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Popcorn Time – Watch torrent movies instantly

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Re: Popcorn Time – Watch torrent movies instantly

#131

Post by minikites »

quadrangle wrote: post #116
cheez wrote: post #101

I clicked "12 years a slave", a movie I have not yet had an opportunity to watch and it started streaming in less than a minute in high quality. I immediately quit the application as it should not be so easy to benefit from someone else's hard work without compensating them. Please, movie people, let me pay for this. You might kill the cinemas, but you'll still get paid.

> it should not be so easy to benefit from someone else's hard work without compensating them. Nonsense. I benefit from the work of Mozart and feel no need to compensate anyone. There are real issues with funding mechanisms and creative work in a shareable digital world, but we can reject the idea that you should always pay for anything that is beneficial. If you want to give gifts to creative folks you like, you can…

The musicians/recording engineers/conductor/support staff don't deserve to be paid?

Re: Popcorn Time – Watch torrent movies instantly

#132

Post by mikehearn »

My ideal product is the Netflix interface with, essentially, every movie and television show ever made. I imagine there are a lot of other people out there who also wish that product existed. It's hard to say how much I would pay for it, but I'm currently spending somewhere in the neighborhood of $150/month on a collection of services (Netflix, Time Warner, Usenet) that, in the end, only provide a very poor approximation of that ideal.

This product is the closest I've seen to matching that vision. So despite its very obvious illegality, I appreciate the authors' efforts to try and push the UX boundaries around content viewing. Hopefully instead of Hollywood suing the pants off of the creators, they'll use it as a template for what might be possible if they could collectively get their shit together.

Re: Popcorn Time – Watch torrent movies instantly

#133

Post by raldi »

res0nat0r wrote: post #92
hxa7241 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That question has been answered: we have had plenty of piracy for years now -- and do we still have plenty of film/TV/music/book production? Yes! So piracy (at least, as we have known it) is not harmful, in fact it seems almost certainly beneficial economically -- more goods are more widely available.

Many in the music industry who've seen how it looks now vs before MP3s and high bandwidth came along would disagree.

That's like if the parent post said, "The invention of the web allowed many more people to communicate, and was an economic boon" and you replied, "Microsoft would disagree."

Just because the old toll collectors, middlemen, and gatekeepers are worse off doesn't mean that's true for society as a whole.

Re: Popcorn Time – Watch torrent movies instantly

#134

Post by jacobbudin »

ultramancool wrote: post #64
d23 wrote: post #44

> Downloading copyrighted material may be illegal in your country. Use at your own risk. Have we seriously just stopped considering the ethical implications of such things? At least these sorts of sites used to pretend they were for things like "public domain movies" and "personal backups."

They only created a tool. Tools can be used for many purposes. I can smash someone in the skull with a hammer or I can use it for construction. Similarly, should the Tor, PGP, Bitcoin, etc authors consider that their tools could be used for malice and stop because of it? Tools are tools, they are simply implementations of what is possible with technology. Tools are inherently grey, not some simple black and white. It…

It doesn't matter how legal your tools are if what you're doing is illegal. And this particular tool is pre-populated with copyrighted content. They don't show it in the screen captures (why? ), but all the films in the popular tab are 2013-2014 major U.S. theatrical releases.

Re: Popcorn Time – Watch torrent movies instantly

#135

Post by quadrangle »

clienthunter wrote: post #40

This seems waaaaaayyy too polished in all respects for an app designed to break the law. I would not be at all surprised if those prebuilt binaries were sending your details off to the MPAA.

Wouldn't be a legal defense, but can we say ENTRAPMENT??

That would be the MPAA actively encouraging infringement in order to then attack the infringers.

Re: Popcorn Time – Watch torrent movies instantly

#136

Post by Killswitch »

Touche wrote: post #70
laacz wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but this one aims for nice interface and simplicity - install and start watching. For people who are not tech savy this app will win.

People who are not tech savvy want to watch movies on a television or a tablet, not a PC.

RASPMC and a Raspberry Pi. Takes like 3 seconds to get setup and is easier to get going than a DVR. My parents have no issues using XBMC on my Raspberry Pi that I left back home.

Re: Popcorn Time – Watch torrent movies instantly

#137

Post by mcv »

quadrangle wrote: post #120
mcv wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Netherland, we pay a "home copy" fee on harddisks and smartphones, which makes it entirely legal and ethical to download movies. Only downside: uploading movies without permission from the copyright holder is still illegal, and bittorrent uploads while it downloads, so this may still be illegal.

That's not the only downside. The other is there's a tax on storage hardware even if you never do anything with copyrighted anything. And all the tax ends up going to wealthy corporations anyway and smaller artists will never see anything.

Oh absolutely. There are lots of reasons to object to the fee. So if you want to get your money's worth out of it, you'd better start downloading.

Re: Popcorn Time – Watch torrent movies instantly

#138

Post by lucian1900 »

mintplant wrote: post #90
higherpurpose wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe it will push content providers to make movies and shows available for streaming from day one. So far piracy has only done good things for consumers, in the sense that it has forced Big Content to do what consumers wanted all along, ever since Napster came out.

How do you compete when the same content is readily available, instantly, for free, and in a usable interface?

By offering better service, which Netflix and similar largely have.

Re: Popcorn Time – Watch torrent movies instantly

#139

Post by cheez »

quadrangle wrote: post #116
cheez wrote: post #101

I clicked "12 years a slave", a movie I have not yet had an opportunity to watch and it started streaming in less than a minute in high quality. I immediately quit the application as it should not be so easy to benefit from someone else's hard work without compensating them. Please, movie people, let me pay for this. You might kill the cinemas, but you'll still get paid.

> it should not be so easy to benefit from someone else's hard work without compensating them. Nonsense. I benefit from the work of Mozart and feel no need to compensate anyone. There are real issues with funding mechanisms and creative work in a shareable digital world, but we can reject the idea that you should always pay for anything that is beneficial. If you want to give gifts to creative folks you like, you can…

The performers need to be paid if you want to hear more in the future.

Re: Popcorn Time – Watch torrent movies instantly

#140

Post by rytis »

cheez wrote: post #101

I clicked "12 years a slave", a movie I have not yet had an opportunity to watch and it started streaming in less than a minute in high quality. I immediately quit the application as it should not be so easy to benefit from someone else's hard work without compensating them. Please, movie people, let me pay for this. You might kill the cinemas, but you'll still get paid.

Why does it always need to be about the money?? Imagine giving a candy to a child. You make the child happy, and that is your reward. Or do you expect the child to say something like "let me pay you"?...
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