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Popcorn Time is back

popcorntimewar.com

91–100 of 141 posts

Re: Popcorn Time is back

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now, for morality to be on their side, they need to publicly advocate and work on a better way to remunerate the content creators. Of course, they could go rogue and act exclusively out of spite for big media, arguing parasitically that how the content creators make money is none of their business. But I really hope they don't.

Or they could correctly argue that the existence of big media is a massive net negative for the welfare of humanity, and anything that diverts money away from the industry is good for the world. Not that piracy seems to put much of a dent in the revenues of Hollywood, unfortunately, but if it did, that would be more than adequate moral justification for supporting Popcorn Time.

>Not that piracy seems to put much of a dent in the revenues of Hollywood

What do the revenues of Hollywood have to do with anything "moral"?

"Hollywood" (or the movie industry) is a risk taking enterprise. They put money up front to create art that they believe will offer a positive reutrn for their investment. Sometimes it produces good things, sometimes it produces dreck.

The question is, why does Hollywood need to fail for a moral victory? There are a variety of routes to produce and distribute your own film, go ahead and do it. Hollywood doesn't preclude you from making a successful independent film anymore than Microsoft precludes you from making a successful software application. Adam Carolla just crowd-sourced his latest film based on a script.

Of course, in the case of independent anything, you get/have to take all the financial risk up front. That's a downer (or impossibility) for most people, and partially why Hollywood exists.

Re: Popcorn Time is back

#92
post #89

Some of the reactions here remind me of the time when mp3 starting to gain traction (circa ~1995). A lot of people were worried this new file format would mark the end of entertainment business: who would spend money to buy songs when they could download for free in mp3 format? I guess I don't need to point out how much money Apple has made through iTunes by selling unprotected audio tracks for the past years. In oth…

There is a difference between trying to find a mp3 to download and having the convenience of an application that works as well as netflix for movies but is completely free. (btw I started coding on a popcorn-like but for music. Think spotify for free. https://github.com/mimoo/nodster it's here. But I'm thinking about changing the code to just converting youtube videos to mp3 instead of looking for mp3 files on google…

Do you not remember programs like Napster and Limewire? They were as convenient as iTunes (years before iTMS was launched) and offered every song you could imagine. It's just surprising that it's taken so long for similar services to mature for video content.

Re: Popcorn Time is back

#93
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As with most regulations like this, in the US it depends on the state. In Georgia, for example, you cannot cross the street outside of a crosswalk anywhere between two light-controlled intersections, but everywhere else is pretty much fine [1]. These laws have led me to act in such bizarre ways as crossing the street against the signal once all the traffic has passed but walking a couple feet outside of the crosswalk…

I know a girl who found out that in her little town in Ohio, jaywalking isn't a crime at all. Now she just crosses wherever and whenever she wants!

http://spacing.ca/toronto/2007/11/20/pedestrians-crossing-mi...

In Toronto you can more or less cross where you want, as long as you're not interfering with lawful traffic. If you step in front of a car moving at the speed limit and get hit, it's your fault. If you make a car slow down even a little bit to avoid hitting you, you're at fault.

If there's a big enough gap that no cars have to slow down as you cross, you're good to go!

Re: Popcorn Time is back

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm working on a fork with Chromecast support. It works pretty well. Just a bit scared to open source it. Perhaps i will release it under a pseudonym or something. It's ridicioulous that people need to be afraid to release stuff but sadly enough this is the case.

>> It's ridicioulous that people need to be afraid to release stuff but sadly enough this is the case. I'm conflicted on this. The MPAA abuse their power regularly but it's hard to deny it's now easier and cheaper than ever to access and watch movies. That takes away a lot of the justification for piracy and creating tools that facilitate it. Edit: And here come the down votes. Don't down vote if you disagree with so…

I still can't buy movies in a DRM-free, open format at any price or convenience level. You might consider the status quo easy and cheap, but I'm still unimpressed.

Until MPAA-approved services offer a product that is superior (or at least equivalent) to the illicit services, this conflict will continue.

