Inside Popcorn Time, the Piracy Party Hollywood Can't Stop • Hacker News Board

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

#81

Post by bcherry » Mon, Apr 27, 2015, 11:56 PM UTC

forrestthewoods wrote: post #78

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 call bullshit. Absolute bullshit. If I gave you a credit card that gave you unlimited access to digital content you probably wouldn't be complaining. Certainly not if you live in the US or much of Europe. If you have a $69 AppleTV then iTunes is a spectacular user experience. Search for almost anything you want and hit play. If it didn't cost $5 to rent a movie it's superior to torrents. This is where someone chime…

iTunes is missing real-time release of TV, and timely release of movies.

For instance, I have a season pass to Mad Men right now, which airs on sunday nights. I don't get the iTunes release until midnight, so I end up not watching it until Monday (even though I pay for it!). If I used torrents, I could watch it Sunday night with everyone else. Other shows have it far worse!

New movies usually enter the iTunes market in a buy-only mode for the first month after release. I'm more than happy to pay $5 to rent a movie, but I'm not spending $20 to buy it. So I wait weeks or more after release of a new movie before I can rent it online. If I used torrents I'd probably be able to watch it for free weeks before release.

iTunes has a good catalog (so does Amazon, and others I'm sure), but movies/TV are not the same as music on iTunes and still have farther to go before they're truly competitive with piracy in terms of user experience.

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

#82

Post by e12e » Mon, Apr 27, 2015, 11:57 PM UTC

forrestthewoods wrote: post #78

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 call bullshit. Absolute bullshit. If I gave you a credit card that gave you unlimited access to digital content you probably wouldn't be complaining. Certainly not if you live in the US or much of Europe. If you have a $69 AppleTV then iTunes is a spectacular user experience. Search for almost anything you want and hit play. If it didn't cost $5 to rent a movie it's superior to torrents. This is where someone chime…

I can't comment on why other people copy digital content, but I use eg: youtube-dl to save content from being banned from youtube - most likely due to dmca takedowns. That's for music. I also buy some music via bandcamp. As for streaming services, I was an early Spotify-user -- and the experience was pretty bad: it was a roulette to see how much was left of any given playlist each time I logged on. To be fair, Spotify has gotten better, but they don't have anywhere "all" music I want to listen to. As far as I know Apple don't serve my platform (Linux) in any reasonable way. And at any rate, if you need two or more services for "all you can eat", it's no longer "all you can eat", it's a mess. And you'd need third party apps to creat playlists that cover the content you want.

As for tv series and movies, Amazon has some, Netflix has some, HBO has some. Many independent/international movies can't be found in either place. Amazon won't (legally) let you watch all content outside of the US -- so I could pay for Amazon prime, and use a proxy to circumvent the geo-proteciton -- but then I'd still be breaking copyright law.

For the hypothetical user (ie: not me) that lives in the US -- is there really a service that provides access to both national tv series, as well as foreign-language content?

All that said, I'm sure a lot of people simply enjoy getting stuff for free. But at least for me, the freedom to lend a copy of a good show I watched a couple of years ago to a friend is at least as important as the "no cost" bit.

As mentioned, if you give me access to high-quality (encoded) content without DRM, I'm willing to pay for it. If not, you're simply charging for an inferior product.

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

#83

Post by anigbrowl » Mon, Apr 27, 2015, 11:57 PM UTC

tsotha wrote: post #56

anigbrowl wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree about the quality issue, but I was answering a comment that was specifically about licensing terms.

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

#84

Post by ForHackernews » Mon, Apr 27, 2015, 11:58 PM UTC

oldmanjay wrote: post #52

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!

If the NSA really is tracking all internet traffic, maybe we could just build a "media tax" into the federal budget, and distribute the revenues according to NSA-verified download numbers.

