Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: movies.io — torrent search like it should be

movies.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 509 posts

Re: Show HN: movies.io — torrent search like it should be

#261

Post by Tycho »

hxa7241 wrote: post #254
Tycho wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's parasitical. And dishonours the intentions of the content creators.

It is not necessarily parasitical (and not at all dishonourable), because the only justification for imposing restrictions on people's freedom to share informational goods is the standard economic rationale, and we cannot a priori specify the correct extent of that. If copyright is actually too long (broad, etc.) a de facto reduction of it by illicit copying would be economically beneficial (and that seems most likel…

Someone worked really hard to make something, then you take it without permission. You want others to live for your sake. That makes you a parasite.

Re: Show HN: movies.io — torrent search like it should be

#262

Post by nddrylliog »

pooriaazimi wrote: post #240
wavephorm wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tmdb and their API is awesome. But I wish they would provide a dump of their database. I wonder how did you get a copy of all their data, did you build scraper and grab every movie?

Apparently they're using an scraper. See his/her other comment here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4054755

The TMDb API v3 is good. We're scraping Torrentz for the results, might do our own indexing later.

Oh, and "his".

Re: Show HN: movies.io — torrent search like it should be

#263

Post by mistercow »

tptacek wrote: post #227
edw519 wrote: post #79

I don't know which I feel saddest about: 1. Whether or not this is actually illegal, it is clearly unethical and not in the spirit of good clean business and technology practices we should all be aspire to. 2. That it quickly made it to #1 on Hacker News. 3. That I seem to be one of the few who cares while most others nit on details.

You said something a long time ago that has stuck with me: If you're willing to compromise your morals on something small, where will you ever draw the line? I agree, this is sad.

"Where do you draw the line?" is almost always a trivial rephrasing of the slippery slope fallacy. We live in a world where there are no lines, and we draw them in arbitrary places so that we can make the world work. If that bothers you, you are just going to have to adjust your worldview to be compatible with the reality you were born into.

Re: Show HN: movies.io — torrent search like it should be

#264

Post by nddrylliog »

zanny wrote: post #250
nddrylliog wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, that seems to be a stupid policy. Anyway, linking to Netflix/others is nice in theory but clutters the interface. Until we find a good solution for that, we won't do it.

It is a defensive posture against the mafia. Netflix is already bent over backwards as movie distributors try to run it into the ground with overt contracts, so they force them to use policies like these because they have the backwards idea that sharing will go away when they put their fingers in their ears and go lalalalala you don't exist.

Oh, yes, I can definitely guess the thinking behind it, I'm just saying this thinking is antiquated and doesn't work well in 2012.

Re: Show HN: movies.io — torrent search like it should be

#265

Post by krzyk »

yason wrote: post #229
edw519 wrote: post #79

I don't know which I feel saddest about: 1. Whether or not this is actually illegal, it is clearly unethical and not in the spirit of good clean business and technology practices we should all be aspire to. 2. That it quickly made it to #1 on Hacker News. 3. That I seem to be one of the few who cares while most others nit on details.

Conversely, I would say that (within current laws) it is clearly illegal but it remains unclear as to why would it be unethical. I kind of correlate bits with thoughts. Contrary to what some shady associations try to claim, you can't possibly cause conclusive harm to anyone by merely copying bits any more than by thinking about illegal things. Digital copies also obey the same law that thoughts do: you either keep th…

I don't know where it is "clearl illegal" but it must be a very strange law.

Would anyone sane make illegal someone that says: "You can download Game of Thrones from www.example.com".

That's basically what the torrents are, just a hint where to find the data you seek.

Re: Show HN: movies.io — torrent search like it should be

#266

Post by nddrylliog »

user24 wrote: post #217
nddrylliog wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely in the works.

Hijacking the thread to ask you a question: How do you do acquire the background image? That just blew my mind, it's an awesome feature. Do you have to pre-associate each film with an image, or.... ? Details please! In fact, I'd read a blog post about the frontend tech, the backend tech and the general UI philosophy. It's an awesome site.

So, I'll take the time to set up our website blog, and then I'll let you check back for it :)

We'll communicate about our work on the site. We use GitHub a lot to manage issues / collaboration within devs, it's an awesome tool.

