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Popcorn Time Devs Drop Like Flies But No One Will Talk

torrentfreak.com

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Re: Popcorn Time Devs Drop Like Flies But No One Will Talk

#61

Post by goldenkey »

nnnnni wrote: post #59
goldenkey wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why Popcorn time doesn't offer legitimate ways to purchase the content. For an honest TV index with multiple streaming sources, check out http://episodeslist.com It's updated daily.

It's likely because Hollywood won't LET them "offer legitimate ways to purchase the content". There's a device that will allow normal people to watch new theater movies at home, but it's $500 per viewing after buying the highly-secured $35000 Prima video server. There are also a bunch of requirements that the company checks in person before allowing someone to buy into the service.

Fair enough. What about older movies that are available from Netflix or Amazon, iTunes, etc? Popcorn time could at least provide some links for purchasing the media.

Re: Popcorn Time Devs Drop Like Flies But No One Will Talk

#64

Post by runeks »

goldenkey wrote: post #41
nakedrobot2 wrote: post #4

Popcorn Time is _this_ close to being the Napster of Film, Hollywood must be literally shitting bricks. Someone has probably taken it upon himself to threaten these devs in a nasty (and perhaps illegal) way. Surely the story will come out eventually. In the meantime, Popcorn Time is fully available to download. So I'm not sure what genie they're putting back in the bottle....

I don't see why Popcorn time doesn't offer legitimate ways to purchase the content. For an honest TV index with multiple streaming sources, check out http://episodeslist.com It's updated daily.

I don't watch a lot of films/TV series, so I would totally pay to watch a single TV episode/film. But I'm on Linux, and I don't know how to do that with iTunes, or if it's even possible. Hulu and Netflix require a subscription, which gets way too expensive because I don't watch a lot of stuff, and when trying to purchase an episode on Amazon I'm greeted with the following:

> We could not process your order because of geographical restrictions on the product which you were attempting to purchase. Please refer to the terms of use for this product to determine the geographical restrictions.

I simply can't find any site that lets me pay to download a movie/TV show episode, so I usually turn to Pirate Bay.

Re: Popcorn Time Devs Drop Like Flies But No One Will Talk

#65

Post by Touche »

CocaKoala wrote: post #52
Touche wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is becoming less and less important. That's fine and all, but it's very important today. There were file sharing services before Napster, but Napster became popular after cdrw started being put in desktops you could buy at the local computer store (yes, people went to those back then). > Even then, my girlfriend could not care less about even having a TV. She watches everything on her computer and is perfectly…

Can you submit any evidence that a TV is anything more than a bigger computer screen? My TV has HDMI inputs; if I wanted to move my computer, I could hook my computer up to the TV. Apple has an accessory where the primary selling point (for me) is that it can bounce output from a computer to a TV. There's an entire family of computers where the entire point of them is to be hooked up to TVs and used as media centers.…

> Saying that popcorn-time isn't napster for movies because people don't watch movies on their computer, they watch them on their tv isn't really different from saying that napster isn't napster for music because people don't listen to music on their computer, they listen to music on their stereo.

This was my entire point. People didn't just listen to their Napster-downloaded music on their computer, they listened to them in the car, they brought burnt discs to friends house, etc.

Timing is important. The things you mentioned like Apple TV and HDMI-out are not yet refined. It's not easy, and most importantly, it's not ubiquitous. By the time Napster came out every tower computer came with a CDRW drive.

Re: Popcorn Time Devs Drop Like Flies But No One Will Talk

#66

Post by Touche »

catshirt wrote: post #55
Touche wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is becoming less and less important. That's fine and all, but it's very important today. There were file sharing services before Napster, but Napster became popular after cdrw started being put in desktops you could buy at the local computer store (yes, people went to those back then). > Even then, my girlfriend could not care less about even having a TV. She watches everything on her computer and is perfectly…

> That's fine and all, but it's very important today. There were file sharing services before Napster, but Napster became popular after cdrw started being put in desktops you could buy at the local computer store (yes, people went to those back then). are you forgetting Apple TV, Chromecast, Amazon Fire TV, HDMI cables, etc?

Those things are not refined. The primary innovation of Popcorn Time is that it lets you watch torrented movies without knowing the details of how it works. Having a movie being streamed from your computer (eating up battery) and then pushing it to a set top box (all of which are niche products at the moment) or hooking it up through HDMI cables and then having to find your laptop's power supply so you can plug it in right next to the tv.... all of that clunkiness ruins Popcorn Time's primary selling point.

If someone were to build Popcorn Time as an iPhone or Android app that streams to Chromecast / AppleTV, that would be the next logical step, and then we might be able to talk about it being the new Napster.

