies to every type of protected content, be it music, video, games, ebooks, etc. This makes paying users less likely to sympathize with the content provider. And then you see those transparent attempts to skew numbers so they can…
Also as a legal user you might end up paying for subscription service you don't use. I'm subscribed to netflix and HBO and don't remember the last time when I used them... Now and then try to find something to watch but it is all shit.
Re: Popcorn Time 4.0
#46Serious question about torrents: How is this not stealing? I'm not trying to be judgemental. I certainly don't have any room to do so as I used Napster and the likes back in the day. Now with the advent of Amazon Prime, Hulu, Netflix, etc, I'm genuinely curious to know the moral argument for using services and platforms that utilize torrents to distribute media other creators are actually trying to sell? Edit: Appare…
I also don't think there's a justification for using it, however it's not stealing, it's copyright infringement. Additionally, the loss is not one to one. Each pirated video does not equate to a lost sale. The fact that people imply that is ludicrous. Man, I haven't said that stuff in like 20 years. Takes me back to naptser day. Now someone ask me if I would download a car!
Re: Popcorn Time 4.0
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
For example, here (in Hungary) we are paying some extra 'contribution' whenever we buy storage (HDDs, SSDs, SD cards, USB sticks) that is intended to compensate artists and distributors for lost revenue because the assumption is that we'll likely store pirated stuff on them. Therefore downloading is not illegal here (sharing is, which kind of puts torrents into a strange place). The world is a bit crazy, isn't it.
Wow. That is an interesting model! Do you know how they determine how the funds are distributed?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy
The collected money is in general handed out by Copyswede [1], but for music it's handled by STIM [2]. STIM also supposedly handles paying money to artists played for customers at the barber, and all these special cases, and music played on TV, and so on.
I don't know for sure, but I think that the money is divided based on official sales data, so the artists who sell most also gets most of the "cassette tax" as it is known, because it was introduced as an added tax on cassettes back in the 80s.
It is not popular with consumers, since you have to pay extra for blank CDs, DVDs, USB sticks, and hard drives even if you don't use them to copy music. The tax is not to cover loss of income due to piracy, I just learned from the Wikipedia page, but to enable private copying of music without having to buy extra copies from the producer. As I said, since you have to pay even if you use the CD as a Linux boot disc, it's not very popular with the public, but a lot of people don't even know about it.
[1] https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyswede (in Swedish)
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STIM (in English)
Re: Popcorn Time 4.0
#48Say what you will about stealing, illegality, unsavouriness. If the film industry would collectively take their head out of their arses and provide such a simple interface and wide catalogue to the masses, they would make hundreds of billions. I would literally pay $50 a month for an official and legal version of this. The end users don't really care that it is not possible because "legal reasons". This app proves ot…
The media industry collectively thinks what they make is worth the collective cost of all their streaming services (probably hundreds of dollars a month).
They’ve spent BILLIONS making the movies that make up these catalogs.
And before you say “well they already made it back” let me remind you we’re on a tech forum, what industry makes the most money from “selling the same experience over and over again until your margins are nutty”
You feel you have the right to watch EVERYTHING they make, a subset of a few lifetimes of content just won’t do for the modern man.
So instead of sticking it to them and not buying into their game until they’re forced to reform...
you go and spend time illegally downloading their movies so that instead of getting the message “we don’t make stuff good enough to justify it’s price”, they get the message “we’re doing so well that people are stealing our content, go lobby for copyright laws harder or something Legal”.
Because more media than people who spent 100s of dollars to experience not that long ago is not ok, you need to have ALL of it. And if they don’t feel it’s in their best interests, you’re going to steal it
(and yes, it’s stealing enough with the “but I didn’t take the original”, why don’t you go copy all your employer's IP and post it on pastebin then tell the cops you just made a copy”)
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I personally pay for like, 2 services?
There is A LOT of media on there. For 30$ a month I’m getting access to more shoes and movies than cable would provide for 100s of dollars once upon a time. More than any sane person could watch in one lifetime.
Sometimes I have to forgo watching something because it’s not on the service I want. I don’t bother going to steal it. Once upon a time I was a kid with no money and no job, less impulse control and much more time to waste, so I would, let me not pretend I’ve never done it....
But now I’m an adult, I can decide not to watch something and watch something else if I feel it’s not worth my money.
If there’s a movie worth enough to me I can usually pay for access to it specifically (one off payment before someone starts waving the subscriptions are murder stick... on a tech forum).
But that’s actually never happened. Because there’s so much content there, unless you have this mentality of “I must have it all, I deserve it all, nothing less will do” I don’t see how 50$ a month of services (your cutoff) would not be enough.
Re: Popcorn Time 4.0
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
In that case, what is the maximum amount of subscription fee that you are willing to shell out before resorting to piracy?
You already know that answer is going to be different for everyone, so I don't know why you bother asking it. A better question is when are film studios going to stop profiteering with their license fees and allow their works to be available on any platform (instead of meticulously negotiating with one platform and moving around every couple months).
Let me be clear, I torrent things too, but I've never really had an answer to the piracy question. I wouldnt just want to blame it on all the studios seperating out the catalogues into their own service.
Re: Popcorn Time 4.0
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
For example, here (in Hungary) we are paying some extra 'contribution' whenever we buy storage (HDDs, SSDs, SD cards, USB sticks) that is intended to compensate artists and distributors for lost revenue because the assumption is that we'll likely store pirated stuff on them. Therefore downloading is not illegal here (sharing is, which kind of puts torrents into a strange place). The world is a bit crazy, isn't it.
What happened to "innocent until proven guilty"? That's just a fine where they assume you'd pirate stuff in the future!
You can get the tax back, but you have to jump through a lot of hoop holes, and so not a lot of business do it.
It’s purely racket.