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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

#121

Post by forrestthewoods »

xasos wrote: post #80
forrestthewoods wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Wow, that was harsh. Why is the rationale for Americans pirating 'selfish greed'? People, in general, pirate because it's free and really, really easy. There are many cases where services like Spotify and Netflix have reduced piracy. People are lazy, and if you can make it easier and more seamless than pirating, most people won't mind shelling out a couple of bucks a month for paid service. http://www.slashgear.com/n…

Yes, people are very lazy. iTunes is great for lazy people. It's easy to use, extremely high quality, and has the vast, vast majority of pirated content (for Americans). The only thing missing is free. If iTunes were free there would be almost no reason to pirate content. Certainly not in the majority use cases. Therefore the only reason to pirate over iTunes is money. Therefore people are greedy and selfish.

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

#122

Post by pbhjpbhj »

manigandham wrote: post #103
forrestthewoods wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Agreed. Free is the best feature of piracy. Once the paid options get to parity on quality and UX soon, it'll make it completely obvious that the only reason to still pirate is because its free. EDIT: Bring on the downvotes. It's ok, we all want free stuff.

>it'll make it completely obvious that the only reason to still pirate is because its free. //

I've been watching a show recently on UK terrestrial TV (via a watch again, don't have live TV). The adverts are mind-numbing. Seriously, I have to leave the room now. Every damn one has animated/puppet talking animals in, none of them sell the benefits of any sort of product they're just attempts to manipulate. Dammit, if the point of those adverts is to make people willing to pay for media without any ads they're sure doing it right ... thing is when are they going to start making that media. Even films that you pay £10+ to see are laden with adverts. It seems impossible to buy audio-visual media with a good UX: which company is advertising a pay service on the basis of "no additional adverts, just the content you paid for"??

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

#123

Post by mr337 »

madez wrote: post #23

Many here talk about how Popcorn Time violates copyright law of the United States of Central North America. Please note, not all countries were already bullied into enforcing these laws. Also, there are people who just don't agree with this specific approach to copyright. If need be, development can go into the dark web.

Don't worry, we have the TPP do bully your country to US laws. /sarcasm

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

#125

Post by 6t6t6 »

xasos wrote: post #80
forrestthewoods wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Wow, that was harsh. Why is the rationale for Americans pirating 'selfish greed'? People, in general, pirate because it's free and really, really easy. There are many cases where services like Spotify and Netflix have reduced piracy. People are lazy, and if you can make it easier and more seamless than pirating, most people won't mind shelling out a couple of bucks a month for paid service. http://www.slashgear.com/n…

I love music and I used to download music a lot. Since I can use Spotify and listen for as much music as I want for less than 10$ a month, I don't see the need to pirate music.

I am still waiting for that to happen with films and series.

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

#126

Post by camgunz »

manigandham wrote: post #99
parallelist wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Internet broke the whole idea of charging for a digital copy of something. We’re seeing a struggle of powers as old power tries to cling on to the idea of charging people for digital copies but it will end sooner or later. One needs to think outside the box of capitalism being an appropriate system for all aspects of society.

What does that even mean? We have to switch the entire economic paradigm we live in so that people can be paid for their work?

The problem is having to be paid at all. There ought to be a system whereby people can exist at a reasonable standard of living and still do the work they want to do, i.e. Basic Income. There's enough food, shelter and medicine to accommodate everyone on the planet right now, but the top 10% hoard way more than their share. Do they deserve it because they work harder? No, they're just born into luxury, and there's nothing capitalistic or meritocratic about it.

You ought to be able to make a show or a film without having to leverage everything you own. You ought to be able to work on making cameras and stages if you like to do that stuff. You ought to be able to watch one of these shows/films made using those cameras/stages for free, and then go to your house and work on a project of your own, and not worry about whether that project will be profitable enough to allow you to eat or be housed. The key point is we have the resources.

Eventually we'll get there, but it's gonna take a long, long time.

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

#127

Post by click170 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #102
e12e wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, Spotif…

Amazon won't (legally) let you watch all content outside of the US Because in many cases they have only purchased US rights. Someone else may already have the distribution rights in other countries. As I have explained before, films are often financed by using pre-sales agreements with foreign distributors as collateral for a production loan. For example, If I am developing a film I might go a film market and say 'he…

>Because in many cases they have only purchased US rights.

That's not my problem, its their problem. My problem is access to content, and I have many solutions available, some of which are not legal.

If they want me to choose their solution, it has to be lower friction than the alternatives, and they have consistently failed at achieving that.

Edit: and be careful not to fall into the trap of counting everyone who downloaded X as a lost sale. Just cause someone downloaded X does not mean they have the funds available to have purchased it if it wasn't freely available.

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

#129

Post by anigbrowl »

lvs wrote: post #100
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…

I'll respond to this because I think you're missing the point. I'm saying that the "market makers" have made the "actual market" in a way that is self-defeating when technology no longer favors their historic distribution model. Like you say, the market is hobbled by artificial barriers, like geographic restrictions, that don't really exist on the internet. A significant factor in the inferior experience of streaming…

It's not about technology fitting the business model. People who complain about availability don't seem to realize that a lot of existing film properties are subject to long-term contracts that can't simply be torn up. I don't see anyone organizing film and TV lovers together to buy out the contract rights and make the film they want to watch available worldwide, do you? Nor do I see people putting their own money at risk for extended periods to provide financing to get the film made in the first place provided it's released globally, simultaneously, without DRM but with a cherry on top and so on.

The reality is that people really really want to consume the product, and then invent all sorts of reasons about why they shouldn't have to pay or wait for it. Copying doesn't deprive the owner of a film or other media property of the original, but it does deprive them of the right to sell the product they own at the time and place of their choosing, which is a basic economic right of producers, and by producers I mean anyone who makes something as opposed to the people who simply consume it.

You don't need to explain to me how the internet works, I was discussing the changing face of IP on people back on Usenet before there was such a thing as the WWW. You know why distributors are still around? Because they put capital at risk in return for licensing rights. It takes a lot of capital to make the original owrk, even if the marginal cost of distribution is zero or near zero. Internet solves the distribution side but does little or nothing to help the actual production process.

I'm very tired of this attitude of technological entitlement. every proposal I see for from film producers about how to monetize their product is deemed unacceptable in some way or other. I can't help drawing hte asme conclusion as the other poster who says that a large number of people are simply selfish and want something for nothing.

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

#130

Post by dragonwriter »

click170 wrote: post #127
anigbrowl wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon won't (legally) let you watch all content outside of the US Because in many cases they have only purchased US rights. Someone else may already have the distribution rights in other countries. As I have explained before, films are often financed by using pre-sales agreements with foreign distributors as collateral for a production loan. For example, If I am developing a film I might go a film market and say 'he…

>Because in many cases they have only purchased US rights. That's not my problem, its their problem. My problem is access to content, and I have many solutions available, some of which are not legal. If they want me to choose their solution, it has to be lower friction than the alternatives, and they have consistently failed at achieving that. Edit: and be careful not to fall into the trap of counting everyone who do…

> My problem is access to content, and I have many solutions available, some of which are not legal.

True.

> If they want me to choose their solution, it has to be lower friction than the alternatives, and they have consistently failed at achieving that.

They are working very hard to rectify that. Admittedly, the most efficient means they see of doing that while preserving the ability to make their alternative profitable is to raise the friction of other (particularly illegal) alternatives, but just as you are seeking to maximize the value you get out of it, so are they.

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