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Goodbye Popcorn Time

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Re: Goodbye Popcorn Time

#111
post #93

> Piracy is not a people problem. It’s a service problem. I'd say its a pricing problem. Right now 'The Wolf of Wall Street' is available from Amazon Instant Video at $20. On your popular torrent site virtually the same product is available for $0 + (riskOfGettingCaught * $1,000,000 fine) = $0.000001 ? You can either try to increase the riskOfGettingCaught or decrease the legal price. I think the industry should do w…

It is a pricing problem, but also a distribution and licensing problem. Netflix for example is not available in most countries of the world, and nor it nor anything like it has all the latest shows and movies on time, some being available many years later.

The future is definitely being able to stream all the shows and movies immediately after release anywhere on the web. The problem is it could take 20 years before we get anything close to that at the pace Hollywood is moving. Something like Popcorn Time could've pushed the move to happen within 5 years or less.

Re: Goodbye Popcorn Time

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just occurred to me. It's probably completely unlikely , so I'll put my tinfoil hat on for a moment... What is the possibility that Github was DDoSed by agents working in or for the movie industry because of Popcorn Time, attempting to either disrupt development or access? I know, I know. It's outrageous. Unlikely. Crazy, even. But to say I'd be surprised this day and age would be a bit of an overstatement...

The movie/recording industry has actually been known to use DDOS attacks. IIRC, they hired a company in India to launch a DDOS against some cyberlocker, which prompted Operation Payback.

That sounds interesting. Do you have a link to more information?

Re: Goodbye Popcorn Time

#113

It doesn't matter. The code is already out there. Respectfully, I think the authors didn't think much and were kinda dumb. The project had a great potential, it was barely legal, they bought a fight with the media industry, but the cherry-on-top is that they putted their asses on the line. They shouldn't have used their real names. Anonymise your accounts and be happy. But as I said, it doesn't matter. Everyone alrea…

As you predicted, it looks like the new "official" repo is here: https://github.com/isra17/popcorn-app and people have already begun work on getting it working again.

Re: Goodbye Popcorn Time

#114

On the topic of pirated content, I was an early contributor to the Veronica Mars movie Kickstarter, and I received my "digital download" today. It consisted of a link to sign up to two separate websites to download a specific player that would stream the video for me on supported platforms only . Also, the HD version might not be available right away. I checked and the torrent of the HD version had been online for 30…

Wow! Without your comment I wouldn't have seen that Veronica Mars was released! I was also an early contributor but ignored most of their mails since they have a tendency to spam... (which is okay since that's what kickstarter is about).

So thanks for your comment, I'm just gonna torrent the movie instead of using my flixster code.

edit: I'm streaming in in Flixster right now, I had no problem (didn't have to download a player).

Re: Goodbye Popcorn Time

#115

Nobody has a god damn spine in the tech world. These guys could've stood up & been different - the fact they shut down shortly after being featured on here, Reddit & other large websites shows that they weren't passionate at all & weren't willing to standup for their users at all. Ridiculous.

How dare people making a free, open-spurce project not engage in an expensive legal battle in order to keep that product available! The nerve!

Re: Goodbye Popcorn Time

#116

On the topic of pirated content, I was an early contributor to the Veronica Mars movie Kickstarter, and I received my "digital download" today. It consisted of a link to sign up to two separate websites to download a specific player that would stream the video for me on supported platforms only . Also, the HD version might not be available right away. I checked and the torrent of the HD version had been online for 30…

On the other side the 'Stripped' comics documentary, also from kickstarter got downloads out today. One link to a website, and code for DRM free download. A delightful experience. I'm glad I supported them.

Re: Goodbye Popcorn Time

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the industry should do what Hulu has done over the past 5 years. Give the product away virtually for free, collect an enormous user base while you starve/kill the demand for the equivalent torrents, slowly increase the price of the service until you find equilibrium, then profit. Not going to happen. The television/media industry is addicted to the ad rates you get from traditional television, and have to p…

None of what you made makes sense. Why wouldn't pirates just go back to pirating when the price increases for the service? If pirating with RSS feed + torrent client is so easy, why would they move to the legit service in the first place?

> Why wouldn't pirates just go back to pirating when the price increases for the service? If pirating with RSS feed + torrent client is so easy, why would they move to the legit service in the first place?

A Hulu Queue is more convenient than pirating I would think, but once you have to spend greater than X time on ads, you'd rather deal with the hassle of pirating. Just speculation.

Re: Goodbye Popcorn Time

#119

On the topic of pirated content, I was an early contributor to the Veronica Mars movie Kickstarter, and I received my "digital download" today. It consisted of a link to sign up to two separate websites to download a specific player that would stream the video for me on supported platforms only . Also, the HD version might not be available right away. I checked and the torrent of the HD version had been online for 30…

I was also a contributor to the Veronica Mars movie Kickstarter.

When I received my email today and found out it was Ultra Violet, I was quite upset. I emailed the address they have listed on the F.A.Q. site with my complaint.

I backed the Kickstarter, but in order to watch it on my AppleTV I have 2 options: 1. Purchase from iTunes. or 2. Pirate.

The money I spent to back the Kickstarter could have been used for the iTunes copy. Which doesn't need an external player and is easily accessible on my AppleTV. The iTunes version may have DRM, but it's easily strippable if I desire to back it up for example.

Edit: Some spelling.

Re: Goodbye Popcorn Time

#120
post #64

> Popcorn Time as a project is legal. We checked. The law isn't quite so black and white. There are a lot of different theories good lawyers can come up with. At the end of the day, the only thing that's legal is what a court says is legal.

And even if you had to make a legal / not legal binary choice, popcorn time wasn't legal. How do you check 4 times and not read MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd.
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