Show HN: movies.io — torrent search like it should be • Hacker News Board

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

#481

Post by laughinghan » Sun, Jun 03, 2012, 2:01 AM UTC

ma2rten wrote: post #437

laughinghan wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. To be immoral, something both has to violate rules of society in addition to being "directly" harmful? So if it's directly harmful but violates no rules of society (e.g. beating and raping women in societies where that's socially acceptable), or it violates rules of society but is only indirectly harmful, it's perfectly moral? 2. What's your working definition of "directly harmful"? Littering directly harms wildli…

Are you seriously not understanding what I am saying or are you just looking for a discussion? You asked (basically) why anyone would consider jaywalking, taking drugs, and downloading movies to be ethical, but not hosting a torrent site. So, I tried to give a rough stipulation of my own personal ethics. That definition was not meant to be universal, bulletproof, or exhaustive. 1. My point is that what is considered…

I'm sorry, I now realize I didn't express that I was looking for a discussion, you seemed open to that.

1. I feel like you're conflating societies' notion of what people are allowed to do, which is what I'd understand "rules of society" to mean, and societies' notion of what counts as harmful, which I wouldn't consider to be the same thing.

2. I see...so what's your working definition of "directly harmful", and how do, say, littering and second-hand smoke fall into it?

3. I assume you meant "whether the ends justifies the means". So how does the reasonability, and whether the ends justifies the means, fit into your working definition?

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

#482

Post by shmerl » Sun, Jun 03, 2012, 2:02 AM UTC

Just a thought. If you consider the site as kind of a model and example for films distribution, why can't you add a [Donate] button, and direct all the funds to the corresponding companies who produced the movies? They might even get a better idea that convenient service without any DRM junk brings them revenue. Without such option the site is questionable.

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

#483

Post by pbreit » Sun, Jun 03, 2012, 2:49 AM UTC

Without file formats it's a non-starter (unless, for me, they are all x264).

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

#484

Post by denzil_correa » Sun, Jun 03, 2012, 5:38 AM UTC

nddrylliog wrote: post #460

denzil_correa wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you have almost already solved it [1]. You may think of having a pin tag with a small cross (while the mouse hovers). If you see, people clicking the crosses often it's a good feedback that the tag may be wrong. It can help you correct these tags if not appropriate. In addition, you should also think about adding tags for CAM RIP, BR RIP, DVD RIP etc. Movie torrent downloaders do care about such information.…

The crosses are a nice idea, although we'll be hard at work at improving our algorithm first (one guy in the team is fulltime on that) and see how it goes. We'll try to get as much as we can right by default until we ask for help from users :)

I would be curious to know what kind of algorithms you would be looking at. I am a researcher with research interests in "text analytics" and "social media" & if works well I would be glad to contribute.

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

#485

Post by dorian-graph » Sun, Jun 03, 2012, 9:25 AM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #435

dorian-graph wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downloading and consuming some content removes the primary reason of purchasing something—to consume that content. Now, the ideas of people on here and in the tech world in general really can't be further than that of those in the 'outside world.' When people I know who aren't technical people speak of downloading stuff many often make note of how awesome it is to consume something without having to pay for it. Not p…

Oh, I know plenty of people who say it's awesome to consume stuff without paying too. Of course, 90% of them wouldn't buy that stuff anyway since they're already struggling to feed and clothe their kids (Yeay for living in a country in a permanent economic crisis for the last 30 years!). But the few I know that can actualy afford that stuff aren't spending less; at most, they moved to spending more on concerts and le…

You can deliberately choose it to not convince you and in doing that, that won't make it magically disappear.

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

#486

Post by rjau » Sun, Jun 03, 2012, 11:35 AM UTC

Love it. Really nice site, I'm going to have to try and remember to use this over torrentz.eu. Killer extra feature: Suggestions. But before you go reinventing the wheel, can you implement this? tastekid.com. Best recommendations I've seen. I believe they have an api.

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

#487

Post by icebraining » Sun, Jun 03, 2012, 12:15 PM UTC

dorian-graph wrote: post #485

icebraining wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I know plenty of people who say it's awesome to consume stuff without paying too. Of course, 90% of them wouldn't buy that stuff anyway since they're already struggling to feed and clothe their kids (Yeay for living in a country in a permanent economic crisis for the last 30 years!). But the few I know that can actualy afford that stuff aren't spending less; at most, they moved to spending more on concerts and le…

You can deliberately choose it to not convince you and in doing that, that won't make it magically disappear.

My convictions are based on:

- multiple studies showing that "pirates" buy a lot

- data showing that artists are making, in total, more money than before

- data presented by the media companies themselves showing consecutive years of record profits

Yours are based on a study done on just 30 movies during only three years.

And yet apparently, I'm the one trying to delude myself.

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

#488

Post by njs12345 » Sun, Jun 03, 2012, 1:11 PM UTC

bmelton wrote: post #474

njs12345 wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's wrong because it's trespassing or theft. It directly causes harm to someone to disseminate their private thoughts, whereas a literary or artistic work is intended to be distributed. Trade secrets are really more about contract protection than any right of authorship - the third difference is the key one. Once a trade secret is out in the open it's no longer wrong to spread it further.

So, in a nutshell, if I intend to keep it private, I can keep it private forever, and anybody who treads on that is "wrong" to do so. But if I release something to the public, or some secret is bared to the public against my wishes, it is gone forever, and now belongs to the world at large. And there's really no middle ground? There's no "I want to share this to you, but you can't have it," ??? If we can protect trad…

I wouldn't quite phrase it like that, but yes, in essence. It's wrong to break a promise --- your friend who released the song to the world was in the wrong --- but once it's out there it's not wrong to spread it further.

I recommend 'Against Intellectual Monopoly' if you're interested in the issue: http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/againstne...

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

#489

Post by nddrylliog » Sun, Jun 03, 2012, 2:26 PM UTC

rjau wrote: post #486

Love it. Really nice site, I'm going to have to try and remember to use this over torrentz.eu. Killer extra feature: Suggestions. But before you go reinventing the wheel, can you implement this? tastekid.com. Best recommendations I've seen. I believe they have an api.

Reinventing the wheel is part of the fun. Recommendation algorithms are not that hard once you know the math behind. But, sure, it goes further than being a Rails dev.

We'll compare with Tastekid for quality :)

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

#490

Post by nddrylliog » Sun, Jun 03, 2012, 2:28 PM UTC

shmerl wrote: post #482

Just a thought. If you consider the site as kind of a model and example for films distribution, why can't you add a [Donate] button, and direct all the funds to the corresponding companies who produced the movies? They might even get a better idea that convenient service without any DRM junk brings them revenue. Without such option the site is questionable.

What you suggest raises several important issues: first, we'd expect of these companies to go the extra mile of taking our money and redistributing to the rightful owners (which costs, it's a great deal of work to find out who owns what, be it in the music or movie industry).

Second and most importantly, there would be no way for us to guarantee that the donations you make go to them and not us. We'd get shot down because we'd then try to 'profit' from it. Which we don't and we won't.

So nope, no donations directly on the website, ever. However, we'll start displaying legal offers (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, etc.) for US visitors, and we're working towards featuring Open / Creative Commons / Libre movie content.