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

#85

Post by EGreg » Mon, Apr 27, 2015, 11:58 PM UTC

forrestthewoods wrote: post #78

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 call bullshit. Absolute bullshit. If I gave you a credit card that gave you unlimited access to digital content you probably wouldn't be complaining. Certainly not if you live in the US or much of Europe. If you have a $69 AppleTV then iTunes is a spectacular user experience. Search for almost anything you want and hit play. If it didn't cost $5 to rent a movie it's superior to torrents. This is where someone chime…

Try finding Star Wars on iTunes. Or many other movies or series. And what if you don't live in the USA? Then it's just Too Bad (TM) right?

I really do not mind paying $3.99 to rent a movie. Many times I find myself simply unable to find it!

And don't get me started on the latest HDCP racket. I have a 1080p projector but there is NO WAY anymore for me to play HD movies that I PAID FOR using it, because it doesn't support DHCP in the latest way. So I am simply prevented from watching movies in HD on my home theater system. How do I get around it? I bought a chinese made splitter that doesn't support HDCP protection, and that seems to work. Wow I'm such a bad boy, wanting to use the hardware I bought to watch the movies I rented! With Popcorn time there is no issue.

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

#86

Post by abandonliberty » Mon, Apr 27, 2015, 11:59 PM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #60

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 i…

Could you elaborate how this is more secure?

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

#87

Post by madez » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 12:00 AM UTC

xnull6guest wrote: post #79

madez wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The described technology is independent of the source of the torrent. Their relation is similiar to the relationship between a program and an OS. Yes, the OS permits the usage of the program but the OS is not responsible in any way for the program nor does it imply that the OS wants to make money off the profits of the program. The moment Popcorn Time adds Ads, there will be a fork without them.

> The described technology is independent of the source of the torrent. This also applies to bittorrent. > The moment Popcorn Time adds Ads, there will be a fork without them. I understand what you mean. You're thinking I'm claiming the ads would go inside the client? If you look up the chain of conversation, I said that the ads would go on the website that hosts the magnets/torrents. We see the same thing with bitto…

You don't need to access any website to use Popcorn Time.

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

#88

Post by e12e » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 12:00 AM UTC

sroerick wrote: post #3

Does anybody know what it would require to fork Popcorn Time to only support Creative Commons and public domain content? I've spent a lot of time boycotting copyrighted works and I'd like to have a nice user interface to do this.

Somewhat related, if drm-free, pay-what-you-want, torrent-distributed original content is your thing, check out vodo.net. Eg:

http://vodo.net/joshbernhard/pioneerone/

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

#89

Post by ForHackernews » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 12:02 AM UTC

xnull6guest wrote: post #79

madez wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The described technology is independent of the source of the torrent. Their relation is similiar to the relationship between a program and an OS. Yes, the OS permits the usage of the program but the OS is not responsible in any way for the program nor does it imply that the OS wants to make money off the profits of the program. The moment Popcorn Time adds Ads, there will be a fork without them.

> The described technology is independent of the source of the torrent. This also applies to bittorrent. > The moment Popcorn Time adds Ads, there will be a fork without them. I understand what you mean. You're thinking I'm claiming the ads would go inside the client? If you look up the chain of conversation, I said that the ads would go on the website that hosts the magnets/torrents. We see the same thing with bitto…

> Ad free clients. Ad bannered websites. We should expect the same with popcorn time websites.

This is what you're not understanding: There are no "Popcorn Time websites" (except for a source to download the client)

Popcorn Time is a combined torrent-client/media player/search engine. You don't have to go to any websites (with ads or otherwise), you can click on nice pretty movie-poster images or search from within the program itself. There aren't any ads in Popcorn Time, and you don't have to leave Popcorn Time to go find media. It is one unified, seamless user experience, equivalent to the Netflix app.

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

#90

Post by baudehlo » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 12:02 AM UTC

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…

It's fascinating that people are arguing so vehemently against you and yet iTunes (and later Spotify and friends) did exactly that. My friends who all subscribe to Spotify or Rdio now say they haven't downloaded a single song since (anecdote is not data etc, yes I know).