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Popcorn Time – Watch torrent movies instantly

getpopcornti.me

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Re: Popcorn Time – Watch torrent movies instantly

#151
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…

>I benefit from the work of Mozart and feel no need to compensate anyone.

Well, Mozart is dead, for one thing...

Re: Popcorn Time – Watch torrent movies instantly

#152

On a similar topic, years ago I used to download video from Chrome, and as it was downloading I could watch it with VLC, so long as the download stayed ahead. Then that stopped working. Is there a way to recreate this functionality?

This happens because it no longer downloads to the final location, it usually downloads to the same place but with .crdownload or something appended. I get around this by downloading with a different program (aria, wget, etc...) or by hard linking the file it's actually downloading to something looking like a movie file, and vlc-ing that.

Re: Popcorn Time – Watch torrent movies instantly

#153
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube has established a huge gray zone though! So much of the material I watch there is not actually uploaded with permission.

And youtube has a sophisticated detection system setup that scans uploads for copyrighted content automatically. I'm thinking with the press this app is getting they are going to be forced to do something similar and block illegal content, or take it offline soon.

But it requires copyright holders to be part of it. Most are not, and most can not.

Re: Popcorn Time – Watch torrent movies instantly

#154
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…

> I benefit from the work of Mozart and feel no need to compensate anyone.

Even on legal side you are not required to compensate anyone as it's so old that it's in public domain.

Re: Popcorn Time – Watch torrent movies instantly

#155
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…

Ah. This old argument again. It would make sense if people actually support artists. Every time some one brings this up in real life, I ask them for instances where they have actually supported somebody.

Re: Popcorn Time – Watch torrent movies instantly

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

looking at torrent peers ... and is far better proof of piracy It's not proof of piracy. It just proves that some bytes were downloaded. What, for example, if you could prove that you paid for the movie you're downloading? Lets say you buy a movie using the Video app on the Xbox, but want to watch it on your old Windows XP desktop, or on your Android phone?

if you could prove that you paid for the movie you're downloading? Lets say you buy a movie using the Video app on the Xbox, but want to watch it on your old Windows XP desktop, or on your Android phone? I'd be very surprised to learn there's a legal way for you to do this considering the movie you download on your Xbox is going to be PlayReady DRM encumbered.

If we live in a world where a debugger is illegal, I don't want to be legal.

Re: Popcorn Time – Watch torrent movies instantly

#157

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 making it actually readily available, instantly, in a usable interface, close enough to free as customer doesn't care the cost.

For decades, I've seen endless such "but it's free/easy/instant" things be anything but, insofar as it takes resources (time, fiddling, knowledge, skill, tools, etc) costing on par with paid versions, isn't easy for >90% of the population, and falls down often enough that it's hardly 'instant'.

$99 + $8/mo works a whole lot better than most any "free/easy/instant" solution I've seen. Sure, you may be one of the fringe consumers who can handle such solutions, but most people can't. There's always some part which is so dull/annoying/unsatisfying, but must be done right to achieve persistent widespread acceptance, that you'll have to pay (and recoup) someone to do.

Re: Popcorn Time – Watch torrent movies instantly

#158
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.

You can already pay to watch instantly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuOaTwuzlrY

Re: Popcorn Time – Watch torrent movies instantly

#159
post #59

I think if this idea of equivalence between paid and pirated content is taken to it's logical extreme, the result will be less movies being produced. Maybe it's preferable to keep it as is today: piracy as an option for some and as a force against too much control from the content industry.

Why shouldn't the cost of entertainment naturally drop as more high-quality content is produced? And if that's the case, aren't big-budget productions already living on borrowed time?

To explain, entertainment is fungible, and today we have an embarrassment of entertaining riches: books, hangouts, news, board games, video games, music, TV, social web, sporting events, etc. Almost all of these things can be distributed world-wide at minimal per-unit cost.

Since entertainment is fungible, the competition for for 12 Years a Slave isn't just Dallas Buyers Club, it's also 2048, reddit, Attack on Titan, the Olympics, and whatever piques my interest during a Steam Sale. That sounds like the increase in supply for entertainment is far outstripping the increase in demand.

Re: Popcorn Time – Watch torrent movies instantly

#160

>YIFY torrents Why bother.

Yeah, considering the terrible quality of YIFY's movie rips I wouldn't see this as being competitive with legal alternatives at all. All the audio is low bitrate stereo, and the 1080p video never goes above 2500 kbps. The second there is any motion the entire thing falls apart into a blocky mess.

Such low bitrates do make it easy to stream, but I don't think the site is correct in saying you are watching "the best quality".

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