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

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

#131

Post by dublinben » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 1:10 AM UTC

duaneb wrote: post #31

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…

At some time pirates will need to address the convenience of being free. I use amazon video, which has had a grand total of three films I wanted but could not find. These are extremely convenient, easy to use services. The argument that piracy is more convenient may still hold water, but less each year.

Amazon Instant Video doesn't work on GNU/Linux. It also doesn't work offline. It also requires proprietary software at every turn. None of these problems are the case with p2p sharing.

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

#132

Post by andrewfelix » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 1:14 AM 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 think you could have made your point without the diatribe and profanity.

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

#133

Post by anigbrowl » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 1:20 AM UTC

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.

Your problem? Is something bad going to happen to you if you don't get to watch any program you desire at any moment? If I understand you correctly, your big existential risk is that you might be...bored? That's very interesting. I'm going to worry about it in every available moment I have in between trying to finance, produce and distribute a low-budget film in pursuit of profit so I can enjoy things like keeping a roof over my head, buying food, and paying utility bills.

Since your apparently endless desire for convenience and low cost means ever-narrowing options for monetization, ever-less predictability of revenue, and ever-increasing downward pressure on budgets, I may not be able to get around to worrying about your problem for some time. I apologize profusely for my failure to provide you with a perfectly frictionless global content delivery network for free while I've been wasting all that time learning to how to make the films you so desperately need to watch.

I don't like expressing myself in such a sarcastic fashion, but honestly, the attitude of entitlement that comes from comments like yours is depressing. It's like you don't even consider the possibility of waiting until you see the movie you want become available on a channel you are willing to pay for.

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

#134

Post by MichaelGG » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 1:24 AM UTC

rhino369 wrote: post #108

giancarlostoro wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of what Gabe Newell said about piracy: It's not a pricing issue, but a service issue.

Then why are so many Steam games pirated? I'm not doubting that service can be a cause. But I think it's crazy to pretend getting something for nothing isn't a good motivation.

I'd play a pirated version of a game before using the Steam version. Steam implements DRM and is generally obnoxious, trying to force itself all over games (popups), showing sdverts, etc. It just shows how terrible things are in game-buying-land. Look at the Xbox 360. A marketplace UI so laggy, you wonder how they technically able to make it that slow.

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

#135

Post by MichaelGG » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 1:27 AM 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…

My parents have an AppleTV. Besides the crappy UI and dumb remote, it often (~1 in 20, sometimes more) refuses to play because it can't setup HDCP with their Toshiba TV.

Then there's the issues of subtitles. Good luck finding them for any particular language you want.

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

#136

Post by manigandham » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 1:27 AM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #122

manigandham wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What films do you watch that have ads in them? I'm not sure I've ever come across that, in any region.

TV: If you didnt pay for it, they are including the adverts to pay for the production. Just because you don't want to see those adverts doesn't mean it's "right" to go pirate the content.

It's more a form of protest than anything.

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

#137

Post by thefreeman » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 1:35 AM UTC

trengrj wrote: post #15

It seems a little weird that the fork Wired is promoting in this post is the fork alleged to have malware http://www.reddit.com/r/PopCornTime/comments/2lyxnm/time4pop... (also known as Time4Popcorn). I don't know why they didn't promote popcorntime.io instead which is the more popular and open fork ranking higher on Google etc.

Agreed. popcorntime.io is fully open source and under active development https://git.popcorntime.io/groups/popcorntime . The other one is a rip off site.

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

#138

Post by thefreeman » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 1:37 AM UTC

lvs wrote: post #27

trengrj wrote: post #15

It seems a little weird that the fork Wired is promoting in this post is the fork alleged to have malware http://www.reddit.com/r/PopCornTime/comments/2lyxnm/time4pop... (also known as Time4Popcorn). I don't know why they didn't promote popcorntime.io instead which is the more popular and open fork ranking higher on Google etc.

It's not clear if any of that is true: https://www.reddit.com/r/PopCornTime/comments/2n3dht/time4po...

That report means very little. The guy actively admits he doesn't even know what to look for, and ran his tests on a default virtual machine without any anti-anti-debugging techniques at all. It is extremely common for malware to detect standard virtual machine setups and not activate their payload.

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

#139

Post by manigandham » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 1:37 AM UTC

camgunz wrote: post #126

manigandham wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 no…

I'm not sure where to begin with your comment and all the strange and inaccurate things it says... but this kind of idyllic utopia (which to me seems like some horrible mind-numbing lifestyle) will never exist. Economic incentive is the cornerstone of modern effective society.

Basic Income might work but it's far more complicated than you make it seem and it's not something that just lets everyone do whatever they want, it's a way to raise living standards and equalize some of the disproportions in power and wealth but there will need to be industry and incentive to create the income in the first place.

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

#140

Post by jwagenet » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 1:40 AM UTC

e12e wrote: post #82

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…

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…

I have used Spotify with success on Arch Linux. It may not be symmetrical to the Windows or OSX clients, but I have not had dealbreaking issues. There are bugs here and there, but now the Windows client has its own set of problems with new updates...