Re: Popcorn Time is back

#95
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> It's ridicioulous that people need to be afraid to release stuff but sadly enough this is the case. I'm conflicted on this. The MPAA abuse their power regularly but it's hard to deny it's now easier and cheaper than ever to access and watch movies. That takes away a lot of the justification for piracy and creating tools that facilitate it. Edit: And here come the down votes. Don't down vote if you disagree with so…

Anecdotal evidence alert. I live in the UK. On Sunday I wanted to watch the new Fargo TV show. I do not own a Television. I went to watch it 'live' on the Channel 4 website. It kept saying my broadband wasn't good enough. Odd. Googled a bit, ah - adblock is causing issues. This needs a new whitelist compared to 4od - fine by me. Sit through 2 minutes of adverts specifically over the web player (bearing in mind the ch…

4OD is absolutely dreadful, and I've found that it doesn't work on Linux. Luckily, there's a 4OD YouTube channel where you can get the same content in a better (but still buggy, I assume Google wrote custom advertising code for them) player.

EDIT: Actually, they've gone and removed all that. Wonderful. I wish companies would license the BBC iPlayer technology.

Re: Popcorn Time is back

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> It's ridicioulous that people need to be afraid to release stuff but sadly enough this is the case. I'm conflicted on this. The MPAA abuse their power regularly but it's hard to deny it's now easier and cheaper than ever to access and watch movies. That takes away a lot of the justification for piracy and creating tools that facilitate it. Edit: And here come the down votes. Don't down vote if you disagree with so…

I still can't buy movies in a DRM-free, open format at any price or convenience level. You might consider the status quo easy and cheap, but I'm still unimpressed. Until MPAA-approved services offer a product that is superior (or at least equivalent) to the illicit services, this conflict will continue.

Define the convenience level you would like. Search > Download in iTunes and search > stream on Netflix seem hard to beat for convenience.

Re: Popcorn Time is back

#97
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a difference between trying to find a mp3 to download and having the convenience of an application that works as well as netflix for movies but is completely free. (btw I started coding on a popcorn-like but for music. Think spotify for free. https://github.com/mimoo/nodster it's here. But I'm thinking about changing the code to just converting youtube videos to mp3 instead of looking for mp3 files on google…

Do you not remember programs like Napster and Limewire? They were as convenient as iTunes (years before iTMS was launched) and offered every song you could imagine. It's just surprising that it's taken so long for similar services to mature for video content.

> and offered every song you could imagine

This is where I tend to disagree. Yes, popular songs were on there, but terribly tagged (or outright mislabeled), and half of it was porn. Not even varied porn, just the same damn videos replicated a million times.

Re: Popcorn Time is back

#98

Some of the reactions here remind me of the time when mp3 starting to gain traction (circa ~1995). A lot of people were worried this new file format would mark the end of entertainment business: who would spend money to buy songs when they could download for free in mp3 format? I guess I don't need to point out how much money Apple has made through iTunes by selling unprotected audio tracks for the past years. In oth…

> I guess I don't need to point out how much money Apple has made through iTunes by selling unprotected audio tracks for the past years.

Who gives a shit how much Apple makes? If the creators can't make enough to cover their costs or -- even better -- make a living practicing their art, then we all lose out.

(Edit: I'm not attacking happywolf -- I understand what she or he is saying. I'm just trying to put a pin on the real trouble with the economics of selling media. The aggregators have been doing fine. It's the creators who appear to be feeling the squeeze.)

Re: Popcorn Time is back

#99
PS: On a sidenote, and as Torrent Freak has written about them, I must point that Time4Popcorn are pretending to be developing another version of Popcorn Time. The truth is that they are ripping some of our community work without crediting the authors. We would obviously have no concerns if they acknowledged the source of the work, as Popcorn Time is an open source project. The latest example being how they compiled in their app 5 days of our UI work.

No words.

Re: Popcorn Time is back

#100
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but many share a similar definition of morality. More to the point, the economics are not relative to a point of view. Their project can only succeed, as it stands, if it is used marginally. If everyone used it instead of the competition, content creators would have to change the way they work drastically, and no new content would show up on PT.

> If everyone used it ... no new content would show up This is to me a bit disturbing. When we say this, we are announcing to the world that culture has inherently no value what so ever. The only way to create value from culture is to prohibit poor people from participating, thus creating an artificial divide that benefits those who have over those who haven't. Governments are the one who enforces this divide with co…

Copyright is free, and it protects poor people's work from being appropriated by rich people.
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