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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

#221

Post by coldpie »

digi_owl wrote: post #95
higherpurpose wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The saddest part is that if they wanted they could adopt a hybrid central seed/P2P model, too, and be able to offer HD content without overwhelming their servers (in fact there more would people watch a certain episode at a given time, the better it would work ).

From elsewhere i have gotten the impression that some central legal figures within the business have some kind of stuck up idea about counting copies. There was a company trying to offer cloud based DVR service, and found that the only way they could get big media legal approval was to not use deduplication of any kind. This meant that their storage costs skyrocketed.

Along those lines, if you're interested in the legal history of distribution and "copies," Ars Technica put out a great summary article during the Aereo fight last year.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/04/20/antennas-for-u...

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

#222

Post by rasz_pl »

wmf wrote: post #28
natdempk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

old, not most. Old people watch commercials with occasional break for content on tv

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

#223

Post by jameshart »

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…

Honest actors can't compete with people who ignore the law though - you acknowledge yourself that the competition here is unfair. Yes, by ignoring copyright and not compensating content creators at all, you can create a service that offers vast amounts of content for free. A legitimate business can't do that.

Saying 'well, sorry, the market has spoken and the price they are willing to pay for your content is $0' is just not reasonable. It's like pointing to a guy selling stolen iPhones for $20 and telling Apple they need to adjust their prices to the new reality.

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

#224

Post by leni536 »

DonGateley wrote: post #177
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…

"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." A subpoena can only work if the VPN services keeps logs of its user's transactions. Some do and some don't. Without logs there is nothing to subpoena. When evaluating a VPN it is very important to find…

So how do you ensure that they don't keep logs?

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

#225

Post by atom-morgan »

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…

> The HBO GO apps for things like Roku are also laughably bad.

I'm working on an app for DirecTV boxes right now. The experience on that won't be much better. They are horrible platforms for development. I'll never do a project like this again.

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

#226

Post by jameshart »

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…

"People, in general, pirate because it's free and really, really easy."

So's smashing car windows, but most people resist the temptation to do it.

It's actually not that easy to pirate stuff. You have to make your way through a minefield of malware and seo spam and figure out what sources are trustworthy. Compared to that just signing up for Netflix seems pretty simple.

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

#227

Post by tjbiddle »

baudehlo wrote: post #90
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).

Exactly this. Since I switched to Spotify, and then Google Play Music, I haven't downloaded a single song. It's honestly easier to use these services than to go through the process of downloading.

Now what I don't get is the friends that I have that refuse to switch because they like "owning" their own music. I have immediate access to an entire cornucopia of music and they're stuck with what they have downloaded.

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

#228

Post by SlashmanX »

comrade1 wrote: post #2

It's incredibly risky taking on a project like this. In the u.s. copyright violations at this scale are now a criminal offense. And the u.s. has shown no qualms about enforcing their internal laws outside the u.s. And there have been recent examples of the NSA sharing information with the atf and so it wouldn't surprise if the nsa also shares info with the secret service or whoever is enforcing copyright these days.…

I worked on this for about 9 months, well the actual fork (popcorntime.io, not T4P). Was the leading contributor (probably still am). No one on that team was from the US, we did get calls from the MPAA though to try scare us.

I definitely didn't try to keep my contributions secret

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

#229

Post by sigzero »

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…

Regardless of your motivation it's stealing.

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

#230

Post by alandarev »

sbarre wrote: post #208
smoe wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say its both, a value and a service issue. I used to pirate a lot of music, but nowadays i rarely do it. Because in my opinion, it's just so much easier to quickly buy them. With only 3 accounts – Bandcamp, Soundcloud and Spotify – I can cover almost all my needs in this regard. This wasn't possible only a few years ago. Compare that to the state of tv series. I wanted to watch some HBO content recently an ty…

Agreed! There will always be people who will go to any length to pirate content, and there is nothing you can do about them. They are not, and never will be, your customers. But for others, it is absolutely a service issue, and I am one of those people. I pay monthly for Spotify and I spend money on Bandcamp and iTunes because it's convenient and value-priced. And it's actually easier than piracy, which is probably m…

> But for others, it is absolutely a service issue

Absolutely? So if the price was $50 per movie, $100, or $1000?

There has to be the balance in next equation:

Affordability + ease of obtain versus feeling of guilt for pirating.

If there is no feel of guilt, little can be done, example: Russians pirating everything, and they are not as poor as you might perceive.

Ludicrous price? Oh to heck it will be pirated even by Americans.

Ease of obtain - at least we are not arguing over this (now) obvious fact.

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