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Inside Popcorn Time, the Piracy Party Hollywood Can't Stop

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Re: Inside Popcorn Time, the Piracy Party Hollywood Can't Stop

#51

Post by ikeboy »

takasc2 wrote: post #9

What mistifies me is the sheer callousness/arrogance of the popcorn time developers. They must know they are playing with fire in a very public way but there is no need for them to be doing so. If they were just releasing a torrent client with streaming and media managment capabilities (the interesting part of the app) they would be fine but they insist on being as provocative and explicit about their desire to viola…

What's wrong with public torrents? Why are direct download sites better? I usually find better speed with popular torrents than direct downloads.

Edit: yeah, I know torrents aren't good for privacy, that's why I use a website that downloads torrents for me. (Or use a server.) But I still use torrents for that. I find that direct links tend to go down much faster than torrents stop being seeded. DCMA and all that.

Re: Inside Popcorn Time, the Piracy Party Hollywood Can't Stop

#52

Post by oldmanjay »

lvs wrote: post #12

There would be less incentive toward this kind of piracy if content producers and distributors could get their collective acts together with more liberal licensing. Popcorn Time is winning because it's easier to use and find content than any pay service. Like anything, you compete by making a better product/service -- not by complaining that your competitors are unfair. Of course, they are certainly unfair here, but…

Given how much energy people spend defending their moral right to free entertainment as a reward for going through the trouble of being born, I'd be interested to see if you're correct about that.

I mean NSA et al spies on the entire world with no restriction? Barely matters, people go on about their lives. Some lawmaker proposes getting ISPs to enforce copyright? INTERNET ARMAGEDDON!

Re: Inside Popcorn Time, the Piracy Party Hollywood Can't Stop

#53

Post by madez »

xnull6guest wrote: post #47
madez wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Popcorn Time is at its heart just a torrent client using streamed torrent download to pipe the result into a media player. You can just feed a torrent file or a magnet link into Popcorn Time and it will play. There are lots of torrent clients and media players that are free software which you can use to get the same result. Your expection is baseless because said facts.

Right, but if you look at the large torrent sites they make large amounts of money from ads. They are 'free' but they make money (they don't make money from you - they make money by you). Since popcorn time is effectively the same thing, I would expect the same thing. That's my grounding.

Popcorn Time is _not_ the same thing, as I've described in my previous comment. You seem not to read very well.

Re: Inside Popcorn Time, the Piracy Party Hollywood Can't Stop

#54

Post by rbritton »

natdempk wrote: post #22
lvs wrote: post #12

There would be less incentive toward this kind of piracy if content producers and distributors could get their collective acts together with more liberal licensing. Popcorn Time is winning because it's easier to use and find content than any pay service. Like anything, you compete by making a better product/service -- not by complaining that your competitors are unfair. Of course, they are certainly unfair here, but…

This is true to the point where you can barely believe services release the products they do. The experience on Popcorn Time vs HBO GO isn't even comparable. HBO GO serves their content through a laggy flash player that you can't even force to play HD. Why would anyone watch non-HD content in a terrible browser player that wastes additional battery when they can open Popcorn Time in the time that it takes for the HBO…

I feel the same applies to physical media releases too. Trying to watch a DVD is an absolutely miserable experience with menus and restricted actions. It's for this reason that I have the majority of the content I own ripped and stored in an iTunes library where I can access it quickly from my Apple TV.

