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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

#141

Post by yellowapple »

natdempk wrote: post #63
wmf wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you using a computer? I think most people watch TV on a TV, where "legit" apps aren't based on Flash.

The HBO GO apps for things like Roku are also laughably bad. One of the best examples of truly not caring about UX is their default sorting of episodes. All shows sort episodes by most-recent air date, including shows that have fully aired, so if you want to get to the first episode of a show you have to scroll through a full season's worth of episodes. This is after having to scroll through all HBO shows alphabetica…

To be fair, there's good reason why a "newest first" (LIFO, I suppose) approach would make sense (namely, if it's assumed that most users have already been watching the series in question and just want to jump straight to the newly-aired episode that they haven't seen yet).

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

#142

Post by yellowapple »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #121
xasos wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or because your opinion that iTunes is "easy to use" and "extremely high quality" is just that - an opinion - and is not an opinion which is universally shared among all people or even a significant majority of them (myself included).

Now, with that said, between Amazon Prime and Netflix I haven't found many reasons to pirate things, but right now that involves jumping back and forth between two different marketplaces because of the fragmented content. This is where Popcorn Time (for example) reportedly shines, and thus might be a compelling reason to at least investigate that particular avenue.

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

#143

Post by yellowapple »

6t6t6 wrote: post #125
xasos wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That would be Netflix. :)

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

#144

Post by yellowapple »

anigbrowl wrote: post #120
return0 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then download the torrent and tip the producer somehow. Why pay for another service that is clearly not needed? I actually thought someone should have already built a startup selling 'virtual tickets'.

tip the producer somehow The most anyone has ever raised that way (following a particularly egregious leaking of a film before release in Russia, albeit probably for political reasons) is $14,000. I don't personally know anyone who's made any money from tips, and it's not exactly a promising business model. https://meduza.io/en/news/2015/02/02/leviathan-collects-1-mi...

There are actually a number of ways to monetize filmmaking without selling the copies themselves (at least not directly to consumers). There's a reason why film success is measured in "box office" earnings, for example. And then you have things like merchandising deals, licensing of content/trademarks to other content creators, etc.

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

#145

Post by yellowapple »

kamaal wrote: post #93
return0 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are asking for the impossible, people are not going to pay for what they can always get at better quality for $0. Fans are happy to curate the art the like and will always do a better work , and for free. The only thing that might make sense is if they distributed an original instead of a copy, i.e. a different movie to every user, a different song etc. Copyright is just not compatible with the digital world, it…

>>people are not going to pay for what they can always get at better quality for $0 This is precisely why I think Apple won't last much long in the mobile/watch battle. Android is like the Windows of the 90's and early 2000's. Available for free, with hardware largely being a commodity, and all Google caring about the traffic and market penetration. Apple will have to growingly fight to push their products into the m…

> Available for free

Windows wasn't ever free (until very recently, and even that isn't exactly the whole story). A big reason for the sheer quantity of bloatware on Windows PCs even nowadays is because that bloatware subsidizes the cost of Windows.

I know (and agree with) what you're getting at (that inexpensive commodity products dominate more easily than expensive niche products in a given industry), but comparing Windows and Android isn't exactly a perfect analogy.

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

#146

Post by meric »

tmpacc94853 wrote: post #115
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…

American Pirate Here. I pirate things for many reasons I suppose. When it comes to video games I actually prefer to buy games on steam rather than pirate them. But if the game is not available on steam (like some of EA's big games that they only release on origin for pc) then I will instead pirate them. If origin had the quality that steam did then I wouldn't mind installing it, but that is not the case. I also pirat…

Now you can get an HBO Now subscription, there's a 30 day trial to watch game of thrones. You can join and watch it now, or wait for the entire series is out, then sign up for the trial and watch it all for free, legally.

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

#149

Post by yellowapple »

anigbrowl wrote: post #111
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.

Well do get in touch when someone sets up a postcapitalist film company that's willing to pay for camera rental, meals, wages and all the other expenses that go into making a film, because the fixed costs of making the original work haven't gone away. I find discussions like this one really aggravating to read because there seems to be total indifference to the fact that producing a movie to entertain you for two hou…

And the hand-over-fist profits from box office earnings, merchandising deals, content/trademark licensing, etc. have been insufficient since... when, exactly?

Those are the places that the Internet Age hasn't really usurped yet. The old "record a theater showing with a camera" trick is nowhere near desirable quality for most people, and piracy does nothing for those hoping to use a particular trademark in order to make money on some product based on Elsa the Snow Queen or Luke Skywalker or Winnie the Pooh or whatever other character one wants to plaster on a backpack or notebook or turn into an action figure. Those are the realms where the future of capitalist film production lies (TV is a slightly different story; merchandising is still an effective monetization strategy, but box office earnings are nonexistent unless you make movie spinoffs (se also: My Little Pony), yet are replaceable with ad revenues in both online streaming and conventional broadcasting, both of which are incredibly popular).

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

#150

Post by yellowapple »

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?

This wouldn't be the first time. It probably won't be the last.

All that's required in this case is a shift away from traditional per-copy earnings toward more modern earnings via content/trademark licensing and streaming/broadcast rights, supplemented with box office earnings (for movies) and ad revenues on free streaming/broadcast services (for television shows).

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