Re: Show HN: movies.io — torrent search like it should be

#267

Post by adimitrov »

Inufu wrote: post #257
adimitrov wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention all of the legal solutions give you crippled files with DRM. Also, I find my tracker has a better download speed than any of these services (though that's not really an important point.)

Actually it is - I don't like waiting for ages when I want to watch a move right now.

Well, but here's the problem: If I want to watch a movie right the hell now, torrents aren't a good solution, because the pieces you get are random. You can't start watching the movie immediately, you have to wait until it's loaded completely. There are some experimental p2p streaming protocols, but there isn't anything really good on the market just yet.

Sure, I'm on an awesome tracker, and I can download an HD movie to my seedbox within 5 minutes. No problem. Then I just stream it over my home connection (which is rather slow.) So there's a 5-10 minute delay, which I can live with. But, if somebody would offer me an insta-HD-streaming feature (Netflix doesn't count, I'm in Europe,) I'd pay for that.

But nobody does, so I torrent.

Re: Show HN: movies.io — torrent search like it should be

#268

Post by enjalot »

res0nat0r wrote: post #244
jellicle wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say it's clearly ethical, even required, to share knowledge and information with other people. That's pretty much the highest impulse a human has, right up there with "protect your offspring". As Rick Falkvinge is so eloquent in saying, this is our culture, and permitting monopolies on it is just disastrously bad policy. Copyright is a subsidy to distributors, not artists. And the distributors know it. There'…

It isn't a 'human right' to be able to watch Game of Thrones or Batman Begins without paying for it I don't believe. It is ignorant to try and claim otherwise.

Is it a 'human right' to make money off of Game of Thrones or Batman Begins?

Copyright is a monopoly granted by congress' interpretation of the constitution's directive to promote progress of science and the useful arts. I think it's time to reinterpret.

Re: Show HN: movies.io — torrent search like it should be

#269

Post by cpeterso »

lbo wrote: post #120

I built a somewhat similar product http://www.dexy.tv but it only links to 'legit' content (netflix, hulu, amazon, etc). nddrylliog, send me an email if you're interested in potentially collaborating so you can list both kinds of content. Really like what you've done on the UI side.

Do any torrent sites have affiliate links to legit content like Amazon? That seems like a good opportunity. If someone searches for a movie torrent, the movie might be available on Amazon (DVD or streaming) even if no torrents are found. And, more interestingly, someone might search for a movie torrent but see they can stream it from Amazon right now for just $5 without waiting for a torrent download.

Re: Show HN: movies.io — torrent search like it should be

#270

Post by ma2rten »

laughinghan wrote: post #186
edw519 wrote: post #79

I don't know which I feel saddest about: 1. Whether or not this is actually illegal, it is clearly unethical and not in the spirit of good clean business and technology practices we should all be aspire to. 2. That it quickly made it to #1 on Hacker News. 3. That I seem to be one of the few who cares while most others nit on details.

I'll bite. Why do you think this "clearly unethical"? I don't think it's clear at all. Everyone I know pirates movies, TV shows, and music. Everyone I know also jaywalks. I also know people who use drugs illegally, as well as participate in or facilitate underage drinking, and I don't have a problem with any of it. Are these unethical? Someone clearly thought so. Do I care? You know what the truth is, for me, and eve…

Since you asked, I shall explain. Here is my working definition of something that immoral:

  Violating the written or unwritten rules of the society one
  lives in, in a way that is directly harmful to another person or
  group of people, though ones actions.
So taking drugs is fine, since you are not harming another person. Downloading a film is also fine for the same reason. With selling drugs and jaywalking it depends.

Building a torrent site is different though, because under the rules of our society someone who made a movie can decide who sees that movie and who does not. You are taking that right away from them by distributing that movie. If the rules make sense or does not really matter (within reason), it is a rule that we as a society agreed upon.

EDIT: I don't think morality can ever be subject to loopholes and technicalities, it's governed by common sense.

However, the counter-argument that would let count is good intentions: if OP truly believes that the world might become a better place as the result of his action and he has no selfish motivations at all, I might consider it moral (at least from his point of view).

Post reply on HN