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Goodbye Popcorn Time

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Re: Goodbye Popcorn Time

#251

Post by chii »

oscargrouch wrote: post #236
j_baker wrote: 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.

The law and force works so the powerful people can maintain their power, the rich their fortune, and sometime they hang someone so the crowd can be happy, and think the law works.. also.. it eventually locks up marginalized people that dont work in the gears of the big machine.. if you ask them, they will deny it.. and tell what you want to hear.. and you go on with you miserable life.. Kafka my friend.. was there fi…

my friend, what you have just described is society. This is why everyone has to step on everyone else to lift themselves up, out of fear of becoming one of those marginalized people.

Re: Goodbye Popcorn Time

#252

Post by higherpurpose »

xtracto wrote: post #183
mentos wrote: 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…

I think Steam has shown that it is not a pricing problem.

Steam typically has 25-50 percent the price of console games.

Re: Goodbye Popcorn Time

#253

Post by seferphier »

ElDiablo666 wrote: post #244
couchand wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be great except the defendant still has to pay up front.

Actually it's not great since a disproportionate part of the outcome of legal proceedings is luck, just like all of life.

legal proceedings works - just that it is really really expensive. Justice is expensive.

Re: Goodbye Popcorn Time

#254

Post by thedudemabry »

higherpurpose wrote: post #252
xtracto wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Steam has shown that it is not a pricing problem.

Steam typically has 25-50 percent the price of console games.

I'm not sure about that figure. The price of a console-available, AAA game on Steam seems to keep pace with the prices of the big-box stores and specialty retailers for the first 6-12 months. The major differences seem to be the availability of the game years after release and the ability to provide front-page notifications of deeply discounted older (or critically panned) games.

Re: Goodbye Popcorn Time

#255

Post by thedudemabry »

mentos wrote: post #125
devx wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The future is definitely being able to stream all the shows and movies immediately after release anywhere on the web. I agree, I wonder though if future Hollywood will be more or less profitable. Imagine a future where all movies/tv shows were given away for free/stolen, how would they profit? I think the answer is advertising inside the movie/show. I recently saw this done pretty tastefully in an episode of 'Worka…

> I was day dreaming about how far they could take this and imagined them freezing the scene and the three of them breaking character/fourth wall to pitch a product and then unfreezing the scene and going back to acting. You could imagine this getting so popular that it eventually becomes annoying and then eventually edited out of any shows/movies.

This has been around for a while: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ProductPlacement/LiveA...

Re: Goodbye Popcorn Time

#256

Post by Springtime »

Jugurtha wrote: post #232

There's a saying that goes : Don't buy fish in the ocean. Studios and all assume that people are thieves. There are a number of cases to think of: Tim Ferriss teamed with.. BitTorrent to distribute his latest book (4 Hour Chef). He wrote a detailed article on his experience and the correlation between BitTorrent downloads and sales (number driven he is, he tracked that real-time). The model was the second-shareware m…

> Second: It's ridiculous to expect of me to buy a movie I haven't watched, or a book I haven't read.

I've heard this argument many times before, but don't buy it (no pun intended).

There are enough professional and user reviews, video clips, etc of everything for sale online that anyone can make an informed decision on whether the product is likely to be something they'll enjoy.

Why not take advantage of all these great online sources? If many films, for example, haven't suited your taste it may be more valuable spending some time on sites that help you find films more to your taste, and reading/watching/listening to user opinions that are more in line with your own.

That said, I do prefer music services that allow the user to preview tracks prior to purchase. Even Youtube has become a popular platform for previewing content. Seems reasonable for such a type of short-form media.

As for accessibility, companies do need to provide better and more open support for customers to consume their content. It's come a long way though, and hopefully it becomes even more consumer-focused in the future.

Re: Goodbye Popcorn Time

#257

Post by DanBC »

Einstalbert wrote: post #174
DanBC wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You kickstart something because you want to help them make it, not because you want a product in return. While you could strip the copy protections that's a crime.

I'm not sure what is unclear about, "If you donate X, you will receive Y." That's not a simple donation, it's a pre-order.

It is very clear. It is also dishonest.

That's a serious problem with Kickstarter - they allow groups to offer tiers that appear to be pre-orders and do nothing when those pre-orders are not delivered.

Kickstarter isn't going to stop doing this despite all the criticism. So people need to keep reminding everyone that tier rewards are menaingless. Maybe you'll get the reward, maybe you won't, but you don't back a project for the reward but because you want to see the project succeed.

Repeating this message may make kickstarter stop projects being dishonest with reward tiers.

Re: Goodbye Popcorn Time

#258

Post by camillomiller »

couchand wrote: post #240
frogpelt wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the plaintiff should be required to contribute all the legal fees for the defendant (up to a maximum). If the defendant loses the lawsuit, he must pay the plaintiff back for his own legal fees in addition to the damages that he must pay.

That would be great except the defendant still has to pay up front.

What about this: you drag me to court, you ask me X millions in damages; if you lose, you owe me X millions. Now that's a lawsuit I would pay for upfront if I think I'm in the right. Even better: many lawyers would probably fight to get my profitable suit pro-bono so they can cash in a big chunk of the eventual damages I would get.

Re: Goodbye Popcorn Time

#259

Post by ksk »

guspe wrote: post #154
api wrote: post #108

I've scanned this whole thread and there's not a single post that is at all critical of the intentions behind Popcorn Time. I guess you're all okay with a world where content creators don't eat. Or do you have a better idea than copyright? If so, by all means let's hear it. I promise you that the person who solves that problem in an accessible way will be the next Mark Zuckerberg, or at least Tim Berners-Lee. Every s…

I agree with you, artists should not starve and deserve our appreciation. Even with piracy, Beyoncé, Jay Z, Brad Pitt, Jennifer Lawrence, Steven Spielberg, Justin Bieber, R. R. Martin and many, many other artists and creators are pretty safe from starvation though. Actually, if "to not starve" means being as wealthy as them, I'd say more than 95% of the world is starving right now. Copyright is making a very privileg…

Ever seen the credits for a movie? Hundreds of people. Yeah, hes talking about those people. Lets lookup some numbers. BMI lists around 500,000 composers/songwriters/music publishers. The NEA lists around 2.1 million people employed under the artist category (Actors,Directors,Authors, Musicians, Photographers,etc,etc)

Lets take a nice round number. One Million. How many "rich" artists can you name? 500? 1000? 10000? Thats still 0.01%.

>Artists should earn their living, sure. But they don't need to be filthy rich.

Who says they are?

Re: Goodbye Popcorn Time

#260

Post by DanBC »

CodeMage wrote: post #179
DanBC wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You kickstart something because you want to help them make it, not because you want a product in return. While you could strip the copy protections that's a crime.

That's disingenuous. I am well aware that a Kickstarter pledge is not the same thing as a pre-order -- the project might fail, circumstances might change, etc. However, the $35 tier specifies that "You will receive a digital version of the movie within a few days of the movie's theatrical debut". I assume @b3b0p pledged an amount within that tier. Unless that assumption is wrong, the complaint is justified, at least…

I agree that the tier rewards are dishonest and are morally and ethically wrong.

But "do not use Kickstarter as a shop or as a pre order platform" was reasonably common before the veronica mars kickstarter; the changes to tier rewards was before the VM kickstarter (and perhaps Kickstarter needs to implement another change to prevent people offering things they cannot provide).

We need to keep repeating the message that tier rewards are just suggestions of what you might get, maybe, possibly, and that there are many reasons why you might not get that product.

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