Re: Inside Popcorn Time, the Piracy Party Hollywood Can't Stop

#55

Post by vlunkr »

lvs wrote: post #12

There would be less incentive toward this kind of piracy if content producers and distributors could get their collective acts together with more liberal licensing. Popcorn Time is winning because it's easier to use and find content than any pay service. Like anything, you compete by making a better product/service -- not by complaining that your competitors are unfair. Of course, they are certainly unfair here, but…

Exactly, this has happened before, the entertainment industry needs to learn their lesson. Remember when Napster was huge and the music industry was in a big panic for a few years? They finally got it shut down, but by the time they did there were several alternatives out there. The thing that finally made a difference was iTunes downloads. It was a reasonable alternative to piracy and people appreciated that. Instead of trying to insist that people keep buying physical albums they met them halfway. Sure you had to pay, but you could do it all from your own computer, you could pick only the songs you wanted, and there was no risk of malware or sleazy ads that you could get from the illegal services. People will pay if you try to give them what they want, trying to fight these battles legally is a game they will never win.

Re: Inside Popcorn Time, the Piracy Party Hollywood Can't Stop

#56

Post by tsotha »

anigbrowl wrote: post #38
lvs wrote: post #12

There would be less incentive toward this kind of piracy if content producers and distributors could get their collective acts together with more liberal licensing. Popcorn Time is winning because it's easier to use and find content than any pay service. Like anything, you compete by making a better product/service -- not by complaining that your competitors are unfair. Of course, they are certainly unfair here, but…

I would take these arguments more seriously if they reflected the actual market. Films are licensed to distributors in different countries on a case-by-case basis and license periods typically run for 10 years. Only the 6 major studios have offices on every continent and even they don't run distribution operations in every single country. compete by making a better product/service -- not by complaining that your comp…

You're right, of course, the studios will never be able to compete with pirates on price, and they're never going to get people determined to pay nothing to sign up.

However, there are a lot of people who are willing to pay for what they consume, and it's not in content providers' best interest to make these people feel like fools by delivering a product that's inferior to the illegal one.

Re: Inside Popcorn Time, the Piracy Party Hollywood Can't Stop

#57

Post by dethstar »

JonoBB wrote: post #26
lvs wrote: post #12

There would be less incentive toward this kind of piracy if content producers and distributors could get their collective acts together with more liberal licensing. Popcorn Time is winning because it's easier to use and find content than any pay service. Like anything, you compete by making a better product/service -- not by complaining that your competitors are unfair. Of course, they are certainly unfair here, but…

I'd be interested to know how the piracy of music compares to the piracy of video. Which industry has better (legal) streaming options, and does this correlate with lower piracy?

Everyone who I knew used to pirate music (think of p2p programs like Ares or Limewire) now uses either youtube or spotify.

Re: Inside Popcorn Time, the Piracy Party Hollywood Can't Stop

#58

Post by darklajid »

_rpd wrote: post #13

Popcorn Time doesn't anonymize BitTorrent participation, right? Just makes it easier?

Right, and that is the biggest issue I have with the unstoppable claim. I understand that they talk about the service, but even when they mention potential personal liability for the developers in the end, end users are ignored.

This is as 'stoppable' or dangerous as torrenting content is in your legislation and this product/service doesn't protect you from prosecution.

Re: Inside Popcorn Time, the Piracy Party Hollywood Can't Stop

#59

Post by Crito »

madez wrote: post #53
xnull6guest wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but if you look at the large torrent sites they make large amounts of money from ads. They are 'free' but they make money (they don't make money from you - they make money by you). Since popcorn time is effectively the same thing, I would expect the same thing. That's my grounding.

Popcorn Time is _not_ the same thing, as I've described in my previous comment. You seem not to read very well.

I think you should consider the possibility that he is not participating in this discussion in good faith.

Re: Inside Popcorn Time, the Piracy Party Hollywood Can't Stop

#60

Post by zaroth »

If I were going to download copyrighted material, I certainly wouldn't do it over BitTorrent. When the software architecture ensures the only target is the end user, surely end users will end up targeted. When that happens, that single download which would have fallen below the $1,000 threshold is now actually criminal distribution of a work being prepared for commercial distribution.

Your VPN provider's IP address is public information. A quick subpoena is all it would take to reveal your identity. Seems like a risky way to watch Game of Thrones. At least on Usenet a download is just a download.

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