Re: Popcorn Time Devs Drop Like Flies But No One Will Talk

#67

Post by Touche »

goldenkey wrote: post #61
nnnnni wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's likely because Hollywood won't LET them "offer legitimate ways to purchase the content". There's a device that will allow normal people to watch new theater movies at home, but it's $500 per viewing after buying the highly-secured $35000 Prima video server. There are also a bunch of requirements that the company checks in person before allowing someone to buy into the service.

Fair enough. What about older movies that are available from Netflix or Amazon, iTunes, etc? Popcorn time could at least provide some links for purchasing the media.

What would be the point? You couldn't view them within Popcorn Time. Popcorn Time is not IMDB, it is for streaming movies to watch in the app.

Re: Popcorn Time Devs Drop Like Flies But No One Will Talk

#68

Post by nitrogen »

Touche wrote: post #66
catshirt wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's fine and all, but it's very important today. There were file sharing services before Napster, but Napster became popular after cdrw started being put in desktops you could buy at the local computer store (yes, people went to those back then). are you forgetting Apple TV, Chromecast, Amazon Fire TV, HDMI cables, etc?

Those things are not refined. The primary innovation of Popcorn Time is that it lets you watch torrented movies without knowing the details of how it works. Having a movie being streamed from your computer (eating up battery) and then pushing it to a set top box (all of which are niche products at the moment) or hooking it up through HDMI cables and then having to find your laptop's power supply so you can plug it in…

Sounds like the "No True Napster" argument. Cd players had to be plugged into stereos and speakers, too. Do you recall how unfriendly CD burning software was in the 1990s?

Re: Popcorn Time Devs Drop Like Flies But No One Will Talk

#69

Post by wpietri »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #7
nakedrobot2 wrote: post #4

Popcorn Time is _this_ close to being the Napster of Film, Hollywood must be literally shitting bricks. Someone has probably taken it upon himself to threaten these devs in a nasty (and perhaps illegal) way. Surely the story will come out eventually. In the meantime, Popcorn Time is fully available to download. So I'm not sure what genie they're putting back in the bottle....

The threat could be nothing more than suing for copyright violation. The fines for that are insanely high, and evidence of such is not necessarily hard to collect. After all, it's highly unlikely the devs were developing Popcorn Time without using it themselves.

They wouldn't even have to use it themselves. If I understand rightly, "contributory copyright infringement"[1] is the stick they would get beaten with here.

My hazy understanding is that if the Popcorn Time folks had wanted to get away with this, they shouldn't have said anything about Hollywood movies. They should have promoted it as a tool for watching all the great publicly-licensed documentaries and fan-made films out there on the torrent network. That would give them "substantial non-infringing use" [2]. And if somebody else published instructions on how to change the configs so you'd also get Hollywood's finest, well, that wouldn't be their fault. Oopsie!

[1] http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/question.cgi?Question...

[2] http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/Substantial_noninfringing_use

Re: Popcorn Time Devs Drop Like Flies But No One Will Talk

#70

Post by jodrellblank »

whatevsbro wrote: post #40
nakedrobot2 wrote: post #4

Popcorn Time is _this_ close to being the Napster of Film, Hollywood must be literally shitting bricks. Someone has probably taken it upon himself to threaten these devs in a nasty (and perhaps illegal) way. Surely the story will come out eventually. In the meantime, Popcorn Time is fully available to download. So I'm not sure what genie they're putting back in the bottle....

> Someone has probably taken it upon himself to threaten these devs in a nasty (and perhaps illegal) way. Someone , you say? How about just stating the fucking obvious: That "someone" is The US Government , and this is just standard gag-order fare. "Stop developing the app, or we will fuck up your life. Oh, and don't say a word about this to anyone, or we'll fuck up your life." This insanity is obviously unconstituti…

What video is that, "how to completely not understand the way a society works and that you are part of a society"?

Edit: The video presenter says "don't pay taxes, don't follow laws".

That's like not getting your children vaccinated - a benefit for you in the short term, assuming nothing everything else stays the same. All other people are vaccinated so there's nobody you can catch the disease from anyway. Most people pay taxes so there's no degradation in the local life, but you have more money and more choices.

But if there were no taxes and no law for everyone, you wouldn't be able to do that. Rule of law keeps buildings built to a safe standard, keeps food edible, keeps water drinkable, keeps airlines basically safe, keeps employers from abusing employees with low wages and no safety codes, keeps businesses from wrecking and polluting the local town/city environment.

How much are you really going to be able to keep of your earnings if you have to personally guard it 24/7 because there's no police, no law, no way to stop someone stronger taking it without followup, and no banks you trust?

And how much is that money going to be worth anyway if there's no government to say that it has value by fiat? Who will take your money if they have no guarantee anyone else values it?

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